Murder Most Fair

by Anna Lee Huber

  Father stood to the side of the doors, waiting for us, and Mother released my arm to take his, so that they could lead us down the aisle to the pews at the front all but stamped with the names of the village’s first families. We shuffled into position, as I knew Mother expected us to. Freddy strode forward carrying Ruth in one arm with Rachel’s arm linked in the other. Meanwhile, Sidney passed Tante Ilse off to my brother Tim before joining me in the procession behind Freddy.

  A dull ache took up its place inside my chest, knowing Rob should have gone before me. Perhaps he would even have a wife on his arm, a little child burrowed into his shoulder like Ruthie did to her father, her sweet little fist clutching his lapel. My footsteps faltered, but Sidney was there to propel me forward, a look of mild query flashing across his face as he gazed down at me. I shook my head minutely, turning aside to distract myself by studying the others already seated.

  My parents’ servants sat at the front of the rear section of pews, as snobbish in their own way and eager to claim their rightful place as the staff to one of the first families in the area. However, I noted the gap between where Bauer sat at the far end of the pew and the others. A space that was clearly deliberate given the way the nearest maid turned her shoulder away from my great-aunt’s maid. I had feared this was the type of reception she would receive. And if my parents’ staff were intent on shunning her, then the rest of Hawes would follow suit and do so as well.

  I had only a moment to note Bauer’s drawn countenance before we whisked past, but I resolved to ask Nimble to keep an eye on her. I should have thought to ask him to do so before, and if I hadn’t been so consumed with my own trepidations about returning to Hawes, I likely would have. Sidney’s valet and ex-batman might not relish the task, but despite his size, he was a gentle, kindhearted fellow, and I knew he would take the duty seriously. There wasn’t much he could do about the seating arrangements in church, for the unwed female servants sat separately from the unwed males, but as the guests’ maid and valet they would be lumped together more often at Brock House.

  The pews were filled with familiar faces, so many that I hadn’t time to nod to even a tenth of them. We had barely taken our seats before the organ sprang to life, sending music soaring up to the wooden beams of the vaulted ceiling, and compelling us to our feet for the opening hymn. Though I hadn’t sung this particular song in some time, the words rose from my memory, allowing my gaze to stray from the hymnal Sidney held open for us.

  Beyond the brim of my hat, I could see Mr. and Mrs. Wild seated across the aisle, and next to them, Violet Capshaw. Even though Violet was two and a half years older than me, we’d always been friends. We’d had little choice but to be, living in an area where there were few girls and an overabundance of boys of our social class. Even so, I’d always liked Violet. While not quite so daring as me, at least physically, she’d never shied away from an adventure. And even when she’d matured before I did, happily leading the adolescent boys on a merry chase, she’d never placed her flirtation with them over our friendship.

  Violet had always dressed herself with a seemingly effortless stylishness, and I could see from her smart indigo velvet gown and jauntily tipped hat that hadn’t changed. She flashed me an arch smile, which I was hard-pressed not to return despite the fact that Mrs. Redmayne was scowling at me from the pew in front of her.

  Next to Mrs. Redmayne in the front pew sat old Mr. Metcalfe, his expression as stern and surly as ever. I had not expected his surviving grandsons to be cooling their heels in Hawes of all places. I knew them too well for that. But it was disconcerting all the same to see him there all alone when not so long ago he’d had the raising of six grandchildren, his son having been killed in Africa during the Second Boer War and his daughter having returned home with her children after her husband died from malaria somewhere in the Congo. Now they were all gone, either deceased, wed, or preferring to reside elsewhere.

  I felt I could hardly blame them. Mr. Metcalfe was difficult enough to get along with as a neighbor, and it had been evident from the comments made by his family, and their eagerness to escape, that he wasn’t any easier to live with. Yet it was still sad to see him alone.

  However, that sentiment lasted only long enough for him to cast a black look at Tante Ilse. One that made it abundantly clear where he stood in his opinion of her presence there, and Germans in general. Then I decided he’d gotten what he deserved.

