‘What happened to her?’

  Matilda crosses her legs and helps herself to a biscuit. ‘She had her head screwed on. Went off and found herself a husband. The good ones usually do. The mistress has been in a foul temper since we got here and Frank has barely stepped foot in the place. I dare say he would have preferred to settle in London. More to keep a young man entertained in town.’

  ‘So it wasn’t his idea to come to Richmond, then?’

  ‘Oh no. It was the mistress who made that decision. And she always gets her way.’

  Just as I thought. A test.

  Matilda leaps up from the chaise longue and shakes the crumbs from her dress at the sound of Mrs Churchill stomping down the stairs.

  ‘And if it happens again, you will not be around long enough to make your apology!’ Mrs Churchill marches into the room as if she hasn’t just been screeching at her lady’s maid. She settles herself on the chaise longue as Matilda pours out the tea and then hovers behind her. Mrs Churchill sighs. ‘That will be all, Matilda,’ she snaps, without turning round.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Matilda mouths ‘good luck’ to me as she scurries away.

  ‘Miss Smith,’ Mrs Churchill says finally. ‘You are here.’

  ‘I am. Although I’m not quite sure why you are.’

  ‘You do not approve of my move to Richmond.’

  ‘It’s not my place to approve.’

  ‘No. It is not. And yet you seem to have an opinion on the matter all the same.’ And I do not pay you to have opinions, her tone implies.

  ‘It’s only that I’m at a loss to understand why you would wish to bring your nephew closer to temptation,’ I say, although I know full well why she’s done it. I just want to see if she’ll admit it.

  ‘Temptation?’ Mrs Churchill asks, eyes blazing, as she slams down her teacup. ‘But you yourself have assured me that it is all over between Frank and that girl. I expected you were here to inform me that you had done your job, Miss Smith. That you had rid us of Jane Fairfax once and for all.’

  ‘You didn’t ask me to drive her away from Highbury. Just from Frank. And, as I have already informed you, I have done that. I’ve watched Jane Fairfax very closely since Frank left, and I can assure you she has been thoroughly miserable. I’m certain she hasn’t received a letter from Frank since he left Highbury. Frank has abandoned Miss Fairfax.’ If my observations of Jane are anything to go by, it is she who has abandoned Frank, but I don’t think this will play very well with Mrs Churchill. ‘If ever he loved her, he is indifferent to her now,’ I add, raising my teacup to my lips. The liquid burns my tongue, but it’s a good barrier between myself and Mrs Churchill and so I keep drinking.

  ‘Then this will be the perfect opportunity to test his indifference, will it not? If he has thrown over Miss Fairfax, there is nothing to worry about, is there?’

  And there it is.

  My hand reaches into my reticule and my thumb brushes against the silk of Frank’s cravat as I feel around for Mrs Churchill’s pearls.

  ‘Besides, Miss Fairfax is not the only pretty young woman in Highbury, is she?’ Mrs Churchill says, eyes gleaming. ‘I am sure Miss Woodhouse will be pleased to see Frank more regularly,’ she adds, watching me closely.

  Ah. Miss Woodhouse. So that’s her game.

  ‘And my jewels?’ Mrs Churchill demands.

  Wordlessly, I hand over the pearl necklace and the diamond earrings.

  ‘And the rest, Miss Smith? The second pearl necklace. The locket?’

  ‘I have not yet found them,’ I admit.

  ‘Well, you will have to look harder, then. There are only so many places Miss Fairfax could have hidden them.’

  ‘Jane does not have them.’

  Mrs Churchill’s head snaps up, eyes fixed on mine. ‘Of course she does.’

  ‘She didn’t have the pearl necklace and I found the earrings in Frank’s possession. I think he’s been selling your jewellery to fund his elopement plan. I suspect Jane knows nothing about it.’

  ‘Do you, indeed? And where is your proof, Miss Smith?’

  ‘It’s just a theory at present,’ I admit, ‘but it’s the most feasible—’

  ‘You have no proof, because there is none. That wretched girl has seduced Frank into stealing my jewellery to satisfy her own vanity. Frank has given them to her and, if they have ended up elsewhere, then she has sold them on to line her own pockets. She has done very well out of all this. My jewels. The pianoforte. No doubt she will try selling off that next.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for the pianoforte, she would still have Frank too,’ I remind her.

