Chapter 5

Carian bit down on her lip, trying to hold back her tongue before she turned her steely gaze to me. “There might have been someone she liked, but she would never tell me.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t like me enough,” she replied in a casual tone of voice. “Her friends might know… Judie or her mother.”

“The Ross family,” Lord Hugh explained for me, after he caught sight of my baffled expression. “They are close family friends of ours.”

“And you noticed nothing suspicious about that night?” I asked them both. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“It was a party, just like any other,” Carian answered me. “A bore!”

“It was fine,” her father argued. “I am glad Lorna invited us.”

I flipped open a notebook, and licked the nib to get the ink running before I rapped out, “Lorna?”

“Lady Lorna Ross,” he quietly stated. “She often hosts large parties. She is a widow, you know, but very eager to have her daughter wedded to a well-established man.” There was a light chuckle as he added: “A heavy pocket of gold would be even better. I’d set her up with my son, but Nicholas is far too young for her.”

“And do you have their address?”

“She rented the ballroom that night,” he sighed. “I can give you the information when we go downstairs to my office.”

“Thank you.” I averted my gaze to the small girl in front of me. “Anything else you want to tell me about the party?”

“I was hardly there.”

“Okay?” I mouthed out with some skepticism.

“She was quiet on the way home and wouldn’t talk to me. She kept complaining she had a headache and wanted to go home.”

“And after that?”

“She had a warm cup of milk and went straight to bed. She didn’t even want the maid to undress her.”

“So, she might have never put on her night gown,” I suggested, which earned a terrified look from her father.

“She could have gone out?”

“It is a possibility.”

Lord Reeds raised himself to his feet with a dangerous grimace. “I need a word with my butler,” he growled, before he pulled open the door and charged out the room.

There was a tension in the air once his Lordship was absent from the child’s room. A scared little girl now looked up at me now with round sable eyes, much like her father’s. “I won’t hurt you,” I promised her. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”

“There was one thing,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“She kept running her fingers across her lips.”

“How?”

She raised a single finger and rubbed it across her bottom lip slowly before she brought it inward and bit down on the whole of it. “Like that, but over and over again.”

“Nerves.”

“I don’t know.” Carian let her fingers go around the ends of her ankles to pull her legs into her frame. “But I thought it was unusual.”

“And… the last time you saw her?”

“Downstairs. I was talking to my mother when I saw her leaving us with her usual mug in hand.”

“A routine?”

“Yeah, you can say that. Although it is usually the servant that brings it up, but she wanted nothing to do with Rose that night.”

“And did you hear anything at night?”

“I was tired,” she quickly replied, and I noticed how her eyes darted to the window beside me. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“But you saw something?”

“No,” she woodenly replied, and then dropped her feet to the floor so she could stand on her own two feet again. “Forgive me, but I am tired.”

“I have been here long enough. Thank you, Carian,” I muttered, and raised my hand for her to shake. Her hand was small in mine, but strong just like her father. “Enjoy your little science experiments,” I cheerfully added, before I departed from her room for good.

The drapes were closed around her window, I noted, after I shut the door behind me. I must have a look at it when I get a chance.