The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions)

by Elizabeth Bailey

  “Say what you like. Makes no difference to me. Poppycock, the whole thing.”

  “Is it? You are a woman of iron, Miss Beeleigh, but there is one chink in your armour. I saw it from the first, and it has betrayed you.”

  The woman’s face stiffened, and her eyes dared Ottilia to go on, despite her words. “Don’t know what you’re talking of.”

  “I think you do. Poor Evelina and her dog.”

  Francis, who had been watching the swift give-and-take of words, intervened again at this point. “What the devil do you mean, Tillie?”

  Ottilia glanced at him. “I daresay you will not credit it, but I’m afraid Miss Beeleigh cherishes a fondness for Evelina Radlett which goes far beyond mere friendship.”

  “What, you mean —”

  He stopped, and Ottilia knew he would not give voice to a possibility that must revolt him. Ottilia did not suffer a like revulsion. Rather, she pitied the woman.

  Before she could say more, a new voice entered the fray, quavering a little.

  “Don’t say you did it for me, Alethea?”

  “Mrs. Radlett!”

  Ottilia peered into the gloom as Miss Beeleigh turned sharply. She could just make out the shorter and stouter outline, standing a little behind where Ryde still remained, ready to leap should Miss Beeleigh attempt to escape by that route.

  “Evelina! What are you doing here?”

  Mrs. Radlett, her person enveloped in a dark cloak, moved into the forge, her eyes riveted on her friend. “I followed you.”

  Miss Beeleigh started towards her, but the widow flinched back, and Miss Beeleigh halted abruptly, pain just visible in her ghostly features.

  “You should be asleep.”

  The widow Radlett’s eyes were large in a countenance pale as the silver sheen above. Ottilia could not tell whether it was a trick of the moonlight, but indeed there was matter enough here to dismay the poor creature.

  “So I would have been, had I drunk the tisane you made up for me.”

  “Laudanum?” Ottilia guessed. “Just as she gave you the night before Duggleby’s death, so you would not know she had gone out to make her preparations.”

  Mrs. Radlett’s eyes remained on her friend. “You gave it to me again on the night Molly died. But I spilled it. I saw you from the window, Alethea, making for the smithy. And after, I saw you coming back from the direction of the Blue Pig.”

  Francis gave a grunt. “You saw her? And said nothing of it?”

  “How could I? She is my friend.”

  “A pretty friend, to be doing away with the blacksmith merely for a dog,” snapped Francis.

  Little rivulets gleamed upon the widow’s cheeks, and Ottilia realised she was weeping.

  “Was it that, Alethea? Was it Toby?”

  At last Miss Beeleigh’s rigid pose relaxed a little, and she put out an unsteady hand. A sighing breath left her lips, and her voice was hoarse.

  “You were so very unhappy, my dearest. I could not forgive him.”

  For a moment no one said a word. Despite all, Ottilia was moved by the note of unutterable tenderness in the woman’s voice. So deeply did the two of them seem to hold each other’s gaze that Ottilia believed they were in that moment oblivious of the rest of the company.

  Then one of Mrs. Radlett’s hands came out from beneath her cloak, and she held it towards her friend, a silent invitation. Miss Beeleigh hesitated, and then took the few stumbling steps that brought her close to the other, and Mrs. Radlett sank into the woman’s embrace.

  The pose held for the space of several seconds. Then a deafening report shattered the silence.

  Shock held Ottilia in thrall. In seeming slow motion she saw Miss Beeleigh recoil. Her eyes registered a species of horror. Then they rolled up into her head as she swayed and then crashed to the smithy floor.

  Ottilia came out of her stupor to discover the gun in Mrs. Radlett’s hand, its ball spent. She was looking down at the wreck of her friend, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs.

  Miss Beeleigh lay crookedly on the ground, her eyes still open, blood streaming from the wound just below her bosom. Evelina Radlett had shot her through the heart.

  For the space of several agonising seconds no one moved or spoke. Mesmerised, Francis gazed upon the tableau set before him, unable to think beyond the appalling occurrence.

  His eyes lifted from the bleeding corpse to the metal protrusion held in the other woman’s hand, which now extended from its former deathly concealment beneath her cloak. The sight dictated action.

