Читать книгу To The Rescue - Jean Barrett - Страница 11

No more midnight spooks, Jennifer thought with relief, opening her eyes to the first gray light of morning seeping into the room.

Or maybe she wasn’t relieved. A glance in the direction of the window showed her that the snow was still coming down. Just how bad was it?

Very bad, she decided when, leaving her bed with her robe clutched around her, she went to the glass and looked out. Or tried to look out. The snow was so thick that she could barely glimpse the savage, white landscape. Father Stephen hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told her the storm would leave them isolated, perhaps for several days.

Jennifer was tempted to climb back into bed and bury herself again under the warm blankets. Except…

Turning her head, she gazed at the closed door to the room that connected with hers. If this should turn out to be the opportunity she’d been hoping for, she couldn’t afford to waste it.

Crossing the room, she listened at the door. She could hear nothing but the eternal moan of the wind. The hour was very early. Chances were the occupants of that room were asleep. It was worth the risk. But this time she wouldn’t make the mistake of sneaking in there and getting caught by an alert Brother Timothy, who might not regard a second visit as innocent.

Jennifer’s rap on the door was soft enough not to rouse anyone but loud enough to be heard if one of them was awake. There was no response.

Turning the iron ring that served as a handle, she inched the door open and peered around its edge. Like her own, the room was murky with shadows. But the light from the window, feeble though it was, revealed that Brother Timothy had departed. He must have determined that his patient no longer needed his presence.

Leo McKenzie was not restless this morning. His tall figure stretched out on the bed never stirred as Jennifer crept across the room. Reaching the chair at his bedside, she looked down at him, wanting to be sure he was as deeply, peacefully asleep as he appeared to be.

That was evident with a glance. There was no reason for her gaze to linger on his face, to be interested in those square-jawed, craggy features softened by a wide, sensual mouth. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a small, crescent-shaped, white scar high on his left cheek. A result of what? she wondered.

What was she doing? This man could be her enemy, probably was, and here she stood being susceptible again to his masculinity while wondering about a scar on his cheek. What difference did it make how he had come to have the scar?

Just get on with it.

Crouching down beside the chair, she considered the collection of his personal belongings spread out on the seat. A handful of coins, a comb, a belt, a set of keys, sunglasses tucked into a case, his passport and his wallet.

The wallet seemed the likeliest prospect. Jennifer started to reach for it, and then hesitated. She hated this. Hated the necessity of having to mine someone’s privacy, to dig out whatever secrets he might be concealing. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? It was necessary.

Smothering her guilt, she snatched up the wallet and opened it. It was a bulky thing that carried his American driver’s license along with the usual credit cards. Folded among them were two kinds of currency, American bills mixed in with British pound notes of various denominations.

But what was this?

Tucked between the bills were several identical business cards, probably ignored by Brother Timothy who must have looked no further after satisfying himself with the information provided by the passport and the driver’s license. Jennifer removed one of the cards and read the bold print.

Leo McKenzie, Private Investigator.

Apprehensive now, her gaze flashed from the face of the card to the face of the man asleep on the bed beside her.

Leo McKenzie was a P.I.? But what was an American P.I. doing over here in England? More to the point, why should he be after her?

She supposed she could have waited until he was awake and then demanded an explanation from him. Assuming, that is, he would be in any state today to make sense. Or that he would be willing to tell her.

But she was in no mood to wait. She had waited long enough. She wanted answers now. Still hoping that the wallet could give them to her, she turned her attention back to its contents.

There was a series of plastic windows, the kind that displayed insurance cards and photographs. Jennifer rapidly flipped through them, passed the only photograph they contained and then, seized by something familiar, came immediately back to the solitary picture.

The once clear plastic was clouded from long use, blurring the photo. Removing it from the sleeve for a better look, she stared at it. It was a snapshot of two young men still in their teens, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders as they gazed into the lens of the camera.

The taller of the two wore a cocky grin. Jennifer judged that nearly two decades must have passed since he’d posed for that snapshot, but she was able to recognize him. It was Leo McKenzie. And the other one…

She sucked in her breath and then released it slowly.

