Page 3 of A Most Inconvenient Murder

Elizabeth blinked several times, as if doing so would erase the words from the page.

What would he have thought if her sister had shown her real feelings for Mr. Bingley, for all to see? Would he not have criticized her for being too forward?

Anger was too mild a word for what she felt at this moment.

She made a few exclamations, then read it again, more slowly this time. By the time she finished her second pass, her hands trembled; whether from cold or emotion she could not say. As she finally turned the page over, she decided to pace a bit to warm herself and expel a portion of her exasperation before continuing.

Rising from the bench, she headed left around the fountain. The moss under her shoes was slick, prompting her to grab hold of the cold marble with one hand.

While steadying herself, she noticed what she had not seen upon entering: on the far side of the basin was something barely visible above the lip. The form was swathed in a shade of rose in style just now, quite inconsistent with the green and gray of the surrounding area. For a split second, her mind supplied anexplanation: perhaps it was a lady’s scarf or glove, carelessly placed on the fountain’s edge and forgotten.

However, it lookedwrong.

Elizabeth moved further around the fountain, letter still in hand. As she approached, the shape resolved itself with devastating clarity.

It was a woman, seated—or rather, folded—against the curved wall of the fountain, her dress splayed about her as if she had sunk from exhaustion. One arm hung at an unnatural angle. Her rose-colored bonnet was askew; the ribbons half-unwound and trailing down to the dead leaves around her. Her brown hair lay across her cheek in a way that was not at all intentional. The skin was very flushed, almost matching the color of her hat.

Elizabeth’s first, wild thought was that the woman had fainted, perhaps overcome by a headache similar to the one that had afflicted her.

But even as the thought formed, it dissolved. The position was unnatural. The stillness was too perfect, too total.

It was the posture of death.

Her letter fluttered from her fingers.

She reached the woman in two quick steps and crouched, ignoring the dampness that chilled her knees.

A splash of color on the woman’s chin caught Elizabeth’s attention, but she was distracted by her lips being a peculiar cherry-red. Eyes wide, the woman looked upward; her expression spoke of glimpsing something astonishing in her final moments.

Elizabeth’s heart hammered in her ears. She reached for the woman’s hand, intending… what? She did not know; to rouse her, perhaps? Offer comfort?

Confirm a conclusion of which she was already certain?

The hand was cold and stiff; the gloved fingers closed in a desperate clutch around an object Elizabeth could not at first identify. It was thin and irregular, mayhap a scrap of paper.

Elizabeth forced herself to look closer. The object was a torn piece of stationery, its edges jagged. There was ink on it, but the death-grip of the hand obscured the words. Elizabeth could make out only the end: “...ackstone.”

The name sent a shock through her. She had heard it only recently. Not only had Miss Anne de Bourgh mentioned it when she and Charlotte had gone to Rosings for tea, but Charlotte had also mentioned that the woman had come to see her only yesterday.

Miss Diane Blackstone was the companion to a lady at the nearby estate of Willow Grange.

Mrs. Blackstone ought not to be inside the hedge maze at Rosings Park at all, let alone should she have died there.

Elizabeth staggered back, bile rising in her throat.

The horror was not in the death itself; she had seen death before and had never flinched. The horror was in the absurdity of Elizabeth’s own experience… as if fate had decided that one improbable event in the last day was not sufficient, and had provided a second, ghastlier incident, only to eclipse the first.

She heard herself make a wailing sound, high and sharp. It echoed in the yew walls. For a moment, she feared it might carry all the way to Rosings or Hunsford Cottage, summoning Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine and the whole weight of the social order to descend upon her at the very moment she least wished to be observed.

The sound faded. The maze was as silent as ever.

As she stood there, a stiff breeze blew through the branches of the yews. Papers fluttered around Mrs. Blackstone, the vision spurring Elizabeth to remember Mr. Darcy’s letter.

Bending, she collected the pages. Something about them seemed wrong somehow, difficult to fold, but she knew she could not allow anyone else to find these pages.

Folding the papers into her inner pocket, Elizabeth leaned forward once more and closed Mrs. Blackstone’s eyes.

Knees shaking, she perched on the bench, stared at the fountain, which from this vantage point blocked the sight of Mrs. Blackstone… hoping to find the will to move again.