  The service was conducted as it had always been done, with the same litany and the same hymns, ones I had memorized long ago and found I still remembered. It was unexpectedly comforting, an anchor I discovered hadn’t entirely become unmoored even though the war had shaken my faith, as it had so many others’. Though whether it was the meaning behind the words or purely the ceremony of speaking and singing them that so consoled me, I couldn’t say. What I could say with certainty was that Mr. Redmayne’s sermon was just as ponderous as I recalled his predecessor’s being. Sidney had been forced to elbow Tim awake more than once.

  When finally the service ended, Violet hastened over to thread her arm through mine as we filed out of church behind the vicar. “Verity Kent, well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she proclaimed before casting a glance over her shoulder at Sidney from beneath her lashes. “You and your dashing husband.” She pressed a hand to her brow like a tragic heroine in a motion picture. “How good of you to bring some color into our spare, provincial existence.”

  I smiled at her overblown theatrics. “Cut line, Violet. I know you’re here by choice.”

  “I am,” she admitted with an unabashed grin. “Needed a break from all the gents in London.” That this was a jest went without saying. After all, the number of young, eligible gentlemen were rather thin on the ground since the war, and I knew Violet wasn’t spending all of her time in town husband hunting.

  “How is your father?”

  “Pottering along.” She nodded in front of us. “Much like Mr. Metcalfe.” She leaned closer. “They get rather crotchety as they age without their wives to look after them,” she murmured out of the side of her mouth, letting me know she’d seen the scowl Mr. Metcalfe had directed at Tante Ilse.

  “And I always blamed it on dyspepsia.”

  Violet giggled, squeezing my arm tighter as we came to a stop. “Oh, I’ve missed you.” She glanced toward my parents, who were exchanging words with the vicar by the door. “I know you can’t talk long now, but come see me tomorrow.” Her amber eyes glinted with amusement. “It will be Monday, after all, and your mother will be making her social calls. And I would wager my last pair of silk stockings you’ll be required to accompany her.”

  “No wager necessary,” I muttered wryly in confirmation. Part charity, part social duty, my mother made her calls throughout the area every Monday—rain or shine—and she had already informed me that this time I was expected to join her.

  “Well, come see me after.” She arched her eyebrows. “I promise to serve something stronger than tea.”

  “Now, you’re speaking my language.”

  “Of course.” She greeted Vicar Redmayne perfunctorily before striding away with one last little wave, but not before brushing a finger playfully underneath Tim’s chin where he stood broodingly to the side of the path.

  Tim turned to watch her walk away, but my attention was soon claimed by Vicar Redmayne.

  “You must be Mr. and Mrs. Townsend’s daughter, Verity,” he proclaimed as if I were a child rather than a woman of three and twenty.

  “Mrs. Verity Kent,” I replied as I offered him my hand, feeling the moist warmth of his palm even through the kid leather of my gloves and extracting my hand as rapidly as possible. “Allow me to introduce my husband, Mr. Sidney Kent.”

  “Welcome to Hawes,” he declared jovially, shaking Sidney’s hand. “Though, I daresay you’ve been here before.”

  “Yes, I spent a great deal of time here before the war.”

  The vicar nodded. “Right. You were Dr. Townsend’s friend
before you wed his sister.” He rocked forward onto his toes, seeming pleased with himself that he’d remembered this tidbit of knowledge someone had shared with him.

  “Yes. Though, I daresay Freddy will still claim me as a friend.”

  I studied my husband out of the corner of my eye, certain his echo of the vicar’s speech pattern was intentional and that his reply had not been a joke, even though Redmayne chortled as if it was.

  “Yes, yes. I’m sure he will.”

  Sidney pressed a hand to the small of my back, urging me forward out into the breezy sunshine, leaving the vicar to greet his other parishioners.

  Tante Ilse stepped forward to clasp her arm through mine as I approached. “Was that Miss Capshaw?” she asked, watching the figure in indigo disappearing down the church path toward the village. A tiny pleat formed in her brow. “Or is she wed now?”

