As Death Draws Near

by Anna Lee Huber

  He managed to hoist himself upright, perched at the edge of the mattress. At first he didn’t attempt any further movement, and I wondered if perhaps his head was spinning from the drink. Then he reached up to tug at his cravat, pulling it from around his neck and tossing it on the floor like a little boy. I’d noticed it was one of his more lamentable habits, and was glad I wasn’t the one forced to pick up after him. That was Anderley’s job.

  “Yes. Your brother is simply mad about them. Jabbered my ear off about them at Dalmay and Lady Caroline’s wedding breakfast. Declares they’ll revolutionize the way we travel. And they just might.”

  “Then you’d best invest in them,” I proclaimed with a yawn, too tired to continue to follow this conversation. Instead, I lay back and tried to keep my eyes open to watch him continue to divest himself of his clothes. He had a very fine back, did my husband. Smooth and well muscled. I had been admiring it and various other parts of his body with my artist’s eye since our wedding night. Or perhaps it was with the appreciation of a rather smitten wife. Either way, he was thoroughly distracting.

  “I already have.” He shifted the mattress as he reached down to remove one of his stockings. “There are proposals to link the Liverpool and Manchester Railway with Birmingham.”

  I yawned, closing my eyes as I gave a disinterested hum.

  I felt him lift the covers, letting in a draft of cool air, and then he rolled toward me, hovering over me as he pressed against my side. “Poor Kiera,” he crooned. “Hauled across rough seas and all over Rathfarnham, and then forced to listen to her husband yammer about locomotives when she only wants to sleep.”

  “Sebastian.”

  “I know.” He kissed my brow before leaning forward to blow out the light.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  True to my expectations, the air the following morning was crisp and cool, and I shivered as I bathed and dressed in my walking dress and matching deep sapphire blue redingote with belt. The woods and rolling fields surrounding the Priory were steeped in low-hanging mist, which promised to burn off in the brilliant sun piercing through the haze. Our hired carriage and driver had returned to Howth, and the Priory did not possess a town coach or a landau, or employ a coachman, but there was a lightly sprung four-wheeled yellow phaeton stored in the carriage house that the butler said Mr. Curran sometimes used about town. So we set off down the lane with Gage handling the reins of the open carriage and Bree perched on the footman’s seat behind us. Anderley rode alongside on the back of a beautiful roan gelding.

  Gage and I had both agreed our first visit that morning should be to the constabulary to confer with the chief constable and find out what he could tell us about the matter of Miss Lennox’s death. It still being rather early, the streets of Rathfarnham were not yet busy. Most of the shops were only just opening their doors, their proprietors sweeping the walks and polishing the front windows. The bell in the church steeple chimed, sending a flock of crows that had been roosting in the oak trees flanking the front walk wheeling into the air. Their black bodies circled the sky, swooping downward toward the rooftops on the opposite side of the street only to rise upward again.

  “A storm’s a comin’,” Bree leaned forward to say.

  I glanced over my shoulder at her.

  “’Least, that’s what my granny always said when the crows wheeled aboot like that.” She nodded at the sky.

  I studied the black fluttering mass and then turned to Gage. His brow was furrowed in displeasure, though I didn’t know if this was because of Bree’s superstitious comment about the crows or the pair of uniformed men standing in front of the constabulary with their arms crossed in a rather unwelcoming manner.

  “Go slowly,” Gage leaned over to murmur as he pulled the horses to a stop.

  I knew this meant he wanted me to follow his lead, and I was quite content to do so.

  Anderley had ridden ahead so he could tie his horse to the hitching rail at the front of the building and be ready to take the reins for the phaeton from Gage. He did so now after helping Bree down. I knew she intended to run a few errands while Gage and I spoke to the chief constable. So I was surprised when I looked up to find her standing rigidly, staring at the constabulary as if she’d seen a ghost. Then without a word, she abruptly pivoted and hurried away. I glanced back over my shoulder at her retreating figure as Gage took my arm and guided me toward the door.

  “Good morning,” he greeted them. “We’re here to speak with Chief Constable Corcoran.”

