It was admittedly clean, of a good size, and adequately furnished, if with little attention to taste and fashion. The walls were whitewashed, the bed-curtains a faded and aged brocade, the woodwork polished but plain. In a word, it was not at all in the class of accommodation to which Francis was accustomed.
Not that he was unable to rough it, as he had hastily assured his darling wife when she expressed anxious doubts. He had not spent years at soldiering without learning to forgo luxury and make do. But he was not fooled for a moment, well aware that Tillie’s conscience was plaguing her.
Francis had instantly seen through her spurious welcome of Ryde when she’d come upon them outside the Blue Pig. If he was any judge, Tillie had been altogether vexed to see the groom, fearing she would be obliged to depart from Witherley, her investigations unresolved.
“I am not so hard-hearted,” he had whispered in her ear, secure in the knowledge that he had already made his arrangements with the groom.
The relief in his bride’s face had made it all worthwhile at the time. But Francis was beginning to have doubts. He had not liked the sound of her conversation with the shopkeeper.
“Do you rate Uddington as your primary suspect?”
The hairbrush stilled. “He has the means at his disposal to have carried it out, and he has motive enough.”
Francis knew that tone. “But?”
She ran the brush through and set it down, turning to look at him again, a troubled crease between her brows.
“He struck me as too honourable a man.”
Francis emitted a derisive sound. “Too high-minded to kill?”
“No, he might do that. But to point the finger at Cassie Dale? He is not a man who fears death. I think he would expect to pay his dues, had he done it.”
“But you can’t discount him, Tillie. From what you’ve told me, the other possibilities are negligible. Uddington is all you have.”
Tillie’s gaze was steady. “So was your brother all I had, to begin with.”
“Point taken.”
Discomfort at the memories sent Francis back to sipping at his glass. The evidence against the marquis had been overwhelming, but not for a moment had Tillie thought of abandoning the hunt for another suspect, indifferent to any danger to herself. Only now she was his bride, beloved and too precious to risk. A sliver of regret attacked him. Why had he not taken advantage of Ryde’s arrangements?
The groom had driven up just as he was returning from the smithy, having endured a trying half hour demonstrating his find of the hacked-off beam to the vexatious Lord Henbury. He’d been in a mood to shake the dust of Witherley from his heels, but Ryde had brought disappointing news.
“Williams fears it will take several days to get that axle-tree mended, m’lord.”
After an abortive ride to Atherstone, the coachman had found a blacksmith at Nuneaton. It appeared the coach must limp at a snail’s pace to the smithy there, where the body must be removed from its moorings in order to get at the offending part.
“If the blacksmith can’t do it himself, and he won’t know until he sees it, he may have to send for a new tree from the coachmakers at Coventry.”
Francis had cursed fluently, but when Ryde told him of the rooms booked at a hostelry at Nuneaton, he had weighed the notion and rejected it.
“We will remain here, Ryde. Since we must wait in any event, I cannot have her ladyship chafing elsewhere with nothing to occupy her while events in this village are in train.”
Upon the groom’s astonished look, Francis had briefly enlightened him as to the current state of affairs. Ryde’s dour disapproval amused rather than angered him.
“You may as well accustom yourself, Ryde. I have a suspicion this may not be the last incident of this nature in which your new mistress interests herself.”
He then expressed his relief that the groom had brought their luggage and asked him to have it conveyed to a bedchamber, once he had arranged with the Pakefields for the Fanshawes to stay.
“There will be no difficulty, for I imagine our remaining here is not unexpected. Then you had best go back to Williams and let him know where we are. Tell him to come for us when the coach is ready. There is little point in your kicking your heels there either, so I suggest you stay at Nuneaton tonight and rejoin us tomorrow. And hire the gig for the duration. We may need it.”
Now Francis repented a little of his hasty decision as a riffle of unease disturbed him.
He saw that as he was ruminating, Tillie had left off her dressing gown and doused the candles in the candelabrum. The chamber was now illumined only by the single candles in holders at either side of the bed. In the lesser light, his wife’s slim body as she moved towards the bed, clad only in her nightgown, was sinuous and alluring.