Oh, yes, she was able to identify him, too. Guy Spalding, the man whose murder back in London she feared that sooner or later she could be charged with.

Leo and Guy. This was the connection. They’d known each other. But how could Leo McKenzie have—

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She’d been so intent on examining the snapshot that she’d forgotten to be cautious. Had failed to be aware that the man on the bed had awakened and discovered her investigating his wallet.

Alarmed, her gaze shifted from the young face in the photograph to its mature, coldly angry counterpart.

“If you’re through snooping,” he said, his voice early-morning husky, “then I’d like to have those back.”

His hand shot out, plucking the wallet and the snapshot from her fingers. With both of them back in his possession, he shoved himself up against the headboard, those mesmerizing, whiskey-colored eyes wearing a challenge as they glowered at her.

“Satisfied yourself, have you?”

“I haven’t even begun to be satisfied.” Jennifer herself was angry now as she got to her feet. “I saw one of your business cards in that wallet, and unless you’re licensed to operate here in the U.K., and I very much doubt that you are, then you have no right to investigate me, much less the authority to follow me to Yorkshire.”

“You think that’s what I’ve been doing and that it entitles you to answers?”

“You bet I do. And you can start with the snapshot. You obviously knew Guy, but I can’t believe you were friends, long-time or otherwise.”

“Why not?”

“Because, frankly, I don’t see how you could have had anything in common with him.”

“Meaning that he had cultivated tastes and I’m some kind of a lout who wouldn’t know Chinese Chippendale from Chinese checkers? Maybe you’re right. But we had something in common all right. Our mother.”

Jennifer stared at him in disbelief. “Are you saying you were brothers? But how is that possible when—”

“He was a Spalding, and I’m a McKenzie? Half brothers, Jenny.”

No one called her Jenny, but she didn’t bother to correct him. “I didn’t know,” she said.

Not that Guy would have had any particular reason to mention it to her. Their relationship hadn’t reached the stage of intimate confidences, whatever his efforts in that direction. But she was still very surprised.

“Didn’t you?” he said.

She didn’t like the way he looked at her, as if she weren’t to be trusted about anything she said.

“So, okay,” he relented, “I guess it’s understandable he didn’t tell you about me. Why should he when Guy and I didn’t see a whole lot of each other after our mother died. We were separated when her first husband, who was English, took him back to London, and my own father kept me in the States. But there was always a bond between us, maybe because we were the only family each other had after our fathers were gone.”

All of which meant he must be determined to bring his brother’s murderer to justice, and if he was somehow convinced that she—

But she didn’t know that was his reason for following her. Not for sure. She wasn’t even certain that he had recovered his memory of yesterday’s events, though he seemed entirely lucid this morning.

“Do you know where you’re at, or how you got here?”

“Testing me?” His slow smile wore something of the cocky grin in that photo. “I’ve a pretty good idea, yeah.”

Brother Timothy must have explained it to him at some point. But whether he had any recollection of his encounter with her out in the passage last night was another matter. Maybe not. Maybe it had just been some P.I.’s instinct kicking in so that, dazed though he’d been, he’d left the room to search for her. Whatever the explanation, she had no intention of reminding him of that uncomfortable episode.

“What are you wondering now, Jenny? Whether I’m going to be okay, or whether I’m a candidate for the nearest hospital?”

He was observant all right. He had caught her eyeing the injury on his forehead, where the swelling was considerably diminished, and the tape wrapped around the lower half of that sinewy bare chest.

“I hate to disappoint you, but it’s like this….”

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up on its edge. There was something provocative about the way he leaned toward her so earnestly, his dark hair tousled, his unshaven face flushed, as though he’d spent a long night doing more than just sleeping.

Damning her treacherous imagination, she backed several inches away from him. There was no question of it. Leo McKenzie was a threat to her on more than one level.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he finished informing her emphatically. “Nothing that a monk’s medicine and a night in bed haven’t already fixed. So, while I’m grateful for both your rescue and your concern, if you think I might be too helpless to keep you from running again—”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why are you after me?”