  Neither of the men moved aside. Attired in dark green coats and trousers with black braid and epaulets on their shoulders, they wore uniforms that appeared very similar to that of the light cavalry of the British Army, even down to the swords strapped at their sides, and the light carbines draped over their shoulders. Why they needed such weaponry while guarding the entrance to their constabulary, I had no idea, but I suspected it was as much a factor of vanity as anything.

  Gage’s eyes hardened. “I’ve a letter of introduction, should that be necessary.” He paused for effect. “From the Duke of Wellington.”

  The man on the left, who sported a thick mustache, visibly stiffened, while the pale-haired man on the right only narrowed his gaze. “The duke, eh?” His brown eyes snapped. “An’ why would he be sendin’ ye here?”

  The corners of Gage’s mouth curled upward scornfully. “I believe that’s an explanation I’ll be addressing to your superior. So please, be kind enough to show us to him.”

  But the man still did not budge, even as his cohort shifted from foot to foot beside him.

  “It’s all right, Casey,” a tired voice behind us said. “Let dem pass.”

  We swiveled to see who the newcomer was, deducing from the amount of braid and decoration on his uniform that this was, in fact, Chief Constable Corcoran. His dark hair was liberally dusted with gray, including his neatly trimmed mustache and thick side hairs. Combined with his red-rimmed eyes and florid complexion, he presented quite a colorful appearance.

  Gage reached out his hand to introduce himself, but Corcoran was still staring at Casey. His expression creased into a fierce scowl. “I told ye to let dem pass.”

  Casey finally stepped to the side, but with the least amount of grace, fairly glowering at Corcoran and then us as we passed him through the door. Gage maintained eye contact with him until he could no longer comfortably do so, perhaps to make certain Casey did not intend to take his thwarted frustration out on Anderley. However, we soon had more pressing things to worry about, including keeping up with the chief constable’s ground-eating stride as he led us down a long hallway.

  “Murphy!” he barked as we encountered a trio of men clustered about a desk. “Get yer manky hide upstairs an’ don yer uniform properly or I’ll be stripin’ ye.”

  I assumed he was speaking to the man still in shirtsleeves, his uniform coat missing.

  He turned right, crossing through an outer office and then into a room at the far back corner of the building. It appeared to look out on a garden of sorts, and beyond that stood an old stone wall. Through a gap in the vegetation surrounding it, I could see a thin slice of a graveyard with its rows of leaning graves, likely the same graveyard whose gates I had viewed from the road when we entered town just the day before. A rather morbid situation for one’s office, but I supposed it was better than having no window at all. It was propped open to let in a soft breeze and a few dappled rays of the sunshine which had finally pierced through the morning haze.

  He cleared away a stack of papers from the hard ladder-back chair set in the corner and pulled it nearer to his desk at the center of the room before sitting in another chair set behind it. “Ignore Constable Casey,” he told us with a careless swipe of his hand as I took my seat across from him and Gage moved to stand at my back. “He’s got a head full o’ bees at the moment, he does.” He clasped his hands in front of him on his desk. “Now, wh
at can I be doin’ for ye, Mr. . . .”

  “Gage.” He reached into the inner pocket of his midnight blue frock coat and extracted the second letter of introduction we’d been given—the one addressed to Corcoran’s superior, Sir John Harvey, that had been meant to smooth our way with any rank of authority. Gage passed the missive across the desk to Corcoran.

  He read it swiftly with almost no discernable reaction other than a brief lifting of his eyebrows, before refolding it and handing it back to Gage. “So yer here about the matter at the abbey.” He seemed to be assessing us both, but then realized what he thought didn’t matter. He’d been given his orders, from no less than Wellington himself. “Well, yer welcome to it,” he declared, sitting back with the air of a man who was relieved to wash their hands of this case.

  “Why do you say that?” Gage asked.

  “Because it don’t be makin’ any sense. And those nuns . . .” He shook his head. “They’ll not give a straight answer. Starin’ at the ground, pretendin’ to be too pious to know of such earthly tings.” He leaned forward suddenly, lifting his finger. “You mark my words. They be hidin’ something. I don’t know what, but ye can be sure o’ it.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to such an assertion, and it was clear neither did Gage. What exactly had this man and his men been asking them?

