Murder In Mayfair by Marilyn Clay

Author:Marilyn Clay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency mysteries, Clean wholesome historical mysteries for teens, Historical mystery and suspense novels, British detective series, Traditional clean sweet wholesome historical fiction, Regency murder mystery series, Melanie DIckerson - Adele Clee - Heidi Ashworth - Alyssa Maxwell, Hanna Hamilton - Ashley Gardner - Sheri Cobbb south - Eleanor Meyers - Bree Wolf, Female sleuth historical mysteries
Publisher: The Regency Plume Press
Published: 2017-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The Plot Thickens, or At Least Gets Muddy

The opportunity to question Marianne presented itself sooner than I expected. She decided to help me search her husband’s bedchamber for the missing letters, and as I was silently opening one cupboard after another and finding nothing, she, nattering on all the while, suddenly asked, “Do you think I will marry again, Juliette?”

The girl’s question took me by surprise. “Of course, you will marry again, sweeting. You are still a very young girl. You will meet another gentleman whom you will love as much or even more than you loved Mr. Chalmers. Perhaps a young man who is closer in age to you,” I suggested. Then thinking back to my conversation with Miss Goodman, in which she mentioned her nephew Edwin was keen on Marianne, I asked, “Might you, perhaps, have already met such a fellow?”

“No, of course not. Where would I make the acquaintance of a gentleman? I go nowhere. I see no one. Who would I meet whom I might come to love?”

I am uncertain why I felt compelled to press the issue regarding the age difference between Marianne and her late husband, it was just that following Cathleen’s recent disclosure regarding the Chalmers’ marriage, I hoped that by putting further questions to Marianne might yield further knowledge. Plus it gnawed at me why Mr. Chalmers, being a good decade older than Marianne, would consent to marry such a very young girl, given his strong feelings for Cathleen? In light of those facts and also the other, which I surmised to now be true of Cathleen, but which she had not corroborated, a love match between Alistair Chalmers and Marianne seemed more unlikely now than ever. Why would Mr. Chalmers consent to marry a girl barely out of the schoolroom? Most especially one he did not love?

“Alistair was a good deal older than I,” Marianne began thoughtfully. “He actually seemed more like an elder brother to me, or an uncle, perhaps, than a husband.” She had ceased looking into cupboards and had instead thrown herself across the bed on her stomach, her long skirt drawn up, both legs bent at the knees as she swung her legs back and forth. Turning onto her side, her chin cupped in a hand, she said, “My husband never kissed me, you know.”

At the moment, my head was half-in, half-out of the lower section of a tallboy. “He never kissed you?” I straightened, my eyes a question as I gazed full at her. “Not even on the day you wed?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not even then. We returned from the chapel and Alistair returned to work in his study. I came up to my bedchamber. At least, I think that is where I went, sometimes when I am especially weary, I lie down on the sofa in the drawing room. At any rate, I laid down somewhere and fell fast asleep.”

“Where was your father all this while?” I crossed the room to perch on a chair nearer the bed while I intently listened to her tale.

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