Page 26 of Ambition (The Chaplain’s Legacy #6)

He indicated a frame with a half-completed piece still held fast, an arrangement of flowers and birds of an elegant design, although the colours had faded somewhat.

The room was just as elegant, the wood panels painted a delicate shade of yellow, and the furnishings light and dainty.

It was a very feminine room, but although it was perfectly clean, the wood polished and the windows sparkling, and there were no holland covers, yet it seemed neglected.

The lady who had delighted in it had gone, and no later occupant had enjoyed its charms.

“Your sister does not use this room?” Olivia said.

“It reminds her too much of her mama, and makes her sad. It makes me sad, too, but one day, I hope to see another lady occupy that sofa and ply her needle, just as she did.”

He said no more, leading her on to another, more masculine room — the library, where Olivia was relieved to see the earl and Miss Bucknell examining a pair of globes in a corner.

Lord Grayling at once lost the serious tone, and became his light, flirtatious self, showing her some books of engravings of the leading political figures of an earlier age, and explaining the sly allusions to the foibles of each.

Olivia listened with only half an ear, pondering his behaviour. He had deliberately led her aside, and the garderobes were merely an excuse, for it was his mother’s sitting room he wished her to see. That, combined with his enquiry as to her dowry, was a very clear signal of intent.

If he were looking to marry, he need not waste his time on Olivia, for she was not in the least tempted. She was not sure he was a man to be trusted. But how to deter him? It was a puzzle, until he took her into another room, where a narrow stair was roped off.

“Why is the stair not used?” she said.

“It is not safe. There are some loose slabs — dangerously loose.”

“Why do you not have them mended?”

He laughed. “A direct question, indeed! Because I cannot afford to, that is why. This place takes a monstrous amount of money to keep it from falling down, and I have had one or two reverses of fortune lately in my investments. So it will have to wait.”

Olivia smiled inwardly. There was the opening she needed!

“You will just have to marry an heiress, Lord Grayling.”

He smiled his oily smile. “I have to find her first, Lady Olivia.”

“You need look no further than the Lady Euphemia Howland. I imagine fifty thousand pounds would repair any number of staircases.”

“I imagine it would,” he said blandly, but he seemed rather thoughtful after that.

***

M ichael spent two days experimenting with the gun.

With the enthusiastic help of Lucas Atherton, who was more than willing to investigate the means by which his brother had been shot, the gun was fired repeatedly from the spot above the cheese store, while Michael stood in different parts of the castle listening for the sound.

Then he ran back and forth by way of different staircases, to work out how long it had taken the gunman to reach his spot and retreat again.

And none of it told him anything he did not already know, or explained those parts of the mystery that were still obscure. It was infuriating.

He was standing on the bridge to Corland’s entrance, leaning on the parapet and looking down into the void when Luce emerged from the castle.

“Michael? You will be late for dinner if you stay out here any longer.” She stood beside him and gazed into the void. “What are you looking at?”

He turned to her with a grin. “What do you see down there?”

“Nothing, Michael. It is dark, there are no lights and I can see nothing.”

“Precisely.” He grinned even more.

“Oh, you are minded to be enigmatic? Very well, but might you be enigmatic inside, do you think? It is chilly out here.” She pulled her shawl more closely around her.

He laughed and they went inside, and up to their room to dress for dinner.

“What is your theory?” he said, as his head emerged from the neck of a clean shirt. “Who do you think killed Nicholson?”

“An irate husband,” she said at once. “Mr Nicholson was not faithful to his wife, and I do not believe that the Whyte girl was the only one he seduced.”

“Someone from the village or one of the farms? How did he know the castle well enough to find Nicholson’s room?”

“Michael, every family for twenty miles in each direction has a son or daughter working at the castle. The inhabitants are talked about constantly. Everything about the place is known.”

“Including the garden door having a broken bolt, and most likely being unlocked? Including the platform inside the urn so the axe did not drop all the way to the bottom? Including the hatch above the cheese store, so handy for shooting at people?”

