Page 76 of All Duke and Bothered

“May I have your attention, please?” he asked.

It came out a bit stiff and formal, but what he had to say was not a matter of jests and laughs.

As Calliope, Richard, and Miss Alexandria came closer, Grandmama shifted in her seat. “What is it, Preston?”

He took Penelope’s hand in his. Only she knew. She, Preston, and the coroner.

“I have something important to tell you,” he said and held up the paper. “This is the coroner’s report of Spencer’s body.”

“Why do you have it now?” asked Calliope, her voice shaking. “We already read it in September.”

“Because this one is different,” Preston said. “It’s from yesterday.”

“Why did the coroner need to make another report?” asked Richard, alarmed. “And how? Spencer is buried.”

“We had to exhume the body, Richard,” said Preston. “Because information came to me recently that it may not have been Spencer that we buried.”

Complete silence fell over the room. Only the coals crackled softly in the grate, and a horse’s hooves clacked against the road in the distance through the open window.

“This is nonsense!” cried Calliope.

“How can this be?” asked Grandmama at the same time.

Only Richard stepped forward, his blue eyes burning. “And?”

Preston’s throat clenched. He knew he was about to turn their worlds upside down just as this report had turned his. “And it is not Spencer.”

Gasps and cries rang through the room. Shock was written on their faces. Calliope clutched her dress. Richard, the perfect gentleman, stood frozen, but Preston saw the storm thundering behind his eyes. Grandmama was breathing hard as she opened her reticule with shaking hands and removed her vinaigrette. She opened the lavishly decorated silver box and inhaled the strong, sharp scent of smelling salts, then let out a gasp and shook her head. Miss Alexandria stared at him with wide eyes.

“Is that for certain?” asked Richard. “How could this have happened?”

“It is certain,” said Preston. “I went in and identified the body myself.”

It hadn’t been a pretty experience, and certainly not something he would speak of in front of the ladies. The man’s body was nothing but skeleton, but that allowed the coroner to study the bones and teeth.

“The body,” he said, “whomever it was, had unhealthy, cracked yellow teeth, and he was missing exactly two of them.”

“Spencer always took good care of his teeth,” said Richard. “He had fine teeth and wasn’t missing any.”

“Precisely,” said Preston. “Besides, this body had a broken ankle that had healed poorly, and the coroner wrote that the person likely had a limp.”

“Spencer didn’t limp,” said Calliope.

“Whoever it was, he had been dressed in Spencer’s clothes,” said Preston. “The coroner had never met Spencer or seen his likeness, and the face had been so bruised and swollen it would have been hard to recognize him anyway. That is why the coroner didn’t give it another thought in September.”

Calliope held on to Richard’s arm. “Wait, Preston, if it’s not Spencer who’s buried there…could our brother be still alive?”

Penelope’s hand squeezed his tighter. That was what they had talked about since last night when he’d told her this news. It was exactly the thought he kept turning over in his mind.

“It is one possibility, yes,” said Preston.

“It is the only possibility!” cried Calliope.

“No, sister,” said Preston. “I am sorry, but another possibility is that he could be dead and mistaken as this man…or just as some pauper who was killed in a brawl.”

“Well, I refuse to believe in that possibility,” announced Richard.

“So do I,” said Grandmama.