Murder at the Brightwell: A Mystery (34 page)

“As I told you, I didn’t know Rupert Howe. We just happened to be in Monte Carlo at the same time.”

“There were so many things. For one mad moment, all of the evidence seemed to point in your direction…”

“The evidence pointed to Trent at one point, I believe. And you never wavered in your staunch defense of him.”

He was right, of course. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Can you forgive me?”

“Of course, darling. It’s really of very little consequence.” It was his dismissive tone, the one he used on people of whom he had tired, and when the corners of his mouth turned up it did nothing to warm his eyes.

We stood there in a tense silence. At least, I felt tense; Milo seemed almost bored. I half-expected him to walk back into the hotel at any moment. But before he did, there was one more thing I needed to know.

“I … there’s something else I want to ask you.” I hesitated to question him now, especially after all that had happened, but I had to know. Before anything else, I needed to be sure.

“Yes?” His tone held the vaguest hint of impatience, but I plunged ahead.

“Who is Winnelda, Milo?”

A cynical amusement flickered across his face. “Ah. You find I am not guilty of murder, so you adopt a lesser charge.”

“She answered the telephone at the flat.”

He leaned against the railing, looking back at the sea. “Winnelda is the maid.”

“We haven’t any permanent staff at the flat.”

“We have now. She’s the most horrid, clumsy little thing.” He pulled a cigarette from the case in his pocket and lit it. “I had to hire her, to learn about the Hamiltons.”

“What do you mean?”

“She worked for them in London. I didn’t have a chance to tell you. She had some interesting things to say about Mrs. Hamilton, though it proved you had little use for my information.”

“You didn’t tell me where you had gone. I didn’t…”

“It had occurred to me that I might be able to glean some interesting tidbits in London. I located this maid, and she related tales of the Hamiltons’ unhappy marriage and noted that Mrs. Hamilton seemed to have a gentleman friend on the side whose description bore an uncanny resemblance to that of Rupert Howe. Winnelda is a shockingly observant girl for one so inept.”

“Then you knew last night who the killer was.”

“I had my suspicions.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, though I knew perfectly well why he hadn’t.

“It didn’t seem the time,” he said expressionlessly. “I intended to relate my news to the inspector. Mrs. Hamilton wasn’t in the sitting room when I went down last night. I thought she had stayed in her room. It didn’t occur to me that you might be in danger … but I suppose it didn’t matter, not with the inspector and gallant Trent to the rescue…” He offered me a hollow smile. “All’s well that ends well.”

There was something in the way he said it that gave me an uneasy feeling.

“And that, my dear, explains away my unexpected jaunt to London and the mysterious Winnelda. Of course, I had to offer her a job to pry her tales from her,” he went on. “Hopefully, the flat will still be standing when you get back to London.” I noticed his use of “you” rather than “we” immediately. So he was not planning on coming back with me.

“I wish you had told me,” I said. “You left, and then the inspector told me you had claimed to see Gil. I thought … it was all so confusing.”

“As you know, I came down directly after you did. I arrived at the Brightwell the day of the murder and happened to overhear some of the rather heated conversation between Trent and Howe. I decided perhaps it would be best to come back later.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Milo? If I had known…”

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” He blew out a stream of smoke. “It has become very apparent that you’re always willing to believe the worst of me.”

“You’ve never given me cause to doubt it,” I replied. There was no malice in my tone. Only sadness. Things were not going as I had expected. “The facts seemed to implicate you. And then a strange woman answered at the flat. What would you expect me to think?”

He looked at me. “Perhaps the same thing I thought when I heard the rumor that Gil Trent spent the night in your bedroom.” His voice, beneath his nonchalance, was terribly cool.

“Who told you that?” I asked softly.

“Is it true?”

“He came to talk to me, but he’d had too much to drink and passed out.”

“Then it is true.”

“Nothing happened, Milo.”

“Nothing?” His brow went up, and I read the challenge in the gesture.

As much as I hated to, I felt compelled to tell him everything. It was harder than I imagined it would be. “He … I … we kissed. Just once.”