“My brother was murdered. I’d kind of like to see that his killer pays for that.”

“And you think that I’m the one who murdered him?”

“It occurred to me that you might know something about it anyway, especially after what Barbara had to tell me.”

“Barbara?”

“Yeah, Barbara, his wife. Or do you want to pretend that you didn’t know Guy was married?”

“I didn’t, not until the day before his death.”

“Funny, because Barbara seemed to think you knew all about her. She was in a bad state when she called me at home and begged me to fly over to try to talk some sense into Guy.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Enough to worry me. I got the full details on the way into London when Barbara picked me up at Heathrow the night before last. How Guy had told her he was crazy about you and that he wanted a divorce. How you were already so wildly possessive of him that you’d do anything to have him, including breaking up his marriage.”

Jennifer was dumbfounded. She knew that Guy had been in love with her, or foolishly claimed to be, but to tell his wife such outrageous lies…

“And you believed what she told you?”

“I believed she believed it. As for me, I wanted to talk to Guy before I got real serious about it. Only I never got the chance. The police were there to meet us with the bad news when Barbara and I got to his shop.”

Guy’s esteemed antique business on Great Brompton Road where he had been murdered. The scene haunted Jennifer.

“And you immediately assumed I was the one who killed him? How could you? Or weren’t you told that the police questioned me and were satisfied I wasn’t a suspect?”

“Neither Barbara or I assumed anything. And, yes, I was told you weren’t a suspect. But a P.I. likes to ask his own questions, especially when they concern the death of his brother. Went to your mews cottage the next morning, Jenny, to ask those questions. You weren’t there. A neighbor told me you were in a big hurry when he saw you coming away with your suitcase. Said you went tearing up the street in a small, green Ford. Kind of suspicious to run away like that, wouldn’t you say?”

“And that made me guilty?”

“Not guilty. Not yet. Let’s just say your action makes you a strong possibility. After all, you were involved with Guy. But if you’re so innocent—”

“I am innocent.”

“Then why are you on the run?”

“I have my reasons. Good ones.” But Jennifer wasn’t ready to share them. She still wanted answers. “Just how did you find me?”

“You were careless, Jenny. You must have called directory assistance and then jotted down the number they gave you.”

On the back of an old bill next to the telephone. She remembered that and how afterwards she had crumpled up the bill and tossed it into the wastebasket.

“I called the number,” he said. “Turned out to be the King’s Head Inn in Heathside. I took a chance and told them I was Jennifer Rowan’s husband just checking to be sure they had my wife’s reservation for a room. It paid off. They were happy to verify your reservation.”

“You broke into my cottage and went through my wastebasket? You had no right,” she accused him, resenting the man’s total brashness.

“Now how else could I look for some evidence of where you might have gone?”

“And, of course, you didn’t share that evidence with the police.”

“Didn’t think they’d like hearing I entered your cottage.” His eyes narrowed. “Besides, it had become very personal by then.”

So personal, Jennifer thought, that she realized Leo McKenzie would go to any length to see his brother’s killer convicted of his murder. And if she was his chief suspect, maybe his only suspect at the moment, then maybe he was prepared to wring the truth out of her, no matter what it cost either of them. And the police be damned.

Guy and Leo. She was still shaken by the revelation that they had been half brothers. There was nothing about their characters or looks that were alike. Except for one thing. Guy, too, had been single-minded in his determination to go after what he wanted.

“I’m waiting, Jenny,” he said, sounding patient about it.

But she knew he wasn’t patient at all. He had given her his story, and now he demanded hers.

“What’s the point?” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Haven’t you already condemned me?”

“I don’t remember saying that. Hell, I’m a reasonable man, willing to listen to all the arguments. Maybe you’ve got a good one. So, go on, tell me, and if I like what I hear—”

“What?” she cut him off sharply. “You’ll reconsider your judgmental opinion of me?”

“Depends on how well you explain what made you run to Yorkshire. And while you’re at it, don’t leave out the Warley Madonna.”

He had surprised her again. “You know about the Madonna?”

“It’s no secret it’s missing. What do you know about it, Jenny?”

