In the confusion that followed, Olivia had little time to relive those precious, stolen minutes in the garden, when she had allowed a man’s kisses and had, there was no gainsaying, kissed him in return with enthusiasm. She should be ashamed. Instead, a profound regret that the moment had ended too soon lay on her heart. Mr. Roberts sounded so angry, so desperate. What dreadful sights he must have seen.
She shivered. No wonder the man was difficult, sarcastic, and dangerous. Despite everything, a secret smile crept over Olivia’s face. Trembling fingers traced her mouth. She could still feel the thrilling intensity of Mr. Roberts’ lips.
She took a cue from Lady Thatcham and the Dowager, a stately, unruffled presence with the air of one who’d seen many such unfortunate events in a lifetime, and mastered any show of emotion. They led the ladies of the party, who twittered with excited horror, to drink tea while the earl dispatched a party of officers with the coachman to bring back the unfortunate major.
She found Miss Dainty already in the drawing room, seated by the window, shivering. Olivia dropped on the sofa beside her friend. Only a few minutes ago, she had sat closer—shockingly close—to Mr. Roberts, before the kiss, before his anger had erupted. She shook her head, trying to forget the scene, to concentrate on her friend’s obvious distress.
Miss Dainty clung to her hand. “What can have happened?” Bright tears stood, unshed, in both eyes. “Major Lovell was here just a short while ago. How can he be dead? No. Oh no, it cannot be.” She searched the room, eyes wild, face contorted. Olivia beckoned to a maid. “Bring some more tea for Miss Dainty. Oh, and some cake. She’s very upset.” What had come over her?
The maid’s hands shook as she filled Miss Dainty’s cup. The Dowager joined Lady Thatcham at the caddy, turban steadfast in place as she spooned tea, making pot after pot.
Miss Dainty’s lips trembled at every sip. Tea splashed into the saucer. Olivia, increasingly alarmed at such distress, kept up a stream of conversation, trying to persuade her friend to drink. “You need something warm, you know. It’s the shock. Anyway, I’m sure it was an accident. Who would want to shoot Major Lovell at a ball? Perhaps his own gun fired by mistake.” The soothing voice seemed to have a calming effect on Miss Dainty, and at last, the shivers subsided.
“Poor Philomena,” Miss Dainty almost choked on the words, “and poor Hugh. They’ll be so upset.”
“Well, it’s not their fault Major Lovell met with an accident.” Olivia tried to be practical.
Her friend whispered in a voice so sad, so unlike her usual cheerful tones that Olivia feared she was really unwell. “Why do such bad things have to happen here?”
“Dear Selena.” Lady Thatcham settled on a nearby chair and took her sister-in-law’s hand. “I think you should go to your room. Perhaps Miss Martin will be kind enough to take you.”
Why was Miss Dainty so devastated? Olivia concentrated on her friend’s distress. Perhaps it would help forget the bitterness in Mr. Roberts’ voice.
A commotion in the corridor brought Lady Thatcham to her feet, face pale. “I believe they’ve brought poor Major Lovell back. Perhaps we’ll find out what happened.”
Miss Dainty, with a cry, pulled away. Olivia followed, running to the morning room, almost cannoning into her friend who stopped in the doorway.
Lord Thatcham clasped his wife’s hands. “I’m afraid there’s no help for him. The poor man’s been shot through the heart. He’s quite dead. I’ll send for the constable.”
Lady Thatcham gasped. “Shot? How can that be?”
Miss Dainty cried out and clutched Olivia’s arm. She seemed quite overcome. Had she more interest in Major Lovell than she’d confessed? Olivia slipped an arm around her friend to guide her back. There was nothing to do here. She stopped. Mr. Roberts barred her way, face rigid, jaw clenched.
Mr. Roberts stared through Olivia, eyes distant, as though his thoughts were far away. Olivia licked dry lips. His face was so pale. What was Major Lovell to him? She longed to offer some comfort, but hardly knew what to do. That outburst in the garden made Olivia wonder if she’d misread his feelings. Perhaps Mr. Roberts didn’t care for her at all.
Miss Dainty forgotten, Olivia sank back onto a chair as a hubbub of excited horror swirled around the room.
