A Grave Matter

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Excellent,” he declared, his eyes warm as he gazed down at me by his side. “Then I’ll finally get a chance to dance with your sister.”

  I felt my cheeks begin to heat under his intense regard, and couldn’t stop a small smile of pleasure from curling my lips, delighted that he’d remembered.

  “Didn’t you both attend a ball in Edinburgh?” Trevor asked, ruining the moment. “Why didn’t you dance with her there?”

  I parted my lips, trying to figure out how to answer him without actually telling him the truth. Gage came to our rescue, all the while never removing his gaze from mine.

  “We were pursuing a suspect.”

  I inhaled deeply and offered him another smile, this time of gratitude.

  His eyes dipped to my lips, and I was sure that if Trevor had not been there, he would have kissed me.

  • • •

  When we arrived at Marefield House, the butler informed us with a sober smile that Lord Fleming was in his study and expected us. But when I asked if I might be shown to Lady Fleming instead, his eyebrows rose to his hairline. Apparently he’d overheard some of our conversation the previous evening, or simply deduced Lady Fleming’s displeasure from the manner in which she stormed out.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gage’s face twitch in suppressed amusement, but I dared not look at him. We had decided on this course of action during our drive here, hoping that Lady Fleming might be more willing to talk without her husband present. If she suspected her nephew’s involvement in these body snatchings as we did, then she might be keeping it from her husband. I had argued that she was more likely to speak with Gage than me—a woman she clearly despised—but he’d insisted that a tête-à-tête between two ladies was more suitable and would draw less suspicion from Lord Fleming. I had to reluctantly agree, though I wasn’t looking forward to bearding the lioness in her den.

  The butler coughed into his palm, quickly recovering himself. “Of course.” He swiveled to look at the footman stationed behind him. “Robert, please show Lady Darby to the conservatory.”

  I followed the young man through the corridors to the back corner of the house. Like most conservatories, the ceiling and three of the walls were made of glass, but unlike the maze that our garden room at Blakelaw House had become, this one was arranged in neat rows. The footman left me at the door and I wandered to the left, following the sound of clay scraping against wood. I rounded a rhododendron bush and found Lady Fleming standing before a long crude wooden table, her gloved hands pressing down the soil around a plant inside a pot. The flora was green and leafy, but with my limited knowledge of horticulture, I had no idea what kind of plant it might be.

  She must have sensed my presence, for she looked up, sparing me only a cursory glance before returning her concentration to the plant before her. “Lady Darby, how kind of you to visit me.” The bite in her voice indicated just how ironic those words were. “I assume Mr. Gage is closeted with my husband.”

  “And my brother,” I added, advancing toward her.

  She raised her eyes again at this statement, but did not comment.

  I paused to rest my hands on the rough wood of the table a few feet from her to observe her efforts. She pushed aside the pot she was working on and pulled an empty one toward herself. Then using a trowel, she shoveled a small bit of dirt into the pot and reached inside with her hands to form the earth into a well.

  “I assume you didn’t come here to watch me transfer my ferns,” she remarked, putting a great deal more effort than was called for into the task before her. “Or do I mistake the matter?”

  “No. Actually, I came to ask you about your nephew.”

  Lady Fleming’s hands stilled for a second, and then she renewed her ministrations. “Which nephew? I have several.”

  “Mr. Archibald Young. But I think you already knew that.”

  She lifted her gaze, and for an instant I could see the fear and uncertainty I was looking for in her eyes before it was swiftly masked by haughty annoyance. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and her chin lifted so that she could stare down her nose at me.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I wasn’t even aware that you were acquainted,” her voice snapped, almost in accusation.

  I reached out to finger one of the coarse leaves on a plant she had already finished transplanting. “Yes. We were introduced at Lord and Lady Rutherford’s Hogmanay Ball. The same night that Lord Buchan’s body was stolen from his grave nearby.”

