The Vanishing at Loxby Manor, Abigail Wilson [best value ebook reader .TXT] 📗

you to go to my mother in the card room. Avery and I willinvestigate what has happened.”

I nodded, but at the same moment I saw Mrs. Cavanagh bustling across the yard on her way to the stables.”

Avery threw up his hands. “What the deuce does she think she is doing? Mama!” he cried as he raced off to intercept her.

Piers and I hurried to the group huddled behind the stables, the hum of fear circling the crowd like the eerie sound of animalsbrought to life at night. The air had grown cooler over the course of the evening, but it was a stale chill, damp in places,stuffy in others, almost as if Whitecaster Hall had been sealed up within a cave.

We arrived in time to see Mrs. Cavanagh push her way into the woods, her voice far shriller than the others. “I was told hewas a servant at Loxby Manor. Let me through.”

My gaze snapped to Piers and I mouthed, “A servant?”

Forgetting his earlier reticence to keep me from whatever horror lurked behind the stables, I was tugged along behind himinto the forest.

There were several Whitecaster servants milling about a small opening within the trees where I could see the ominous reminderof what they’d found—a motionless pair of feet lying at an angle in the shadows among the leaves.

I was surprised to hear Tony’s voice at my side and grim at that. His focus remained on Avery, his eyes like slits in thetorchlight. “I found him like that just moments ago.”

Avery plunged his hand through his hair. “And you didn’t hear or see anything? I thought you planned to overnight in the stables.”

A layer of unease tinted each of Tony’s words as if he were trying much too hard to say everything and nothing at the sametime. “I was in the harness room with Hugh, and then I left to deliver”—he mouthed words only to Avery; speaking aloud again—“to Kendal at the ball. I returned to find him missing. We searched the stables for some time before one of the grooms turned up and said our boy saw something out the window, and we charged out the back door.”

Piers piped up. “And where exactly is Hugh now?”

Tony shrugged. “His horse is gone. He must have left earlier. Of course he never planned to stay the night.”

Mrs. Cavanagh crept up near the body before Avery took notice and tugged her back, returning her hurriedly to my side. Hemotioned to me with his chin to take her away. “We’ll leave as soon as I can get out of here. I doubt there will be a curriclerace now.”

I clasped her cold fingers, her face a ghostly white.

“Oh, my dear Charity. The rumors were true. He never left . . . But murdered? I cannot believe it. I cannot . . . I feel faint.”

I refrained from pointing out that it was she who had forced her way forward.

She was a ball of quivers and gasping breaths.

I grasped her arm. “We should make our way back to the house.”

Piers, having got his first view of the body, nodded to me, his eyes wide.

Her voice was barely audible. “I think that wise, my dear.”

We pushed through the swarm of people, but as soon as we were out of earshot, Mrs. Cavanagh came to life, tugging us to abench beneath a willow tree. Darkness lurked in patches beneath the branches as the moonlight fought to break through.

The evening chill sought to remind me of the advanced hour, yet I was determined to hear what Mrs. Cavanagh was so anxiousto say. I rubbed my arms and leaned in close. A shiver skated across my shoulders as I tried in vain to make out the complexitiesof her face, but they were lost in the shadows. Her fingers felt almost claw-like as she pulled me close.

“It was Miles Lacy!”

Her words were like cold water splashed in my face, and it took me a moment to form a response. “Are you certain?”

Her voice dipped. “I’d know that man anywhere.”

“Did you see . . . I mean . . . Did anyone say how he died?”

“Clubbed over the head, if I were to make a guess. There was a great deal of blood on his forehead and a rather large wound.”

My hand retreated to my neck. “However will we tell Mr. Lacy?”

Her voice came out of the gloom far more flippant than I was expecting. “He was never all that fond of the boy.”

“No, but to lose anyone in such a way . . .”

“That is neither here nor there. I brought you to this spot to discuss something far more important. With Miles Lacy dead,where is my darling Seline?”

I had already surmised that Seline was not with Miles Lacy, but Mrs. Cavanagh had not. I understood now why Piers wanted meto get his mother away from the stables. I ran my hand around her back and urged her to stand, speaking quietly in her ear.“All we know at present is that the letter Seline was supposed to have left us was indeed a fabrication, or she was lying.Everything else is speculation at this point. We’ll wait for Avery and Piers before making any rash judgments. Do not giveup hope yet.”

I glared back at the stables, opening my mouth to speak, then closing it just as quickly.

After all, who on earth wanted Miles Lacy dead?

Chapter 21

I assisted Mrs. Cavanagh back into Whitecaster Hall where we were confronted by the sights and sounds of a ball filled withpeople completely ignorant of what had transpired. Dancers swirled about the floor as a low hum buzzed from the card room.Servants bustled by as they prepared the supper table.

The house felt a blur, almost as if I were witnessing the spectacle from outside my body. A man had died only a few yardsaway, and here we stood, caught up in the throes of a different world. Mrs. Cavanagh begged leave to sit on a chair wherewe shared the next few minutes with little to no conversation.

That is, until something snapped in her demeanor, and she dipped forward. “I daresay it may be some time