“That’s true, Mrs. Rupert. I was asleep too. I heard nothing until there was all the noise in the morning down there. I looked out and—” Her eyes teared.

“That is enough, Susan.” The housekeeper speared Minerva with a glare. “We do not talk about it. You can see how it upsets the servants. I will thank you to show some respect for the dead and not insist on treating this tragedy as a bit of common gossip.”

Minerva gave up and spooned into her stew.

Meal finished and duties calling, the servants rose to leave. Minerva joined them. While bodies grouped and jostled, a subtle tap touched her arm. Beside her Joan averted her eyes but gestured toward the storeroom.

Both of them lagged behind the others. With Mrs. Young gone and the kitchen empty of all but the cook and her helpers, Joan nipped into the storeroom. Minerva followed and shut the door.

“I wasn’t asleep like I said,” Joan whispered.

“Did you hear something? An argument or altercation?”

“Not that. But maybe I heard something. I may a seen something too.” She licked her lips. “I’ve been walking out with one of the footmen, and sometimes, we go up there when it is dark. To talk.”

Minerva nodded encouragingly.

“Everyone knows the duke was fond of doing so too, so we go much later than he would. Only this night, we were up there—talking—and I thought I heard someone else, around the corner, over my chamber. Like a groan, then steps. I told my friend he should finish what he was, um, saying. So we were going back to the stairs, and when we were about to turn the corner the shadows moved there, like the door opened and closed. We waited a good while before slipping back down ourselves.”

“Do you know the time of this?”

“We agreed to meet up there at midnight, and we had talked for a spell.”

“I expect since you had broken house rules you did not tell the magistrate any of this.”

“Not just that. I can’t swear to it, can I? A sound I barely heard and my friend did not, then what looked like someone maybe going to the stairs. The magistrate kept asking if any of us were up there that night and I was scared if I said I was that he would think—he was talking like he wanted to say one of us had done this. I worried that my friend would be accused and hanged on nothing more than what maybe I heard and saw.”

It was an understandable fear. One Minerva sympathized with. Didn’t she herself worry that she would make a convenient person to accuse if her history were known?