Page 14 of Ambition (The Chaplain’s Legacy #6)
“But if someone… wants to kill him… he may try again,” Bea said, through her sobs.
“My husband intends to make very sure that he will not succeed,” she said grimly.
“That is his main objective now, to get you and Mr Atherton married and away to a place of safety for a period, so that he can investigate this new atrocity without the constant fear of an assassin lurking behind every bush.”
A footman came in bearing a tray laden with meat patties, fruit pastries and an array of cakes.
Both girls dutifully nibbled a cake each, and Olivia soon found she could manage a second one and then a raspberry tartlet.
Mrs Edgerton smiled at them encouragingly and urged them to drink some wine as well.
It was an odd thing, but Olivia did feel better for having something to eat. She reached for another cake.
“I wish I could see him,” Bea said wistfully, setting down her glass.
Mrs Edgerton patted her hand sympathetically. “Once the surgeon has been… ah, here he is now.”
A little flurry of activity heralded the arrival of the surgeon-apothecary, his assistant and a cluster of footmen, followed by Captain Edgerton, now dressed in morning clothes, and with his sword at his side.
The little cavalcade disappeared into the study, the footmen and the captain emerged again almost at once, and silence fell.
“Miss Franklyn, how are you bearing up?” the captain said to Bea, his voice gentle.
“I am well. Captain, how is he?”
“In excellent shape,” the captain said. “Perfectly lucid and calm, although in some pain, naturally. Miss Franklyn, I shall be talking to you and to Mr Atherton in more detail in the days to come, but I wonder if—”
The air was rent with a bloodcurdling scream from the study, followed by a deep silence.
Bea jumped to her feet with a cry, and would have rushed across to the study door, but the captain stood in her way.
“The surgeon will be cleaning the wound with alcohol, I expect. It… stings a bit.”
There were no further sounds from the study except a low rumble of voices, so Bea took several deep breaths and sat down again.
“He is not going to die?”
“Miss Franklyn, one can never predict the outcome of a wound with absolute certainty, but in my experience this is an eminently survivable type. I shall profess myself astonished if he does not survive.”
“But then you have been astonished several times since you came here,” Bea said, with a hint of a wry smile.
The captain smiled too. “That is true, to my chagrin. Nothing about this case has gone as I expected. But then none of us would have imagined that Mr Bertram Atherton would be the victim of a deliberate shooting. Why, that is what puzzles me? Was he even the intended target, or was the gunman aiming at you, Miss Franklyn? Can you think of any reason why anyone would want either of you dead?”
“No, none at all. There are those who dislike me , I know that, but not enough to want me dead, I hope, and no one dislikes Bertram — not a soul. He is universally admired and respected.”
“So I have always understood. We will talk more tomorrow when you are rested and, I trust, your fears for Mr Atherton have been somewhat allayed. Perhaps something will come to you that might give me a clue where to look.” Then he added grimly, “Because the man who shot your future husband was in this castle this evening, mingling with the guests, and I should very much like to know who he is before he does any more harm.”
***
T he next morning, Michael talked to Bertram Atherton, who was sitting up in bed in the principal guest bedroom, his arm in a sling, looking pale but fierce. Miss Franklyn sat in a chair by the bed, reading to him, while Luce played chaperon in a corner with her sewing.
“Who would do a thing like this, Captain?” Bertram said, before Michael had even sat down. “Why would anyone want to kill me?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” Michael said.
“It is hard to imagine that anyone hates me enough to commit murder,” Bertram said. “But to lurk there in the bushes… he must have been there for hours, watching everyone arrive, waiting for me.”
“It is worse than that,” Michael said grimly, and explained about the hatch to the cheese store.
“You mean… it was someone we know?” Bertram said horrified. “A friend? A relation?” He murmured something in Latin.
“The obvious person would be your brother Lucas—”
“No!”
“— for he stands to gain most by your death, but he was on the bridge in clear sight at the time. No one who was on the bridge could have been responsible. But that still leaves scores of people who were inside the castle. Any one of them could have slipped away, climbed the ladder in the cheese store, taken the shot and then run back to rejoin the party.”
“No one dislikes Bertram enough to kill him,” Bea said stoutly, taking his good hand in hers.
“And that is patently untrue,” Bertram said, smiling at her. “I just cannot imagine who… or why.”
“Has anything like this happened before,” Michael said. “Not shooting, necessarily, but… accidents, say? Something in the last year or two that looked like an accident but might not have been?”
“No, nothing. I am not prone to accidents, as a rule, so I would notice,” Bertram said.
“Walter is the one for accidents, but then he tends to be a neck or nothing rider. He had a fall last year that could have been nasty — something broke as he was about to jump — but he landed in the hedge and came off more or less unscathed.”
“There was a stray shot near him last winter, too, do you remember?” Bea said. “He had wandered away from the rest of the shooting party and there was a shot very close to him.”
“Well, Walter is an idiot, in some ways,” Bertram said easily. “He never thinks, and ends up in the line of fire. But I have never even had the smallest accident of that nature, so this has come from nowhere. And why now… here and now? There must be easier ways, less risky.”
“Exactly,” Michael said. “There is an urgency about this that is very striking. The assassin could not wait, and needed to stop you immediately from doing… something. Your marriage, possibly, or a legal matter. Were you about to make a will, or anything of that sort?”
“I have had a will in place since I came of age, and it was updated weeks ago to take my forthcoming marriage into account.”
“Do you have any information that you are about to reveal?”
“Such as what?”
“Anything. The murder of Mr Nicholson, possibly, but it could be anything. Have you recently found out something detrimental to another person?”
“Nothing at all.” He sighed. “I think it must be about our marriage, Bea. Do you have any rejected suitors with murderous tendencies?”
“No. Well, not with murderous tendencies. There was the Marquess of Embleton, but I cannot see him hiding in bushes, can you?”
“And he was not here last night,” Michael said. “I will check, but it seems unlikely. Anyone else?”
“There was only Eustace…”
“Mr Eustace!” Michael sat up a little straighter. “He wished to marry you, Miss Franklyn?”
“Oh, yes. He offered twice before I was betrothed to Walter, and when that fell apart, he offered again, but he only wanted my fortune, you know. He was never in love with me or anything of that nature.”
“How do you know that?”
“A girl knows when a man feels a real passion for her. It is in his eyes, the way he looks at her, the way he hangs on every word, and when he proposes, it all tumbles out. One cannot be in any doubt about it.” She glanced at Bertram, blushing a little.
“Eustace had none of that. He told me how well circumstanced he was, his income and so forth, and he talked of attachment but it was all so… so cold , somehow.”
“And as soon as you are betrothed to me, he is betrothed to someone else,” Bertram says.
“Exactly! It is hardly a grand passion if he promptly proposes to another woman. He has known her for some time, apparently, so no, he is not nursing a vengeful broken heart, my love.”
“What a pity,” Michael said. “That sounded so promising, too. Still, the fellow’s motive may not be so important this time, because we should be able to discover who it is.
He must have disappeared from view inside the castle, and then reappeared sometime later.
Hmm… how much later, I wonder? An interesting question. ”