Birds of a Feather: 3: Fly the Nest (Bennett Sisters Mysteries Book 16) by Lise McClendon (free novel 24 .txt) 📕

it appears that Pauline— whose actual name is Agnés Loup and is wanted for leaving France without permission after her domestic assault conviction—” He let that sink in to those who hadn’t heard it yet, then continued. “—Agnés is the biological daughter of Gabriel Tremblay.”

A murmur went through the group. Questions arose from several. Finally Isabelle’s voice came through the loudest. “What is she doing here then? How did she get Duncan to bring her here?”

Pascal shrugged. “Somehow she insinuated herself into his life.”

Evans stood up, frowning. “So she knew Gabriel and Sabine were coming here? How could she? We didn’t even know.”

Pascal nodded. “That one we figured out. It was through the agency, Louis Bordeaux, who arranged for Audette and Gini to accompany them here, for the food to be delivered, all the arrangements. Sabine was not organized enough for that. She needed Louis and his French girls. Pauline also works for Bordeaux.”

Isabelle blinked, agitated. “I must wake up Duncan. She is drugging him.” She ran out of the room and up the stairs.

Evans looked baffled. “Drugging him?”

“We found sedatives in her room,” Conor said. “That’s why he’s been sleeping so much.”

“But why?” his father asked.

“Maybe he figured her out,” Elise proposed.

“We’ll know once he wakes up,” Conor said.

Evans looked around the room at his brother’s astonished face, his son’s resigned one. Then he rushed toward the hall, a picture of paternal concern. “She might need some help,” he muttered as he ran up the stairs after his wife.

Ten minutes later Evans returned, ashen-faced, standing in the door of the drawing room. Conversation paused. He looked around the room, found Conor’s eye, then Pascal’s, then his brother Richard’s. He raised his hand, holding something in a white handkerchief.

It was a kitchen knife.

“This—“ He gulped and straightened his shoulders. “This was under Duncan’s pillow.”

Epilogue

Twelfth Night

“One more day and she’d have absolutely given us the slip.”

The Albions, Bennetts, and Pascal d’Onscon sat around the big dining table littered with plates, glasses, and crumbs. The long dinner, the réveillon, was almost done. ‘Delicious’ was the verdict.

It had begun at nine o’clock, as an antidote to the excitement of the arrest of Pauline/Agnés. She had gone unwillingly, handcuffed, kicking, and shrieking. She later broke down and confessed, according to communications from the Detective Inspector, to some aspects of the death of Sabine. Many questions remained but they were discussed, dissected, and dismembered, along with various dishes of French cuisine.

“What was this called again?” Elise asked, holding a fork full of something creamy and smooth.

“Celeriac and parsnips,” Cecily answered. “Mashed with truffle butter. My contribution.”

“It is divine,” Elise declared, eyes wide as she popped a bite into her mouth.

“I could eat it all day long,” Merle agreed.

The meal had begun with five courses of entrées— appetizers— ranging from salmon roe on sliced carrots to green olive tapenade on cucumbers. “Just enough veg to get you started,” Freddy exclaimed happily.

The last big meal of the holiday was always a way to use up all the food in the pantry and fridge, according to Isabelle. It was very French to concoct ways to use every scrap of food. She had instructed the chef on various techniques she’d used in the past but was pleasantly surprised with Audette’s innovations. Plus she knew many French recipes by heart, making the long, celebratory meal less stressful for the kitchen staff.

Matching this ‘Last Supper’ to the réveillon was declared a genius move by all. The spreading out of each course from the previous one allowed digestion to proceed naturally, Isabelle told them. And for the wine pairing, Aubrey explained. The children had gone to bed, thankfully, as the dessert courses were not due until midnight.

A small slice of tender duck breast with raspberry coulis was followed by fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade, then a taste of foie gras on toast points and a flute of champagne. Later there was the boeuf bourguignon and the celeriac and parsnips mash. Elise and Merle had both tried to pace themselves to make it through the enormous meal, taking small bites like a tasting menu, trying to last until the end.

Midway through the réveillon— which conspicuously did not include oysters this time— there was ‘la pause’ for digestion and a discussion of the events of the week.

“What the dickens,” Freddy asked, “was Pauline playing at with Duncan? And where is he anyway?”

“I took him up some supper,” Isabelle said. “He’s still groggy. Pauline was giving him sedatives to keep him in bed, hiding the knife in the pillowcase. She must have hoped no one would search there.”

“It fell out when I flipped the pillow over,” Evans said, still a bit shocked by the discovery.

“But how did she manage to wangle an invitation with Duncan?” Freddy insisted.

Pascal sat back, hands on his stuffed stomach. “Well, I heard she confessed to tricking him into believing that they’d met before and were, as she put it, more than friends.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Memory lapses.”

“Really?” Conor said. “Pathetic.”

“She’s a better actor than I would have believed,” Aubrey said.

“We thought she was just a git,” Freddy added. “A brainless model.”

“That was the act,” Merle said. “How long has she known about Gabriel being her father, I wonder. All her life? Or a recent discovery?”

“That we can only guess for now,” Pascal said.

“But what happened between her and Sabine?” Elise asked.

Pascal looked at Conor. “What did the Inspector tell you?”

“Not much,” Conor said, looking at his parents. “What did they tell you?”

Isabelle took a sip of Bordeaux and dabbed her lips. “That they argued. We know from Gini that they shouted that morning in the carriage house. Then after Sabine went missing, Pauline found her, out by the hedges.”

“She must have looked for hours,” Elise said.

“She was gone a long time, yes?” Pascal asked.

“We left the house about three-thirty,” Elise said.

“She returned quite a while past dark,” Conor said, “filthy with mud and leaves. Elise and I had just sat down to soup. We thought