The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two

by Louise Allen

  Hero was content to stand lipping at the long grass beside the lych gate as Jared worked his way between the irregular ranks of graves and tilting headstones. Most he could dismiss as old, their inscriptions almost lost to time and lichen. Then he found a group of three that were clearly recent. One, the earth still raw and freshly turned, had a simple wooden cross, the mound of the second had sunk a little and grass was growing over it, but the headstone, sharp and clean, read Agnes Millar departed this life aged 86 years…

  Beyond it was another. He almost turned away because it had a fine stone, deeply carved and with a design of angels, their wings making the point at the top. Jared stepped over Agnes Millar’s grave and read the inscription anyway, for the sake of thoroughness.

  Here lies Francis Arnold Willoughby

  Only son of the late Henry Willoughby and his wife Jane

  Beloved brother of Elizabeth

  Born January 7th 1784 Killed August 15th 1810

  Aged 26 years

  “The voice of my brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

  ‘I’ll be damned.’ Jared dug in his pocket for his notebook.

  ‘We will all be damned, my son, if we do not seek salvation through our Lord,’ a gentle, elderly voice said behind him.

  Jared turned, unsure which was more galling, being reprimanded, however gently, for blaspheming in a churchyard or being taken by surprise despite the ancient clergyman’s unsteady approach. ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’

  The vicar made a vague gesture with a thin, blue-veined hand. ‘May I be of assistance to you?’

  ‘Can you tell me the source of the quotation on this stone?’

  The old man fumbled in his pocket and produced a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles which he balanced precariously on the end of his nose. ‘Ah yes. A strange choice and incorrect, but the stone mason was adamant that was what had been ordered. It is an inaccurate quotation of part of Genesis, chapter four, verse ten, taken out of context.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Who paid for the stone to be erected?’

  ‘I do not know that.’ The vicar took off his spectacles, dropped them and almost trod on them as he searched. ‘Thank you, sir, you would not believe how many lenses I lose.’ He took them from Jared and absent-mindedly put them back on. ‘The stone mason told me that he received a letter with the instructions and a very adequate payment for what was required. It replaced the wooden cross with a small brass plaque with the name that Lord Northam had requested.’

  ‘Given that Francis Willoughby died in an accident, does the wording not strike you as strange, sir?’

  ‘Strange? Killed, you mean? Yes, if I had been consulted I would have advised against it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Jared took a bank note from his pocket book. ‘For the poor box.’

  He strode away through the graveyard with the vicar’s thanks faint behind him and this new information turning and twisting in his brain. Willoughby had a sister who had paid for his gravestone, who considered him to have been killed and to whom his blood cried for revenge. Now all he had to do was find her and he would surely have the twisted mind behind the attacks on Guinevere. Easier said than done from a remote village, unless Allerton Grange had a library with a copy of the Landed Gentry in it. And that assumed the Willoughbys had land enough to be included.

  He would send a letter to Dover, put him on the task and hope that he would write soon with what he had gathered on Theo. A fine scandal that was going to make if it turned out that he had murdered his own uncle for the title, but somehow he couldn’t believe it. Nor could he see any reason for Willoughby’s vengeful sister Elizabeth to want to murder Northam. Unless she saw him as saving Guinevere from the gallows and thus deserving of punishment as well…

  Jared untied the horse and walked across the green to the inn. It was a substantial building, very plain, and probably sixty or seventy years old. Its one claim to any distinction was the window that rose almost the full height of the west gable and was clearly intended to light the staircase, for the horizontal line of each landing was visible through the glass. Such showpiece windows were a speciality of the area and Whitby had several houses with them, his aunt’s for one.

  The landlord, Mr Grantham according to the sign over the door, was more than ready to discuss the Dreadful Occurrence, as he repeatedly called Willoughby’s death. He seemed to feel it gave his inn some distinction, being the site of such a dramatic event, resulting in the intercession of none other than the Viscount Northam.

