Winterset

by Candace Camp

  She closed her eyes and thought this time of the body that she and the twins had stumbled upon. Again she could remember the sick horror, the fear and pain that had stabbed her like a knife, but again it was like pulling out a memory, not experiencing it once more.

  Anna opened her eyes. “I’m not feeling anything. I tried thinking of Estelle, of the Johnson lad, but I don’t feel anything. I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t apologize. It may not be anything you can make happen. Or it may take a lot of practice.” He stood up, extending his hand to her. “Come. Why don’t we take a stroll? Perhaps some other place will present itself as a better spot to use.”

  “All right.”

  Reed offered Anna his arm, and she slipped her hand through it. As always, it sent a little tingle through her to touch him.

  They strolled out into the foyer and down the central hall. A long hall stretched down to the left, across the back of the house. It was a gallery, lined with windows on one side looking out into the Winterset gardens. On the opposite wall hung paintings, and at various spots there was a bench upon which to sit, or a long, narrow table.

  It was a lordly sweep of hall. Anna could faintly remember running down it when she was a child. It had seemed a marvelous place in which to run full tilt, her shoes clattering on the marble floors. She had not been in it much in recent years. The area had been little used by her uncle and had remained largely closed off. It was along here, she remembered, that the caretaker, Grimsley, had spoken of seeing the ghost of the old lord walking.

  Reed glanced at her. “Are you cold?”

  Anna smiled. “No, just a shiver from thinking about ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” He lifted a brow, then chuckled. “Ah, yes, I remember now. This is Grimsley’s ghostly walkway, isn’t it? I must say, they have not disturbed me.”

  Anna’s steps slowed, and she looked across at the inside wall. There were doors set at intervals into the interior wall, all of them closed. But one particular door somehow drew her. She wasn’t sure why, but she could not resist stepping across the hall and trying the knob. It opened inward, and Anna stopped in the doorway. A jolt of fear slammed through her almost like a physical force.

  She froze, startled, her pulse beginning to race. She looked into the room, which was largely devoid of furniture.

  “Anna.” Reed’s voice was sharp with concern as he followed her to the door of the room. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  She glanced at him, unable to express the feelings that were dancing through her, drawing her into the room. She moved inside, not really wanting to, but feeling compelled. Slowly she walked to the middle of the room, looking around her.

  Fear and pain were ricocheting around her, not as strong as the feelings she had had in the woods or when she had had her vision about Kit, but the same sort of panicked emotions.

  Reed, watching her, saw her face go pale. She swayed a little, and he stepped forward quickly, his hand wrapping around her arm. “Anna! What is it? Do you feel ill?”

  “Something happened here,” she murmured. She turned toward him slowly, her eyes huge in her white face. “Murder.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “What?” Reed stared at her in astonishment. “What are you saying?”

  “It didn’t happen outside. It happened here,” Anna said.

  “The murder?” Reed asked. “You’re saying Estelle was murdered here, in this room? How could that be?”

  “No. Not Estelle. It is something much older than that.”

  Reed continued to gape at her, speechless. Anna turned away and walked around the room. “It isn’t as strong, but I can feel it.” She stopped, her eyes blank and vague, looking at something that Reed could not see.

  “There was furniture here, and a rug—a blue-and-gold Persian rug. And it’s—it’s covered with blood,” she told him. She raised her hands to her temples. Her breath came more quickly in her throat; her heart began to pound. “The Winterset maid—Susan Emmett. This is where she was killed! Not Weller’s Point.” Anna whirled and looked at him, her eyes focused now, and blazing with emotion. “I am certain of it!”

  “My God.” Reed stared at her in consternation, then took Anna’s arm and led her from the room.

  She was trembling, her face paper white, and he thought she might faint. He slipped an arm around her waist and guided her over to a green velvet bench with rolled arms. He pulled her down onto the padded bench with him and took both her hands in his. They were cold as ice, and he chafed them gently.

