Blood For Blood: A Regency Mystery (Regency Mysteries)

by S K Rizzolo

  The contrast between Buckland and Cayhill Abbey could not have been greater. As they approached, Buckler, observing Chase’s bemusement at the spectacle of turrets, pointed windows, and vast tower, remarked, “I shouldn’t be surprised if it tumbles down about their ears one day. I don’t suppose anyone around here would shed a tear.”

  Buckler fell silent as they both caught sight of a man, hat in hand, descending the shallow steps to cross the cobbled courtyard. Glancing up, the man stopped, clearly startled, and with calculated rudeness, turned his back, continuing toward a shiny phaeton hitched to one of the best bits of blood Chase had ever seen.

  Buckler dismounted. “Good day, Ashe,” he called. “May we have a word?”

  Slowly, Lord Ashe pivoted, an upright figure in his leather breeches, blue tailcoat, and top boots. “I am expected elsewhere.” He looked at Chase. “I told you your employment with us is at an end. Get out.”

  “My lord, we must speak to Mrs. Wolfe on urgent business.” Chase swung himself down to join Buckler.

  “Get out,” Ashe repeated, but Chase had seen the fear flicker in his eyes.

  “Take a damper, Ashe,” said Buckler with cold authority. “We were told that Mrs. Wolfe’s daughter has the fever. Naturally, we are concerned.”

  “Mrs. Wolfe ain’t here.” He gave an unpleasant smirk. “She and my wife have gone riding, and before you ask me, I haven’t the vaguest notion where they may have gone. Nor do I much care, if you must have the truth.”

  “I cannot credit that Mrs. Wolfe would have left Sarah,” said Buckler.

  Ashe shrugged. “Why not? I understand the child has improved. The doctor has already been with her this morning. Anyway, I know the ladies like to play at being devoted wives and mothers, but I find they generally put their own pleasures first.”

  “As your wife did when she made a mere footman her lover whilst you were off taking your pleasure of children,” said Chase softly. “I suppose such behavior is perfectly acceptable in the gentleman, but she risked your good name and made sure ridicule would be your lot if anyone learned the truth. Only you soon discovered the possibility of far worse consequences. My lady Ashe’s lover was a Jacobin, a traitor plotting against our Prince Regent, no less. Far, far beyond the usual peccadilloes one expects of Society matrons.”

  “You’re mad.” Though Ashe spoke with his usual arrogance, it seemed a hollow defense, like the coward who blusters when caught in a lie, aware that the façade can easily be ripped asunder to expose a yawning hole of shame. Buckler sent Chase a curious look but did not comment, and Chase went on.

  “Perhaps it was one of your political friends who whispered in your ear about a certain brothel the Home Office spies had been watching and the young man often seen there who turned out to be employed in your father-in-law’s establishment. Would this be enough, I wonder, to drive you to murder?”

  “If you know so much, why ask me?” said Ashe, taking a step toward his phaeton.

  “Chase, I think we must go after Penelope,” said Buckler. “God knows what that Bedlamite woman wants with her.”

  Chase held up a hand. “I think my lord may be of some use to us on that score. At the very least, I am certain he can tell us of Rebecca Barnwell and her connection with the family. He and Wallace-Crag are friends of long standing.”

  “What of it?” demanded Ashe. “I have not the vaguest notion what you blabber on about.”

  “One Rebecca Barnwell, prophetess,” said Chase. “I believe you knew her by a slightly different name—Rebecca Barton. Once nursemaid to Lady Ashe, she got herself with child, then disappeared to resurface later in a lunatic asylum. Only no one seems to know what became of the infant, least of all Rebecca herself.”

  Ashe absorbed this information, becoming abruptly thoughtful. “So that’s it. She was the woman in the garden that night? Strange I did not know her, but she is altered almost beyond recognition.”

  “Your wife recognized her, for I have little doubt it was she who bribed the night-beadle to secure Barnwell’s release from the parish lock-up the next day.”

  “Julia? After all these years, why should she care?” He seemed shaken, honestly bewildered.

  “The nursemaid’s babe?” pressed Chase.

