Page 14 of Secrecy (The Chaplain’s Legacy #4)
M ichael concentrated on the delicate task of unfastening the many buttons on the back of his wife’s gown. He always took his time over it, savouring her nearness, the sweet perfume that hung about her, the soft sound of her breathing. There was the anticipation of the night to come, too, which was by no means the least of his pleasure.
He kissed her neck gently. “I am so glad you got rid of that lady’s maid,” he murmured.
She chuckled softly. “So am I. She was only there to impress the Corland people. Now that we have been ejected from the castle, I no longer need the air of respectability she gives me. It is far more fun with just the two of us.”
“I entirely agree, wife.” He slipped his arms around her waist, kissing her shoulder this time.
“Do you truly believe that Tess Nicholson could have murdered her father?”
He returned to the long line of buttons. “Not for a moment. She shared a bed with Lady Olivia, after all, and it seems impossible that she could have crept out of that bed, run downstairs for the axe, back upstairs to kill her father, then got back to her own room unnoticed. She would have been covered in blood, after all. Did she divest herself of a blood-stained nightgown, wash any remaining blood from her hands, put on a clean nightgown and just climb back into bed? Lady Olivia must be a remarkably heavy sleeper not to notice any of that.”
“She could have gone somewhere else to change and wash.”
“But then there would have been a bowl of blood-stained water to dispose of, as well as the nightgown. No, I cannot see her as a vicious murderer, but this will be a good excuse to get her back to Corland and ply her with questions, as I have long wanted to do.”
“You always say that anyone is capable of murder.”
“And I believe it, but murder by means of an axe in the middle of the night? That is a certain kind of murderer. Miss Nicholson, I feel, would use a more subtle method.”
“Rat poison in his bed-time brandy,” she said.
“Something like that, yes. Do you not agree?”
“I do. You have stopped unbuttoning, husband. We shall never get to bed at this rate.”
For a while he worked in silence, removing first the gown and then the stays. But when Luce sat down to unroll her stockings, he said fretfully, “What am I to do with these gold bars, Luce? Every option is fraught, it seems to me.”
“You must do the right thing, Michael.”
“That is all very well, but I have no wish to push Miss Nicholson into marriage just so that she can have control of her own fortune. There is much to be said for a woman controlling her own destiny. If she has her fortune in her own hands, then she can decide her own future. She is a spirited little thing, and I think her family neglected her somewhat. It is hardly surprising that she wants to be free of them, and it seems a pity that she should be thwarted in the end.” Luce said nothing, so he went on, “On the other hand, perhaps Lord Tarvin is the right person to deal with all this. He seems to want her, after all, unfathomable as that is, and she would be safe with him. What do you think? Advise me, Luce. Tell me what I should do, for I have not the least idea.”
“You should do what is right.”
“But what is that? What is the right thing to do?”
“Michael, you know the answer to that, in your heart. Are you ever going to get undressed? Or do you want me to help you?”
“You are just trying to distract me from the problem.”
“Is it working?”
“It might be. It just might be.”
***
C aptain Edgerton was as good as his word, and went off straight after breakfast to find a goldsmith to value the gold bar. Tess was thrilled to discover that it was worth over five hundred pounds.
“Five hundred! So seventy-six of them… that would be…”
“Around forty thousand,” the captain said. He seemed subdued this morning, not his usual ebullient self.
“But some of the bars were bigger, so it could be more,” she said happily.
“And some were smaller,” he said sharply. “Miss Nicholson, what would you do with such a sum if it were yours absolutely?”
She deflated at once. “I had planned to marry Tom. The money would have paid for a decent house for me — servants, a carriage, clothes, that sort of thing. All the necessities of life that Tom’s earnings could not provide. He would not need to work, except for special projects. I thought we might start a little school for orphans or… or neglected children. He could teach the boys woodwork and I could teach the girls a bit of sewing. But now… I cannot say. I could buy a small estate somewhere, I suppose.”
“As a single woman?” he said.
“Oh, I could find a companion.”
“It would still be scandalous,” he said. “And have you thought what would happen if it were seen that you have money of your own? Your trustees might well wonder how you came by it.”
“You are as bad as Lord Tarvin, trying to dissuade my from pursuing my dreams.”
“No,” he said evenly. “I am only trying to point out the possible pitfalls.”
“You think I should marry Lord Tarvin, I suppose.”
He shook his head. “I have no opinion on who you should marry, except that I hope you are as fortunate in your choice as I have been. Shall we walk around the town, ladies? Do a little shopping?”
Tess was never averse to shopping, although she bought little except a book, some new stockings and a small box of bonbons.
As it was the Sabbath the next day, Captain Edgerton and the servants went to the Minster to attend divine service. Tess was too restless for a sermon, so she stayed at the hotel, and Mrs Edgerton kindly kept her company. Tess quickly abandoned her book, a rather melodramatic novel, while Mrs Edgerton placidly wrote letters and then took up her needlework.