  Anna shuddered and closed her eyes. “Oh, Reed! That poor girl. There was so much blood.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly against his side. “It’s all right. Don’t think about it.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head.

  “I can’t keep from thinking about it,” Anna murmured. She realized that they should not be sitting this way, where any servant might come upon them in such a far too intimate pose. Worse, it felt much too good to be in his arms, and soon, she knew, the soothing comfort of his embrace would turn into something dangerously exciting. It was foolhardy to put herself in the way of temptation.

  With a small inward sigh at the loss, Anna sat up, pulling away from his arm. “I think we should go see the maid again.”

  “Mrs. Parmer?”

  “Yes. I thought she was holding something back yesterday, and now I am certain of it.”

  “All right. I’ll have our horses brought round.”

  They started walking back down the hall to another room with a bell pull, so that Reed could summon a servant.

  “I noticed something about the housekeeper’s house and Mrs. Parmer’s, too—they were very nice, weren’t they? Not large, but well built and pleasant. And each of the women had a servant. Do you think it is common for a retired housemaid to live that well?”

  “The housekeeper did have a stipend from your uncle. And Mrs. Parmer married. Perhaps her husband was able to afford it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Reed looked at her. “But I agree. It is odd. Do you think someone…bribed them?”

  Anna gave him a level look. “Something happened here. I am certain of it. And Mrs. Parmer did not tell us everything she knew.”

  “What makes you think she will now?” Reed inquired.

  “We shall just have to make her,” Anna replied.

  * * *

  Mrs. Parmer looked somewhat disconcerted to see Anna and Reed on her doorstep again. “My lord. Miss Holcomb.” She looked from one of them to the other. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can start by telling us the truth,” Anna told her crisply.

  Mrs. Parmer blinked, surprised, and took a step back. They seized the opportunity to step inside the house, even though she had not invited them.

  “I—I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old woman said warily.

  “Mrs. Parmer, I fear that you were less than open with us yesterday,” Reed said. “I am hoping that you will change your mind and tell us the truth now.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she repeated.

  “I know what happened in the room off the gallery,” Anna said flatly, watching the other woman’s face.

  Mrs. Parmer’s eyes widened, and one hand fluttered up to her throat. “How could you—”

  “Susan Emmett was killed there, wasn’t she?” Anna asked.

  The old woman’s mouth worked a little, but she did not say anything; instead her gaze darted from Anna to Reed, then back.

  “Mrs. Parmer…” Reed took her hand gently, gazing down into the woman’s face. “Don’t you think it’s time for Susan’s death to be explained? You worked with her. You knew her. Do you think it is right that she should have been sent to her death, yet it was never avenged, never atoned for?”

  The woman looked uncertain. “Dead is dead. What difference does it make?”

  “I should think it would make some differen
ce with your conscience,” Reed suggested gently. “’Tis a harsh thing to have on your soul….”

  “I had nothing to do with killing her!” Mrs. Parmer gasped, jerking her hand from his grasp. She hesitated, then said, “All right. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.” She glanced at Anna. “And seeing as how you’re his granddaughter…”

  She turned, nodding her head for them to follow her, and led them back into the parlor where they had sat the day before. Anna’s heart sank at the old woman’s words. It was what she had been fearing from the moment she had stood in the room off the gallery.

  “Then…it was my grandfather who did it? Lord de Winter?” Anna asked stiffly when they were seated in the parlor, the door closed.

  Reed, without saying anything, reached over and curled his hand around hers.

  “Aye,” Mrs. Parmer responded. “The old lord.” Her mouth tightened. “He was always a hard one, that one. Never treated Lady de Winter right, I always said. Cold, he was. And odd. But, then—” She shrugged. “He was gentry, wasn’t he, and they’re often odd.”

  “What happened in that room, Mrs. Parmer?” Reed asked.