  “Dear Lord! Ryde, get that thing off her!”

  His groom moved to extract the pistol from Mrs. Radlett’s nerveless hand.

  “It won’t go off again, m’lord.”

  “I know that,” Francis said, shock lending impatience to his tone. Without reloading, the gun could not fire again, but he could not endure to see it in the widow’s hands.

  What the devil were they to do now? Were all Tillie’s efforts blasted? With the murderer killed would anyone believe the truth? And how in the world were they to explain away a third corpse to the irascible Lord Henbury?

  He glanced at Tillie and found her gaze fixed upon the weapon now in Ryde’s possession. As if she felt his regard, her head turned, and in the pale gleam of moonlight he saw the tautness in her face. She spoke before he could formulate a question.

  “Francis, we must act! I’ll wager few will not have been awakened by that shot. We will have half the village about us in a trice.”

  Francis’s mind leapt, encompassing the myriad complications about to engulf them all. “Lord, yes!”

  But Tillie was ahead of him, her quick intelligence already disposing of the problems that were rising in his head. “The gun, Francis. Put it into Miss Beeleigh’s hand.”

  He was already moving towards Ryde as he spoke. “You want to make it look like suicide?”

  Tillie nodded. “Meldreth will not be fooled, but it will serve for the villagers.”

  Francis saw her shift to the still-frozen figure of the widow Radlett and set an arm about the woman’s shoulders. The creature lifted her head at last, staring in a blank fashion at Tillie’s face. Her voice was a pitiable plea.

  “I could not bear to see her hanged.”

  Was that all her reason? Francis wanted to scream at the wretch, but Tillie spoke with indescribable kindness.

  “Yes, my dear, I understand. Come, don’t look any more.” Ryde handed Francis the weapon, and he bent to the corpse, lifting the limp hand and attempting the tricky task of folding its fingers about the butt.

  Tillie was shifting the widow away, but despite her injunction, the woman’s gaze returned to her friend’s body, silent tears seeping down her cheeks.

  “Evelina must not be found here,” Tillie was saying. “There is not time enough to get her back to her own home. Besides, she cannot be left alone. Ryde, take her to Bertha Duggleby’s house.”

  The groom was instantly at her side, taking hold of Mrs. Radlett’s arm.

  “You come along with me, ma’am.”

  The fearful countenance left the sight of the body, its blood gleaming silver under the moon’s soft light.

  She looked at Ryde, repeating, “I could not bear to see her hanged.”

  “Go with Ryde, Mrs. Radlett, if you please,” Tillie said with firmness. “I will come to fetch you presently.”

  “You don’t want me to stay there, do you, m’lady?” asked the groom.

  “No, we need you. Also Sam Hawes.”

  Francis was looking critically at his handiwork, but he glanced up at this. “Can you trust the Duggleby woman to look after her?”

  Ryde was guiding Mrs. Radlett towards the back, from where Tillie had made her entrance.

  “Stay, Ryde!” said Tillie quickly. “Thank heavens you mentioned her, Fan, for we need her, too! Ryde, have Mrs. Duggleby wake her daughter Jenny — if she hasn’t already come running downstairs, which would scarcely surprise me — and let the child w
atch over Mrs. Radlett.”

  Even as she spoke, footsteps sounded from behind the smithy, and the voice of Sam Hawes was heard.

  “My lord? What’s to do?” He appeared next moment and stopped short at the scene that met his eyes. “Lordy me!”

  “Just so,” said Tillie. “Ask no questions now, Sam, for we are in urgent need of your help.”

  “Ryde, get about your business, for the Lord’s sake!” Francis urged. “You’ve had your orders.”

  “Bring Bertha Duggleby here, Ryde,” Tillie called after the groom as he shifted with alacrity, almost dragging Mrs. Radlett with him.

  Her pathetic refrain was heard again as she exited the smithy. “I could not bear to see her hanged.” A forlorn little litany — as if it could justify firing the shot that killed her friend. Despite the untold complications she had caused, Francis felt a sliver of compassion for the wretch.

  Tillie had turned to Sam Hawes. “Sam, run to fetch Doctor Meldreth, if you please. And Mr. Kinnerton. I daresay both or either may already be on their way. Go!”