But whatever she told him, if she decided to tell him anything at all, would have to wait. They were interrupted by a tap on the hall door. Before either of them could answer it, the door opened and the cheerful face of Brother Timothy poked around its edge.

“Looks a rare treat, this does. The both of you awake, and my patient sitting there like he no longer needs me. Feeling better, are you, lad?”

Leo grinned at the monk. “The cure would be complete, friar, with a cup of strong coffee.”

“If you’re up to it, I’m thinking we can do better than that.” Brother Timothy came into the room. “There’ll be breakfast waiting for the two of you in the guests’ dining parlor. Or a tray here for you, lad, if you’re of a mind to keep to your bed for a bit.”

“No trays,” Leo said firmly. “I’m ready to join the living.”

“That’s the ticket. Give you a chance to meet the others in your dining parlor.”

“There are other guests in the castle?” Jennifer asked him.

“There are.”

This was certainly unexpected. Maybe it was what Father Stephen had meant last night when he’d mentioned that other matters had delayed him in welcoming her to Warley. Had he been attending to those guests?

“The lot of you will make a regular party,” Brother Timothy said. “Now, they’ve had their turns in the bath, so I’m guessing you’ll want your own, and then I’ll take you down.”

Not only unexpected, she thought, but another complication.

A SHOWER AND A SHAVE had Leo feeling halfway human again. Getting the meal inside him that Brother Timothy had promised them would be even better.

Not that breakfast was the most important thing on his mind, he thought, eyeing the closed door to the room that adjoined his as he tucked the tail of a fresh shirt inside the waistband of his jeans. She was on the other side of that door, waiting for the monk to come back and conduct them to the dining parlor.

Yeah, she was on his mind all right. More than he wanted her to be, and that worried him.

Jennifer Rowan was not what Barbara had led him to expect. The treacherous seductress who had stolen her husband. Oh, maybe she did physically fit the image, with that shoulder-length hair the color of rich mahogany, a pair of jade-green eyes and a body that a man would eagerly welcome into his bed.

He could see why Guy had been captivated by her. He was susceptible to that allure himself, and if he didn’t watch himself…

The thing of it was, though, nothing else about Jennifer smacked of a conniving woman. She struck Leo as being intelligent, independent, not lacking spirit and scared. Scared with good reason, considering the circumstances.

Okay, maybe all that vulnerability, the kind that made a man want to be protective of such a woman, was nothing more than an illusion. Her face alone could be responsible for that. He remembered that his ex-wife had angelic features like that.

But there had been no angel underneath, he sourly reminded himself, dragging a sweater over his head.

Leo hadn’t trusted a sweet face and a hot body since then.

Anyway, he knew from his work that what people were on the outside seldom matched what they were inside. Look at how he had caught her going through his things. Maybe just an act of desperation. Or maybe she was guilty of something. Because if she were so damn innocent, why had she run? He kept coming back to that.

Sliding his feet into a pair of loafers, he looked at the closed door again.

He could swear Jennifer had been relieved by Brother Timothy’s interruption, and afterwards she couldn’t escape into her own room fast enough. Why? Had she been panicked by Leo’s demand to hear her version of her involvement with Guy and the explanation for her flight from London the morning after his murder? Had she needed to get away from Leo long enough to put together a convincing story?

He wasn’t certain of anything at this point except his frustration. As hungry as he was, breakfast meant a delay, and he wanted to hear Jennifer Rowan’s story. Needed to hear it.

Only that wasn’t completely true. There was one other certainty. He couldn’t stop thinking of that enticing mouth of hers and how they were stranded here together.

Hell, none of this was going to be easy.

“YOU’RE SURE of it now, are you?” Brother Timothy asked as he escorted them along the corridor.

“I’m sure, friar,” Leo answered, trying to be patient with the monk’s excessive concern. “No headache and no chest pains. Just a little tenderness around the ribs.” He didn’t add that he was relieved to be rid of the tape in that area, which he had removed before his shower. Brother Timothy might not be happy with him if he knew about that.

“You’ll do then.”

