Free The Irish Manor House Murder by Dicey Deere Page A

of his new Cooking with Herbs cookbook.
    Just coming in, Torrey said, “Hmmm?” It was cozy inside, and she pulled off her sweater and walked about. “What’s this?” She lifted a cover from the iron pot on the stove. Awful-looking stuff, smelling heavenly. She stood absentmindedly holding the cover, thinking: Scott.
    Scott. How long ago had Scott found out that Rowena was pregnant? Had Rowena told him? And was Scott helping Rowena with this illegal abortion only because he was her brother? Scott was a dark card.
    Torrey frowned, then shivered involuntarily. Whisper. That scandal sheet in Dublin. There had been innuendos in yesterday’s Whisper, salacious hints about Rowena, since a little girl the darling of her grandfather. The sexually used darling? And now, finally, an explosion of rage culminating in the murder of Dr. Ashenden. Hints in the gossip column. Nothing outright, but —
    “That ladle on your right, hand it to me, will you. Torrey? Torrey! Wake up!”
    “Oh, here.”
    Salacious Whisper. Speculation. The sort of rumor that, burgeoning, had led to the conviction of many an innocent in a case of murder.
    “If I snap my fingers, will you come out of it and be with me? ” Jasper said loudly. “And rule one: Never lift a cover from another cook’s pot without asking.”
    No, of course not. It was Rowena’s pot. Her secrets were her secrets. Pregnant Rowena. Pregnant by whom?
    And worse —
    “Move over, my pretty. I want to warm the plates in the oven.”
    Worse, Inspector O’Hare must be hearing and reading the speculations. O’Hare was no fool. Behind the scenes he was industriously building a murder case against Rowena. Incest. O’Hare would seize on it. Revenge. Whisper had mentioned a case of a forty-year-old woman in Longford who’d axed her stepfather for using her thirty years earlier.
    But Dr. Gerald Ashenden’s killer could have had any of a number of possible motives, right? There was murder because of psychotic imaginings. And murder out of jealousy. Hate. Lust. And the most common of all: murder for money. Money.
    Torrey paused her pacing. Money. She was seeing Jennie O’Shea coming into Rowena’s room just as Torrey was leaving. “A meeting in the library before dinner, Ms. Rowena. No, Ms. Rowena, I don’t know, Mr. Scott didn’t say. But he called Dr. Collins to come over. Something about a will, Dr. Ashenden’s will. I was coming from the pantry.”
    “Chervil,” Jasper said. “Smell this.” He was holding something green and pungent under Torrey’s nose.
    “Very like … parsley? The Italian kind?” She smiled unseeingly at Jasper. Under the circumstances, Dr. Ashenden’s will would be very interesting.

25
    It was chilly and damp in the stable at Castle Moore, making the smell of hay and horse more pungent. It was ten in the morning. In Fast Forward’s stall, Torrey watched as Rowena pulled the hackle again and again through the horse’s tail, ridding it of bits of straw and loose hairs. Rowena looked tired. Twice, she’d stopped to rest her arm and just stood, blowing out a breath. Her face was strained. The red curls that fell across her forehead were wet with sweat, and sweat glistened on her neck. Yet it was cold enough in the stall for the horse, snorting now and again, to breathe out a white vapor. And Rowena was wearing only jeans and an old blue shirt.
    “What I meant was,” Torrey said, “if your grandfather left a will, it might indicate something. Or somebody that —”
    “I know what you meant,” Rowena said tiredly. Her hand holding the hackle stopped. Her green eyes were bloodshot. “Look in my jacket on that nail. Left-hand pocket. We all met in the library for a reading. Scott had made copies of the will for each of us, like some kind of festivity, with him handing out party favors.”
    Torrey took the document from the jacket pocket and unfolded it. Only two pages. She read it carefully: To Caroline Keegan, Ashenden Manor and all the