Francis was gripped with a sharp attack of dread. As she slipped in beside him, he set down his glass. Turning, he took hold of Tillie and pulled her close.
“I wish you will take care, my darling. I fear you may have made of this man Uddington a dangerous enemy.”
Chapter 7
Plagued by nightmares, Cassie had slept badly. In between bouts of restless dreaming, she had begun to feel her bruises. Yesterday she had kept to her cottage, Mr. Kinnerton’s instruction in mind, and not entirely because Tabby was as stolid as a gaoler in refusing to let her venture forth.
Towards evening yesterday, Sam had returned from reconnoitring to gather news. Cassie was relieved to see through the window his burly form approaching, but when he entered the cottage, his broad-featured face was eager. It appeared there was a stranger in the village who was going about questioning everyone, and had even gone to take a look at Duggleby’s body.
“By all accounts, this here Lady Francis is acting for Justice Henbury,” said Sam. “Not as I’d take notice of nothing Will says, only I met Doctor Meldreth and he said it an’ all.”
Cassie eyed him, stirred by a memory. “A woman with a gaze that might read into your very mind?”
Sam glanced at Tabitha and came frowning back to Cassie. “How am I to answer that, Miss Cassie?”
Drawing a breath, Cassie tried to reassemble the picture of the woman she’d met at the smithy. “I cannot otherwise describe her. She is not handsome, I think.” Struggling, she tried to find words that might help. “High cheekbones. A painter might make much of her face, though I cannot. But the eyes, Sam. A gaze so clear one might drown in it, if there were not so much kindness in her voice.”
Tabitha clucked her irritation. “As if poor Sam could tell who you meant by such a tangle. And I’ve no notion who it is, neither.”
“No, for I met her in the smithy,” said Cassie, turning on her. “You wouldn’t come in.”
“And I’d be a deal happier if you hadn’t gone in,” Tabby retorted unabashed. “But why did you think it’s the same as Sam spoke of?”
“Because she said she would help me. She said she would find out the truth. And I believed her.”
“Seems as she’s doing it,” said Sam, “if as it’s the same female.”
“Whom has she questioned?”
Sam shrugged. “I can’t tell that, Miss Cassie. But what I do know is that there Reverend rung a peal over Farmer Staxton’s boys.”
Something clutched in Cassie’s chest. “For throwing stones at me?”
“Aye. Seems as Mr. Kinnerton ain’t nowise as quiet as he makes out.”
“I hope he thundered at ’em,” said Tabby vengefully.
Sam shook his head. “He spoke quiet-like, as I heard. But what he said made ’em squirm like they’d beetles in their breeches.”
Cassie could not imagine what words could accomplish such a feat, but as Sam had no exact knowledge of just what had been said, he was unable to enlighten her. When she asked from whom he had his information, he said it had come from Staxton himself.
“He were laughing fit to bust hisself, saying he was wishful as he’d thought of speaking so to his sons years back, for no amount of birching had
served to curb them boys.”
Astonished and incredulous, Cassie wished she might speak to Mr. Kinnerton herself to find out just what had occurred. Never had anyone, not even Lady Ferrensby, taken on her enemies. And how could it be that the gently spoken man who had given her succour should prove so stalwart a champion?
Yet these reassurances failed to appease the demons of the night. It was hard to believe, in the loneliness endemic to the curse of her unnatural skill, that there could be any permanence of peace in her turbulent life.
But the morning brought a resurgence of hope when Mr. Kinnerton’s housekeeper appeared at her door. She was a willowy dame, with a manner as redoubtable as it was forthright. She had come, commanded by her master, she said, to enquire as to Mrs. Dale’s health.
Cassie could have wept. She invited the woman inside and bade Tabby make them both a cup of the precious tea reserved for special occasions. Lady Ferrensby kept her caddy supplied, but Cassie, hating the charity upon which she was forced to depend, took care to eke out the tea that she might not be too much beholden.