“And?”

“And then he fell asleep and didn’t wake until morning.”

Something very like mockery flickered across his features. “Poor Trent. He waits five long years and then succumbs to unconsciousness once he finally has you in his arms.”

“I wouldn’t have done anything more…”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course not,” I retorted, my ire raised. “I don’t behave as you do.”

He smiled, and it was a very hard smile. “You think very highly of me, don’t you, my dear?”

“I’m sorry,” I said with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have said that. With everything that’s happened, emotions are running high.”

“Yes. Well,” he said, “as charming as this little seaside escapade has been, I think it’s time I head back to civilization.”

He ground out his cigarette, and I couldn’t help but feel he had just done the same with our relationship.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Back to Monte Carlo. Or perhaps to Switzerland. I’m not certain.”

I looked down at my hands, noticing suddenly that I had never put my wedding ring back on. “When can I expect you back in London?”

“I’ll drop you a line.”

My eyes came up to his, and we looked at one another, neither of us willing to say what needed to be said in order to set things right.

“Good-bye then, Amory.” He leaned and brushed a kiss across my cheek. His lips were warm against my wind-chilled skin.

“Good-bye, Milo,” I whispered.

I longed to allow myself to lean into his arms, but I could not make myself do it. Pride is not an appealing quality, but I possessed too much of it to tell him that I didn’t want him to go.

He left me then, and I turned toward the sea so I didn’t have to watch him leave.

Was it my fault or his? It was really too much of a tangled mess to know. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps we should give it some time before making any rash decisions.

29

MILO GONE, I
stood looking out at the sea, the tears welling in my eyes. Once again, the burden of our relationship rested on my shoulders. I would be left at home to wait until one of us made some sort of decision. I had judged him harshly, wronged him with my mistrust. I couldn’t entirely blame him for being angry. Yet it had been the reputation he had earned for himself that had made me suspicious, his own actions that had made me wonder if I could trust him.

Perhaps both of us had behaved like fools.

“Amory.”

I turned to see Gil, standing, somewhat hesitantly, in the doorway. “Milo … sent me out. He said he expected you’d be wanting to see me.”

So Milo’s final dig had been to send his competition in to claim me.

“He’s going back to the Continent,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“I wish I knew. It seems the Brightwell Hotel is not at all a lucky place for relationships.” I changed the subject, not wanting to talk about Milo any longer. “How is Emmeline?”

After the events of last night, Gil had sent her home to their mother in London on the first train this morning. It was best that she be removed from the situation, from the place that held so many haunting memories.

Gil walked out onto the terrace, his hands in his pockets. “She’ll mend, I expect. But it won’t be easy.”

“For what it’s worth, he did care for her, in his way.” It was a poor comfort, I knew. But perhaps it would mean something to Emmeline.

“If you could write to her, I think she would enjoy that. She will need something to distract her in the coming months.”

“Of course. I should be happy to.” I hesitated. “And what about Olive?”

His gaze became guarded. “She’s told you that she’s in love with me?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t sure she really meant it. I’m still not entirely sure.”

“She’s mad about you,” I said, using the words Olive had used of him.

“That business with cutting her wrists, it was a dreadfully stupid thing to do.” I felt that the anger that flickered in his gaze stemmed from deep concern. I knew he had been terribly worried about her. She had known it, too. It had been a foolish thing to do, but people did foolish things when they were desperate.

“I don’t think she meant to do any real harm to herself.”

“No,” he said. “But that doesn’t make it any less wretched. When did you know about Olive and me?”

“I only just realized last night. We were talking, and suddenly I realized. I was blind not to have seen it before this.”

Gil walked to where I stood, not quite meeting my gaze. That he was uncomfortable was very apparent. “Did she tell you everything?”

“She didn’t quite seem to know what had happened herself,” I said. I felt suddenly very sorry for her.

