But, as it turned out, Lady Eleanor did not need to be woken. As she was sharing a room with his sister, the widowed Lady Blakemore, Marcus had offered to fetch them.
"Margaret will hardly let Lady Eleanor go alone," he said in exasperated explanation.
"You're quite right." Margaret's voice cut through the fresh murmuring that had erupted with the idea of two women being brought into the investigation. "The maid's already informed us of the situation. It's hardly an appropriate thing, asking a woman to examine the body of a murdered man."
Marcus muttered something about the impropriety of listening at doors, but his sister silenced him with an evil look. She entered the room with an easy confidence, as if she'd been invited to join the investigation from the beginning. Nora stood a step behind her, half hidden in the shadowed hall. Jacob had tried to meet her gaze casually, but the woman did not seem to notice he was there. She did not seem to notice anyone was there. Dressed in a plain dress, her hair still damp, Nora was lost in thought. He watched the tiny wrinkle in her brow, the way her lips pursed. It was as if gears and cogs were already twisting and clinking behind those cloudy gray eyes.
"We've not yet reached that conclusion." George paused and softened. "Nora," he said. She started at her name. Her eyes met his brother's. "Do you think you'll be able to tell if—"
He looked back towards the hearth, frowning. The firelight illuminated his face, deepened the worried wrinkles, and Jacob was struck by how old his brother suddenly looked.
George was unable to finish the question. He did not need to finish. Everyone heard what was left unsaid.
If my father was murdered?
Nora nodded slowly. "I'm not formally trained," she said. "But I know what to look for, in theory. Shall we go now?"
"But she might be the murderer! She disappeared after dinner, didn't she?" Alton protested, standing. It inspired a few murmurs of irritable agreement.
Margaret laughed mockingly. With a vicious smile, she turned on the man. "She's been upstairs with me since you spilled wine across her lap! Trust a fool to forget his own foolishness!"
"My dear lady—"
Alton's offended cry was interrupted. George, bathed in black fury, had taken a single step in the indignant man's direction. Alton swallowed his tongue and sank back to his seat, determined to not meet the dark gaze of his short-tempered host. From his clenched hands to his taut jaw, it was painfully obvious that George was in no mood for patience. The fragile control he'd gained over the room was fraying.
Nora, still closest to the door, did not pay any attention to the men. Instead, she frowned at Margaret. Jacob frowned too. Had Nora already told her friend about their meeting in the garden? He couldn't imagine it so: Margaret was Nora's staunchest advocate for finding a husband, wasn't she? And the woman had grown up with him. She knew exactly the sort of things to say that would make him feel guilty and honorable and stupid enough to place a ring on Nora's finger.
Unless, he reasoned, she has no interest in you. Unless there is someone else.
Jacob glanced at Marcus. The man was also watching Nora, his eyes cast in worried shadow. A bolt of jealousy twisted Jacob's stomach. He could have laughed: half the room imagined him a murderer, and he was more concerned with who Nora fancied. Hell and the Devil, he was a bigger fool than Alton and Cooper combined.
George cleared his throat. "Lady Eleanor, Lady Blakemore, and I will go upstairs, and—"
He was not able to finish. Another cry of suspicion rang out. Charlie demanded to be included. Maxwell suggested an impartial witness be present in the duke's chambers. Cooper argued about the validity of an unofficial examination. Alton, though his face purpled with the effort, was silent next to him. Marcus and Margaret bickered over manners and whether or not they mattered in such dire instances.
"That will be quite enough," Nora said over the din. She stepped further into the room with her shoulders back, chin high. There was no room in her voice for argument. "It will be me, Lady Blakemore, the Thornton-Spencers, and Mr. Carter who attend the examination. If anyone has a problem with that arrangement, then I ask that you detail your concerns in a written letter that we will forward to Bow Street. Regardless of my findings, I imagine that there has been enough suspicion tonight to warrant a proper investigation once the weather permits."
Her voice was clear, unaffected. Jacob marveled. It was as if she was regularly asked to determine the cause of death of her host. And, incredibly, her measured calm had succeeded where George and Maxwell had failed to gain ground. Besides Alton and Cooper, who still seemed half-convinced that she was both culprit and incompetent, the collective sigh in agreement rivaled the storm outside.