After a while, Mrs Edgerton said, “What is it that upsets you the most, Miss Nicholson — Tom Shapman’s treachery or Michael withholding your money?”
“Both!” Tess said with a sudden laugh. “And Lord Tarvin’s perfidy, too, and then there is the small matter of Papa’s will, not to mention Lord Rennington, who smiles and pats me on the head and tells me that he knows best. Every man thinks he knows best. Ha! Men are slippery, untrustworthy creatures, and I wish I need have nothing to do with them.”
Mrs Edgerton laid down her needle. “Yet you are betrothed to this man at Durham.”
“Poor Ulric! He deserves better than me. Yet who else can give me what I want?”
“Lord Tarvin?” Mrs Edgerton said archly. “I will not enumerate the advantages that would befall you as the wife of a peer, since you must be aware of them, but as a man, he is not so dire a prospect, is he?”
“He is autocratic, as all men are. When I first became friendly with Ulric, Lord Tarvin came tearing up from London as if his hair was on fire, telling me what I must and must not do. He was thoroughly obnoxious.”
“That does sound very bad, but perhaps he has softened since then? He seems very fond of you.”
“If he were fond of me, he would do what I want!” she said pettishly, fully aware that she sounded childish. “Or at least, he would be honest about his plans. He wants my fortune for himself, that is the truth of the matter. Besides, like all gentlemen, he is stuffy and dull and boring.”
Even as she spoke the words, she recalled his enthusiasm for climbing trees and breaking into houses at night, calling it an adventure. And that kiss! That was not stuffy at all! But she was not minded to be generous towards him.
“You prefer men like Tom Shapman.”
“I love Tom,” she said in a small voice. “He is part of the ordinary world, where people work for their living instead of idling the days away in mindless amusements, just to pass the time between breakfast and dinner. I love to watch Tom at work, his hands so deft, so certain, his expression so intent. It is hard to explain.”
“No, I completely understand. It is physical work that he does, too, and there is an attraction in that, especially if his coat is off. There is something compelling about a man in his shirtsleeves engaged in some physical activity. One would not take pleasure in watching a clerk at work, I think.”
“Yes, that is exactly it,” Tess said, pleased. “You do understand.”
“Oh, certainly. That was how I fell in love with my husband, after all. There was a great gathering at my uncle’s house to celebrate a betrothal, and Michael was there as a very minor guest, invited mainly to fill the card tables in the evening. He was very amusing, very chivalrous, a little flirtatious and so, so charming. I liked him at once. But one day, I found him in the long gallery with a sword he had taken from the wall. This sword was long, almost as long as Michael, but he wielded it with such confidence, and as intently as if he were in battle.”
“He loves his sword,” Tess said. “I rarely see him without it.”
“He loves all such weapons and he has great skill with them, too. There was a little taunting amongst the men, and Michael became embroiled in a fencing match with one of them, with duelling rapiers. He was mesmerising to watch. My goodness, but he looked so… so distractingly attractive as he fought.”
Tess laughed, and said, “Did he win the fight?”
“Oh, yes. Michael usually wins, although he was slightly injured, so I had the very great pleasure of bandaging his arm. He was obliged to remove it from his shirt sleeve, and oh heavens, the sight of it had me almost overset. Bare skin… and muscles! Michael is very well endowed with muscles. And we talked and talked, and by the end of it I was nine parts in love with him. So I entirely understand the attraction of a man like Tom Shapman, Miss Nicholson. But he is very far from your equal.”
“It hardly matters now, does it?” she snapped. “He is going to marry his poultry maid.”
“Who is certainly his equal,” Mrs Edgerton said crisply. She bent her head to her stitchery again, saying softly, “I do not presume to advise you, Miss Nicholson, for you must be the best judge of the man who would suit you, but you should be aware that if a gentleman, even a stuffy, dull gentleman, is peeled out of his confining garments — the starched cravat, the perfectly fitted coat, the tight waistcoat — he might display to just as much advantage as a working man.”
“As Captain Edgerton did?”
“And still does,” she said blushing slightly. “I can see that your cousins are not promising specimens in that way, except for Mr Walter Atherton, perhaps. He is a fine figure of a man. But Mr Eustace? Mr Kent? Mr Bertram? I do not think many muscles lurk beneath their shirts. Lord Tarvin, on the other hand—”
“Ah, I knew we should get back to Lord Tarvin sooner or later,” Tess said. “You think I should marry him, do you not?”
“I think you should marry someone of your own class, certainly. It does not need to be Lord Tarvin. However, I would disagree with you on one point — I do not think he is interested in your fortune. He has an income of twelve thousand pounds a year, and unless he has an unsuspected liking for the gaming tables or an expensive mistress, he cannot spend even half of it.”