  Sam exited rapidly through the front of the smithy, and Francis heard his footsteps pounding along the lane. They were not, he realised, the only ones. Urgency engulfed him as he turned to Tillie.

  “What else? Quick! They’re coming!”

  Her gaze swept this way and that around the ruin of the smithy, and Francis was conscious of a wave of impatience. His eye fell on the wreck of Miss Beeleigh.

  “I’d best cover her. We don’t want all the fools of the village gaping.”

  Tillie seized his hand as he made to grab the dummy off the floor, thinking to use its skirts for the purpose.

  “No! She must lie there. And the trick we used to capture her must be wholly visible.”

  Francis had bent to the dummy, but he rose again. He looked at his wife to find her eyeing his handiwork with the pistol. He had stuffed it into the slackened hand, simulating the position of the grip.

  “Will it serve?”

  “I think so. It looks well enough for the untutored eye.”

  He noted the fretful tone. “You say Meldreth will know it is false?”

  Tillie nodded. “He cannot help but do so. The position of entry of the ball into her body will tell him so at once.”

  Francis moved to look at the corpse from below the feet. He glanced to the hand and saw just what Tillie meant. In order to accomplish her own death, Miss Beeleigh would have had to twist her wrist to an impossible angle.

  “You will have to take Meldreth into your confidence.”

  “I intend to. Also Kinnerton and Lady Ferrensby.”

  A grim sliver of humour slid into Francis’s head. “But not, I take it, Lord Henbury?”

  “Heaven forbid!”

  The sound of running feet was building. How many? Francis went to his wife and took her by the shoulders.

  “Are you enough prepared?”

  A smile trembled on her lips. “No, but it makes no matter. If I fail to convince them, I have at least the satisfaction to know that there will be no more murders committed in Witherley.”

  Francis pulled her to him briefly. Then, as the first steps sounded on the gravel outside, he kissed her swiftly and put her from him, turning at her side to confront the villagers once more.

  They gathered in the moonlight around the edges of the scene. Tisbury, Staxton, Will the tapster, and others Ottilia did not know. Pa Wagstaff was one of the first to arrive, his cottage but a stone’s throw away.

  “That Beeleigh, be it?” he said, the moment he took in the identity of the corpse with the now sluggish liquid seeping from the wound in her breast. His gaze moved to the gun in the woman’s hand, and he looked up at Ottilia, bright intelligence in his tone. “It be her, then? Her’ve done for Duggleby and for Molly both?”

  “Well reasoned, Mr. Wagstaff.”

  But the outburst of muttering and exclamation overrode her words.

  “Bain’t so. How, if her be dead and all?”

  “Where be the witch?”

  “Bain’t Bertha a-lying down there, I be thinking.”

  “What be that?”

  “It be a dummy, fool.”

  Ottilia waited for it to die down, watching the questioning looks that went from the body on the floor to the dummy, and then again to where Ottilia stood with Francis at her side, his strengthening arm at her back, one hand holding her at the waist. She was glad of it, for though her voice was steady, inwardly she trembled.

  “Bertha is safe and well. She will be here at any moment.”

  “Wait,” murmured Francis, jerking his head back towards the village. “More are coming.”

  Several runners, by the sound of it, Ottilia thought, hoping for Meldreth or the vicar. What was keeping Bertha? Surely Ryde must have settled Evelina Radlett by now? Why was he not back with Bertha? To her relief, the villagers were all craned towards the pounding footsteps, and she dared to hope they were too bemused at this point to pose any threat. But that could not last.

  The footsteps closed in, slowing as they hit the gravel outside. Next moment, Sam Hawes entered, bringing with him both the doctor and Mr. Kinnerton. Ottilia breathed more easily. But she lost no time in bearding Meldreth. He must not be allowed to make mention of what to him would be obvious.

  “Doctor Meldreth, thank heavens!” Leaving Francis’s cradling arm, she went forward as the doctor thrust through the surrounding watchers. “Pray be careful!”

  He halted perforce at the edge of the corpse, and his swift gaze went about the smithy, taking in the dummy and the presence of the Fanshawes.

  “What the deuce has happened here?”

  As he dropped to his haunches by the body, Ottilia quickly went to join him, going down to his level, and infusing meaning into her tone.