"Me, my lady?" Carter asked after a pause.
"Yes," Nora said plainly. "Or the duke's valet, perhaps. I don't imagine anyone else in the house would be able to tell me if the room is in perfect order."
That half-buried compliment softened the old butler. Moreover, it eased the whisper of misgivings in the room. Jacob, like the men around him, had not considered the utility of a servant in this situation. Carter straightened and nodded, a loyal solider taking orders from a revered general.
"His valet is away this month," Carter said. "I have been attending the duke in his absence."
"Very good," Nora said. Her eyes swept the grim faces of all the men in the library. They narrowed, slightly, when she reached Jacob. "Shall we?"
It was an odd group, the six of them, marching up the grand staircase. Unable to dispense with habit, candle in hand, Mr. Carter led slowly, as if he were showing them to their quarters or, perhaps, giving important guests a tour. Margaret linked arms with Charlie and quietly consoled him. His brother, Jacob realized, was trembling.
It was an odd thing, death. No matter how much the three of them had hated their father, death did not erase the hollow aching fear that remained in the wake of his passing. It did not erase the odd sensation of loss. Not loss for the man, of course. No, Jacob could not find a single memory that might inspire sentimentality, but he felt a loss just the same. It was as if all the years of hurt, the years spent wishing for a better father, resurfaced in new bitterness for the things that might have been.
"Why is the party so convinced this is murder?" Nora asked George softly. At the back of the group, the two had drifted into a quiet pair. Jacob slowed to match their pace, tiled his ear toward their hushed conversation.
"He was old," George said, "but healthy as far as we know. Why else do hale men drop dead?"
From the corner of his eye, Jacob watched Nora frown.
"Even so," she answered. "Leaping to murder seems hasty."
"I suppose it was his toast," George murmured. His face was dark. "After how poorly he spoke of Caroline, there were worries he might have worse still to say."
"No one seemed particularly interested in discussing his toast this morning," Nora said. "I rather thought everyone had forgotten it."
George grimaced. "Plenty of the men discussed it last night, after the ladies retired. I assure you, no one has forgotten."
"Even so, it hardly seems motive for murder."
"You've never met a man who would die before let his reputation be tarnished?" George asked, his face grim. "You don't think your father could be pushed to the impossible if the reputation of his surgery was threatened?"
Nora shook her head. She was firm in her response. "No. I don't."
"Men can do terrible things," George said lowly, "when desperate. I don't think anyone is immune."
Jacob nearly gaped. To hear George speak so seriously violated everything he knew about his brother. You never imagined he'd marry, Jacob reminded himself. And he's gone and done that too. The memory of Nora's smooth voice interrupted his thoughts. Or perhaps people change. Wild George was married and grave. Happy Charlie was maudlin. His once beautiful mother was withering to a shadow. His father had, at least, had had the decency to remain constant.
Their conversation slipped into silence as the group approached the duke's chambers. The door was slightly ajar, as if who'd ever last left had been hasty in their retreat. Jacob imagined it had been one of the servants: who else would have discovered his father's corpse? It was not as if his mother shared their chambers. It was not as if any of the guests would call on the duke privately.
A flickering glow of a fading hearth beckoned them.
With a sharp breath, Charlie suddenly excused himself. "I cannot do this," he said, pulling away from Margaret. He marched away from the duke's chambers, blinking furiously. George frowned and followed him.
"Start without me," he said.
The remaining four nodded, faces solemn, and Carter pushed open the door.
His father's chambers had not changed. From the massive fireplace, embers popped and smoked with the last of their dying fury. It filled the room with an oppressive, hazy warmth that countered the dark paneled walls, the bold, glaring portraits of Thornton-Spencers—and their bold, glaring hounds—long passed. The ornate bed occupied the majority of the room. Thick curtains drawn around the sumptuous coverlet, it cradled an unmoving mass in the center of the bed. If Jacob hadn't known, he might have assumed his father was sleeping.
They stepped into the room.
Yes, he might have assumed his father was sleeping, that was, until the acrid scent of vomit wafted towards him. He swallowed the rising bile in his throat. Margaret, pale as parchment, covered her mouth and excused herself faintly.