  “I don’t know exactly,” she replied. “I wasn’t there when it happened. It was only afterward—the housekeeper woke me up in the middle of the night, and she dragged me downstairs to that room.” Even now, the woman blanched a little at the memory. “There was blood everywhere. It was horrible. Mrs. Hartwell told me to clean it up and keep my mouth shut, so I did. I washed up all the blood, and she and I rolled up the rug—it had blood all over it, you couldn’t ever get that clean—and had it put in the attic. Mrs. Hartwell told me that I would be taken care of, as long as I didn’t talk, so I didn’t. They gave me money, a nest egg, so after a few years I could leave there and marry, and we were able to build this house.”

  She lifted her chin a little defiantly. “You’re thinking I’m wicked, aren’t you, miss, not to tell and to take the money for it? But I wanted out of that life—forever taking orders and cleaning up after folks, my hands red and raw all winter—and when they offered me that money, I saw it was my chance to get away. So I took it. Besides, who’d have believed me, even if I had told? The lord and lady would have sworn it wasn’t true, and Mrs. Hartwell, too, and I’d ’ve been turned off without a reference.”

  “You were in a difficult situation,” Reed told her sympathetically.

  Anna let out a soft groan and brought her hands to her head. “Oh, God, he was mad, wasn’t he?”

  Mrs. Parmer nodded. “I’m sorry, miss. But he wasn’t right in the head. And he got worse.”

  “But no one told you that it was Lord de Winter who killed Susan?” Reed asked. “Did they?”

  “Who else could it have been?” Mrs. Parmer retorted. “One of the servants, they wouldn’t have done all that to cover it up, now would they? And Master Charles was only a lad. Who else would have been in that room with her? Then, after Will Dawson was killed, too, her ladyship locked Lord Roger up. In the nursery, see, where the windows had bars on them. They added a good stout door with a lock on it, and only Mrs. Hartwell had the key. He had several rooms there to walk around in, and his valet did for him, you see.”

  “So was his madness common knowledge?” Anna asked.

  “Oh, no, miss, the other servants weren’t told. Nobody saw him except when he would go walking in the gallery with his valet or her ladyship. They put out the story that he was ill, weak. His valet always took his meals up to him. The servants knew he was odd, and there were whispers, of course. But her ladyship was a sweet woman—kind, she was, and nobody wanted to hurt her. And the pay was good. Nobody wanted to get dismissed. So no one talked much outside the house. The doctor knew, of course. He used to come and check on him, bandage him up when he hurt himself, give him something to make him quiet. You know.”

  Anna thought of the missing pages in the doctor’s journal. Had they referred to his visits to the mad Lord de Winter?

  “The solicitor knew, too, I guess—the old one before Mr. Norton, I mean. Oh, and Perkins. He used to come by, regular-like. He’d help the valet sometimes, when the old lord was too wild. There was another servant, too, one they hired to help the valet. He was a big, strong fellow, but he never talked much with any of the rest of the servants.”

  “What was Lord de Winter like?” Anna asked her.

  The old woman shrugged. “He never talked much to me. Whenever I went in to clean his room, the valet would take him out to walk in the garden or somewhere. Sometimes they’d go down to the summerhouse—he liked the summerhouse. But he looked at you, and his eyes…” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “They weren’t like normal eyes. I can’t explain it, but there was this look in them I never saw in anyone else, and I hope never to see again. Just being in his rooms was bad enough, what with all the masks and writings and such.”

  “Excuse me?” Reed interrupted her. “Masks? Writings? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh. No, I guess, they would all ’ve been taken down. He liked to collect masks, Lord de Winter did. Strange looking things from all over the world. They looked like animals, some of them. And others were like something I’ve never seen—demons, maybe. Wicked-looking things, they were. He’d always collected them, see, and he was that fond of them. So they hung them all around in the nursery, so he could have them around. Whenever I was cleaning the rooms, it always felt like someone was watching me, ’cause of all those masks.”

  “You mentioned writings,” Anna prodded when the woman fell silent.

