Free Deadly Inheritance by Janet Laurence Page A

returned, he was stuffing a scrap of fabric into a pocket. ‘Right, Miss Grandison, let’s get you back to Mountstanton. I’d better take the dog, otherwise she might not be able to keep up. Can you hold her whilst I mount? Then you can explain exactly why you think that piece of material is important.’
    * * *
    Back at the house, Albert and James, two of the Mountstanton footmen, were waiting in the stable yard. They would, Ursula was informed, carry her upstairs to her room with their hands locked together in what she was informed was a ‘bosun’s chair’.
    ‘You should be safe enough like that,’ the Colonel said, helping her to dismount.
    Then Harry clattered up on his pony, with Mrs Comfort puffing hard as she followed behind. She greeted Colonel Stanhope with an unaffected warmth.
    ‘Uncle Charles, how splendid,’ Harry said eagerly.
    He nodded, ‘Good to see you, young Harry. How you’ve grown! Been riding, have you?’
    ‘I jumped lots of fences and I only fell off once.’
    ‘Excellent! You are obviously going to be as great a rider as your papa. Now, I think you should see that your pony is properly rubbed down.’
    The boy dismounted and took the animal into the stables.
    The Colonel turned his attention to the nanny. ‘Mrs Comfort, I’m delighted to see you again. I’m afraid, though, that something tragic has happened. I wonder if you recognise this piece of material?’ He handed her the scrap of cloth he had pocketed beside the river.
    ‘I don’t know why you should think I might know anything about this.’ Mrs Comfort held the drenched rag distastefully. The Colonel was silent. Ursula watched her carefully.
    ‘Oh, my lord, it looks like …’ She screwed up her eyes then gave a cry. ‘Yes, Polly has a dress made of just this stuff.’ She looked up at the Colonel. ‘You said something tragic has happened. Do you mean that Polly …’ her voice wobbled and failed.
    ‘A moment, please, whilst I see Miss Grandison taken to her room.’ The Colonel swiftly checked the footmen’s grip then helped Ursula to sit on the linked hands and place her arms round their shoulders. ‘Right, take her upstairs, and see that the crutches I asked for are there.’
    ‘But, Polly?’ wailed Mrs Comfort.
    The two footmen looked at each other across Ursula. Their usually poker faces expressed profound shock.
    ‘Take her inside now.’ Authority quenched any possibility of enquiry.
    Without a word, Ursula was carried into the house and up the stairs.

Chapter Eight
    With extraordinary deftness, Ursula was lowered onto her bed.
    ‘Here are the crutches the Colonel asked for.’
    They were lying against the only seating in the room, a little upright chair. Albert placed one on the bed beside Ursula. ‘Is there anything else you require, Miss Grandison?’
    His manner was unusually subdued. Ursula thought how devastating the news of the girl’s death must have been; she was someone they had lived with, seen every day. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. All she wanted now was to be left alone. Her ankle was aching, so was her badly-bruised body, and her mind reeled from the impact of her discovery.
    She remained sitting upright on the bed until the door closed behind the servants, then she lay down, pulled up her knees into a foetal position and closed her eyes. She shivered with cold, but dragging the bedcover over herself was more than she could manage.
    Some time later Mrs Parsons knocked and entered. ‘Doctor Mason has arrived. Colonel Charles sent for him. May he come in, Miss Grandison?’
    Ursula pulled herself into a sitting position again. Was there anything the Colonel had not thought of?
    Doctor Mason was a tall, thin man with grey hair and cadaverous cheeks. His manner was nicely deferential without being obsequious. As he investigated her damaged ankle, causing her considerable pain, Ursula wondered if he modified his approach according to the rank of his patient.
    ‘It does not seem to be