Death at Bishop's Keep by Robin Paige Read Free Book Online

was walking, as Uncle O’Malley would have said, as blind as a bat. In spite of her intuitive liking for her companion, her own railway confidences had been discreetly reserved. She was anxious to know whether Bishop’s Keep was indeed as romantic as she imagined, but she had not asked. Nor had she disclosed either her secretarial employment or the existence of Beryl Bardwell. And she had asked nothing about her aunt, leaving it to Miss Marsden to think what she wished.
    â€œCharmed, I am sure, Miss Ardleigh,” Bradford Marsden drawled, bending in a polished greeting over her hand. “How nice that you have come.” He cocked a wry eyebrow. “And how felicitous for Eleanor. Now she will have a friend directly at hand. No doubt you will be required to properly admire her nuptial finery and envy her choice of husbands. Most of her friends, regrettably, fail to serve these necessary purposes, for they live in London. You will certainly be useful.”
    â€œI am glad to share Miss Marsden’s joys,” Kate said quietly, retrieving her hand.
    Miss Marsden made a playful face. “Come now, Bradford, do behave.” She turned to the other gentleman, who stood slightly behind her brother. “Sir Charles Sheridan, my dear Kathryn, is a masterful photographer, famous for some picture or other that he took of the Queen at her Jubilee, and thereby earned his knighthood. You will have to persuade him to take your portrait, as he did the Queen’s, and Mrs. Langtry’s. But don’t let him talk to you of fossils,” she added with a playful gaiety. “Once given leave to begin, the man scarcely knows how to make a stop, and must be reined in with the firmest possible hand.”
    Kate nodded at Sir Charles with interest, half expecting him to wear some visible token of his grandness. But as a knight, he was a stunning disappointment, especially in comparison to the impeccably groomed, grinning Bradford Marsden. Sir Charles’s brown canvas jacket needed brushing. It was covered with lumpy pockets, stuffed, from what she could see, with odds and ends of scientific paraphernalia—magnifying lens, an ivory rule, a pair of calipers. His tweedy Norfolk breeches were tucked into scarred, heavy-soled leather boots, and a soft felt hat, a broad-brimmed, brown thing with a shapeless crown, was pushed back on his curly brown hair, cut overlong, so that he looked like a buccaneer. From the look of him, Kate deduced that his knighthood was not a distinction he valued highly.
    â€œKathryn—” Miss Marsden took her arm. “May I call you Kathryn, my dear? And you really must call me Eleanor. I require it. It is so tedious to be formal.” Without waiting for a response, she went on. “Dear Kathryn has arrived a day sooner than expected, so I have offered to take her to Bishop’s Keep.”
    Mr. Marsden pursed his lips. “But my dear sister, I fear that five is too many, given your monstrous load of parcels.”
    Kate disengaged her arm. “I can wait here,” she said hastily. “I can send word to Bishop’s Keep to let them know I have arrived, and someone will be sent to fetch me. I shall not mind staying, truly.”
    She would not, either. Beryl Bardwell would spend the time writing down everything she had seen on the clanking, steam-belching journey from London to Colchester and as much of Eleanor’s chitchat as she could remember, as well as full descriptions of the elegant Bradford Marsden and Sir Charles Sheridan, he of the lumpy pockets. And she would give her thoughts to what adventures and great mysteries lay ahead at Bishop’s Keep, which she imagined as an enormous stone pile of arches and towers, shrouded by a mysterious haze and haunted by ghosts of dead Ardleighs. Now that she was almost there, she had to admit to some anxiety. The sense of being alone in a strange place, so distant from the life she had known, the feeling