Several guests, who lived nearby, though reluctant to leave the scene of such excitement, were finally persuaded to return home. Still Mr. Roberts stood, silent, against the wall. Olivia gripped the seat of the chair, fighting for calm in the face of terrible dread.
Constable Stephens arrived, shook a gloomy head and sucked hollow teeth. “I’ll need to interview all the gentlemen, but it’s late. It’ll wait until tomorrow.”
Through a mist of misery, Olivia heard Nelson speak, his voice low. “Should we not try to discover what happened at once? The culprit may even now be escaping.”
“You’re right.” Lord Thatcham nodded. “We should talk to everyone right away. Roberts, you check names against the guest list, although I don’t for one moment believe anyone here had anything to do with this.” His voice faltered, uncertain. A hush fell on the crowded room.
“Wait.” An army captain stepped forward. His white hair and thin limbs reminded Olivia of a weasel. Only the pain of fingernails, squeezed into the palms of her hands, kept a burst of hysterical laughter at bay. The man had been one of the officers carousing in the garden. Indeed, she’d spent an uncomfortable half hour with him, making dull conversation. “Why isn’t Roberts under suspicion like the rest of us? He’s as likely to have fired the shot as any.”
“Nonsense.” Nelson’s eyes blazed. “I’m not sorry the man’s dead, but I had nothing to do with it.” He murmured, as though to himself: “I wish I had.”
The admission hung in the air. Shocked faces stared at Mr. Roberts. He didn’t seem to notice. Olivia’s hand went out as though to pull him away before he could incriminate himself further. Her ears rang. She dropped her hand, willing Mr. Roberts to hear the words she couldn’t say.
Captain Weasel thrust his face close to Mr. Roberts. “The two of you were fighting this evening.”
Mr. Roberts snorted. “Nonsense. There was a disagreement, that’s all.” Everyone in the room seemed to have stopped breathing.
The officer continued, his tone reasonable. “You quarrelled with Major Lovell. He left, and you went after him.”
“No, I didn’t leave the grounds.”
“Well, I saw no sign of you after your—argument—as you put it. Did anyone else?”
Every officer in the room shook his head, shuffling a little as though to put distance between himself and Mr. Roberts. Another cleared his throat. “I know you, Roberts. Major Roberts, I should say. You were out in Kabul, weren’t you?”
“I was.” Mr. Roberts, eyes black in a colourless face, pressed his lips together in a white line as though holding back a torrent of words. His gaze searched the room, coming to rest at last on Olivia’s face, focusing slowly as though from a long distance. His eyes burned, but a quiet voice, as though meant only for Olivia’s ears, murmured. “I’m innocent.”
Olivia opened her mouth to cry out that he could never murder anyone, but no sound came. A knot of pain squeezed the breath from an aching chest. Of course Mr. Roberts was capable of violence. He’d been a soldier, had fought in the worst and bloodiest of battles. He was no angel, but a fallible man who’d seen and done things that would doubtless shock Olivia, brought up in the sheltered, loving home of a quiet, studious music master.
He could shoot someone if necessary. But why Major Lovell? Besides, Olivia was sure he couldn’t have murdered a man and then returned as though nothing had happened. He would not have sat, making love in the garden, after killing a man. She was certain of it.
The angry words thrown at Olivia in the garden had hurt, striking as hard as blows. Mr. Roberts’ distress had been heart breaking, but she’d had no time to hear the full story. One day, she’d discover the truth.
Meanwhile, Olivi
a looked into Mr. Roberts’ face and saw only pain. She could do nothing to help here. Touching his hand, the contact so light and brief that no onlooker would notice it, she passed by, stumbling upstairs. She had no idea how it would be managed, but she must find a way to prove his innocence.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nelson’s head whirled. Unseeing, he stared into the blackness of the long night. The weather, threatening for days, had finally broken. The moon rarely managed a brief appearance between banks of scudding clouds. Rain had set in; single, light drops heralding the downpour that now thundered against the Hall, sliding down stone and hammering on the roof like gunfire.
Thank heaven Lord Thatcham’s intervention had prevented Constable Stephens from escorting him to a night in Reading Gaol. Invoking his status as a magistrate, the earl insisted Nelson be left at the Hall overnight, but since sleep was unthinkable, he spent the night in an armchair, thinking, planning.