He looked back out at the sea. “It was my fault. I treated her badly. We met and got along famously. We saw each other for quite a while. I … had entertained thoughts of marrying her, but then she met Rupert Howe. They seemed to take an instant liking to each other.”

So many things fell into place. Apparently, Rupert had reminded Gil of Milo as well. Perhaps he had thought that she, too, would fall prey to the charms of a handsome gentleman.

“It was unfair of me,” he went on, “but I thought it best to end things … before they went any further. So I broke it off. She took it badly, but I assumed she would recover soon enough. I went away and tried to forget about the entire thing. I didn’t know she was going to be here at the Brightwell. It was devilishly awkward when I arrived with you to find her here.”

“I wish you had told me.”

“I thought about it, but I didn’t want to place the burden of that on you. However, I was terribly afraid it was all going to come out in some sort of dreadful scene. That was one reason I didn’t want you going about asking questions. Everyone knew about it, and I suspect they were all dying to say something. It was ridiculous to think I could keep it a secret.”

I thought of the conversation I had had with Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers in the lobby that day, the careful way she had warned him with a hand on his leg not to say too much when the conversation turned to the changing nature of love.

“Olive was in a state all week, and, to top it off, there were those rumors going around about her and Rupert. After the murder, I was a bit afraid they might think she’d been jealous enough to…”

So we had all been trying to shield someone. While I’d been attempting to protect Gil, he had been hoping to protect Olive. What tangled webs we weave, indeed.

“I knew you were worried about something,” I said, “and I wondered why you wouldn’t confide in me.”

Gil let out a sort of strangled laugh. “Yes, it’s been a perfectly dreadful week, all told. First, trying to convince Rupert to leave Emmeline, and then his murder … and your husband’s arrival. And all the time, Olive kept trying to convince me to change my mind about her … about our relationship. She came to my room to talk, more than once. And on the night that I was arrested, I had just come from speaking with her. We’d been hashing it out all afternoon in her room. She said she was going to tell you, and I wanted to do it first … but after I was released, it just didn’t seem the time.”

“Do you love her, Gil?” I asked.

He met my gaze. “I don’t know. I thought I did. But then…”

But then he had come back into my life, and we had both been caught in the trap of wondering if our idealized versions of the past might be preferable to uncertain futures.

We looked into one another’s eyes, and I think we both knew in that instant that the past was behind us. We could never be to each other what we had been once.

“Today, Gil,” I said softly. “What do you feel for her right now, with everything in the open?”

“I … I do still care for her,” he said, and it seemed to me that with the words there came a certain relief. He looked happy, lighter somehow.

“Then you should tell her.”

“I’m not even sure she’ll have me. I made a terrible mistake in not trusting her.”

“She’ll have you. Though you did misjudge her. She never cared for Rupert. She told me so. She’s not like me, you know, not fickle in her emotions.”

“Amory, don’t,” he said gently.

I bit my lip, tears threatening to spill over. Gil pulled me to him then, and I leaned against him, taking comfort in the embrace of a cherished friend. For a moment, I relished the security of his arms, the warm solidity of him. Then I stepped back, wiping my face, drawing in a bracing breath of sea air. “I’ve made such a mess of everything,” I said with a humorless laugh.

He looked down at me. “None of us make the clearest decisions when we’re in love. And you are still in love with him.”

I sighed and nodded, admitting it to myself for the first time. “Yes. I still love him.”

“I expect I’ve known that all along.” He smiled, a bit crookedly. “I suppose I thought it was worth a chance to see what might have been.”

“I’m not at all sure things will work out … but I need to try.”

“I understand.” Gil leaned against the railing as Milo had done only moments before. “You’re suited, really,” he said with a smile. “He needs a calming influence, and you need a little excitement. You’d have been terribly bored with me, Amory.”

“I’m so sorry, Gil, for everything.”

He took my hand, and we faced each another one last time. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Amory. You followed your heart. Most of the time, that’s all any of us can do.”

“Thank you.” I drew in a deep breath, refusing to allow myself to cry again. I had already shed more tears this week than I had in the last year. “Shall I see you in London?”