“No! If Margaret was in love with my father, she successfully kept it from me. And very likely from him as well. She was ambitious, I grant you, but she also understood that scandal of any kind was political fodder. Margaret was very like my father, you know, not a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. The pair of them would make very dull lovers!”

And yet Shaw had said he saw passion, hot and raw, in Napier’s eyes.

“Why had Miss Tarlton chosen to leave your employ? I’ve been given several reasons for her decision, but I’d very much like to hear the truth.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “She wanted a change. The museum reminded her of India, possibly. Or she was tired of London.”

“She carefully concealed her Indian background, Miss Napier. I don’t believe she would elect to come here to Charlbury and open that door again. Nor was Dorset likely to foster an ambitious young woman’s prospects. I think you persuaded her to come, to give yourself an excuse to call on Simon Wyatt from time to time. I’m sure that’s why you felt some sense of guilt when you were told Margaret was dead—”

“I wouldn’t—”

“But you would. You’ve come now yourself and you’re staying. A foot in the door. Still, your motives aren’t important. What matters is why Margaret agreed to your scheme. Was she happy for an excuse to break her ties with you, to leave London and to put some distance between herself and your father? Or, if she wanted to marry him, she must have realized that he wouldn’t ask her as long as she was a nobody, your secretary, vulnerable to cruelties from women who took pleasure in reminding her of her place. Even moving to another house hadn’t changed that. She was, as she put it herself, still a servant.” He smiled, to take some of the sting from his words. “She wouldn’t be the first woman to feel that leaving him might make up a man’s mind for him. He was already jealous, he knew that Captain Shaw was living here. He must have told her he was afraid she’d rekindle that old romance, that Shaw might persuade her that a ring on her finger was better than the shadowy life of a mistress—”

“Nonsense!” Elizabeth’s face was flushed with anger. “You’ve twisted the truth to fit your own muddled evidence! She was never my father’s mistress!”

Rutledge turned to her. “I don’t intend to embarrass you or your father, Miss Napier. I simply want the truth so that I can sort out the rest of this tangle and find Miss Tarlton’s killer. And I think I have found the truth, finally.”