  I felt absurdly pleased by the fact she’d remembered Violet’s engagement after all these years, especially after that awkward moment with Mrs. Redmayne before the service. I really had to stop weighing and assessing her memory with every comment she made.

  “Her fiancé died in ’15,” I said.

  “Poor dear,” Tante Ilse crooned. A similar tale could be told by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of women across Europe and the globe, but Violet had been determined that hers not end there.

  Soon after, she’d joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry as an ambulance driver, where she had served until her mother’s death in ’17. I had happened upon her in London by pure circumstance, not long after she’d resigned and returned to England. Her train north had been delayed until the next day, and she had been rather the worse for wear—broken from the news of her mother’s passing after witnessing so much carnage and death driving injured soldiers from the casualty clearing stations to the hospitals behind the front. I’d invited her to stay with me in the Berkeley Square flat, patching her up as best I could in such a short time before sending her home to her father.

  Given her condition that night, some might have been surprised to find her smiling and jesting so easily two years later, but I wasn’t. I had always known Violet was made of sterner stuff. She had simply needed some time and space to heal the surface wounds, even if those that ran deeper still remained raw and tender.

  “Well, I am glad to see she looks so well, all in all,” Tante Ilse remarked as a stream of parishioners strolled past us. Some stopped to exchange greetings, while others merely nodded politely and carried on.

  Mother gestured for us to follow them, and I stepped forward to do so, to be brought up short when Tante Ilse did not budge from her spot. My gaze turned to search her face, finding it locked on something near the church door. A knot of parishioners now stood between us and the vicar, so I struggled to comprehend what had so captured her attention, but whatever it was, it was not welcomed. Her eyes widened and her face paled, and she seemed to stagger slightly.

  At first I feared someone had made some cruel derogatory gesture about Germans, but Tante Ilse had ignored such insults before, and I couldn’t imagine her allowing them to cause her such visible distress now. It wasn’t until she spoke that I realized she was confronting something far more disconcerting.

  “It’s him,” she gasped in German.

  My gaze shifted from her shocked visage to search the crowd again. “Who?”

  “The second deserter,” she whispered before her knees buckled.

  CHAPTER 12

  Fortunately, Sidney was there to catch her, and between us we were able to keep Tante Ilse from collapsing completely. We hustled her toward one of the benches positioned beneath the tall lime trees, but when we would have set her down, she instead urged us on.

  “No, no. Not here.”

  Sidney’s gaze locked with mine over her head, asking questions I didn’t have the answers to. I turned back toward the cluster of parishioners, most of whom were now watching us, but I knew whoever my great-aunt had seen, they were now long gone.

  I sighed and nodded, turning to continue down the path with Tante Ilse propped between us. By this time, the rest of the family had noticed our delay, and Tim hurried back to take my place. Between him and Sidney, they practically carried her from the churchyard.

  “What happened?” my mother asked as I drew near.

  “I don’t know. She said she felt faint,” I lied, unable to tell her the truth, though it pressed on my chest like a heavy weight. My gaze darted to my eldest brother. “Perhaps Freddy should take a look at her.”

  He nodded. “I’ll fetch my medical bag as soon as we reach home. Make her comfortable in her bedchamber.”

  I hastened to the Pierce-Arrow, finding Sidney settling Tante Ilse in the rear seat. I climbed in to sit beside her, clutching both her hands between my own and chafing them. She allowed this minute fussing while her eyes remained fixed on the view outside the window. Her chest seemed to rise and fall more rapidly than usual, but once we reached the outskirts of the village, it began to settle.

  She tipped her head back, closing her eyes, and I couldn’t help but study her with concern. She appeared wan and weary now that the near-frantic nature of her breathing had been calmed. Even though I had a dozen questions for her, I waited to ask them. Tim might be my brother, and he might have served during the war, but he had no idea that I had worked for the Secret Service, or that I’d set foot inside German-occupied Belgium, or Germany itself, during the conflict. None of my family did.

