For The Love Of My Scotsman (Complete!)

Affairs and Threats

Lady Hillington froze, staring at the statue. Slowly, she turned to face Lottie, and she smirked. "Do not think you can intimidate me like the others, little girl."

Lottie's confident smile vanished. Oh, dear, she thought, backing up a step. "O-others?"

"Did you think your little investigation was so secretive?" Lady Hillington laughed demurely, folding her hands together at her waist. She lifted her chin. "I've seen you watching us all, following us, prying into our secrets just like that scrawny weasel, Farraday. I know it was you who snuck into my room and rifled through my wardrobe. The bloody sand was a dead giveaway."

Hands balling into fists, Lottie swallowed. Bloody sand? That was the same as Octavia's room. Whoever it was, they had searched both rooms. Had they searched Lottie's as well? Since she couldn't frighten Lady Hillington into revealing her secrets, perhaps it was best to play along. "Yes," Lottie lied. "It was me."

"So, you managed to kill him? I don't believe it for a moment," Lady Hillington scoffed. "But you are the one who was trying to dig up my secrets to blackmail me."

"Farraday?" Lottie backed up another step. "You know he's dead?"

Lady Hillington narrowed her eyes. "Of course I do. Those little letters you've been sending me, trying to blackmail me just like he did, were obviously in different handwriting. A man like him would never give up so easily. Death was the only explanation."

The letters. Lottie had received one from the new blackmailer, and so had Octavia. Now, it seemed Lady Hillington was also one of the killer's new targets. "If you don't believe I could have killed him, why do you think I'm the blackmailer?"

"Mrs. Ashdown wasn't the only one who saw you with blood on your hands the morning he disappeared. But you found him after the fact, didn't you?"

The woman's sharp observations made the hairs on Lottie's neck stand up under her thick winter cloak. But what blood was she referring to? Thomas had cleaned the blood from Lottie's hands before she returned to the castle...

"Tell me," Lady Hillington advanced, her hair deathly grey in the wintry sunlight. Shadows cast by her brows made her eyes look pouchy and dark. "How did you find out about my son?"

Lottie's gaze darted around. Thomas's warning from the other night suddenly sounded much more logical. Lady Hillington looked frightfully dangerous. "Y-your son?" Of course, the woman doted so lovingly upon Captain Hillington, it seemed logical that harm to him could be the only thing that would frighten her.

"My husband would never believe you," Lady Hillington's voice wavered in spite of her fierce words.

Looking over her shoulder at the empty passageways of the maze, Lottie's mind raced. She had to gain the upper hand here before she wound up like Mrs. Ashdown. "He's... illegitimate, isn't he?" It was a wild guess, but it was the only thing that she could think of given the embarrassed flush of the woman's face.

Lady Hillington gawked. Her frightening expression vanished, and her shoulders sank. "You really did know. Mrs. Ashdown told you, didn't she?"

Slowly, Lottie nodded. It was a lie, of course, but perhaps she could get the truth from Lady Hillington at last. "She was going to tell the father first, but you know how she gossips..." She shrugged, hoping that would imply whatever Lady Hillington was fearing the most.

"It will do you no good to tell Sir Roland. He's an even bigger moron now than he was back then," Lady Hillington snorted, turning back to the statue even as she clutched her hands tighter together.