  Her eyes were wide and almost wild, puzzling the implications, but the rest of her was stiff and unyielding. “I hope that you aren’t about to make unsavory accusations about my nephew. Because unlike you, I can assure you that the members of my family revere the dead.”

  I didn’t rise to her bait, understanding now that she was just lashing out in panic. “Lady Fleming, we know,” I told her gently. “We know your nephew visited the Beckford Parish Churchyard a few days before the late Lord Fleming’s bones were stolen.”

  “He was visiting his father’s grave.”

  “We know that he is friends with several young men who also recently had deceased family members’ graves disturbed. And that some of these friends have providently come into large sums of money.”

  Her gaze dropped to the side, but I continued on implacably.

  “And we know that you are already aware of much of this. That you already suspect your nephew’s involvement, but you’re too terrified to admit it.”

  “I . . . know no such thing,” she protested, her voice beginning to tremble. “So you can take your baseless accusations and leave my house immediately.” She pointed toward the door with her dirt-smeared finger, but rather than retreat, I advanced.

  “Lady Fleming, if your nephew is involved, the best way you can help him is by telling us what you know,” I reasoned. “If our suspicions are correct, he and his friends have fallen into league with a dangerous band of criminals from Edinburgh. When they started out, their plan may have seemed simple, but now that these body snatchers know how lucrative this ransom trade can be, they may not let them stop.”

  Her hand had dropped to the table and she was now shaking with some suppressed emotion.

  I stared intently into her eyes. “They’ve already killed one man. Do you honestly think they would hesitate to kill another if your nephew objected to their actions?”

  The fear she’d been struggling to hide suddenly swam to the surface, making her eyes gleam. I waited for her to come to her own decision, hoping she would trust me with whatever she was concealing. When her shoulders dipped and she turned to press her hands flat to the table in front of her in support, I knew she was about to confide in me.

  “I . . . I don’t know that he’s involved,” she began hesitantly. “But . . . he came to me for money a few months ago.”

  “How much?”

  “Several thousand pounds.”

  My eyebrows rose in surprise. “Did he tell you what it was for?”

  She nodded. “He wanted to marry. But the girl’s father refuses to allow the match since Archie’s income as a second son is so limited. He said he wanted to invest the money in a shipping venture, that he would triple his capital when this ship docked in London.”

  She closed her eyes tightly, and I could see she was close to tears. “Why didn’t I just lend him the money? If I had, then he wouldn’t have gotten into this mess.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked out of curiosity.

  She sighed. “Because Archie isn’t always the most responsible. He’s tried schemes like this before. And my husband has said in the past that shipping ventures aren’t always the safest way to invest. If the ship sinks in a storm or is robbed of its cargo, or sometimes if it’s only heavily delayed, you can lose everything.”

  “Did Mr. Young and Lord Shellingham stay here recently? Within the past few weeks?”

  She nodded, brushing her blond curls away from her forehead with the back of her wrist. In thi
s light, I could see streaks of gray just starting to show at her temples. “About a week ago. For two nights. They said they were just passing through.”

  I smiled in commiseration. “Did they mention where they’d come from or where they were headed? Do you know where they intended to stay?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I . . . I thought they said they’d come from somewhere in England, and that they were headed to a relative of Lord Shellingham’s near Edinburgh. But beyond that I’m afraid I don’t know. Maybe to Lord Shellingham’s estate—Pickwick House, near Berwick.”

  The timing was simply too perfect. Not only had these two young men been at Clintmains Hall on the night that Lord Buchan’s bones were stolen, but they’d also been “somewhere in England” around the time the ransom was paid and sent through the Cheviot Hills into England. Then they were here, in time to mark Lord Fleming’s gravestone before reaching Musselburgh a few days later, where we’d seen Lord Shellingham.

  I wondered if Lord Shellingham’s Pickwick House was their headquarters. After all, it was located within easy distance of Edinburgh, as well as the Borders. Was that where they stored the bones between the time they were stolen and the ransom was paid? Were the Edinburgh body snatchers staying there as well or somewhere nearby? It seemed worth looking into.