  “I see,” Gage murmured. “Well, what can you tell us of the facts of the case, as far as you know them?”

  His chair creaked as he sank back into it again. “As far as I knows dem, one o’ the caretakers who lives in one o’ the small cottages near the abbey came to the constabulary to tell us a lass there had been murdered. So my men fetched me an’ we set off for the abbey. The mother superior’s second-in-command met us herself at the gate an’ guided us round the buildin’, an’ true the orchards to the spot where the girl was found.” There was a wry twist in his voice that suggested he thought this might not be true.

  “Where was that?” Gage asked.

  “Just outside the abbey walls in a plot of open land. Part o’ the wall was bein’ repaired, so some of the stones were dislodged or missin’. But ye can see dat for yourself.” It was becoming obvious that Corcoran valued efficiency, in word and action, and he had no desire to waste time discussing that which was unnecessary. “’Twas clear her head had been bashed by a fall or a blow.”

  “Could she have simply tripped and hit her head?”

  I noticed he had not told the chief constable we had visited the abbey and spoken to Reverend Mother Mary Teresa. I supposed he wanted to hear what the man had to say without him wondering what we’d already heard from the nuns.

  Corcoran’s mouth flattened, nearly disappearing beneath his mustache. “Maybe. There was no rock nearby for her to ’ve fallen on, and the sisters swore they hadn’t moved her, but . . .” he shrugged “. . . who’s to say.”

  “But why would they lie?” I asked in confusion, not understanding why he would suspect such a thing.

  His eyes dropped to meet mine. “I don’t know, sure I don’t. But I learned long ago not to be trustin’ everything dem Catholics say, ’specially if there be religion involved.”

  “And the Anglicans?” I could hear the tension at the edges of Gage’s voice, though it was clear he was trying to mask it.

  Corcoran’s eyes glittered, meeting his challenge. “Oh, they be just as quick wit a lie as all the rest. But they’ve less to lose.”

  I felt some of the tension leave Gage’s hand where it rested against my shoulder, and I suspected he felt the chief constable’s answer was satisfactory enough. This was a man with the same long-seated prejudices as most Anglo-Irishmen, but he did not seem to be grinding an ax to them.

  He exhaled heavily, pushing a stack of papers farther toward the corner of his desk. “I’ll not be mincin’ words. I don’t know whether to make heads nor tails of dis Miss Lennox’s murder. The mother superior barred us from her convent afore we could discover much about the lass or her death, and she knows enough people up in Dublin over my head to keep me away. The Balls are a powerful family in their own right. Built their fortune in shippin’ when Catholics were still barred from other trades.” His eyes lifted from the blotter where he’d been staring. “I’ve no wish to challenge her in dis, and dat’s the truth. So yer welcome to it. I’ll help ye however I can, but my hands are full enough at the moment wit the Catholics an’ their blasted tithe protest, and these bletherin’ secret societies.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed Gage did. “They’re active here, then?”

  “Aye,” he grunted. “Active enough. An’ a benighted scourge they are. I’ve not enough men to deal wit dem and dis murder.” His lips pursed. “An’ truth be told, I don’t know dat I’ve a man wit the wits to solve it. They’re good men, they are. But not the sharpest o’ the lot, dat’s for sure.”

  Plainly the county constabulary was not the most respected of professions here in Ireland. In fact, I suspected they were more often than not viewed as the enemy, and whatever pay the men were given, it was unlikely to make up for the hostility they faced. I imagined the general laborers without land would prefer to find jobs at the mills and farms nearby rather than sign on to help police their own people for meager pay and living quarters in the crowded barracks above.

  “Well, we appreciate your cooperation,” Gage said, and I could tell he meant it. This was one less thing to worry over. “I didn’t know if the local men would feel I was stepping on their toes.”

  “I cannot speak for everyone, but I’ll not be quarrelin’ wit ye.”