  ‘And how do I know she does not?’ Mrs Churchill demands. ‘I only have your word for it that your ruse has been successful.’

  ‘Well, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we?’ I say, taking another sip of my tea and giving her a simpering smile. She doesn’t return it.

  ‘I see it is not only Frank she has bewitched. I knew you were too green for such a delicate matter. You like her,’ she taunts.

  I take a deep breath and set down my tea. ‘Has it not occurred to you, Mrs Churchill, that Jane Fairfax might not be the villain you’re making her out to be? That the person who is trying to kill you might be a bit closer to home?’

  ‘I hope you are not suggesting what I think you are suggesting, Miss Smith.’

  ‘I am merely pointing out that your nephew has just as strong a motive as Miss Fairfax for getting you out of the way.’

  ‘Insolent girl! Do you really dare to suggest that my own flesh and blood—’

  ‘From what I’ve seen of him, I wouldn’t rule it out.’ I try to keep my tone even, but I can’t help raising my voice to match her volume.

  ‘I have had quite enough of your impertinence,’ Mrs Churchill snaps, her face crimson with indignation. ‘You will leave this house at once. I no longer require your services!’

  A piercing scream rings through the house. Its pitch and length are enough to convince me that something is horribly wrong. I leap from the sofa, pulse racing, and I’m out of the room before Mrs Churchill can even rise from the chaise longue, taking the stairs two by two as I run towards the source of the sound.

  Matilda is standing in the doorway, screeching at a dark shape lying on the Persian rug next to Mrs Churchill’s fourposter bed. Slumped across the floor, face planted firmly in a puddle of her own vomit on Mrs Churchill’s discarded breakfast tray, is what I can only assume is Sophia, the lady’s maid. Or was, I should say. Because there’s no doubt about it. Sophia is dead.

  CHAPTER 11

  Rule number eleven: Always have your wits about you. You never know where danger might be lurking and what face it might wear.

  Matilda won’t stop screaming. I understand why, but the sound is giving me such a headache that it takes all my restraint not to slap her round the face to get her to shut up. I grab her by the shoulders and move her towards the door, then turn back to deal with Sophia. Not that there’s much I can do for her now.

  I kneel beside the corpse, holding a hand to my mouth as I examine the vomit-covered toast on Mrs Churchill’s plate. I roll Sophia over, noting the crimson shade of her face, the glassy eyes. Steeling myself, I break off a small piece of toast and sniff it.

  Bitter almonds again.

  I reach for my reticule, pulling out Frank’s cravat and wrapping it round the toast. I’m not sure what I intend to do with it, but it feels important to hold on to some evidence of what’s happened, so I stuff it into my reticule as Mrs Churchill sweeps into the room.

  ‘Matilda, do be quiet,’ she snaps.

  Miraculously, Matilda falls silent. Perhaps I should have tried that, although I’m not convinced it would have had the same effect.

  Stealthy footsteps in the corridor tell me the butler has made it upstairs. He looms in the doorway, gaunt and forbidding. He looks more like a funeral furnisher than a butler and I feel as if he’s surreptitiously watching me and silently judging, though his eyes have been fixed on Mrs Churchill the whole time.

  ‘Wakefield, send for Dr Baxter,’ Mrs Churchill commands without looking round.

  He’s too well trained to do anything other than nod and offer a clipped ‘of course, ma’am’, as he glances at the corpse and then back at Mrs Churchill.

  ‘Take Matilda downstairs with you and fetch her some smelling salts,’ Mrs Churchill adds, pushing Matilda towards the butler.

  ‘As you wish, ma’am,’ Wakefield says, ushering Matilda out into the corridor with the air of someone who has to deal with dead bodies and hysterical maids on a regular basis.

  ‘She is dead?’ Mrs Churchill asks. Her tone is neutral, but her skin is sallow and her hand shakes as she gestures towards the corpse.

  I nod my assent, not trusting myself to speak, lest I follow Sophia’s example and vomit all over the Persian rug.