  Lady Fleming had been watching my face as I puzzled through this, and she asked in some anxiety, “You said you’d help him. What are you going to do?”

  “First we need to find him and talk to him. If he’ll confide in us and let us help him out of the mess he’s landed himself in, I’m sure the magistrate will be more lenient with him.”

  “Perhaps if they paid back all the money . . .” Her words stammered to a stop upon seeing my doubtful expression.

  “I’m afraid that would be quite impossible. Two of his friends have already spent tidy sums of it.”

  She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, and I hastened to reassure her.

  “Don’t despair. I promise we’ll do what we can.”

  She looked up at me, inhaled deeply, and nodded.

  “The best thing you can do is carry on as before. And should your nephew or any of his friends return here, send word to me at Blakelaw House.”

  She inhaled again. “I will.”

  I turned to go, but her next words brought me up short.

  “You know. You’re not what I expected.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and offered her a tight smile. “I rarely am.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The next few days were spent in careful planning. Trevor recruited a cattle farmer and his son who swore they knew the Cheviot Hills as intimately as anyone, and arranged for them to be ready on short notice should we need them to guide us into the hills on another ransom drop. We had no way of knowing whether the culprits would use the same method as the last time, but we’d decided it was best to be prepared in the event that they did. Our hope was still to catch the men before the ransom note was even delivered, but if we didn’t, we would be as ready as we could be to catch them when the ransom was paid.

  With the information we’d uncovered in Beckford, Mr. Young, Lord Shellingham, Mr. Erskine, and Mr. Fergusson had jumped to the top of our list of suspects, but Gage wanted to be certain of a few last details before we confronted them.

  “Do your best to already know the answer to your question before you ever ask it,” he told me with a sharp-eyed gaze. “Then it’s harder for a suspect to mislead you, and easier to intimidate them into giving you the truth. If they think you already know, they’ll recognize the futility in lying.”

  So in that effort, we took Anderley with us to Clintmains Hall the next day when we visited my aunt and uncle. Gage believed, and I had to agree, that a fellow servant might be able to extract more information from the staff than their employers could, especially if the servant knew they’d done something wrong. And true to his theory, Anderley did return with one juicy tidbit of information we hadn’t known before. Something that when combined with the information Sim’s Christie had told us about the two men leaving the Hogmanay Ball pointed the finger even more squarely at the quartet of young men. So we made plans to visit Pickwick House the next day.

  Pickwick House was located on a swath of land between the River Tweed and the Whiteadder, just a few miles west of Berwick. The drive from Blakelaw was a little more than two hours. We did our best to stop at every inn and pub on our way, flashing the sketches I’d drawn of Curst Eckie and Sore John to ask if they’d seen any rough-looking strangers in the past few weeks or months. One woman at a tavern near Coldstream said she thought she’d seen the pair of men a few weeks back, but she couldn’t swear to it. She complained that it had been dark and she hadn’t been looking for trouble. No one else admitted to seeing them, and I didn’t know whether to consider that a good or a bad sign as we neared the manor.

  Either way I was nervous. What if the body snatchers were staying on Lord Shellingham’s estate? What if they became suspicious of our arrival? Trevor and Anderley had joined us, and I had made sure to bring my gun, but two gentlemen, a valet, and a woman with a single-shot pistol were hardly a match for four Edinburgh criminals, and perhaps Lord Shellingham and his friends. I wanted to believe that the four gentlemen who had planned this would not harm us, but I didn’t know them well enough to be sure. I had seen with my own eyes how even good men could be driven to do horrible things if the pressure to do so and their own fear were strong enough.

  The approach to Pickwick House was made through a thick copse of trees that widened suddenly to reveal the manor. The main block of the house stood directly in front of us, with stairs leading up to a four-columned portico. Wings stretched out on either side of the main block to wrap around the drive, enclosing it almost like a courtyard. The drive branched off to the left and to the right toward other parts of the manor. We all leaned forward to peer out the windows on either side of the carriage as it entered the courtyard, trying to see whether trouble lay down either of the branches of these paths, but they were both clear of people and obstructions.

