To Murder a Marquis

Chapter Three

By the time we got to the main entrance of Chelston Hall, pandemonium reigned—literally. The front door was wide open, and loud female shrieks punctuated the raised male voices. Generally, the sounds of the madness that takes over when there's been an accident, and nobody quite knows what to do. No one was visible in the doorway, so most likely it was the family in another room. The footmen must have blurted out the details when they reached the house. News travels fast, bad news even faster.

To give him his due, Doctor Potts ignored the racket and guided the footmen carrying their precious burden through the hall, up the grand staircase, and possibly to a bedroom on the next floor. The dog ran after them. No one took any notice of me. The noises were intriguing, so I followed them to what one would call the drawing room in a stately home. When I'd arrived at Chelston Hall that morning, Miss Worth hustled me to the left, into the library. The voices were coming from the right. I'd guessed correctly.

Pausing on the threshold, the scene before me could only be described as chaos in the raw. An older woman, very smartly dressed in Regency costume, lay on a crimson velvet-covered chaise longue, while another woman waved a small glass bottle under her nose. She had the kind of hatchet face, mousy hair scraped back in a tight bun, and the plain dress of an upper-class servant. An extremely pretty young woman with blonde ringlets was crying and wringing her hands. An old man, sitting in the most antiquated of wheelchairs, was yelling at a dark-haired young man, who was yelling back.

I coughed. Somehow, they heard me through the din, and the effect was electrifying. Given that the whole arrow incident was so shocking, I'd expected everyone to drop their Regency personas. That didn't happen. The young man, who wore the same style riding gear as the marquis, bounded over to me and grabbed both my hands, pulling me into the centre of the room.

"Cousin Amelia! What's happened to Robert?"

He knew me, but I didn't know him. Somehow in this re-enactment scenario I'd forgotten everyone's names, or was it a re-enactment? It was like one of those recurring dreams where you've learned the wrong lines and end up on stage in another play. Maybe the organisers decided to give me a role as a cousin to the family because of the tenuous link we had with them. Yes, that must be it, because the marquis had also called me Cousin Amelia. My brain wasn't working with its usual sharpness. Was this a scene we were supposed to act out? If so, everyone was taking their parts incredibly seriously. It was stellar method acting. Lee Strasberg would be so proud.

"I ... er ... I'm not sure. There's been an ... er ... accident," I stammered. Should I tell them he'd been shot with an arrow in what appeared to be a potential case of attempted murder? Best not. Let Doctor Potts handle that.

"I knew he shouldn't have gone riding in the woods," moaned the older woman. Her mousy companion patted her hand and waved the bottle under her nose, again. "How many times have I warned Robert about those poachers, stopping at nothing to conceal their wicked activities?"

"Now, now, madam," the companion murmured. "Please don't agitate yourself."

The blonde girl was quietly sniffing into a handkerchief. The young man went over to her and patted her shoulder awkwardly.

"Don't cry, Clementine," he said. "I'm sure Robert will be fine."

Clementine ignored him and looked up at me with huge, dewy, blue eyes. Tears sparkled like diamonds on the ends of her long, dark eyelashes. I've always thought that was such a ridiculous phrase. Not so in this case. She was so pretty that it would be tempting to toss her down a deep ravine to give other females a chance. She had the kind of porcelain loveliness that turned men's brains to mush and women's good natures to nastiness. She was so dainty and gorgeous that I immediately felt like the Hulk, and I'm actually quite slim.