Read Online The Masterful Mr. Montague by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online

then grasped the tray’s handles. Tilly hefted the tray. Perennially cheerful, she’d been with Lady Halstead for decades, far longer than Violet or Cook. Looking at Violet, Tilly beamed. “Lead the way.”
    Exchanging a quick smile and a good morning with Cook—a short, rotund, older woman with corkscrew red curls bound back with a white scarf—Violet held open the kitchen door, waved Tilly through, then followed and, as directed, took the lead through the hallway and up the stairs.
    Tilly trudged heavily but happily at her heels. “Hope her ladyship slept a trifle better last night.”
    “Indeed. I’m hoping that Mr. Montague will return soon and set her mind at rest. She’s still fretting over those odd payments.” Violet didn’t hesitate over mentioning the payments to Tilly; Lady Halstead herself had shared the information with her longtime maid.
    Reaching the first floor, Violet went along the corridor to Lady Halstead’s door. She tapped. “Lady Halstead?” No answer came, but that wasn’t uncommon. Despite her sometimes disturbed slumber, Lady Halstead adhered to a rigid regimen and expected to be woken and supplied with her breakfast tray at eight o’clock sharp. Sharing a resigned look with Tilly—if it had been left to them, they would have let the old lady sleep—Violet opened the door and went in.
    As usual, the room was drenched in gloomy shadow; Violet crossed to the window to draw back the heavy curtains.
    Tilly followed Violet over the threshold but halted just inside the door, waiting patiently until she could better see.
    Violet smoothly drew one curtain, then the other, wide and turned to the bed. “Good morning, your ladyship.”
    Violet halted, not quite sure what she was seeing.
    Tilly, taller and closer to the bed, had a clearer view. “Oh, my God!”
    A sharp rattle of crockery broke the silence as Tilly shook and the cup on the tray rattled. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God .” In a fluster, Tilly swung around, saw the tallboy, and rushed to set the tray down upon it. Then she whirled and hurried to the bed—just as Violet did the same on the other side.
    Stunned, shocked, barely able to breathe, Violet looked down at Lady Halstead. The old lady’s eyes were closed, but her mouth was open, her jaws wide, as if she’d been shouting. Or screaming.
    Her arms, Violet saw, were oddly splayed, and her hands lay lax on the covers, gnarled fingers crooked, as if she’d been clutching, seizing. Her legs, too, weak though they’d been, had churned beneath the sheets.
    That Lady Halstead was dead Violet did not doubt. But her ladyship hadn’t died peacefully.
    Tilly put Violet’s thoughts into words. “I knew she’d go, and probably soon, but I didn’t think she’d go like this.”
    Violet forced herself to look, to see what was before her. “Tilly—this isn’t how she should look, is it? Not if she went quietly in her sleep.”
    Tilly audibly gulped. Her eyes locked on her mistress’s face, she murmured, “You’re thinking the same as I am. She was murdered, wasn’t she?”
    “Look at the top pillow. No—don’t touch. But see how it’s been stuffed under her head? That’s why her head is at that odd angle. But she never sleeps with that many pillows—she wouldn’t have put it there herself.” Violet glanced at the chair by the bed. “When I left her last night, that pillow was on the chair.”
    “We have to call the doctor.” Tilly wrapped her arms tightly about herself. “That’s what you’re supposed to do with a death these days.”
    Violet’s wits were whirling, but she knew well enough how matters would proceed. “If we just call the doctor”—looking up, she met Tilly’s wide eyes—“he’ll say she was old, that she died in her sleep, because he’ll know the family will be furious if he declares this a murder.”
    Tilly blinked, then her jaw firmed and she nodded. “Aye, that he will, weak weasel that he is. And none of the family will care, will