She looked up from the stockings she was unrolling. “That assumes the same person killed Nicholson and shot at Bertram Atherton.”

“You think it was someone different?”

“I cannot see the connection. I think the shooting was a prank—”

“A prank!”

“A friend making a silly point — better dead than married. You know what young men are like. No doubt the shot was intended to miss, but it ended up nearly killing him. No friend would admit to that.”

“And Miss Peach?”

“Someone saw her walking and offered her a lift, then tried to rob her. When she resisted, he strangled her.”

“And left her purse untouched?”

“I dare say he panicked. Besides, ladies so commonly carry reticules these days that he may have forgotten to check for old-fashioned pockets. I can see you are not convinced.”

“I understand why you would like it to be this way,” he said slowly. “Strangers… outsiders… so much better than a member of the earl’s own family. And yet… this feels personal, somehow.”

“Must it be a member of the family?” she said forlornly.

“There are so many points that only the family could know… or someone long associated with the castle, perhaps. A servant of many years’ standing… it could be, I suppose. But someone intimately familiar with the place, yes.”

“Then it must be Kent Atherton,” she said sadly.

“Who was in Branton when Miss Peach’s lodging room was broken into and her books stolen, on the chance that one of them would be the key to decoding her notebook.”

“So he says.”

Michael jumped up. “Yes! We only have his word for it that he was in Branton all that time. We only have his word that he saw someone running down the stairs after the murder. But wait — how did he know to steal the books at all? He was not at the dinner where the notebook was mentioned.”

“What precisely was said that night?” Luce said. “It was after the ladies had withdrawn, so only the gentlemen were present, but were any of the servants there?”

“The butler was still setting out the port glasses, I think. The under-butler may have been there, too.”

“I am not sure it was wise to mention it at all,” Luce said, standing up and sliding her feet into her evening slippers. “You are normally so secretive.”

“I wanted to watch their faces,” Michael said. “First, I told them only that we had found Miss Peach’s notebook, and then paused. Then, I mentioned that it was in code, with another pause. And finally, that I had no doubt that we would be able to decode it easily.”

“If the murderer had been present, he should have looked worried, then relieved, then worried again. And did anyone?”

“No. It was very disappointing. But there was no mention of books or the means of decoding. And I have just realised… oh, I am a fool, sometimes!”

Luce pulled him to his feet, and began buttoning up his waistcoat. “You are anything but a fool, but this is an extraordinarily convoluted crime. What have you just realised?”

“That whoever took the books is not necessarily the murderer. He may merely be concerned to keep us from finding the identity of the murderer.”

“Protecting someone?”

Michael nodded.

“A friend… or a brother?”

“Which leads us neatly back to Kent Atherton. If Eustace, say, thought Kent was the murderer, but knew he was away in Branton and not able to prevent us from decoding the notebook, he may well have intervened himself. Well!” He sighed, and shrugged himself into his coat.

“I must think about this. But there is one thing I must do, that I should have done long since.”

“What is that?” she said, smiling affectionately at him.

“I must find the saddle from the mule that Miss Peach borrowed. Mrs Markley has her mule back, but we never found the saddle, so I shall go and look for it tomorrow.”

Luce laughed. “Sometimes, Michael, your mind works in the oddest ways. It is the other saddle you should be looking for.”

“Which one is that?” he said, smiling at her.

“The one that Peachy wrote about, of course. You cannot have forgotten the very last entry in her notebook - ‘I am almost certain of the murderer’s identity now. I only need to find the saddle, and then I shall have the proof. ’”

Michael laughed, pulling her into his arms and kissing her on the nose. “I have not forgotten, but one saddle at a time, wife. One saddle at a time.”

***

M ichael left early, his wife still abed and the household only just winding itself up for the day.

Autumn was a fine time to be abroad, he had always felt.