“I would like him better if he were a gambler or had a mistress,” Tess said. “At least that would make him a degree less dull. But of course he is interested in my fortune! Anyone would be interested in such an amount — fifty thousand pounds in total, including what was in the bank. I suspect he thought I was making it all up about the gold bars. He imagined he would break in and find the safe empty, or full of nothing but dusty old documents, but when he saw all that gold, he decided he would have it for himself.”
“Yet he offered to marry you before he knew what was in the safe,” Mrs Edgerton said.
“Oh, I see you are determined to paint him as a hero,” Tess said crossly.
“And you are determined to keep him as a villain,” Mrs Edgerton said, smiling.
She was so good-humoured that Tess could not help smiling too. “If you had seen him at Harfield Priory, all aristocratic hauteur, you would understand that he is a natural villain. I will not admit to a single virtue in him. Hateful man!”
Mrs Edgerton laughed and shook her head. “Have it your own way, my dear.”
***
F rom the window of his bedchamber at the Pickering inn, Edward watched Tess leave for York in the company of Captain Edgerton and his wife. At least he knew she could get up to no mischief under the captain’s watchful eye. Then he made the rounds of the ostlers and grooms who had refused to provide transport for Tess, and gave them suitable recompense. After that, there was nothing else for him to do but to pay his shot at the inn and climb once more into his own carriage, with only Deakin’s plain features to distract him.
He closed his eyes and allowed Tess’s pretty face to fill his mind. He had not thought her at all well-looking the first time he had seen her, her riding habit muddied from hem to neck, her hat drooping and her wet, windswept hair making her look like a vagabond. But clean, dry and in her neat black gown, she was pretty indeed, and especially when she was berating him for some perceived misdeed or other. How her eyes flashed fire at him! He almost laughed out loud at the thought of it.
There was no cause for laughter in the decisive way she had spurned him, however. ‘Nothing about you holds any attraction for me.’ So she had said, but later, when she had begun to think about it more seriously, she had seemed to soften towards him. Certainly she had allowed him to kiss her without protest. But then he had spoilt the moment by telling her of Shapman’s poultry maid, and now she had gone off with Edgerton to see her woodworker again.
Another man might have been downhearted by these difficulties, but Edward was a patient man. He had arranged the visit to Shapman with Edgerton, after all, as a way of keeping Tess out of the way of his own plans. His first objective was to get Shapman out of prison and safely married to his poultry maid. Then he could begin to devise a way to separate her from Ulric. And then… perhaps then, when her alternatives were gone, she might turn to him.
His journey was pleasantly uneventful. He went first to Corland Castle to deposit Deakin and his luggage, before borrowing a horse and a groom to show him the way to Gowland’s Farm. His business there satisfactorily concluded, he had time to call on Sir Hubert Strong, the magistrate. Sir Hubert was a sensible man of middle age, who accepted the news of Shapman’s retracted confession with aplomb.
“You have talked to Gowland himself?” Sir Hubert said, handing Edward a glass of Canary.
“And two of his four sons, and the parson, who called that night. His sister is married to one of the sons, so he often spends the evening there.”
“They are quite certain of the date?”
“They are. Mrs Gowland keeps a diary.”
“Hmm.” Sir Hubert frowned. “I do not quite see why the fellow would confess to a crime he did not commit. It seems… irrational. Unless—?”
Edward had no wish to raise the subject of Tess’s fortune, so he said only, “Captain Edgerton suspects he is protecting Miss Nicholson from close enquiry.”
“I can see that he might think that, but surely Tess would not—? I mean, such a quiet little thing, and surely too delicate to wield an axe with such… with such…”
“Quite,” Edward said hastily. “One expects the murderer to be a man, naturally, but the captain likes to address all possibilities.”
“Well, I suppose I must go out to Gowland’s Farm myself and take written statements from them all. Then perhaps we can get Shapman out of York Gaol. It is all most inconvenient. Now Edgerton has to start all over again, I suppose, and his wife’s companion is still missing, too, or she was the last I heard. The poor fellow is not having much luck, is he? After all this time, and still no satisfactory conclusion.”
“I suspect the real murderer is long gone now,” Edward said. “As for York Gaol, I have some business in York, so it would be easy enough for me to collect Shapman for you, and bring him back here, if that would be agreeable to you?”
“That would be most obliging of you, Tarvin, if it would not be too great an imposition.”
“Not the least in the world. I should be delighted to spare you the journey. If, when you have talked to the Gowlands, you are satisfied with the veracity of their assertions, then you need only write the appropriate letters of authority, and it would be my pleasure to see it done.”
He returned to Corland Castle well satisfied with his progress. The butler greeted him with relief.
“We were beginning to wonder if we should send out a search party, my lord,” he said. “You have just time to change before dinner. Allow me to show you to your room.” As they proceeded up the stairs, he went on, “There were some letters for you, which your man is looking after. Also a person called, asking to see you.”
