Heart Wounds (A Miranda and Parker Mystery) (9 page)

“
Of course I heard. It’s all over the news. I would think you’d want to come home straight away after such an embarrassment.”

“
I’m sorry if I couldn’t save face for you.” There was another slamming sound.

Wow.
She’d almost walked into a hornet’s nest. Maybe she should go, but her investigator’s nose kept her where she was. They were supposed to find out more about the people around Sir Neville, after all.

“What are you looking for?”
Davinia snapped.

“Your grandfather’s
Cornish whiskey. I need a drink.”

“We used it
up at New Year’s. All the guests had some and there was nothing left after midnight.”

Sir Neville’s weary sigh was audible.

“You haven’t told me why you didn’t come home.” Now Lady Davinia’s voice was a plea.

The sound of it made
Miranda feel as sorry for the woman as she did for her husband. She must be lonely way out here in the country while her husband was getting accolades for his work in London. Though he sure didn’t get any yesterday.

“What could I do?
” Sir Neville said, irritation bubbling in his voice. “The police were at the museum all night. They’ve arrested George Eames.”

“
George? No.” Her tone went from pleading to concerned.

“
I’m glad at least you can see that he’s innocent.”

“Why wouldn’t I?
Of course, he is.”

“Scotland Yard doesn’t think so.”

There was a long pause. Then Davinia spoke again. This time with tenderness. “How dreadful. What are you going to do, Neville?”

“
I don’t know. My only hope is that Wade Parker and Miranda Steele can help.”

Uh oh.

The next few words were muffled then the door opened. Instinct had Miranda stepping behind one of the nearby pillars before she could be seen.

Davinia appeared
in the doorway, dressed in the same rosy outfit she’d worn earlier, her face looking pale and shocked. Holding a lacy handkerchief at her mouth, she took off down the hall in the opposite direction. Miranda decided not to bother her.

She’d
find her way back upstairs and use safety pins for her dress.

They were late.

By the time Miranda
got out of the tub, fluffed up her unruly hair that the weather had made even more of a mess, and managed to get her dress together with some pins, it was almost a quarter after.

Making the best of it, she waltzed down
the stairs on Parker’s arm, both of them all decked out in evening finery, her head high and Parker looking his debonair self.

They found
the other guests had already arrived and were chitchatting away in the great hall, their British accents echoing to the tapestry and arches above. There were plenty of couches and chairs, but everyone was standing in the middle of the antique carpet and they all turned to stare as Miranda and Parker stepped through the doorway.

For an instant,
Miranda wondered how this party would go with the host and hostess at each other’s throats half an hour ago, but Lady Davinia floated over to them with her game face on—or maybe it was her aristocrat face—to act the role of gracious hostess.

Taking Miranda’s arm,
she introduced them, tactfully presenting Parker as the son of Sir Neville’s old friend and Miranda simply as his wife. So despite its being a top news story, the theft of the Marc Antony dagger would be off limits as a conversation topic.

“So much for our plans,” she murmured to Parker under her breath, meaning the plan to find someone other than George Eames with a motive for taking the artifact.

“We’ll have to use the circuitous route,” he replied so low only she could hear him. She was better with the direct approach.

Miranda said her
how-d’ye-dos to Lord and Lady Lovelace and their young daughter, Eunice. They lived in Hindhead, wherever that was, and were tall, thin and had matching receding chins. Next in line was Her Grace, the Duchess of Oxham who was dressed all in lavender and silver brocade, her dark gray hair piled atop her head and accented with a demure tiara, no doubt the woman’s interpretation of “loungewear.”

She curled her nose at Miranda as if she were a dead animal
as she gingerly shook her hand. But the grand lady claimed she was delighted to meet her.

Last but not least was
Lady Gabrielle Eaton, Davinia’s daughter-in-law, a young woman maybe in her mid-twenties with big shimmering green baby-doll eyes and a laugh like sparkling champagne. She had a head of hair thick with short red-gold curls artfully styled to frame her sweetheart face and she wore a deep red, low-cut cocktail dress with lots of shiny bling around the neck.

She was married to Lady Davinia’s son,
Lionel, Lord Eaton, a nice-looking young man who seemed to be in his early thirties. He had dark coloring and a closely trimmed Van Dyke beard, which made him look exceptionally British with his navy blazer and slacks.

They were about to head for the dining room when the butler brought in a late arrival.

“I’m so sorry to be late,” a deep voice bellowed.

Sir Neville
spun toward the door and started. “Trenton! I—I had no idea you were coming tonight.”

“Nor did I.” Lady Davinia’s polite tone hid her
sudden distress.

An imposing figure stood b
eside the butler, towering a head over him, with a girth twice as large. Trenton? Trenton Jewell? Was that the third young man in the photo in George Eames rooms? If he was, like Eames, he’d aged a good bit since then.

He was dressed all in black. His iron-colored hair was combed to the side of his large head and slicked down in an old-fashioned style.
A foreboding crease, probably earned from endless hours of peering into law books, divided his brow in two. Along with his large, sharp nose it gave him the look of a hawk about to seize its prey.

Appropriate for an attorney.

With a frivolous laugh, Lady Gabrielle daintily scampered across the carpet and took the man’s hand. “Hello, Trenton. So good of you to come.” She turned back. “I invited him, Mother. Mr. Jewell is an old friend of the family.” She gave him a wink as she let out another giggle. “He’s gotten me off all those silly citations I got in the city. You know, after I had imbibed a little too much?”

Recovering from the surprise guest, Lady Davinia straightened her shoulders and crossed to Jewell, hand exten
ded. “It seems like ages since you’ve been to Eaton House, Trenton.”