  ‘He who has bought Allerton Grange now, which is a good thing for the village,’ he confided as he drew a pint of ale for Jared. The story spilled out fluently, obviously a regular tale to entertain customers. ‘Those Quentens who used to live there never had any money, not that they spent hereabouts, that’s for certain sure. Kept themselves to themselves they did and they were always late paying their bills.’ Grantham mopped the bar down with a cloth, stuck it back under his belt and leant on the worn oak. ‘Lord Northam’s a distant relative of theirs from what I hear, but not like them at all.’

  It seemed that the news of the murder had not yet reached these parts and Jared did not want to divert the landlord by telling him. He drank some ale and made appreciative noises. ‘Good ale. Your own brew?’

  ‘Aye, sir. It is that. I win prizes at Scarborough Fair with that, most years. Are you from around these parts, sir? Only there’s something familiar about you, if you don’t mind me mentioning it.’

  ‘This village is new to me,’ Jared said easily. Any kind of evasiveness would only arouse suspicion. ‘My mother’s mother was from round about here somewhere – perhaps I’ve some distant relatives. It’s strange how resemblances pass down.’

  ‘It’s just the colouring. And your profile, sir. Can’t quite put my finger on it.’ The man shrugged. ‘Would you like to have a look at the scene of the Dreadful Occurrence, seeing how you are interested?’

  So I have to dye my hair and get my nose broken to ensure anonymity, do I? Jared thought with an inward curse and a smile and a nod for the innkeeper. I’m damned if I will. I like my nose just the way it is. ‘I would indeed. I imagine it is quite a talking point around here. No doubt the poor gentleman’s family all came to the funeral.’

  He knew they hadn’t, but it was a useful prompt for Grantham to say if he knew the Willoughbys. ‘No sign of them, sir. Not a local family, I suppose, or there’s none of them living. Though Mr Willoughby who died, there was something about him that rang a bell with me.’ He shrugged as he began to climb the stairs, the great expanse of glass making the best of the late afternoon light and sending their shadows spilling across the walls.

  ‘The wife would say I’m getting fanciful – first you, sir, and then Mr Willoughby looking familiar. Here we are. That’s the window he fell from and that’s the room he and his lady were staying in, just next door. Coroner’s jury decided he got fuddled with drink and fell through, right down to the pavers below. Nasty mess it made of his head, sir. A very nasty mess what with the brains and all. We covered him up, soon as we found him, didn’t want his lady seeing that. Doctor tidied him up a bit before she identified him.’

  ‘She must have been very much shocked,’ Jared observed as he studied the catch on the opening section of the window. ‘This looks secure enough.’

  ‘Indeed the lady was in a proper taking, sir. White as a sheet and she kept saying God forgive me – but I reckon that was because she hadn’t stopped him drinking, sir. Not that anyone could, I’d have said. A nasty drunk until he’d had so much he could hardly stand, then he mellowed. That’s what she told me when I tried to stop serving him the night before and he got in a right state about it. So the night of the Occurrence I gave him another bottle and, sure enough, after ten minutes or so of language that would curdle milk he calmed right down and just sat there moaning into his glass. Where is she? Why isn’t she here? Where is she when I need her?

  ‘I thought to myself, She’s gone off to h
er bed and I don’t say as how I blame her, you unpleasant sot. Then when I was properly sick of the sound of him he got to his feet and stumbled off. If I’d known the girl had opened the landing windows to cool the bedchambers down a bit I’d have kept an eye on him, helped him up to his room.’ He shrugged. ‘But I didn’t and Coroner said no-one who wasn’t drunk as a lord would have been in any danger, because the banister rail should have made it safe enough. He put no blame on us.’

  ‘Had Willoughby gone out while they were here? Did he ask directions to anywhere?’

  ‘He didn’t ask that I know of, sir. He went out on foot the day he fell, was gone about, oh, an hour or two? Anyway, he was in a foul mood when he got back. Of course, that might have been the weather, it was pouring with rain and he was soaked through and muddy to the knees,’ the landlord said as they walked back downstairs.