  Mrs Churchill dashes to the window with surprising speed for a woman of her age and draws back the curtain. She stares out of the window for a minute and then, with a sharp nod, moves over to her dressing table and starts rummaging through her jewellery box. It’s odd behaviour for a woman whose lady’s maid has just dropped dead on her bedroom floor, but I suppose she has her reasons. Mrs Churchill curses under her breath, shuts her jewellery box and stalks over to where I’m kneeling on the rug, next to the dead maid.

  ‘Well, Miss Smith?’ Mrs Churchill says as I struggle to my feet. ‘Do you still think Miss Fairfax is innocent?’

  Sophia’s death has made me more convinced than ever that Jane has nothing to do with the poisoning plot. Good nature aside, she is not reckless enough to make such a mistake as this. But I’m not about to share my thoughts with Mrs Churchill. Despite her resolve to remove me from her house and her employ a few minutes earlier, she still seems to be looking to me for answers. And if she’s choosing to forget that she has dismissed me, I certainly don’t intend to remind her. I can do this. I haven’t seen many dead bodies in my line of work, but I am good in a crisis. And reading people, digging up their secrets, it’s what I do. This is a chance to prove myself to Mrs Churchill. Although, the way things are going, I’m not sure she’ll like the results. Because things aren’t looking good for Frank right now. He’s the obvious culprit. Same poison. Same target. He’d been at the house just before it happened. Hadn’t stayed to watch his plot play out. Just like with the tea. Except. . .

  I pick up Mrs Churchill’s discarded teacup and inhale deeply. ‘Did you drink the tea?’ I demand.

  ‘Yes. But I do not feel unwell.’ She sits down on the bed nonetheless as I reach for the teapot and sniff it.

  ‘That’s because it wasn’t in the tea this time,’ I say, gesturing towards her breakfast tray.

  She lets out an audible breath. ‘Well, I suppose it will put a stop to her stealing my food.’

  It takes me a moment to realise she isn’t making a joke. Mrs Churchill is back to her unfeeling self and I find a strange sense of comfort in this.

  ‘Did Frank leave before or after Sophia brought up your breakfast this morning?’

  Mrs Churchill folds her arms. ‘What does that matter? I know exactly who did this. It was her. She has decided that if she finds a way to dispose of me Frank will return to her.’

  ‘But to have come all the way from Highbury to poison your toast—’

  ‘A mere nine miles,’ Mrs Churchill reminds me, flashing a triumphant smile as she stands over the corpse of her lady’s maid.

  Considering the trouble it took me to get here, I can’t imagine Jane Fairfax managing the journey with her busybody aunt to contend with. But I can see that I’m not going to convince Mrs Churchill of this.

  ‘I will leave you to it, Mrs Churchill. I’m sure you have arrangements to make for—’ I gesture towards the rug.

  ‘You will deal with Jane Fairfax?’ she asks in a tone which suggests I won’t see a penny more from her until I do.

  It’s not Jane. I’m almost sure of it. Most likely, it’s a member of this household. And, despite Mrs Churchill’s protestations, the member of the household who left the house shortly before the murder is top of my list of suspects.

  ‘I will find your poisoner,’ I vow, taking one last look at poor Sophia on my way to the door.

  Mrs Churchill is staring out of the window again. ‘See that you do.’

  Matilda is curled up on the chaise longue sobbing into her handkerchief. She raises her head as I enter the drawing-room.

  ‘Oh, Miss Smith. Is it true? Is Sophia really—’ She breaks off, takes a deep sniff of her smelling salts and reaches for a biscuit from the tea table, devouring it in three swift bites. She reaches for another.

  ‘I’m afraid so. She was poisoned.’

  Matilda’s eyes widen. ‘Poisoned?’ She stares at the biscuit in her hand and quickly returns it to the plate.

  ‘Apparently, she’d been at Mrs Churchill’s breakfast again.’

  ‘Then the poison was meant for Mrs Churchill?’

  ‘It would seem so,’ I agree.

  ‘Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have taken a biscuit. What if they are poisoned too? That’s what got poor Sophia in trouble – eating food that wasn’t meant for her.’

  ‘The biscuits aren’t poisoned, Matilda.’

  ‘H-how do you know?’ Matilda sobs.

  ‘Because I had one myself,’ I lie, ‘and I’m perfectly fine.’

