A Fatal Overture by Kathleen Marple Kalb

Author:Kathleen Marple Kalb [Marple Kalb, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2022-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

“He put his hands on me, and I could not stand for that. So of course I stabbed him. ”

At least according to Amelia Brayhall, Hetty wiped a ladylike tear from her eye at that moment. I rather doubted it.

“God forgive me for saying it, miss,” Rosa began, “but I don’t think he attacked her.”

“No?”

“In my first job, the grandfather chased me around. I was faster—except for the time he got me behind the scullery door. If the cook hadn’t walked in . . .”

Her little face was tight, but her voice absolutely cool, as if it had happened to someone else. Everyone isn’t left shaky by terrible experiences . . . but we all have marks.

“I was cornered by an artistic director,” I said.

“Do you still feel sick and nasty inside thinking of it?”

“I do. Even though it wasn’t my fault—as you know it was not yours.”

“I do. Father Michael says the occasion of sin is the evil in a man’s mind,” Rosa nodded. “But there’s just something in the way Miss Hetty describes it that tells me it didn’t happen that way.”

“I agree.”

“What’s going to happen to her?”

“She has a very, very good lawyer. Hopefully he will convince her that she needs to tell the truth.”

“I’m not saying she wasn’t right to stop that man, you know. If she did.”

“Whoever stopped Darren Eyckhouse was absolutely right.” I joined Rosa in a definite nod. “But Hetty’s playing a very dangerous game, and I hope she finds a safe way out.”

“Me too, miss.”

After that troubling beginning, the day moved in a more pleasant direction, with a lovely ladies’ breakfast, in which my guests and I enjoyed a most enlightening discussion of their latest excursion to the Metropolitan Museum—and pointedly ignored the story in the Beacon. Properly fortified, I was preparing to run upstairs to vocalize, when I heard the telephone.

The ladies were reading and generally considered such new-fangled things beneath their notice. Far be it from me to argue.

“HurleyResidenceMayIAskWho’sCalling! ”

Someone perhaps needs a review on phone manners. Or elocution. Or both.

Sophia looked up to me on the stairs, her aspect a tick more frantic than usual when dealing with Mr. Alexander Graham Bell’s invention. “Miss? It’s for you.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone named Lacey? A Scotsman?”

I stepped down and took the machine, wondering if a friend of the ladies was looking for them. “It’s Ella Shane, may I help you?”

“Shane? Is my mother about?”

Of course. It was not a Scotsman named Lacey but a Northerner named Leith. Dukes generally use their title as their name in their own circles, and poor Sophia would never have figured that out. Unlike Rosa, she was not a regular reader of the papers, and for all I knew, she thought Gil was the Prince of Wales.

We are all quite thankful that he is not.

“The dowager countess is upstairs. Should I—”

“Absolutely not. And I will teach Montezuma things that will make the sports writers blush if you breathe a word to her.”

I would have laughed except for the odd gravelly note in his voice.

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