Page 26 of A Most Inconvenient Murder

With a gasp, Elizabeth’s mind snapped back to the moment in the maze when Lady Catherine held up the fragment of paper found clutched in Mrs. Blackstone’s dead hand.

Lady Catherine had declared it blank.

Elizabeth had seen it earlier between Mrs. Blackstone’s fingers, therefore she knew it was not trulyblank. There had been ink there, and Elizabeth had read “…ackstone” on it.

However, the writing was illegible by the time the paper was pried from Mrs. Blackstone’s hand and given over to Lady Catherine.

Could this be the remainder of that page?

Reviewing that morning, she distinctly remembered going to the maze on purpose to read Mr. Darcy’s letter. After finding Mrs. Blackstone, she dropped it, then later retrieved it from the ground.

In her state of panic at that time, had she also picked upthis? Folded the pages together and placed all three sheets in her pocket?

Hands shaking as she set aside Mr. Darcy’s letter, she held the third blue-tinted page close to the candle. She could tell the handwriting was small even though much of it had been smudged by dew and fog. Still, she could make out a few phrases: “no forgiveness,” “cannot remain silent,” “all depends on your discretion.” And at the bottom, a signature, or the ghost of one: “F— L—.”

The sense of loss over this ruined clue was overwhelming, and for a moment she hated its cruelty.

It had to be Mr. Lorrimer, Mrs. Blackstone’s cousin.

Was this another threat? Perhaps a plea or an ultimatum?

A chill ran up her spine, less from fear than from the thrill of the puzzle snapping into partial, unsatisfactory focus.

She laid the ruined letter flat on the bed, staring at the unreadable lines, the obscured sentences.

The only reason she could think of that Mrs. Blackstone had gripped the scrap so tightly was to keep her attacker from taking it from her. It might have been her last hope that his identity would be discovered from this.

Elizabeth pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, as if she could reconstruct the smeared ink by sheer force of will.

Realizing it was of no use, she dropped her hand to her lap and looked at it once more.

She tilted her head. Something about it looked…strange.

Taking hold of the letter she had taken from Mrs. Blackstone’s collection, she opened it and spread it flat next to it.

Bringing the candle closer, Elizabeth squinted her eyes and looked back and forth between the pages. The F and L were similar, as were all the other letters, but something about it was not the same.

It was the angle! The handwriting angle differed between the two letters.

Scurrying off the bed, she took Jane’s letters from a drawer. Unfolding several, she spread them out on the quilt, examining the writing itself without paying any mind to the content.

Though Jane’s handwriting was sometimes a little less neat, the angle of her handwriting was always the same. The way she made her letters… the same.

But Jane would have taken the time to arrange the paper at the proper angle, too.

Could this be a forgery? Or had Mr. Lorrimer laid down the paper at a peculiar angle when he wrote it?

She sighed. Was there a way to find out?

Refolding Jane’s letters, she tied the ribbon and put them away.

Only then did she remember Mr. Darcy’s letter, waiting there for her to read.

The urge to open it was completely gone.

Sighing once more, she realized she did not wish to risk destroying their newfound accord. On the subject of Mrs. Blackstone’s death, at least, he believed as she did—that it was not self-inflicted. Their collaboration was effective and efficient in bringing to justice the individual responsible for this death.

If his letter, written in anger, caused Elizabeth’s fragile new opinion of him to return to what it was before, it would ruin everything.