A/N: Hope you have fun in Sleepy Hollow pumkinpuss! Goes green with envy I'd just like to reply to your review a bit (because I am nice.) I just looked up epitome in the dictionary, and I still don't understand, but that's the Oxford English Dictionary for you. And OF COURSE it's dedicated to you!!! Without you I would never of wrote it, so why not?

And to General Fear, do you have to call me Brit-Brit in public?

Chapter Six: The Murderer

I let out a short gasp, before quickly lighting the candle and standing with it to see the feet's face. I see the slender, beautiful face Lady d'Narley.

"My Lady, what are you doing out of bed so?" I ask of her.

"Almost similar to you I expect, although I did not visit the Blue Room first," she says, lighting another candle from mine. "If you will excuse me, I must return to my room before Geoffrey realizes I am not there. I will speak with you in the morning." She turns on her heel and walks to a tapestry on the wall of the room we were both in, swinging it to one side and disappearing with a flourish of her nightgown through a secret passageway.

I manage to find my way back to my room this time, and deftly wrote up a few notes, and continued to fall asleep.

In the morning I saw the Lady at breakfast. After Lord d'Narley left the breakfast room she came and sat by me.

"We cannot talk here, you are dressed for the harsh frost of late October I see. Come to the folly in half an hour," she instructs. I nod my head in agreement and she leaves, a maid opening the door for her as she does so.

I walk somehow stiffly down to the folly, a building of great architectural achievement. Lady d'Narley waits aside it, hidden from view of an observer from the house, clad in furs and fabrics of winter months.

"Ichabod," she greets me.

"My Lady."

"Come, we have much to discuss." I offer her my arm and we walk towards the summerhouse, it's frosty glass giving off a somewhat derelict look.

"Will you tell me how you came to be in the east wing on the eve of last night?" I ask her as we approach the doors. She opens one, and steps inside.

"I felt my husband leave bed last night, and followed him to the east wing where he covered the bed and room."

"You know of the bedroom?" I ask, as she had clearly told me it was living space.

"Only recently. I discovered it when my husband was away. Expect he was not absent from the house, but in that room, with Natty," she explains.

"Were they. . ?" I begin to ask but halt.

"Yes, they were," Lady d'Narley replies, a little bitterly. I decide to be front with her.

"Did you kill her?"

"Yes." There is a short silence, where the air grows quite uncomfortable. I rise to go outside for some fresh air. Lady d'Narley rises behind me.

"Ichabod, you must understand why," she says. I wait for her to leave the egress of the summerhouse, but do not take her arm, she wraps her hands tightly in a Persian muff. "It will not do for a man of my husbands status to be having affairs with staff. And in the long run of things I could not confront him. I will not do a great deed without any premeditation. And I will not do it for nothing. I suspect he suspects me, but can not say as I can not accuse his adultery. And I as any know that disloyalty comes with a price. He did not love her, it was merely spur of the moment, that lasted for how long I'm not sure."

"You put me in a very difficult and dangerous position, my Lady," I confide in her. "I cannot accuse you of murder, when I have known since I stepped into the carriage to bring me here that you were capable of it. And thought at that time about the suspiciousness of a case where a guilty party acts again and can not carry blame."

"This can not come out to my husband, without Natty peace is restored in the house, the only trouble amongst people is knowing of a murderer," she says as we walk back towards the house, but are still some distance from it.

"Yet I can not keep this from your husband. I was invited here to solve a crime, as I now have done, my work is complete. Yet I can't leave, leaving you hidden," I express my troubles.

"I know."

"And I can not accuse of the other staff, I can not place that burden and charge upon one of their heads. A maid would surely hang for such a crime," I say.

"At least, Ichabod. Leave your suspicions well alone for a few days, until I can produce an escape route and flee this county."

"But where would you go?"

"South, far south. Or abroad, England," she suggests. As a murderer, I still have pity on her, she had reason for what she had done, and now she was to be deracinated from another home she had so carefully built, asking for none of what had gone on around her, I could not help but feel a small pang of sympathy for the girl.

"Yes, I will wait for you to furnish an arrangement and then make any accusations," I agree. She takes my arm.

"Thank you Ichabod, I knew you would help me. I know you are a good man, sweet and kind and generous," she pauses for a moment. "I have missed you, you know. Over the last year I have often wondered where you are, what you are doing, where life is taking you. Who you have met, if you have fallen head over heels in love."

"No, not as yet," I reply. "But maybe one day."

"How soon?" she asks. I look down upon her gentle face, and I know what she is asking.

"I do not know how soon. But time is of the essence in episodes as this, do you not agree?"

"Yes." She lifts her heels from the ground a little, reaching towards my face, and I feel myself being pulled towards her, as if magnetically.

There is a loud bark from the front doors of the house and we both turn immediately to see the two dogs of the house bounding towards us. Lady d'Narley lowers herself to the ground and we take a few steps towards them, applying smiles to both our faces as Geoffrey d'Narley appears from the front door. I can tell Claire's upset at his faithlessness and we walk arm in arm until the dogs reach us and jump about happily.

"Really, strolling in late October? Are you cold, my dear?" Lord d'Narley asks of his wife. She shakes her head.

"Not at all. And if you are out but not for a stroll then why are you here?" Lord d'Narley takes her arm, and I drop my hold on her.

"I confess," he begins. "I am out to stretch the old legs, and give Fear and Loathing some exercise." Both dogs look towards their master at their names being said, and I wonder about the origin of their names, as both are far from dangerous, and Fear and Loathing seem quite forbidding names. But as I suppose dogs would be, as not kept exclusively for pets, and serve a duty as security to the house.

"Care to join us, my dear?" Lord d'Narley asks of his wife.

"No, thank you. I will, infact, welcome a warming fire, we have been out a while and I could not walk much further," Lady d'Narley says, dropping his arm.

"Then I'll see you a little later," calls the Lord receding towards the folly. I walk towards the house with the Lady.

"He will have to know sometime," I tell her.

"He will, he'll assume it when I've gone."