High Heels and Homicide by Kasey Michaels

Author:Kasey Michaels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2005-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Maggie figured she jumped, oh, a good three feet in the air when Sir Rudy said from the doorway to the attic room: “Hullo, everyone! Find anything interesting?”

“Nothing yet, Sir Rudy,” Alex said, squeezing his fingers lightly around Maggie’s upper arm. Like she needed the warning?

“What brings you climbing up to the attics, Sir Rudy?” Maggie asked, before Alex could—because she was positive that would have been his next line.

“Me? Oh, nothing. I was just nosing about as head of the household, making sure everything was right and tight, and saw the door open to the stairway. Made me remember the leaks. I’d forgot them, you see. Mrs. Wimbles and the girls usually take charge. We’ve got the other wing all fixed—cost the earth, roofs—but I had my worries about this wing. So. Why are you all up here?”

“Good question, Sir Rudy. We’re investigating,” Evan said, lifting one corner of a dust sheet off a large chest, then dropping it just as quickly. “The murderer hung Sam out that window over there. Did you know that?”

Sir Rudy went up on tiptoe, sort of leaned in the direction of the window. He did not, however, step farther into the room. “That so? Interesting bit of happenstance, wouldn’t you say? You see, I’ve been hacking about in the history of the family, you know, since the last of the brood cocked up her toes a year ago—ninety, they say she was, but she was ninety-five if she was a day—leaving this entire pile open for my purchase. I’ll bet she’s spinning in her casket out back in the mausoleum, poor old biddy, to think someone in trade is walking these halls now, sleeping in her bed, eating fish and chips off her fancy china. Still, I used to help my Da with the landscaping around here as a boy. Makes me very sentimental about the place, so maybe that’s all right with her.”

“I’m convinced the dear lady is resting comfortably knowing that you are restoring her family home to its former glory. Although,” Alex added, “the change of name may ameliorate some of that joy.”

“Yes, well, I’m Sir Rudy now, and it’s no wonder I wanted to put my stamp on the place. Besides, Medwine Manor has a certain…ring to it, don’t you think? At any rate, it would be a shame to just heartlessly evict them, all those hatchet-faced portraits and such. Thought I’d sort of adopt them, take them as my own, seeing as how all the family I’ve got is m’brother, Henry, who emigrated to Australia to marry a bassoonist with the Sydney Opera, if you can believe that. Oh, and there’s Byrd, of course. He’d gone off with Henry for some months, but that didn’t work out, so now I’ve got him again, right down to his quarterly allowance.”

“You don’t sound all that choked up about that, do you, Sir Rudy?” Maggie asked, remembering the not-exactly-warm greeting Byrd had received from his uncle. “You two don’t get along?”

“Occasionally we do.

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