  “I cannot tell you. Look, I didn’t like the chit overmuch, had a score to settle with her on my own account. And it was clear Roger was heading for disaster. He was the father, you know, but once the damage was done, he should have acted to remove the girl before his wife caught on. He let matters go until the bitch was ready to drop the brat at any moment. The situation became intolerable.”

  “What then?” asked Buckler. “I presume you advised your friend to abandon the girl.”

  Ashe pressed his lips together to repress an involuntary smile. “I did more than that. I tricked her into coming out of doors one night and bundled her off in a coach, which was to convey her to an establishment for such creatures. I never saw her more. But the answer to your little mystery is patent to anyone with a grasp of human nature. She bore the child and did away with it herself to avoid the shame. If she is stirring up trouble now, no doubt she thinks to bleed poor Roger.”

  Chase had despised Ashe from the moment he met him, for this was the sort of specimen who gave the ruling classes their well-deserved reputation for callous blindness to the realities of the world. Chase had wished for the chance to get the viscount alone, man to man, to see what he was made of, this creature that preyed upon helpless little girls. Now, he merely wanted this confrontation over.

  “Where did you take her, Ashe?” he said wearily.

  He laughed. “You fool. I wasn’t the one driving the coach.”

  ***

  Following Julia on her big bay, Penelope was mounted on the cob again. This time, riding in silence, each busy with her own thoughts, they skirted the wood and met only a girl picking flowers and storing them in her apron. The girl looked at them curiously and informed them in a thick accent that she had encountered no one else this morning but for an old tinker who had tried to sell her a skin lotion.

  They thanked her. When they had moved out of earshot, Penelope said in halting tones, “You once wished to honor me with your confidence, and I refused you. Will you speak now?”

  An enigmatic smile touched Julia’s lips as she turned her head, the long crimson feather in her hat wafting in the soft May breeze. “You feared my wickedness would corrupt you.”

  “I hope I am not so foolish as that. It was mostly that I was unhappy and felt I did not belong,” said Penelope, adding in a carefully neutral tone, “The woman they call Rebecca Barnwell, the prophetess, was once your nurse whom you dearly loved as a child. Was that why you allowed yourself to be drawn in, or was it because of Dick?”

  “It’s true I had agreed to help Dick. He came to me soon after he entered my father’s employ and told me…a story. Well, I believed it. Then there came the day when Rebecca left a letter for you at your solicitor friend’s chambers. Dick went to retrieve it.”

  “He smashed the window and broke in.”

  She nodded. “Dick asked me to watch for Rebecca whilst he was gone, for he was afraid she might show herself in St. James’s Square. And she did, very late, close to morning when I had almost given up the vigil. I was standing at my window when I saw the glow of her candle drifting across the lawn. I went down and led her to the shrubbery to await his return.”

  “So you were in the garden. Your maid found your dampened cloak stuffed under the counterpane the next day.”

  “She told you that?” Julia said, shooting Penelope a look of surprise.

  “Why should Miss Barnwell attempt to correspond with me? I have never met her.”

  “She’d been lurking around the square for some days, apparently, and had seen you out-of-doors with young Sarah. I think she hoped you might intercede with my father on her behalf. She wouldn’t have wished to involve me.”

  “Your father has told me she bore him a child many y
ears ago. I do not understand what she could desire of him now.”

  Julia looked her full in the face, then, reassured by whatever she read there, said, “Justice and an end to the pain of not knowing the truth of her past.”

  The horses had slowed to a stop. As the cob lowered its head to nip at some grass, Penelope, curiously at a loss, stroked its rough coat. She had the feeling that Julia spoke as much of herself as of Rebecca Barnwell.

  “How did Dick die?” she asked at last.

  “I stayed with Rebecca for a time. She was pleased to see me once she could be brought to understand who I was. After a time, I heard Dick call out, softly. We had been absorbed in our conversation and failed to hear his approach. I was so relieved, but Rebecca ran away before I could restrain her. He told me to go back inside and started after her.