  The weather had been inhospitable all morning. Intermittent periods of icy rain had spat at us from the sky. A few degrees cooler and the precipitation would have been snow, but the temperature hovered stubbornly above freezing, allowing the wind to whip sharp pellets of rain at our faces instead of soft snowflakes.

  I cowered inside my cloak as Gage, Trevor, and I descended from the carriage. Anderley would ride in the coach around to the stables and enter through the servants’ entrance, as expected, which would also allow him the opportunity to search that part of the property for any sign of the Edinburgh criminals. I welcomed Gage’s steadying arm as we climbed the dozen or more stairs to the front doors. When we reached the top, we’d expected a servant to be there to attend to us, but instead we were forced to wait. Trevor knocked several times, and his fist pounds became harder with each minute that passed.

  As time stretched, an uneasy feeling came over me. I glanced over my shoulder into the courtyard below us, but it was as gray and empty as when we’d arrived. Regardless, we were exposed here, and I couldn’t be sure whether it was the prickles of chilly rain striking against my back that so unsettled me or something else. Whatever it was, I decided I didn’t like this place, no matter its ornate, classical beauty. It was eerie and rather desolate, as if it were only a hollow illusion.

  “Do you think it’s deserted?” Trevor turned to ask, his brow furrowed in frustration.

  Gage grimly surveyed our surroundings, his face glistening with the cold spray of the rain. “A manor this large? Surely there’s someone here. A skeleton staff, at the very least.”

  Trevor frowned and reached out for the doorknob. It turned in his hand, and the door swung open a crack. He looked back at us one more time, and then pushed the door open. If nothing else, we needed to get out of the stinging rain, at least long enough to decide what to do.

  Trevor crossed the threshold into the
darkened interior. “Hello!” he called. “Is anyone here?”

  Gage and I followed, staring around us at the vast, echoing entrance hall. The gloomy light passing through the windows above illuminated a black and white tiled floor and a round wooden table standing at the center of the space. A grand staircase swept up the right side of the room, along the hall’s rounded walls, ending in shadows above.

  This was all I had time to notice before the percussive bang of a gun broke the silence. The window above us shattered, and glass shards rained down on us as we dove for the ground, tinkling as they struck the floor. I gasped and then cringed at the sharp sensation on my leg. I worried that a piece of glass had sliced into my skin, but then as the icy sensation spread, I realized we’d dived into our own growing puddles of water as it had dripped off our clothing.

  Our ears still ringing from the noise, Gage pushed himself upright and dragged me toward the center of the room.

  “Stay low,” he ordered.

  He shoved me beneath the round table and told me to stay. Then he and Trevor took off running toward the stairs in a crouch. I wanted to yell at them to stop, but by the time my wits and voice had returned sufficiently to do so, they were already halfway up the stairs. I peered out to watch as they made their way upward, their backs pressed again the wall behind them and their pistols drawn. As they disappeared from my sight, I wanted to stick my head out farther to see where they’d gone, but my self-preservation instincts kicked in and I remained hidden beneath the heavy wooden surface.

  I glanced around me, trying to see into the gloom, but all that greeted my gaze was a vast room with hazy shadows at its edges. My hands were shaking as I fumbled with my reticule, trying to extract my pistol. I stopped and forced myself to take a deep breath. I could do no one any good, least of all myself, if I didn’t calm down enough to be able to see and shoot straight.

  From above I heard a shout and then the thud of running feet. I wrapped my fingers around the smooth wooden grip of my gun and leaned as far out as I dared to see up toward the top of the stairs. The house fell silent, except for the pounding of my heart in my ears. I strained to hear any sound to indicate Gage’s and Trevor’s whereabouts, my only relief that I hadn’t yet heard another gunshot.