“And so it has.”
Jewell shook the hand in a delicate gesture that made Miranda wonder what his past relationship with Davinia had been.

Davinia
gave her daughter-in-law a scolding scowl whether for not consulting her or the comment about the drinking, Miranda couldn’t tell. Then she turned to the butler. “Tell the cook we’ll be eleven.”

“Very good, m
’um,” he nodded and disappeared into the hall.

From her corner,
the Duchess of Oxham nodded. “Good to see you, Trenton.”

“And you, mad
am. The duchess is also a client of my firm,” he explained to the room.

Sir Neville t
ook his old friend’s arm and led him toward one of the sofas. “Trenton, how good to see you. It’s been ages.”

“
Hasn’t it though, Neville. Or Sir Neville, I should say.”

“
Nonsense. Old friends shouldn’t hold with formalities.” As they passed by, Miranda heard him whisper, “Any progress?”

The crease in his forehead growing deeper, Jewell shook his head. “I’m afraid not yet.”

After a few more minutes of meaningless social chatter, a servant came and whispered something in Lady Davinia’s ear. She put on a broad smile. “Everyone, it seems we’re ready now. Shall we go in?”

They formed a sort of processional, with
Jewell escorting the duchess at the lead and Lady Davinia and Sir Neville taking up the rear, they marched down a winding hall and into the dining room, as if putting on their own little parade.

After navigating through another maze of arches,
Miranda and the group stepped into a rectangular shaped room with a long oak table in the middle with high-backed, elaborately carved chairs. It was set with fine china and glassware and dotted with long candles in silver holders and crystal vases of fragrant blue flowers. Three small chandeliers hung from the ceiling, which was lower than the halls but still way up there.

Needed to be, Miranda thought, to make room for the
huge paintings along the walls. Images of ladies in fancy silk and lace gowns and bearded gentlemen in brocade on horseback in darkened backgrounds. People who must have lived centuries ago, some of them perhaps Eaton ancestors.

They sat at the places marked for them
in a boy-girl-boy-girl pattern with Lady Davinia at one end and Sir Neville at the other. Miranda found herself nearer Davinia’s end sandwiched between Lord Eaton and Lord Lovelace. Parker wound up near the other end.

She didn’t care for that. Not that she couldn’t hold her own with the upper
crust. She’d had plenty of practice doing that since she’d met Parker. But he was always so much more at ease in ritzy social situations.

But when
a door opened and delicious aromas of fancy food began to fill the room, she forgot all about her uneasiness. She remembered all she’d had all day was that awful imitation of a candy bar at the police station and started to salivate like a mad dog.

Servants placed steaming bowls of
something green in front of the guests. Miranda eyed hers carefully when it came. It had leafy things floating in it and looked a little gross but it smelled wonderful.

After figuring out which spoon to use, she dipped it into the thick liquid and ventured a taste. Pea soup
? Zucchini? With a light kick of spice. Yum. She didn’t care what it was. She was tempted to pick up the bowl and slurp the whole serving down in one gulp.

But since she might want some answers from these people
, it was best not to offend them. She glanced over at Parker and caught him watching her with a look of amusement as if he were reading her mind.

She knew he was glad she was eating. H
e cared about things like that. And maybe if she kept her ears peeled, she’d learned something that would help with their investigation.

While
the two Lords on either side of her chatted away about the real estate business Lord Eaton seemed to own, Miranda attacked the soup and finished the whole thing just before the next dish was served.

It was salmon. Flaky and delicate in a
creamy, rich-tasting lemon sauce dotted with capers. Miranda dived in. She was halfway through it when Lionel turned to her as if he’d just noticed her. “So sorry, Ms. Steele. We do go on about our business.”

She paused, fork nearly to her mouth and blinked at him, surprised he was addressing her.
“Oh, no. That’s fine. I don’t mind.”

His brown eyes twinkled.
“Lovelace and I are on the board of a real estate firm,” he explained. “We do luxury properties. You wouldn’t be in the market for a small estate in the country, would you?”

She decided to play dumb and innocent. “Oh, you’d have to talk to my husband about that.”

He chuckled. “I’ll take that as an invitation.”

On the other side of her, Lord Lovelace uttered a very British laugh.
“Eaton, you’re such as salesman. Can’t you give it a rest?”

“You never know who your next customer is going to be, now do you?”

Lovelace shook his head. “I apologize for him, Ms. Steele. And for our weather, too. I know it’s frightful to most Americans.” How smoothly he switched to a neutral topic.

“It’s not so bad.”
She smiled before scooping up the last bite of salmon and putting it in her mouth.

Lionel reached for his wineglass
as the next dish was served. Some sort of poultry leg in a thick brown sauce. “It’s rabbit,” he whispered when he saw her staring at it.

Miranda
picked up her knife and fork and grinned as if she ate it every night. “My favorite.” She took a bite and tasted garlic, red wine and shallots over lean, fresh meat. Delicious.

Lionel studied her for a long moment as he set his glass down and picked up his own fork.
“It must be sunny in—where is it you’re from? Atlanta?”

“Yes. It’s starting to get hot this time of year.” Unlike this conversation.
She really wanted to ask him what he knew about his stepdad’s dagger. “Sun, sun, sun,” she laughed.

He leaned in closer, his Van Dyke beard nearly touching her shoulder. “I know it’s a forbidden topic but my mother isn’t listening right now.”

Lady Davinia was engrossed in a conversation with Trenton Jewell, the lawyer, her face tight and drawn.