“You serve a kind master, Mrs. Winkleigh.”
The woman flushed. “Yes, and I’ll stay and serve him whether he likes it or no.”
Intrigued, Cassie eyed her. “Why should he not like it?”
Mrs. Winkleigh sniffed, shaking out her petticoats as she took one of the chairs opposite to where Cassie was seated on the other side of the table.
“Well, he don’t dislike it. Only when I complained of the place being small and stuffy, as anyone might who came from the Kinnerton family home — not that I mind, I was only saying — all Master Aidan said was that I needn’t stay if I didn’t wish to.” She sniffed again. “I speedily put him in his place, you may be sure.”
Astonished at anyone having the temerity to put the Reverend Kinnerton in his place, Cassie demanded enlightenment.
“I vowed I wasn’t going to leave him to reduce himself to skin and bone again like he did in that nasty heathen place he insisted on going to. As if he didn’t know already, for I’d no more approval of that than had his mama.”
“Which heathen place?”
“Africa, ma’am. Flying in the face of his family’s wishes, but would he listen?”
Cassie rose from her chair and crossed to look out of the window, staring over the stream towards the distant spire of the church across the green, as if she might see into the vicarage and look upon Aidan Kinnerton himself.
“I think it is admirable in him to have taken such a step.”
“Admirable? To go off into little better than a jungle and nearly get himself killed by a pack of savages?”
Cassie turned, startled. “Surely not.”
“Oh yes, ma’am. Spears and all is what he faced, for he wrote as much in the one letter that came. Then we heard nothing more, and his poor mama was convinced he was dead. Which he nigh all was. It was like a skeleton walked into the house!”
Cassie recalled the image she had seen, superimposed on the parson’s present features. She looked at the housekeeper, and a stray thought intruded into her head, together with an image of a small boy held in this woman’s arms. A younger version, but there was no doubt it was Mrs. Winkleigh.
“You were his nurse.”
The housekeeper blinked. “That’s right, ma’am. But how did you —?” Realisation sparked in her face. “Oh.”
Cassie smiled tightly. “Yes, that is why they call me a witch.”
“Witch? Fiddle-faddle, ma’am, if you’ll pardon me,” said Mrs. Winkleigh, reviving fast. “You ain’t no more a witch than Master Aidan is an angel come down to earth, and that’s a fact. But you’re right, ma’am. I was his nurse, and I promised her ladyship as I’d take care of him, and take care of him I will. Or I’ll answer to his family and the Almighty himself.”
“Her ladyship?” echoed Cassie, fastening on the salient point in this diatribe.
“Lady Kinnerton, ma’am. She’s Master Aidan’s mother.”
“He is titled?”
“Not he. There’s three older brothers, and his lordship is a viscount.” Consternation entered the woman’s features. “Now don’t you go saying I told you, ma’am, for he don’t like it known.”
Cassie’s head was reeling. If this was so, her suspicion of her patroness’s intentions concerning the vicar must be unfounded. Not even Lady Ferrensby could suppose the son of a viscount might stoop so low.
“Does Lady Ferrensby know?” she blurted before she could stop herself. “No, that is foolish, of course she must know.”
“Oh, she knows all right. She and my lady fixed it up between them to my way of thinking. My Lady Kinnerton being wishful to stop any thought of Master Aidan going away again, and this being a small parish which wouldn’t put no undue strain on his health.”
“Except that circumstances have so arranged themselves that he will be lucky not to suffer an instant relapse,” said Cassie, feeling the bitterness of her curse all over again. How many people was she destined to destroy?
“Be that as it may,” came in a bustling tone from the housekeeper, “it wouldn’t suit Master Aidan to be idle, no matter his mama’s wishes. Not that me and Croy won’t have our work cut out, neither.”
“Croy?”
“Master Aidan’s groom, ma’am. He’s away, fetching more of the master’s trunks. And some of her ladyship’s unwanted curtains and such, for the vicarage is bare as a mousehole. Hasn’t been inhabited for months, by the state of it. But Croy and me’ll soon set all to rights. And find some work for the locals into the bargain. I fancy I could use a couple of helpful village girls, and Croy might do with a lad, too.”