“A person, Simpson? What sort of person?”
“A Mr Ramsbottom, my lord.”
“I am sure I know of no one by that name.”
“He wouldn’t write a note or send a letter. He wished to speak to you in person, but he wouldn’t say whether it was a business or personal matter, only that it must be conveyed to you in person. He was informed that you had gone on to York.”
“How very mysterious!” Edward said, amused. “I did not come across him in York, so I dare say he has given up and gone home. Wherever home might be.”
Dinner was a fraught affair, as everyone plied Edward with questions about Tess and her sudden betrothal, and then, when they discovered it, the news about Shapman. On both subjects there was much that he could not say. Nothing, for instance, about climbing trees or forcing open windows or opening safes. Nothing at all about the contents of such safes. Nothing about Shapman confessing to give Tess time to find her fortune. Not too much about Ulric, either, except his status as a gentleman, although something of his nature was already known.
“Lady Tarvin says he is not right in the head,” Olivia said pertly, as they sat in the drawing room with their tea after dinner. “I hope that is not true, for Tess’s sake.”
“Ulric is perhaps not the cleverest of men, it is true,” Edward said cautiously. “It is my opinion that he would be happiest not marrying at all, but I cannot prevent him from doing so if he wishes.”
“Is he a suitable husband for my daughter, Lord Tarvin?” Lady Alice said. “She can be a trifle wayward at times, and I would prefer her to marry a man of strong character who can rein in her little quirks.”
“I cannot claim to know your daughter well, Lady Alice, but I have known Ulric for a great many years, and I believe they would be very ill-suited. Ulric devotes all his time to his horses. People are of less interest to him, and if he were married, his wife would be of small consequence to him. I am doing what I can to prevent the match, for both their sakes, but it may be that I cannot prevent it, in the end.”
“We must all hope you are successful,” Lady Alice said. “She cannot marry him until she is of age, for I shall not give my permission. She has chosen this man purely to comply with the terms of her father’s will, I doubt not. Mr Frith is a gentleman, and therefore Tess’s trustees must release her inheritance to him if he becomes her husband, but it sounds as if she will be at liberty to do as she pleases thereafter, and that is not healthy for any woman. I always hoped she would make a marriage of affection, Lord Tarvin. I have been so fortunate as to experience that felicity, and I very much wished that for Tess, too. For that reason I never encouraged her to go to town for the season. I am told she is very pretty, so undoubtedly she could make a good society match, but I do not think that would satisfy her. A good, kind man who loves her — that is the ideal.”
“And perhaps she may yet make such a match,” he said evenly. “I hope so, certainly.”
“Ah.” She turned more fully to face him, her sightless eyes fixed on his nose. “I share your hope, then, Lord Tarvin.”
She turned the subject after that, but he felt that however blind her eyes might be, Lady Alice saw into his heart with unnerving accuracy.
Later, in his room, he found a neat pile of letters awaiting him. Some had been forwarded from London to Harfield Priory and then on to Corland. He recognised the strong hand of Sir Ernest Peterson.
‘Tarvin, You have been so good in the past as to send one of your experienced grooms to Myercroft and take on our new recruits to be trained up at Harfield. May I ask you in your kindness to do so again? We have a lad of twelve just started in the stables, very keen but with no experience of horses at all. You know what Ulric is like! He is a dear boy, but he has no patience with any degree of incompetence, and I should like to remove the young groom from Myercroft until he knows what he is doing. Six months under your head groom would teach him the basics and give Ulric no cause to shout at him. However, if it should be inconvenient, I shall quite understand and shall find some other use for the boy. Yours respectfully, Ernest Peterson, Bart.’
Edward sat down at once to pen his reply.
‘Peterson, It would be my pleasure to oblige you in the matter of the groom. It shall be done as soon as I can manage it. I am currently staying at Corland Castle, home of the Earl of Rennington, and also the home of Miss Nicholson, Ulric’s betrothed.’
At this point, he was struck with a sudden thought. This might be just the opportunity he needed. He finished his reply with a smile on his face.
‘I feel it would be salutary for the betrothed couple to get to know each other a little better, and for the lady to see her future home. Might I suggest that you issue an invitation to her to visit you at Myercroft before too long? Ulric may make one of his periodic stays with you, and if you extend the invitation to me also, then we may begin to make plans for the future. It would, I feel, be an interesting visit and much good may come of it. Yours, Tarvin.’
The final letter was from his mother, and it was, for once, brief.
‘Edward, We have had a man called Ramsbottom here wishing to speak to you. Kindly tell your acquaintance to make an appointment before descending upon us, or better still, get rid of him. We are a respectable household. Your affectionate Mother.’
Edward laughed out loud. Who was this Ramsbottom fellow?