  “But someone else had heard us. He must have noticed the light, as I had, or caught the sound of voices. And Rebecca ran straight into his arms before Dick could catch her. They struggled. I saw Dick go to her aid. He cursed once, and I saw him fall. Steps retreated. I wanted to go to Rebecca, but I couldn’t get my feet to obey me. I think she must have knelt at Dick’s side to remove the knife, for I caught the gleam of metal as she held it to the sky. Then that unearthly cry. I…I wanted to help, but I couldn’t see, and I knew I must escape before I was discovered. I slipped in the side door and went up the back stairs to my chamber.”

  When her voice died away, Penelope sat back, thinking. She could so easily imagine the two women waiting in the dark and the men who found them there, one of whom, it seemed, had tried his best to protect them. “So you did not identify the assailant?”

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “You say Rebecca sought justice. And I think perhaps you yourself have not been displeased to see your husband and your father suffer unease in this matter.”

  Her eyes fell. “I’ve served them a bit of their own, at any rate. Ashe has not had a moment’s rest since he decided I’d taken a common footman for a lover. As for my father—him I merely drove to murder.”

  “Oh, Julia,” said Penelope with horrified pity, “why should an old scandal drive Sir Roger to such measures? He is not so bound by convention as that, quite the contrary.”

  “What else can it be? Nothing makes any sense. He would have been deeply shocked to see her. Perhaps he thought she meant to attack him. Ashe told me Mr. Chase recovered my father’s Celtic knife. You see, Father must have had it in his hand when he came out that night. I’m sure Dick took the blow meant for Rebecca.”

  Something Julia had said finally penetrated. “What do you mean Lord Ashe decided you had taken a lover. It’s not…true?”

  She laughed. “Is that why you’ve been so starched up, Mrs. Wolfe? You believed that of me. But it wasn’t like that. He told me he was my brother, the son of my childhood nurse, the son my father never had. Still, I’m sure he was handsome enough for the thought to present itself, and such dalliance would have added a delectable spice to the whole situation. Can you imagine my father’s horror? I see I’ve missed my chance.”

  “He lied to you,” said Penelope flatly. “Sir Roger says Rebecca destroyed her child in a moment of despair. Dick was not your brother.”

  “If she did, she is not to blame. Yes, Dick lied. He and his friends needed Rebecca for their nasty plots, and they couldn’t be sure whether the old story would surface to harm her. Oh, Dick was clever. He played the long-lost son for my benefit very well indeed. It was the perfect excuse for his probing questions about the family and his touching concern for his ‘sick mother’ who had run away.”

  “Those nuts you found this morning. What do they mean? Mr. Chase found a bit of hazel greenery in Dick’s pocket.”

  “Rebecca must have crept in and left them for my father. When I was little, she used to make me hazelnut chains. I think she meant them as a sort of signal. Do you realize that she was in the wood with you that day?”

  Penelope gaped. “Is that why you abandoned me? If she wished to speak to me, why didn’t she approach?”

  “She is not quite…rational,” said Julia, shrugging. “I had encountered her near the lodge the day before and promised her I would bring you along. I would have waited for you to find your way out again, but Ashe came upon me and took it in his head to be angry I was on my own.”

  “Something is wrong, Julia. Don’t you feel it? We must find Sir Roger at once.”

  “Wait, there is one thing more I must tell you,” she said, a fresh note of constraint in her voice. “The dress I gave you. It was I who destroyed it. I have no excuse but that you had spurned my offers of friendship, and my maid told me you’d been overheard gossiping about me with that harridan Mrs. Sterling.” Her head drooped. “I am sorry, Penelope. I was sorry as soon as I did it.”

  Penelope reached out to clasp the hand she extended. “Your maid had it wrong. I didn’t gossip about you, but never mind all that now, Julia. There has been fault on both sides.”

  ***

  After they rounded the edge of the wood, they continued north, heading, by unspoken consent, toward the ruined church. Soon Penelope caught her first glimpse of the church, rising from the center of an encircling, grassy rampart. In truth, the mound of earth, immeasurably ancient, had survived the years much better than the structure built to supplant it. How bereft the remnant is, she said to herself, with its roofless walls and misshapen form like some crippled beast hunched over the land.