  ‘How had they arrived here?’ He could ask Guinevere of course, but Mr Grantham was handy. Jared wondered how much longer he was going to tolerate detailed questions from a complete stranger with no standing in the matter, but so far he seemed happy to talk about the local excitement. Presumably there wasn’t much drama day-to-day thereabouts.

  ‘One-horse gig, sir. The kind with a hood.’

  So Willoughby had not gone far, otherwise he would surely have taken the gig, put the hood up and saved himself a soaking. There did not seem to be anything more to be gleaned from the helpful landlord. Jared finished his glass of ale and walked slowly back to his horse.

  Francis Willoughby had come here with a purpose and, whatever that purpose had been, it had not been fulfilled. Willoughby had died first.

  Jared swung into the saddle and set himself to scour the area an hour’s walk out from the inn. The landlord said Willoughby had been gone an hour or two. Assuming the man had done something, even if it were only to stare at his destination in frustration when he got there, then he would then have to walk back, so a five mile radius should encompass it, he calculated.

  Jared had been gone a long time, Guin thought. By the time luncheon had been cleared away there was still no sign of him. She began to pace restlessly from room to room downstairs until Thomas suggested he harness the gig and take her for a drive.

  ‘It only seats one person beside the driver,’ she pointed out. ‘Mr Hunt does not want me to go outside the house without one of you men and Faith.’

  ‘That’ll be if’en you were walking, my lady,’ Thomas said. ‘Up in the gig, if we saw trouble coming, we could be off in a moment. I’d take my big stick as well – that’d deal with any footpad.’ He picked up a hefty cudgel from where it had been leaning against the hall wall and brandished it.

  ‘It looks lethal.’

  ‘Aye, it would be. A tap on the head from that and you’d not get up again,’ he said with a relish that made her shiver.

  ‘Even so, I did promise Mr Hunt, so I will call Faith and we will just take a turn around the garden.’

  ‘If you feel like that, my lady.’ He sounded on the verge of sulkiness. ‘I’m sure his lordship trusted me to look after you, ma’am.’

  ‘Mr Hunt trusts nobody, I think,’ Guin said lightly, trying to make a joke out of it. The last thing she wanted was a peevish footman about the place. ‘And I have no intention of proving him right by breaking my word. Ah, there you are, Faith. Come along, Thomas, and don’t forget your cudgel.’

  They found Topshore the gardener muttering darkly at greenfly on his broad beans and he attached himself to their party, confident that the mistress of the house wanted nothing better than to debate the best cure for moss in the lawns and whether a new arbour was needed, given the state of the old one.

  Guin confessed to total ignorance about moss and allowed herself to be talked into a new arbour and a dozen climbing roses from the best supplier in York. The stable yard clock was chiming half past three by the time a circuit of the garden had been accomplished, and there was still no sign of Jared.

  ‘I wonder what can be keeping – ah, I can hear the sound of hooves on the yard cobbles.’ Guin led her little party round to the yard, Topshore tagging along behind and holding a monologue on the value of well-rotted stable manure for roses. The lad was just leading away a bay mare and its rider stood brushing down his dusty breeches.

  It was not Jared, Guin realised with a stab of disappointment tinged with worry. This was a young man, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, sandy, freckled and earnest. Then she saw there was a rapier at his side and recognised him. It was Jared’s manservant.

  ‘Portsmouth?’

  ‘Dover, my lady.’

  ‘I do beg your pardon, I was somewhat distracted when we last met. Is something wrong?’

  To her surprise he blushed. Then she recalled just where she had met him. ‘Er… Is Mr Hunt here, my lady?’

  ‘No, I have no idea where he is, I am beginning to feel a little anxious – Oh, that must be him.’ She turned at the sound of another horse and this time it was Jared.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jared reined in from a trot to survey the group in the middle of the yard. ‘Dover? I left you in London with a task to perform.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and I have. Performed it, I mean. That was easy, only there’s something else and I thought I had best come immediately. I didn’t want to risk writing and perhaps you having moved on.’