  “What of Casey?”

  One corner of Corcoran’s mustache twitched upward in chagrin. “Dat one’s a bit pigheaded, to be sure. But I’ve none better at coaxin’ his fellow Catholics to be reasonable, so long as the reasoning’s sound.”

  Somehow that did not seem the least reassuring.

  “Is he going to give us trouble?” Gage asked.

  Corcoran sat forward as if to rise. “I’ll see dat he doesn’t. An’ so long as ye appear to be fair to all, he’ll see it’s best not to bother ye.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Was he acquainted with Miss Lennox?”

  He seemed slightly taken aback by this question. “Not so far as I know. But yer free to ask him.”

  Gage’s hand gently squeezed my shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “If you’ve nothin’ else to be askin’ me, den . . .”

  But Corcoran never got to finish his sentence, for one of his men rapped once before peeking his head through the door. He cringed, clearly prepared for a dressing-down. “Sorry to be disturbin’ ye, sir. But Mr. LaTouche insists he speak . . .”

  “Corcoran, what’s this I hear about you abandonin’ the inquiry.” The man in question didn’t even bother to let the cadet finish his sentence, but barged through the door past him. His steps came up short at the sight of me and Gage.

  Mr. LaTouche was a tall and imposing man, made all the more so by the expert fit of his clothing, clearly London-tailored. In fact, his appearance rivaled Gage’s for sophistication, though the fact that Gage wore his attire so effortlessly only made LaTouche look as if he was trying too hard. I supposed the ladies would describe him as dashing, but any appreciation I might have felt was soured by his resemblance to Gage’s father. However, where Lord Gage was light, LaTouche was dark, with raven black hair just beginning to turn to gray at the temples, except for a pair of piercing Irish blue eyes. These he turned to me with what I suspected was normally a devastating effect on the women of his acquaintance. Or so his arrogant smile seemed to say.

  Corcoran, I noticed, had risen to his feet, but I elected to use my prerogative as a lady to remain seated. It irked me somehow to see how everyone seemed to cater to this Mr. LaTouche, though it was only to be expected. He was evidently a man of some importance here in Rathfarnham. People in every village in B
ritain acted the same way toward men of higher rank or consequence. Why should this one instance bother me?

  Ah, but I knew the answer to that, and it was no fault of the man himself. I tried to push Lord Gage from my thoughts and listen as Corcoran performed the introductions and explained our presence.

  Mr. LaTouche owned a sizable estate a short distance south of the Priory, where we were staying. It was what would be termed a gentleman’s country residence, the place where he and his family would retire to from the overcrowding and stench of the city of Dublin. I gathered he was not the typical land-holding member of the gentry, for he owned two of the local mills, as well as several shipping ventures.

  “Lady Darby,” he murmured, bowing over the hand I offered him. “I’m enchanted.”

  “Please, call me Mrs. Gage,” I replied, ignoring the flattery.

  To his credit, he didn’t even blink at my request. “But, of course.” He stood tall again, taking us all in. “As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I’m here to find out what’s bein’ done about dat girl’s death. But now dat I see you are here, well, I suppose dat’s answer enough.”

  I smiled tightly, wondering just how much of our reputations had preceded us, and how much he was reacting to Corcoran’s proclamation that Wellington himself had sent us.

  “You are here to investigate the death of Miss Lennox, are ye not?” he pressed, clearly angling for information. “Not some other matter wit which I’m unfamiliar?”

  Somehow I doubted this man was unfamiliar with much that mattered in this community.

  “Yes, we’re making inquiries into her death on behalf of the family,” Gage replied, crossing one ankle behind the other to lean more casually against the back of my chair. “Were you acquainted with Miss Lennox?”

  “Wit the family? Certainly. Hard not to be in a town as small as Dublin.” By which he meant the good society of the Protestant Ascendancy, not the city itself; that was clear. “’Twas unexpected enough to hear of her conversion to Catholicism, but den to hear of her murder. Well, ye can imagine the shock. Such a ting simply cannot be allowed to happen. Even to a Catholic girl.”