  The only sound was the quivering of the thick grasses, which flowed toward the earthwork, a living carpet. At the center of the circle, the church was of flint and dark red sandstone, an ivy tree winding shriveled branches round the tower. Two old yews, flanked by a small copse of hazel, stood guard to the east. Beyond the enclosure stretched fields, aglow with ripening corn, and sparsely treed meadows. In spring’s fullness, the land appeared gently swollen like a woman’s belly.

  She was reminded of the sketch Sir Roger had drawn for her in which he had captured something of the brooding loneliness of this spot. Glancing at Julia, she saw that she too looked apprehensive, though there appeared to be no one else around.

  They dismounted, Penelope with some difficulty, and looped their reins around a bush before walking up the slope until they gained the top of the ramp. Below was an inner ditch that followed the enclosure’s line.

  Julia said, “Mind the ditch. I’m afraid it’s muddy. Look, why not wait here a moment, and I’ll walk round the other side and take a quick look. There’s no point in both of us soiling our shoes.”

  Nimbly, she jumped across the gap and, sweeping her train over her arm, strode toward the church, but Penelope was too restless to wait. Instead, she toiled through the long grasses at the side of the ditch, feeling the dew soak through the skirt of her habit. The sun was stronger now, almost hot on her back and shoulders. Overhead a lark sang, a liquid chirrup fading even as she listened.

  She followed along the edge, seeking a spot to cross that looked less muddy. The recent rain had poured down the little gully, washing away rocks and large clumps of earth. In places the water stood in puddles that came halfway up the tufts of thick turf and red-flowered thistle. She glanced over her shoulder. Julia was out of sight.

  Gathering up her skirt, Penelope launched herself, but at the other side she staggered, her ankle twisting as it slipped into a declivity she hadn’t been able to see. Cursing silently, she leaned in the opposite direction and grasped a tuft of grass to prevent herself from falling. She was balanced at the edge of a small, irregular hole, perhaps three feet wide and only a foot or two deep. Her first thought was that Sir Roger must have begun his explorations, and carefully, she took a step back, not wishing to disturb them. She stared at the ground, and this time her eye caught sight of a grayish-white fragment sticking out of the bank just above the hole.

  It looked like a bit of cloth.

  Something made her bend down, pick up a long stick in her gloved hand, and lean across the ditch t
o poke at it. Gingerly, she scraped away, trying to catch the stick around the cloth. But after she had freed perhaps two inches, the cloth stuck fast in the mud.

  With a grunt of annoyance, she shifted back on her heels and removed her right glove. Reaching out her hand, she gave a yank. The cloth tore. Threads unraveled in her fingers as a few more inches came free. With her stick Penelope dug out more dirt and tried again.

  This time a bigger piece came away, and she was able to examine the cloth. For an instant she was excited, wondering if by chance she had stumbled on some genuine archaeological discovery. She recalled that when Sir Roger had spoken of the possibility of a burial mound under the church, he had mentioned that the ancient Britons might have chosen instead to bury their dead with their artifacts out here on the margin, perhaps to guard the boundary.

  Common sense asserted itself. This was cloth, by all appearances once a piece of coarse homespun. It certainly couldn’t be that old. Still, Penelope was curious enough now to remove her other glove and keep digging, heedless of the muck getting all over her clothing.

  Finally, after she’d created a little hollow in the side of the earthen circle, she thought she had most of the cloth exposed. Afraid to pull too hard, certain it would disintegrate if she did, she began to slide it out. When she had most of the fabric in one hand, she probed the earth warily with the other to find the end. But as her fingers encountered something hard and strangely textured, she drew back, surprised.

  Taking up her stick, Penelope dislodged still more earth. Slowly, several clods rolled down the incline into the gully. Another object followed in their train. Her eyes tracked it down and stopped.

  “Penelope, come quickly,” came Julia’s voice on a high note of panic.

  Penelope turned slowly toward the sound and attempted to frame an answer through the roaring in her ears. Slowly, she bent down to make certain of what she had seen, and there it was.

  A tiny skull lay in the ditch.