As the timorous light of a new day filtered through the clouds, Nelson fell into a fitful sleep, to wake, limbs stiff, head aching, to a tray borne by Lord Thatcham’s own valet. “His Lordship presents his compliments, trusts you’ve slept well and hopes you will enjoy breakfast. He wishes me to give you this.”
My dear fellow. The letter, clearly scrawled in haste, was in Lord Thatcham’s hand. I have been called away, today, on Parliamentary business. Knowing the constable as I do, I fear he is unlikely to look elsewhere for the culprit. Your guilt appears obvious to him. I disagree. The recommendation from Mr. Tanqueray explained more about you than, perhaps, you know.
I give you leave to move freely around the Hall and the village, but to go no further afield. As the officer and gentleman I know you to be, I am sure your sense of what is fitting will prevent you from any precipitous exit.
I trust that by my return, the true culprit will have been apprehended.
Yours, etc.
Thatcham
Nelson found a measure of relief in this missive. All night, he’d tried and failed to see how he could extract himself from this mess if he were confined to the Hall or, worse, a single room. Ignoring the food on the elegant morning tray, for eating seemed unimportant, he gulped down a cup of hot tea. Honour-bound to stay nearby but free to move around, he could continue the investigations.
This was the best news he could imagine. All he had to do was solve the mystery. That was all. He licked dry lips, trying to see how Lovell’s death fitted into the pattern he’d begun to understand, made up of odd, feathered ropes, wooden crosses, attacks on animals, and the theft of personal items. The ancient books he’d consulted had given him a few clues, although it was hard to believe, in these days, that the old ways of the countryside were still followed.
Lovell’s death had thrown his theories into chaos. He hadn’t the faintest idea who’d killed the major, or why, although he owed them a huge debt. The world was a better place without that scoundrel.
But the thought that had kept him awake all night, the fear that clutched at his heart, was terror that the attack on Miss Martin might be repeated. Nelson would have no more truck with the idea that it could be an accidental fall, any more than Daniel’s death was the result of clumsiness.
No, there was a killer nearby, and while the authorities, in the shape of the hapless Constable Stephens, persisted in attributing Lovell’s murder to Nelson, that killer was free to roam.
Bones aching from lack of sleep, Nelson left the Hall, heading along the river toward the woods. So much had happened here. Daniel died in the stream, Miss Martin was attacked and Lovell killed, all within a mile or so of the Hall. Part of an ancient forest, where deer and wild boar were hunted in times gone by, the trees were older than any human. It would be easy, if Nelson were a fanciful man, to imagine they whispered together overhead. What had the old oaks seen, standing together for hundreds of years?
Nelson trod softly, vigilant for any sound that might alert him to the presence of others among the trees. He heard nothing but the steady drip of rain through branches, striking leaves with dull thuds, falling hushed on carpets of leaf mould. A dank smell of wet moss surrounded Nelson. Even the deer sheltered out of sight.
In a dense area of trees and bushes, the ground sloped away, rain-soaked and slippery with rotting leaves. Weak daylight struggled through the canopy. Nelson scrambled down, feet slithering, grasping at undergrowth, until he reached the spot where Olivia had lain. The memory took agonizing seconds to fade.
An oak branch, the thickness of a man’s forearm and about four feet long, lay nearby. Nelson rolled it over. He saw nothing distinctive at first and leaned nearer. Was that a smudge of red at one end? Gingerly, he picked up the branch and hefted it. Heavy, but not too heavy. Man, woman, child—anyone could have swung or thrown it at Miss Martin’s head before disappearing back into the trees. It would have taken seconds.
Nelson scrambled back up the slope. Two or three dead branches hung, precarious, in one of the oldest of the oaks. The branch could have fallen as Miss Martin passed, dislodged by the echoes of feet pounding along the path.
Dropping to his knees, he crawled forward, examining the woodland floor inch by inch. The leaf mould of years lay undisturbed except by forest creatures. Breathing in the musty smell, Nelson dug both hands deep into the rich layer of leaf mould. He worked methodically, sifting through debris, moving from one tree to another, almost convinced there was nothing to find.
