Julian grimaced, Felix looked tired, and Damian looked faintly disgusted.
“That’s…an appalling, but unfortunately valid question.” Damian frowned. “Is there any way we can tell?”
Julian looked at Melissa.
From her pocket, she drew out the list she’d made of the recently hired staff and held it out to him.
He took it, unfolded the sheet, spread it on the desk, and scanned it. “We still have nine possibilities and no reason we know of to suspect any are X’s pawns.”
Felix sat up. “The names?”
“Biggins and Walter, both stablemen, Carter, the groundsman, Richards and Cantrell, two footmen, Benton, a senior housemaid, Polly Fisher and Enid Wise, junior maids, and last but possibly not least, the scullery boy, Billy.” Julian looked up. “I’m sure Edgerton will be keeping an eye on Carter, and Hockey will be doing the same with Biggins and Walter.”
Melissa added, “The Phelpses will watch the others as well as they can, but with that number and given the sort of work the indoor staff do, spread all over the house, it’ll be harder for the Phelpses to ensure that none of those six indoor staff have a chance to set one of X’s schemes in motion.”
Grim once more, Julian said, “How X communicates with his pawns is another avenue we ought to pursue, but until we identify X and put a stop to this madness, I suggest we all remain very much on guard.”
The others nodded, and Felix somewhat morosely observed, “Sadly, this isn’t over yet.”
The following afternoon, Melissa and Julian went for a postprandial stroll in the gardens. They ambled across the lawns hand in hand, paused to admire the loggia, currently dripping with white and blue and mauve wisteria blossoms, then walked on, avoiding the shrubbery in favor of making for the bucolic peace of the orchard beyond.
Melissa tipped her head back, allowing the sun to find her face beneath the brim of her favorite straw hat. After the dip in the lake, Jolene had worked wonders, steaming the hat until it was close to its original shape.
Since waking, Melissa had made a conscious effort not to allude to the metaphorical sword hanging over their heads. She’d just opened her lips to inquire about local festivals when the sound of striding footsteps drew her and Julian’s heads around.
Felix was walking swiftly toward them. He saw them watching him and waved. “No crisis,” he called.
They waited, and when he was close enough to converse, he explained, “I wanted to get some air myself, and in light of the promise we all made over the breakfast table to go nowhere alone, I’ve come to tag along.” He halted before them, looked from one to the other, and belatedly added, “If you don’t mind?”
Melissa laughed, and Julian smiled and waved at Felix to join them.
He fell in on Melissa’s other side and matched her pace—essentially screening her from that direction, just as Julian was blocking any attack from the other side. She hid a grin. While Julian was increasingly and demonstrably protective of her, so, too, was Felix—he was just a trifle more cautious about showing it.
They left the high hedges of the shrubbery behind, crossed a garden lane, and reached the low stone wall that surrounded the orchard. It was the first time she’d had a chance to study the trees. Resting both hands on the waist-high wall, she scanned the enclosure. “I hadn’t realized the orchard was so large.” There were dozens and dozens of trees.
“There’re over fifty trees,” Felix informed her. “Apples, pears, cherries, quinces, greengage, damson, and there’s nut trees, too.”
Smiling, Julian leaned a hip against the wall. “Felix was always the fruit-mad one. Cook preserves the greengages just for him.”
“Well”—Felix shot him a superior look—“I appreciate them. You and Damian were always philistines when it came to fruit.”
Melissa laughed.
A high-pitched whine cut through the summer stillness.
She stepped back from the wall and looked toward an old barn that stood twenty yards past the side of the orchard. “Did you hear that?”
A volley of frantic yips answered her.
Felix had turned to look that way. “That’s coming from inside the barn.”
Frowning, Julian glanced at Melissa. “That sounds like Ulysses—a young dog and not one of our hounds, either. As far as I know, Ulysses is the only dog at the castle likely to yelp like that.”
“Ulysses?” Melissa called.
Another round of yips, this time more excited, replied.
“That does sound like him.” Mystified, she started toward the barn. “But when I went upstairs to get my hat, he was fast asleep on his blanket in my room, and I left him there. Jolene said she’d fetch him later and take him for a walk.”