There was nothing like cantering beneath the russet and gold canopy of well-grown woodland, or alongside a placid stream, catching a flash of brilliant colour from a kingfisher or sending a stately heron aloft in a whirr of massive wings.

In all the years he had been in India, it was the softness of autumn that had most filled his memories of England.

But the moors of the North Riding were not in the least soft.

The wind was bitter, with a hint of ice in it, and even the small pools that dotted the moor were ruffled and angry today.

He was glad to reach his destination, the tower near to Eustace’s estate of Welwood, where the smuggling operation was carried on.

He turned his horse into the field beside the tower, alongside the sturdy pack ponies and a few donkeys grazing there.

The key to the tower was still tucked under its stone beside the door, so he quickly let himself in.

It was chilly inside, but at least there was no wind.

He was tolerably sure that the saddle was not hidden anywhere inside the tower, but he searched it thoroughly all the same.

The cellar was less full of smuggled barrels now, just a couple with French markings remaining.

Several empty barrels stood awaiting filling, and there was a half-full barrel of ale to refresh the workers. But no saddle.

He passed quickly through the storerooms on the ground floor, noting the thin film of grime that now coated every surface.

Last time he had been there, everything was spotless, but no doubt that was Miss Peach’s efforts.

With housewifely energy, she must have filled the long empty hours of her tenure at the tower by sweeping and cleaning.

Poor Peachy! The place looked neglected now that she had gone.

Up the winding stairs, he checked every room and even ventured onto the balcony and up the narrow stair to the viewing platform on the roof, but, as he expected, there was no sign of a saddle or anything untoward.

For some time he stood in the uppermost room, gazing down at Welwood-on-the-Hill slumbering gently under wintry skies, smoke rising only from one or two chimneys.

Eustace was away from home again, then. He was always away from home.

Kent’s pride and joy, the telescope, was still facing the house, but it revealed nothing except a maid optimistically draping sheets over bushes to dry them. No one else seemed to be about, not even the grooms at the stable yard.

Michael could not put off the moment when he was obliged to venture outside again.

Pulling his greatcoat more closely around him, he locked the door and replaced the key under its stone.

Then he stood irresolute. Where would Miss Peach hide a saddle?

There were no buildings nearby, and she would hardly have taken it down to Welwood.

It must be somewhere near at hand, but where?

There was a large patch of woodland running alongside the ponies’ field, but that would take some thorough searching.

More likely that it was tucked under the hedge surrounding the field.

He began enthusiastically, swishing aside brambles and overgrown detritus from summer with his sword, but his spirits soon flagged. Would Peachy really have left a valuable saddle under a hedge, where it would be exposed to weather and the attentions of rodents? Yet where else?

After covering a hundred yards or so in each direction and finding nothing, he set out with grim determination to survey the entire perimeter of the field.

The far side of it brought him to an ivy-covered wall with a gate set into it, where an elderly gelding gazed mournfully across the Helmsley road to the entrance of Welwood, as if awaiting a friend with an apple or piece of sugar.

Michael had nothing of the sort to offer, but he stroked the creature’s nose and gave him a few words of encouragement.

Looking around beyond the gate, in the furthermost corner of the field he saw a small copse, overgrown with brambles and fallen branches, but a narrow path led into it from the gate.

All Michael’s senses tweaked into alertness.

A gate and a path meant something hidden within the patch of woodland.

Eagerly he followed the path into the wilderness, the enfolding greenery hiding him very effectively from the world beyond.

Twenty paces in, he had his answer — a low shed, rather dilapidated and entirely invisible from beyond the trees.

It was not locked, the door creaking open at a push.

Inside was hay, piled almost to the roof at one side but scattered in heaps elsewhere.

It took him no more than five minutes of prodding and poking and kicking aside clumps of hay to find what he was looking for — a mule’s saddle, with the letter ‘M’ neatly stitched into the leather. The saddle for Mrs Markley’s mule.

Michael smiled.