  “She shot herself, Doctor Meldreth.”

  Meldreth took one look at the gun in the woman’s hand, and his frowning gaze came up to meet Ottilia’s. The moonlight gave her the question in his face, and she swiftly put her gloved hand to her lips, passing one finger across them while she stared at him the while. His frown deepened, but she thought he nodded slightly.

  “Why did she shoot herself, Lady Francis?”

  Ottilia heard the mockery in his tone and sighed out a breath she had not realised she was holding.

  “She knew the game was up,” came from Francis behind her, holding out a hand to help her to rise.

  The doctor got up and confronted him. “What game, my lord?”

  “That, sir, I will leave my wife to tell.”

  Aidan Kinnerton saved Ottilia the trouble as he moved into the inner part of the circle. “Was it she, Lady Francis? Was Miss Beeleigh the murderer?”

  At this, the villagers broke out again.

  “Bain’t so,” came from Tisbury. “For why should Miss Beeleigh take and kill Molly?”

  “For why should her kill Duggleby, for the matter of that?” demanded Staxton.

  “Bain’t so,” echoed Will the tapster. “It be the witch! Her’ve had a vision, bain’t her?”

  Pa Wagstaff’s ancient features squirmed up at the man. “There be nowt in that head of yourn, Will. There weren’t no vision to that Beeleigh. It be Bertha as were in vision, if’n vision there be.”

  With which, the ancient screwed his glance back towards Ottilia, the rheumy eyes gleaming in the ghostly white light.

  “How clever of you, Mr. Wagstaff,” said Ottilia, seizing the opportunity. “There was indeed no vision. I asked Mrs. Dale to pretend she had seen Bertha hanging in the smithy. I knew Miss Beeleigh must take advantage of it.”

  “Set a trap, eh, Lady Fan?”

  “Just so.”

  There was a fresh outburst of muttering at this, but Tisbury was the first to object. “Bain’t so. Why’d Miss Beeleigh want to do for Bertha? For what reason?”

  “I be the one to tell you that.”

  A new voice entered the fray, and Bertha Duggleby emerged from the darkness in the back of the
forge with Ryde at her side. There was a concerted gasp from the watchers at this sudden appearance.

  “Bertha?”

  Shock was in Tisbury’s voice, as if he spoke to a phantom. Ottilia could scarcely be surprised, for she had herself been startled despite knowing the woman was coming.

  “Aye, it be me. Nor I bain’t dead yet.”

  As Bertha moved into the light, several glances went from her to the dummy on the floor, and Ottilia wondered if indeed one or two of the villagers had supposed it to be real.

  Duggleby’s widow halted before them all, looking down on the wreck that had been Miss Beeleigh.

  “Lie there, aye,” she said to it. “If’n you bain’t dead, it be me on the rope for sure.”

  Her gaze came up and passed around the watching faces. There was fear to be seen, and the stirrings of a morbid curiosity. Ottilia could not have hoped for better. Quietly she shifted back to Francis, letting the woman take centre stage.

  “A fool I be,” came from Bertha in a tone both curt and bitter. “More’n a fool to believe what Miss Beeleigh told me. Her said as Molly done for my man Duggleby. Her said as if’n I do get Molly out from the Cock quiet-like, her be going to show as Molly done it.”

  “Molly bain’t done it!” Tisbury shouted. “Her bain’t!”

  “No, I knows it now,” Bertha said. “Truth be I knowed it after I got Molly and her be a-going to meet Miss Beeleigh.”

  “What be you saying to her? What lies be you telling?”

  “Telled her as it be the witch as done it. Telled her as it be secret, but I seen as Pilton had the witch to lock-up. Telled her not to say nowt to nobody.”

  Tisbury’s features crumpled. “Tricked! Molly was afeared as Lady Fan meant to have her head for Duggleby. Why bain’t her said it all to me? Why, Molly?”

  Great heaving sobs wrenched out of his throat. Beside him, Farmer Staxton turned and flung his arms about the man, glaring the while at Bertha.

  “Good as killed Molly you did, Bertha.”

  “Aye,” was all she said, still on the same bitter note. Ottilia thought it would be long before the wounds healed. But at this moment, Bertha had done enough. She stepped forward.