“Then you could give work to Duggleby’s daughter,” said Cassie eagerly, seizing on this. “The boy is too young yet, I think, but they are bound to need employment. Tabby says Mr. Uddington is taking up a collection, but that will scarcely last them.”
Mrs. Winkleigh pursed her lips. “Is the girl any good, do you know, ma’am?”
Incurably truthful, Cassie shook her head. “I hardly know her. But you may teach her, may you not, Mrs. Winkleigh?”
The housekeeper looked dubious, but as Tabby came in at that moment with the tea, she was not obliged to answer. Cassie thanked her maid and took her own seat with a new determination. Here was an opportunity to make amends, if in a small way, and she would not lightly let it go. She sipped the tea, which had, as it always did, the effect of reviving her spirits.
“Let me take you to see the Duggleby girl, Mrs. Winkleigh. Then you may judge for yourself.”
It did not take many minutes to traverse the narrow pathway that ran along the little row of cottages. As they reached the bridge, Cassie pointed to the ruined smithy.
“The house lies just beyond. We must go around the back, for I fear the lane on this side by the river is blocked with debris.”
Accordingly, both women crossed the lane and went to one side of the forge’s courtyard, at which point Cassie advised Mrs. Winkleigh to lift her skirts. But before they could step onto the overlong grass, another female came around the corner, and Cassie recognised under a straw bonnet the sharp-angled features of Molly Tisbury.
Cassie halted, her heart sinking, for she knew the landlady of the Cock and Bottle to be one of her severest critics. Beside her, the vicar’s housekeeper stopped, too. She had evidently seen the woman.
“Seems as we aren’t the first visitors this morning.”
The Tisbury dame was already within hailing distance, and she glared as she looked up. “What be you wanting here? Come to gloat, have you?”
Coming up, she paused before them, taking in Mrs. Winkleigh from her head to her heels. Cassie backed a step but saw the housekeeper stand her ground, her back stiffening.
“And who might you be, my fine lady?” came rudely from Molly Tisbury.
“I might ask you the same question, madam,” returned the other, her tone arctic. “Since you ask, my name is Winkleigh, and I am housekeeper
to the Reverend Kinnerton.”
This piece of information was received with a snort. “Him, eh? And I see as you be as hoodwinked as he, seeing as you be hand in glove with the witch.”
Mrs. Winkleigh, to Cassie’s admiration, did not rise to this. Instead, she pulled herself up to her full height and looked down at the other woman with disdain.
“Will you be good enough to let us pass, madam?”
Molly Tisbury put her hands to her hips and remained squarely in front of them, a pointing finger snaking towards Cassie.
“I’ll not let her pass, not if her’ve thought to badger poor Bertha Duggleby.”
“You are insolent, woman. Don’t think as you can browbeat me, for I won’t stand for it. Now get out of my way!”
Molly Tisbury’s jaw dropped open, and Cassie moved in closer, hurt lending vibrancy to her voice.
“Pray don’t quarrel on my account. Molly, I am trying to help. Mrs. Winkleigh has work for a maid, and I thought —”
“You thought!” cut in Molly, her tone vicious. “It be you thinking as killed Duggleby. No one don’t need your thoughts round here. Better nor far as her ladyship bain’t brung you next or nigh Witherley. Who be next, eh? Who be you seeing in yon visions next?”
The woman was spitting foam, and Cassie shrank back, only half aware that Mrs. Winkleigh’s hands were out flat against the creature’s shoulders, holding her off.
“That’s enough, you hear me? Get back or, so help me, I’ll slap your ugly face for you!”
Cassie heard a growl issuing from the other woman’s throat as she seized Mrs. Winkleigh’s wrists, trying to wrench those restraining hands away. Her heart was hammering as Cassie felt the first swirling fog of a picture forming in her mind. She lifted her hands to her head, desperate and afraid.
“No,” she muttered breathlessly. “Please, no.”
The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions) Page 45