  Matilda stops wailing and looks me up and down, searching for signs that I’m about to drop dead, I suppose.

  ‘Besides,’ I add, ‘it must be fifteen minutes or more since you had your first biscuit. You’d be dead within minutes if they’d been laced with cyanide. Look how quickly it worked with Sophia.’

  Matilda’s face crumples. ‘It’s not safe. I’m not safe. I should never have come here,’ she wails.

  I want to ask her about Sophia’s preparation of Mrs Churchill’s breakfast, but it’s obvious I’ll get nothing sensible from her now. I hand her a fresh handkerchief and leave her to sob into it.

  I tiptoe across the hallway and downstairs into the kitchen. There’s tea and milk on the sideboard, a handful of eggs and half a loaf of bread. Hardly the feast I would expect for the Churchills, but I suppose they are still settling in. I bend over the loaf of bread and inhale deeply, enjoying its yeasty scent. My stomach rumbles mutinously. I left Highbury this morning without any breakfast, but what I’ve seen upstairs is enough to put me off breakfast for life.

  ‘Can I help you, Miss Smith?’

  Wakefield’s face is more handsome than I had first appreciated. He has piercing blue eyes and a strong jawline. I would put him at around five-and-thirty, although his stern expression may have added at least five years too many to my estimation. There’s a scar across his neck that his high collar doesn’t quite conceal and, though he walks with a light tread, he cannot mask the limp which I suppose is an old war wound. He has a military bearing – stiff and servile – which perfectly suits his role in Mrs Churchill’s household.

  ‘You know who I am? What I’m doing for Mrs Churchill?’ I ask. Something tells me the direct approach will work best with Wakefield.

  ‘I do,’ he acknowledges.

  ‘Then you’ll know why I’m here,’ I say, turning back to the loaf and giving it an experimental prod.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the bread,’ Wakefield says.

  ‘How do you know?’

  He takes a step towards me and seizes the bread knife.

  I stand my ground as he raises the knife.

  ‘Move,’ he instructs, pushing me away from the loaf as he leans in to cut a thick slice. He takes a large bite, chews and swallows.

  We stand, staring at our feet for what feels like a lifetime. Finally, I look up. ‘Well, you’re still here,’ I observe.

  ‘So I see.’ He doesn’t sound the least bit surprised. As if he knew with absolute certainty the bread would do him no harm. And only one person could know that for sure.

  He gestures towards the butter dish and removes the lid with a flourish. It’s empty. ‘It was like that when I came downstairs,’ he says.

  Which is awfully convenient.

  ‘What were you doing in the kitchen?’ I ask.

  ‘Fetching the smelling salts for Matilda, as Mrs Churchill instructed, and I found the scene as you see it now.’

  Someone has disposed of the evidence. Wakefield could easily have done it himself, but then why draw attention to its absence?

  ‘Where was Matilda while you were doing this?’

  Wakefield frowns. ‘I deposited her in the drawing-room, out of the way,’ he says in a tone which clearly emphasises his disapproval of Matilda’s outburst.

  ‘It must have been a great shock to her, discovering the body like that.’

  ‘A servant should not show emotion,’ he says. ‘Our duty is to the household. We must be strong in the face of adversity.’

  ‘I suppose Matilda does not have your experience.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ he snaps. It’s the first time I’ve seen him lose his composure and he quickly recovers it.

  ‘Just that, as a military man, you will have seen your share of violence, no doubt. Where did you serve?’

  ‘Mysore.’

  I hadn’t expected him to respond and I’m not convinced he intended to, but it confirms my suspicions. I have heard stories of the horrors of Mysore. Horrors that could make a man lose his mind.

  But there’s a big difference between killing enemy soldiers on the battlefield and murdering inept lady’s maids in your own household.

  ‘Who made the breakfast?’ I ask.

  ‘Sophia herself.’

  ‘Is that usual?’

  ‘No. But our cook was taken ill on the road. We had to send her back to Yorkshire and couldn’t find a suitable replacement at such short notice. A woman comes in to do the substantial meals, but we have been fending for ourselves in the mornings since we arrived. Breakfast isn’t much of a problem because Frank avoids it and Mrs Churchill only takes tea and toast.’