  Tante Ilse must have realized this, for she did not try to explain either, instead mumbling in a raspy voice. “Mir geht es gut, mein Liebchen. Ich bin einfach müde.”

  She could claim she was well all she wanted, that she was merely tired, but I’d seen the fear in her eyes. I’d heard what she’d said.

  That didn’t mean what she’d claimed she’d seen was true, but she’d certainly believed it to be, at least at the time. I couldn’t help but think of the shaggy-haired man I’d seen entering the church. The one who’d seemed familiar, and yet I couldn’t place him. I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d seen the same person. Whether I also knew the man she’d called “the second deserter.”

  Though Sidney made the drive at a near-reckless speed, this time I didn’t even think of chastising him. I was simply glad when he stopped before the front gate and hurried to help my great-aunt from the motorcar.

  In short order, she was lying on her bed with her head propped up by two pillows. Sidney and Tim left us while I removed her shoes, promising to send her maid Bauer and Freddy up as soon as they arrived.

  “I do not need Freddy to attend to me,” she protested when the door closed, not pretending to misunderstand why he would be doing so.

  I set her second shoe next to the first one beside the bed, and sat down next to her hip. “Tante, you nearly collapsed. Please let him at least check your heart and your pulse.”

  “I require only my medicine.” A martial gleam lit her eyes. “Bauer can see to that.”

  “Possibly. But is what you said true? Did you see the second deserter?”

  She folded her hands over her abdomen. “Yes,” she stated with certainty, and then contradicted herself with just as much conviction. “No.” Her brow pleated. “I thought I saw him, but . . .”

  “But now you’re not certain?” I finished for her when she left the sentence dangling.

  Her gaze lifted to meet mine, stark with confusion.

  “What did he look like? Can you describe him for me?”

  She lifted a hand to her head. “I . . . don’t know.”

  “What was his hair color? Was there anything distinctive about his features?” I pressed, but she merely shook her head. “Please. You must recall something.”

  “He’s . . .” She gestured outward with her hand, but when whatever thought she was trying to articulate did not translate into words, she allowed it to drop. “Why? Why would he be here? Why would he follow us?”

  “I don’t know.” I frowned. “Bu
t if he did follow us, I doubt his explanation is innocent.”

  Tante Ilse’s chest rose and fell sharply, indicating her distress was genuine.

  I reached out to take her hands between my own. “Whatever the truth is, I will find it.”

  She blinked up at me, her hands turning over to tighten around my own. “You and Sidney?” Her mouth flattened. “I know you are brave and clever, mein Liebchen. But this is not the war. You need not do this alone.”

  I nodded, touched by her concern. “Sidney and I will find it.” Below, I heard muffled voices, and I knew it was only a matter of time before we were interrupted by my mother or Bauer. I leaned closer. “But my family cannot know. I think you realize this.” I searched her face for comprehension.

  “Yes, Verity, I know. Have no fear. I will not betray you.”

  “Thank you.”

  A light rap sounded on the door, and I turned to answer it.

  “Although I think it is wrong that you cannot tell them.”

  I cut a glare at my great-aunt for this ending rebuke. Did she think I had not bemoaned the same thing countless times before? And then recanted it, for Mother would never understand. And neither would Father.

  The work of intelligence agents was considered by some to be dishonorable, or at least unsporting, particularly by the older generations. The term spy was a dirty word, as was everything that went along with it. Mindsets were changing among those who were younger and had witnessed firsthand the good that such intelligence gathering could do. The soldiers at the front had recognized the necessity for Military Intelligence officers, though many still eyed them with some disfavor. In the case of men working behind enemy lines, like Alec, this introduced more shades of gray, but their bravery was still valued.

  However, for a woman to embark on such work, and a lady at that, it was seen as both unnatural and a betrayal of her sex and class. Never mind that what I was doing was just as necessary, that the world was at war, and that my efforts saved lives. It was still unbefitting a woman of my station, and consequently, I was not to be fully trusted.