  Mrs. Parmer nodded. “Sometimes, when the spells took him, he would write on the walls. They painted them over now and then, but he’d always go back to writing on them.” She shook her head. “Couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, I couldn’t. Some if it didn’t even look like English.”

  Anna thought of the symbols her uncle drew, and her stomach constricted. Was her uncle like his father? Was his madness, too, the kind that drove a man to kill?

  “What was Lord de Winter like before he descended into madness?” Anna asked. “You said he was hard.”

  “Oh, my, yes. Everything had to be just so, and woe betide anyone who put things out of place or wasn’t quick enough. And servants weren’t the only ones. Her ladyship could never please him, except for giving him a son. I heard him take her to task something terrible. He even hit her sometimes. But she and Nurse were good about keeping Master Charles out of his way. A child could never be neat enough for that one.”

  Her uncle, too, wanted things done just a certain way—utensils in the correct order, the stones lined up according to his plan—and he did not like anything changed. But he had never been one to erupt into violence, or even shouting, if things were not done exactly to his plan. He simply worried and stewed about it. Charles’ personality was mild, and surely, Anna thought, that made all the difference between him and his father.

  They left not long after that. Anna was reeling from the information that they had received.

  “My own grandfather!” she exclaimed as they rode back toward Winterset. “No wonder Nick was reluctant to tell me about the murders. He must have known the truth, and he could not bear to tell me that my grandfather was a murderer.”

  “It explains a great deal,” Reed agreed. “It is little wonder that the murders went unsolved. There was obviously a conspiracy of silence to protect Lord de Winter.”

  “The doctor must have known,” Anna said. “Or at least suspected that Lord de Winter was the culprit. He knew he was insane. He knew that they locked him up after the murders. And after that the murders stopped.”

  “Yes, I would think he must have wondered about it. Perhaps those pages torn out of the doctor’s journal were about Lord de Winter.”

  Anna nodded. “That is exactly what I was thinking.”

  “I would like to look at that nursery myself,” Reed commented. “Obviously I should have trusted more in what Grimsley said. Lord de Winter did live in the nursery.”


  “That poor woman,” Anna said, shaking her head. “Lady de Winter, I mean. Think of being married to a monster like that. Knowing what he was, what he had done—yet she must have felt she had to shield him from the law because of her children. She would not have wanted them branded as mad, too. The scandal would have tarnished their name beyond repair. I can understand why she covered up for him. But to continue to live with him in the house, to see him…Why, Mrs. Parmer even said sometimes Lady de Winter walked with him in the gallery. She was with him in the summerhouse when they had the fire.”

  Reed looked at Anna. “That is where they both died, isn’t it?”

  Anna nodded, her expression changing. “Are you thinking—that he killed her, too?”

  Reed shrugged. “One has to wonder what they were doing there alone, if he had been locked up for the past several years in the nursery. What started the fire? Given his history, I would be suspicious.”

  “Yes, no doubt you are right.” Anna could not help but think with horror of what ran in her family, lurking in her own flesh and blood.

  When they reached Winterset, they went straight up the stairs to the nursery. The door to the nursery was indeed a sturdy door with a lock. Fortunately it was not locked, so they did not have to search for the key. Reed opened the door, and they stepped inside.

  The rooms were dark, the curtains drawn, and Reed strode over to push aside the curtain and let in some light. Anna looked at the bars crisscrossing the window, and she could not suppress a shiver. Reed looked at her in some concern.

  “Are you all right?”

  Anna nodded. “Yes. It is just…a little unsettling.” She rubbed her arms, feeling cold despite the fact that it was summer. She wasn’t sure why she felt unnerved here—whether she actually sensed something abnormal, or whether her emotions were simply colored by what Mrs. Parmer had told them about the place.

  They walked through the rooms—three small bedrooms and a larger schoolroom. The rooms were clean, the shelves empty. There was no sign that anyone had ever lived here, including children. What furniture there was, was all adult-size. A large humpbacked trunk stood against one wall in the schoolroom, and Reed crossed over to open it.