Sally carried away a pile of wet clothes at arm’s length, leaving Lou to pace up and down, ploughing her way through the field of facts she had learned. The coroner may have returned verdicts of accidental death to spare the Mandevilles the scandal of two suicides in the space of a year, but all the evidence pointed to the demise of Sir Charles and Charlotte being anything but accidental. Surely the only reason Charlotte married the cousin she loathed was because the Caxton wealth had provided a lifeline for the Mandevilles after the death of Sir Charles.

Lou stopped pacing and pressed her forehead to the cold glass of the windowpane. What deal gone wrong could possibly have made Sir Charles throw away his life? The full story behind his suicide was the missing piece of the puzzle. Not that she needed proof; her gut told her that the missing piece was the exact shape and size of George Caxton. He tainted everything, his poison oozing from every crack and fissure in the lives of the Mandevilles.

Sir Charles and Charlotte were the most positive members of their family, and the least likely to do anything as awful as taking their own lives. Neither of them would have considered leaving the Mandevilles at George’s mercy, had they not been absolutely desperate. There had to be a link between their deaths, it was just waiting somewhere in the archives for her to find. There was nothing for it; when the opportunity presented itself tomorrow, she would slip away and go back to the library to dig up a barrow load of dirt on George.

The dinner gong rang, and Lou was the first to arrive in the drawing room. She accepted a glass of sherry from William’s tray as Charlotte entered the room along with Mrs Hart and Edward.

‘Louisa!’ Charlotte exclaimed, rushing to her. ‘Where have you been? We waited for you at tea this afternoon. Nobody knew where you were, and I had begun to worry about you.’

‘You mustn’t mind Charlotte, Louisa,’ Mrs Hart said, thanking William as she accepted a glass of sherry. She took a seat beside the fire, next to Edward. ‘Charlotte, dear, there is no call for high drama. You must understand that there are times when some of us prefer to pass an afternoon in our own company without the intrusion of others.’

‘But where on earth were you?’ Charlotte pressed, her aunt’s words having no effect. ‘I looked everywhere and asked everybody, but nobody had seen you.’

Lou tried to smile, but the muscles in her face refused to work. She wanted to grab Charlotte and warn her about George Caxton. ‘I went for a long walk,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Where to? Timbuktu?’

Lou spun around with such haste that a wave of sherry spilled from her glass.

‘Tom,’ Charlotte said, taking her brother’s hand, ‘Louisa is here. I told you she would come back. She only went for a walk. So, you see, there was nothing to worry about after all.’