The monk played guide as they continued along the route to the dining parlor, pointing out things and telling them there were many areas in the castle that the monastery rarely used. Leo could believe it. The place was immense, and probably rooms like the great hall would be impossible to keep comfortable in weather like this.

Jennifer beside him was quiet, offering no comment. She was close enough to him that he could catch whiffs of her fragrance, something subtle but seductive. Damn. It was bad enough that he had to be aware of everything else about her that was desirable.

She didn’t look at him, but Leo sensed that she was equally aware of him. And nervous about it.

“Turned real nasty again, it has,” Brother Timothy observed as they paused at an embrasure where a window in the stone wall looked down into a courtyard. There was a snow-covered sundial in its center surrounded by a formal arrangement of elevated beds framed by clipped hedges.

Or at least that’s what Leo thought he was seeing. It was hard to tell through the curtain of driven snow that had resumed after a brief lull in the storm. Even in this enclosed place the wind had the force of a gale. Not the kind of weather you’d choose to be out in, and yet there was a solitary figure down there pacing the paths. Head bent inside his cowl, he seemed oblivious to the conditions. Strange.

Leo noticed that Jennifer was intently watching the small, stoop-shouldered figure, whose habit identified him as one of the monks. “He doesn’t seem to be minding the cold,” she murmured.

“Not even noticing it, I’m thinking,” Brother Timothy said. “Our Brother Anthony has a deal on his mind these days. Only permits himself to leave his cell to exercise a bit in the cloister yard there or to pray in the chapel on the other side.”

“That is Brother Anthony then?”

“It is.”

Jennifer obviously knew about this Brother Anthony and was interested in him, though Leo couldn’t imagine how or why. And it didn’t look as though either she or Brother Timothy was going to bother to explain it to him.

So just what was that all about? Leo wondered as the three of them moved on along the passage.

He was to ask himself the same thing a moment later about another mystery when, pausing as they arrived at the top of a spiral stairway, Jennifer turned to the monk with a sober “Brother Timothy, I have another question for you.”

“If it’s about my days in the ring…”

“No, nothing like that.” She hesitated before asking what was clearly a self-conscious “Have there…well, ever been any tales about Warley Castle being haunted?”

Leo stared at her. Hell, was she serious?

The monk looked amused. “A ghost at Warley? Never heard of any ghost being sighted here. But if one was to turn up, I don’t see our Abbot Stephen tolerating him. Mind the stairs now. They’re a bit steep.”

There had been her interest in Brother Anthony, Leo thought as they descended the coiling flight. And now she was worried about a ghost? She seemed too levelheaded for that one, but something was up.

Okay, this made two more questions, among all the rest, that he intended to put to her when they were alone again. He just wished that, breakfast or not, he didn’t have to wait to ask them.

When they reached a landing less than halfway down the flight, Brother Timothy opened a door on the right and led them through a stone archway into the guests’ dining parlor. Leo could see why it was named that. There was a sitting area at the far end of the long room. It was furnished with easy chairs and a sofa.

The seven people who occupied the room were all gathered at this end, which served as the dining area. Some of them were busy helping themselves from a breakfast buffet laid out on a sideboard while others were already seated with their plates at a long trestle table.

Leo was surprised. Considering the weather, he hadn’t expected to find these number of guests at the castle. Or maybe it was just because of the weather that they were here. He could feel glances of curiosity directed at Jennifer and him.

“No need to go and worry about names,” Brother Timothy assured Jennifer and Leo. “Time for that when you’re settled with your plates.”

Of all the company, only one of them hovering near the sideboard wore a habit. Leo noticed, however, that he lacked a monk’s tonsure. Brother Timothy asked the young man to join them.

“Here now, this is our Geoffrey,” he said. “A novice, Geoffrey is, who has yet to take his final vows.”

Which explained why the young man with his fair hair and pale, melancholy face didn’t have a tonsure yet, Leo guessed. But it didn’t explain why he looked so unhappy when Brother Timothy turned them over to him with a hasty “I’m off to prime.”