He blinked. A flash of metal had reflected a brief ray of dim sunlight. A button? Brass, about a half-inch in diameter: a badge from a regimental uniform. Nelson brushed mud from its surface. There was no mistaking the emblem of his old regiment.
He sat back on his heels, paralysed by shock. This made no sense. Nelson hadn’t dropped it. He never carried reminders of the army days: no buttons, no scraps of old letters. Nothing.
How had the badge arrived in the middle of the Thatcham woods? Was it dropped by mistake, or left deliberately? Nelson slipped it into a pocket. He searched for another half hour, but there was nothing else to find.
May, Daniel’s widow, came to the door, hastily tying an apron. She wiped the back of one hand across her mouth. “Mr. Roberts? Is it true what they say?”
“Perhaps I could come inside. Then you can explain who ‘they’ are and what they say.”
She glanced behind. “Oh, well. Yes, if you must.” The distraught widow of the last visit had disappeared, replaced by this tight-lipped female with narrow eyes that avoided Nelson’s gaze.
Nelson stepped round her and called. “Bob, you can come out.”
A door creaked open and Bob sidled out, collar askew, face lobster red. “We ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“No, just comfort for the widow, no doubt.”
She ran to take up a belligerent stance in front of Bob, defensive. “Me and Bob used to walk out, back in the day.”
Nelson laughed. “Your affairs are not my business, dear woman. However, I’d take care if I were you, Bob. Someone killed Daniel. I don’t suppose it was you?”
“Me!” Bob’s colour drained away. “I never had no truck with his goings on.”
“That may be true. I just need to know a few details. You’ve heard about last night’s murder?”
May folded her arms over the bulge of her stomach. It seemed the baby would have a new father. “Oh yes. Up in arms, them at the Hall, when it’s one of their own. No such fuss when it was my poor Daniel died.”
Nelson’s leg ached. “Would you mind if I sit a while?”
She gestured to a chair. “S’pose so. Anyway, I heard you’re the one responsible.”
“How gossip spreads! But I can see you don’t believe it. Bob would have taken my head off with his shotgun by now!”
Bob, his geniality asserting itself now, leaned on the table. “Anyway, they say the wrong man was killed.”
“Do they indeed? So, who was the intended victim?”
The widow slapped Bob’s arm. “Watch your tongue, you fool.”
Nelson leapt up, taking Bob by surprise, and grabbed the man’s shirt. He thrust his face close. “Too late. You tell me who was meant to die, or it’ll be the worse for you.”
Bob, eyes bulging, coughed. “Very well. I heard it was the earl himself.” The widow gasped. Nelson let go of Bob’s shirt, stunned.
His show of force had its effect. It was just as well, for Bob was almost as tall as he and muscles rippled under the man’s thin shirt. Nelson wouldn’t put much money on winning a straight fight. “Nonsense, man. Major Lovell was cut down on horseback, riding away from the Hall. Lord Thatcham wouldn’t leave his own ball.”
Bob ran a finger round his collar and slumped on a chair. “He was supposed to be called away.”
“And who was behind it all?”
Bob’s mouth clamped shut. His hands, clasped on the table between the two men, knuckles white, trembled. Sweat beaded his brow. “I’ve said too much. They’d come for me if they knew. Get away, sir, leave the Hall and get back to London while you can.”
May draped an arm over Bob’s shoulder. “He’s right, sir. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go and never come back.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The morning sun shone cheerfully above Thatcham Hall, almost tricking Olivia into forgetting the horror of last night. As she lifted her head from the pillow, the scene flooded back. Her head ached, for she’d hardly slept. Her eyes were hot as though from crying, but she’d shed no tears.
She’d lain awake as one long minute led to another, listening to the clock in the chapel sound out every hour of the night. All night, the consciousness of Mr. Roberts’ tense face stayed with her. Speaking as though to her alone, he’d said, “I’m innocent.”
Olivia shuddered. If found guilty, he’d receive the death penalty. Early one cold morning he’d stand, a rope around the neck, waiting for the floor to open. She dare not leave his fate in the hands of others. How could she trust anyone else to care enough? He wasn’t part of the family at Thatcham Hall. Lady Thatcham and Miss Dainty would weep for him, but Lord Thatcham, a magistrate, would shake his head. “Justice must be done.”
Danger at Thatcham Hall Page 15