  ‘All right. We will talk in the house directly.’ Jared dismounted, tossed the reins to the stable lad. ‘Give him a good rub down, a feed and drink when he’s cooler. We’ve covered a lot of ground today.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Guin demanded, relief making her snappish.

  ‘I am sure we will all be more comfortable inside.’ Jared offered his arm and, when she took it, murmured, ‘With a smaller audience.’

  He smelled very male, of horse and leather and dust and sweat and Guin was shocked to find that arousing. She was almost disappointed when, as they entered through the front door, he said, ‘Hot water, if you please, Thomas. To my chamber and bring some there for Dover as well. We’ll find him a room later. If you’ll excuse us for half an hour, Lady Northam, neither of us are fit for the drawing room. Then a council of war is called for, I think, including Faith.’

  Guin suppressed the desire to demand an immediate report and rang for a substantial tea instead. Whatever the news, cake would be a comfort.

  Jared and Dover were downstairs washed and changed within twenty minutes and she waved them towards the food. Dover and Faith looked uneasy at being expected to make themselves at home in the drawing room but Jared said firmly that he was famished and that he had no intention of repeating everything twice and so they relaxed.

  ‘Dover, finish what you have on your plate, then begin.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He manfully swallowed a mouthful of meat pie, gulped some tea and took an envelope from his pocket. ‘I made enquiries about Mr Theo Quenten as you ordered, sir. That was easy. He is universally liked, even if some sticklers disapprove of his wild ways and they say he relies too much on charm to worm his way out of trouble. He’s been up to larks, had some losses on the tables and the race course, but it’s play and pay – no really bad debts and tradesmen say he settles up with them too, even if they have to wait until his next instalment of allowance comes due. He’s a bit in the petticoat line – begging your pardon, my lady – but no gossip that’s nasty, if you know what I mean.

  ‘By all accounts he’s settling down and his father’s illness has speeded up the sobering process. I was writing all that down as a report for you, sir, then it all started.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His father died the day you left London.’

  ‘Oh no, poor man. But I suppose he is at peace now, thank goodness.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my lady, I should have broken it better.’ Guin gestured to him to keep going. ‘Anyway, that means Mr Theo is now Lord Northam and the scandal sheets started. The print shops are full of these, sir.’ He sent Guin a harassed glance and unaccountably blushed
again. He handed the envelope to Jared and took refuge in another slice of meat pie.

  Jared pulled out what seemed to be a coloured print, looked at it and swore softly under his breath.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

  ‘You do not want to know.’ He folded the sheet in two.

  ‘I most certainly do.’

  ‘Lady Northam, this would distress you.’

  ‘Really, Mr Hunt? And I have had so little to agitate me lately, I am quite out of practice,’ she said with a sarcasm that made him wince. ‘Show me.’

  With a shrug he handed her the print. Guin smoothed it out and studied it. At the bottom of the scene were two death-beds, hung with black cloth and garlands of evergreen with an elderly man in one handing a viscount’s coronet to another old gentleman lying on the other bed.

  Shown much larger, a handsome, fashionably-dressed young man with a shock of black hair was bestriding the beds, snatching the coronet from the second dying man with one hand while, with the other, he reached out for a tall blonde lady with a low-cut gown who held out both her hands to him. A speech bubble issued from his lips, “Dear Aunt, now those two are out of my way you will show me how to go on as Viscount N. will you not?”

  The blonde lady, who appeared to be staring intently at his exceedingly tight breeches, had her own speech bubble. “Nevvie dear, we may begin our instruction in the bedchamber.”

  ‘That’s supposed to be Theo,’ Guin stammered, one part of her brain recognising that it was a very good caricature. ‘And is that supposed to be me?’ When no-one spoke she drew a deep breath. ‘This implies that Theo has done away with both his uncle and his father to get the title. And that if I was not directly involved, I certainly welcome the result.’ Her hand was gripping the paper so tightly that it crumpled. Guin made herself relax her hold and smoothed out the image. ‘Is a man permitted to marry his aunt by marriage? No matter,’ she said without waiting for anyone to reply. ‘The implication that we are, or will be, lovers, is bad enough.’