“Prime is one of our daily communal prayers,” Geoffrey said when the monk had departed. “I’m excused. It’s because of Patrick.” He indicated another young man who waited for him at the sideboard. “Patrick is here because he wants to join our order, but he isn’t permitted into the monastery side of the castle until he’s certain of his calling. Father Stephen has asked me to look out for him.”

And Geoffrey, Leo decided, isn’t any more happy about playing nanny to Patrick than he is about Jennifer and me.

“Don’t worry, Geoffrey, we can take care of ourselves.”

An introduction to the breakfast buffet wasn’t a problem anyway. There were more than enough dishes to choose from when he and Jennifer helped themselves at the sideboard. Oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausages, toast and fish. Why the English had a taste for fish at breakfast was something Leo had never understood. He took some of everything but the fish and the oatmeal. Jennifer, he noticed, had very little on her plate.

An introduction to the others when they joined them at the table was another matter. They struck Leo as a quirky bunch. Edgy, too, if he wasn’t mistaken, and his work as a P.I. had taught him to be fairly accurate in his observations about people. But the weather was probably responsible for that edginess.

“Any of you have a working mobile phone?” the woman seated across from him asked. “Mine absolutely refuses to cooperate.”

The others shook their heads.

“Well, there you are. We’re not only stranded here, we’re stranded without communication.”

“Have a battery-operated wireless,” a man down the table said. “A lot of crackle on it, but I was able to raise a weather forecast. More of the same filthy stuff on the way, I’m afraid.”

“Then we might as well make the best of it.”

Ignoring Jennifer, she smiled at Leo across the table. A smile that was more than just polite. Hell, was the woman flirting with him? Well, she was attractive enough, if you went for the brittle, consciously elegant type. He wasn’t interested. And wouldn’t have been, even if she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“Sybil Harding,” she introduced herself. “And this is my husband, Roger.”

She indicated the man beside her. He had a moustache and wore a stolid expression on his lined face.

“Once upon a time Roger was one of the brothers here,” she went on to explain, “which is why he comes back to the monastery on retreat twice a year. A bit excessive, but I think he regards it as a holiday from me. One can only imagine his disappointment when, after dropping him off, a blocked road forced me to turn back.”

Roger Harding’s face reddened. “These people aren’t interested in hearing this, Sybil.”

“Dear heart, we’re all in this together, so why not be friendly?” She turned her attention back to Leo. “Let me see now. You’ve already met Geoffrey and Patrick, haven’t you?”

Leo glanced in the direction of the two young men. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the novice had shadows under his eyes, as if he’d slept badly. His charge beside him, skinny, round-shouldered and with a face suffering from acne, looked equally miserable. Maybe because he was painfully shy or because Geoffrey pointedly ignored him.

“And the other couple there,” Sybil went on, “are the Brashers. Fiona and Alfred, I believe.”

A timid-looking pair, they nodded by way of acknowledgment.

“If they have an exciting tale of their own,” Sybil said, “then we have yet to hear it.”

Alfred Brasher cleared his throat before responding with a quiet “Just travelers on our way to the coast and caught on the road like the rest of you.”

The group seemed to have already been told beforehand who he and Jennifer were, Leo thought, helping himself to more coffee from the pot on the table. And maybe how they had ended up at Warley themselves. No one asked, anyway.

“And our friend with the battery-powered wireless,” Sybil continued, gesturing toward the balding, thick-waisted fellow at the end of the table, “is—”

“Harry Ireland,” he introduced himself. “In sales. I call at the monastery every few months to take orders on goods the brothers like delivered to their gate, then move on to the next place. Some people still like the old-fashioned door-to-door service.” A laugh rumbled out of him. “Couldn’t move on this time, what?”

All of us trapped here in this isolated place, Leo thought, finishing his eggs. Was there something just a little too coincidental about that, or was he imagining it? And the edginess in the company he had noticed earlier…he was sure now he wasn’t imagining that. You could almost smell the tension in the air. Just the weather, or was there another explanation?

He didn’t have to wonder about the tension of the woman at his side. He already knew. Jennifer hadn’t spoken a word since they’d entered the dining parlor. But those wary green eyes of hers said a lot whenever he caught her watching him. She was definitely worried.

