Page 94 of The Case of the Curate

Her slip didn’t upset her. “It was obvious. But how could I have the strength or even the inclination to kill such a poor, wicked creature?”

“Miss Nye. You have her necklace. And your slippers are covered in mud from the night you shot at Lady Ambrose. Let me help you.”

She stared at him then, without artifice of any kind. A faint frown tugged at her brow. “How?” she asked curiously. “Why would you even want to? For God?”

“Not exactly.” He held her gaze. “I would not have anyone hang, if they could be saved. Help me to understand, and I will help you.”

“Save me from the hangman?” she said, jeering now.

“Yes, if it can be done. You would have to leave the world behind, but there are good places where you can get well if—”

She laughed, an odd, harsh sound, almost like a crow. “I got well a long time ago, Mr. Grande, thanks to a different clergyman! He deserves his frightful wife. While I have learned to look after myself and my brother, and I do so very well. While you merely pry and prattle like that silly Ambrose girl.”

Her gown twitched again, and Rupert tensed, in case Salter shot her.

He raised one hand slightly, hoping it was enough to calm the rifleman. “Did you see Sir Colin attack Dinah in his room the day you arrived?”

“I saw a housemaid threaten him with a dagger! I followed her when I could, heard her whisper to you when you arrived about your assignation in the orangery. Not quite the pure curate, are you, Mr. Grande?”

“Not remotely,” Rupert agreed. “But you didn’t go to the orangery, did you?”

“No, because you were there already. I know this house very well, you understand. Colin and I were here often as children. I guessed the way the maid would come from the laundry room.”

“So you went to the walled garden and lay in wait for her.”

Miss Nye smiled. “No one missed me in the drawing room, did they? But I took the girl by surprise. She might even have thought I was you at first. She was with child, you know. I suspected when she was struggling with Colin in the bedroom, but I discovered for certain when I took the dagger from her apron. I felt her shape, you see. I thought the child might have been Colin’s.”

“So that is why you killed her?”

“Only partly.” With her right hand, she reached down to the nearest chair, idly picking up a cushion, as though she would hug it to her for comfort. “She was in the way. Like Lady Ambrose. Like you.”

She jerked up her left arm, revealing a double-barreled pistol leveled straight at him. Then she placed the cushion against the barrel.

To muffle the noise of the shot. Dear God, I’m dead.

And all hell broke loose.

*

Trying to balance speed with silence, Kate had raced down the east staircase and stood at the foot, catching her breath so that she didn’t pant like a gale through the parlor keyhole. The door was closed, light shining beneath. At first, she could hear nothing and wondered if Miss Nye had been too suspicious to come.

Or if she was lying in wait elsewhere to take Kate by surprise with one accurate shot…

But no, the clock had struck eleven before she had even heard from Grissy about Miss Nye in the gun room. And as her breathing calmed, she could just make out the faint hum of a human voice.

Kate crossed her fingers. Two voices? Don’t let her have shot him… Idiot, you’d have heard.

Moving slowly and carefully so that her gown did not rustle, she crouched and peered through the keyhole.

Rupert stood in front of the fireplace, his posture as easy and casual as always, although his face was unusually earnest. A few feet away, Miss Nye faced him, her back upright, her arms by her sides.

Where is the pistol?

Rupert was speaking. “Did you see Sir Colin attack Dinah in his room on the day you arrived?”

“I saw a housemaid threaten him with a dagger!” Miss Nye replied with a sort of outraged contempt. And then she confessed.

Kate’s blood ran cold. Trust Rupert to have coaxed the truth out of her, as he’d said he would. Only Kate knew instinctively she would never repeat it. Perhaps Miss Nye’s urge to explain herself to him was strong, but she would still never have done it had she meant him to live.