"Who discovered the body?" Nora asked softly. Her brow was pinched. Jacob felt it too. There was something haunted and terrible in this place. Something that, if they spoke too loudly, would wake and devour them whole.
"It was me, my lady. Lizzie, one of the housemaids, informed me of his condition," Carter said, as Nora stepped into the center of the room. "The duke had requested tea be brought to his study shortly after retiring, and I sent her up with a tray. When she returned an hour later to clear it, the duke was unwell. "
Nora nodded slowly. Without a trace of embarrassment or squeamishness, she bent over the bed to examine the body. From the threshold, Jacob watched her. It was easier to watch her examination than it was to look at the corpse of his father. The man's skin was yellowish-gray in death, his eyes were unblinking. Nora closed them gently. She looked in his gaping mouth, pressed her ear to his unmoving chest, inspected his fingers. Her eyes searching, she pushed on his abdomen and, to Carter's silent horror, threw back the coverlet to examine his legs.
She frowned.
"He was unwell in what way?"
Carter, if he were capable of it, looked as if he might blush. A lady asking him to detail the bodily functions of a dying man! It must have been his growing affection for Lady Eleanor that allowed him to answer.
He cleared his throat reluctantly before saying, "He was vomiting, my lady."
Jacob wanted to remark that the vomiting, perhaps, was obvious, but Nora did not seem to think the clarification was redundant. She almost seemed to be half-listening as she moved to the basin to wash her hands.
"Did he complain of anything else?" she asked, drying them on an embroidered towel.
"Abdominal pains, my lady. He told Lizzie to fetch your father."
She completed a slow circuit of the room, eyes sweeping across the books and half-finished letters at the writing table. Nora thumbed through the organized chaos, her face smooth. She examined the vases on the mantle, the fibers of the rug beneath their feet. Pausing at the bedside table, Nora searched through the collection bottles there. She lifted each of them, removed their stoppers, and smelled the contents within. Nora frowned.
"I see," Nora murmured, delicately replaced everything she'd touched. Her eyes met Carter's. "He must have been quite affected to have requested my father's presence."
Jacob had the same thought. The duke was not a man who would have willingly allowed anyone to see him vulnerable, much less a man he considered his inferior. Carter seemed to agree.
"As she could not find the Earl of Leighton, Lizzie came to me. I realized that your father had not returned from the village, and went to inform Lord Ashurst," he said, swallowing thickly. Carter paused. "He was in bed, gasping for breath, but I could not rouse him. I—I did not know what else to do. I immediately went to the ballroom to inform Lord George."
Nora did not speak, but nodded encouragingly.
"We returned to find him dead. George attempted to check for a pulse, but—"
"What time was that?"
"I—I'm not certain. Perhaps ten-thirty, or perhaps, eleven o'clock. The guests were still dancing. George had to end the music. He sent the women to their rooms and had the men join him in the library."
Nora frowned. Her eyes still fixed on the bedside table, she asked, "Did the duke retire immediately after dinner?"
"Yes. It was his habit to smoke, or perhaps have glass of brandy, in his private study."
"And how long was it between Lizzie clearing the tea and informing you of the duke's condition?"
His heavy eyebrows knitted together. "I do not know. Minutes, I imagine."
"Did anyone enter this room after you and George left it?"
"Most certainly not!" Carter said. "The duke was very clear about who was allowed to enter his personal chambers, and the guests would know better than to visit this wing of the estate."
Jacob swallowed. The sudden memory of wide brown eyes made him start. Yes, the guests should have known better than to explore the manor on their own, but there had already been innocent transgressions, hadn't there? Or rather, transgressions he'd assumed were innocent.
He met Nora's eye. That stormy gray was dark with grim realization. Jacob attempted to swallow the sudden jump of his heart. His chest was tight with prickling fear. The allegations in the grand library had seemed irrational then, but now?
He could not look at the motionless form of his father.
"Was it murder?" Jacob asked finally.
His voice seemed loud in the dark room.
Nora frowned and stared at the collection of bottles on the bedside table. Her chin dipped a fraction, not in agreement, but as if deciding her answer.
"I can't be certain," Nora said. "But I do fear the duke has indeed been poisoned."