“Have I left anyone out?” Sybil wondered. “No? Then Mr. Ireland concludes the introductions.”

“Just Harry,” he insisted.

“Yes, just Harry. Well, it makes us a cozy party, doesn’t it? Although,” she added, looking around the room, “one could have wished for a cheerier setting.”

Leo hadn’t paid much attention to the surroundings before this. He had to admit that the time-worn, dark paneling made the room a somber place. But then the whole castle was like something out of a vampire movie. Count What’s-his-name would have felt right at home here.

“Roger told me that in centuries past this used to be the solarium where the family gathered after meals,” Sybil informed them, “which is why it has a good fireplace. I suppose one must be grateful for that, although that chimneypiece is a horror.”

This was something else that Leo hadn’t noticed until now. Carvings on the stone chimney breast depicted strange beasts and leering monsters, all of them crowded together and tumbling over one another. Not exactly what you’d expect to find in a monastery. Nor was the grotesque mask fitted into the paneling of the wall adjacent to the fireplace.

Jennifer, noticing him gazing at the hollow eyes of that stone face, spoke up for the first time. “It’s a squint,” she said.

Leo turned to her. “A what?”

“If this used to be the solar in the medieval days,” she explained, “then the great hall must be on the other side of that wall. A squint permitted the lord of the castle to look through those eyes down into the great hall.”

“A spy hole? Why?”

“It was a method for checking on the activity of his household to be sure they weren’t getting too boisterous in his absence.”

Leo had forgotten that Jennifer would know about this stuff. His brother’s wife had told him that, like Guy, Jennifer was connected somehow with the antiques trade.

“Aren’t you clever to know that?” Sybil cooed, then abruptly dismissed Jennifer with a casual “I’m not interested in solariums, but I do care about loos. And the scarcity of them in this place, along with the state of the plumbing, is not my definition of comfort.”

“Sybil, please—” her husband murmured pleadingly.

“Dear heart, it’s true. I don’t know how all of us will manage.”

If any of the rest of them had any feelings on the subject, none of them bothered to contribute them. There was a long, awkward silence while they concentrated on their plates.

Sybil Harding, looking around the table, ended the silence after a few moments with an exuberant “I do hope some of you play bridge.”

Leo could sympathize with her husband. The woman was an embarrassment.

“Sybil, perhaps—”

“Roger, hush. If we’re to be stuck here, we must pass the time somehow.” She leaned provocatively toward Leo. “Roger refuses to play, which always leaves me looking for a partner.”

“I don’t play bridge. Poker is my game.” Leo had had enough. He wanted out of here. Scraping his chair back, his hands on the table to support himself, he got slowly to his feet. “But right now,” he muttered, “I think I need to go back to my room.”

“You feeling off again, old man?” Just Harry asked him.

“Yeah, maybe a bit.”

“Bloody shame.”

Jennifer looked up at him, this time with concern. “Would you like me to find Brother Timothy?”

“Not necessary. But if you’d go with me…”

He left the rest unsaid, knowing she would be convinced that someone should be with him in case he started to black out on the way back to his room.

She came immediately to her feet. “Of course. Excuse us, everyone.”

Jennifer waited until they were out of the room before she started to fuss at him. “You pushed yourself too far too soon.”

“I’m not having a relapse,” he assured her.

“Well, you need to rest.”

Leo didn’t argue with her. She waited until they gained the corridor at the top of the stairway before asking him, “Are you feeling light-headed? That climb—”

“No,” he growled, feeling guilty for worrying her.

She was silent again until they passed the window embrasure.

“You’re going too fast,” she complained.

But Leo was in too much of a hurry to slow his long-legged stride. Nor did he offer an explanation for his urgency until they were back inside his room with the door closed behind them. Then, a grimness in his voice, he swung around to challenge her.

“All right, we’ve wasted enough time with that bunch downstairs. I want the truth, Jenny, and I don’t want to wait any longer for it. So go ahead and convince me that you didn’t murder my brother before you helped yourself to the Warley Madonna.”