Page 24 of Secrecy (The Chaplain’s Legacy #4)

T ess did not know what to make of Edward’s proposal. The thought of living at Apstead House had barely crossed her mind before, except as just another ineligible scheme, but he made it seem so reasonable. And if her aunt were there… Uncle Charles could not possibly object, could he?

But almost as soon as she began to consider the question seriously, any number of objections arose in her mind. Uncle Charles might not object to Aunt Caroline, but he still held the purse-strings. Would he allow them enough to live on comfortably? He had no idea of money at all, she knew that. And at the least whim he could withhold or rescind his permission, so Tess would still not be free.

Then there was Aunt Caroline. Tess did not dislike her, but she had no especial affection for her, either, for she had ignored Tess almost as much as her own parents had done. Her aunt was very close to Mama, too, and all things considered, she did not feel that Aunt Caroline would be a comfortable sort of companion.

She did not say that to Edward, however. To him, she mentioned only that Aunt Caroline liked to travel about to stay with Josie and Izzy, and that she might not like to settle in Pickering. He nodded, but said no more.

Soon after, they went into dinner, and there was a little jostling for position amongst the men. Mr Rycroft thought that he and his wife ought to have the head and foot of the table, while Sandy argued forcefully that it should be Captain and Mrs Edgerton. In the end, Edward pulled rank, and set Tess at the head and himself at the foot, with the others allowed to dispose themselves as they would. Tess found she had the Scotsman on one side and Captain Edgerton on the other, while Edward had the other two ladies, Mrs Edgerton and Mrs Rycroft. The remaining gentlemen, Mr Rycroft and Mr Neate, took the middle seats. As the table was reduced to its smallest size, conversation was general for the entire meal, with the gentlemen competing to entertain the company. It was a contest which Captain Edgerton was bound to win, with his bottomless fund of stories from India, but Tess liked his lighthearted tales, where there was danger but also great bravery. Not that she believed them all, but he told them so well that it hardly mattered.

The meal was sparse, having only one course and a couple of removes, but what it lacked in quantity, it more than compensated in quality. Mrs Rycroft was clearly an accomplished cook, her husband had raided the wine cellar to good effect, and with the two valets serving, no deficiency was felt by the diners.

When the ladies withdrew, Mrs Edgerton and Mrs Rycroft settled down with their needlework in the saloon, but Tess was restless and wandered through the connecting door to the room next door, which was at the front of the house, facing the street. The curtains had been left open, but a little light filtered into the room from the lamps hung at the front door, enabling her to look around. It was another saloon, similar to the first, the air a trifle stale, as if it had not been used for a while. There was some aroma detectable which reminded her of the study at Corland in her grandfather’s day, where he had sat up until the small hours, playing piquet with her father and drinking brandy. Perhaps this room, too, had been the scene of cards and drinking. Those gentlemen she had seen walking through the garden had perhaps sat in here, playing and gambling and enjoying a convivial evening with Mrs Mayberry’s nieces.

She stood by the window gazing out. It was raining, and drops chased each other down the panes. In the tiny front garden, several tall shrubs were tossed about by the wind. No one was about on the street at this hour, everyone sitting at home by the fire, warm, secure and happy.

Tess was not happy. All her careful plans had fallen apart. Just a few months ago, she had been happy because she had been in love with Tom, and had thought herself loved in return. She had always known, of course, that it might take years of painstaking effort to convince her parents that her future lay with such a man, but she had hope. A small hope, but it had kept her optimistic.

And then her father had died — had been murdered in his bed, and appalling as that was, it had given her a real chance of freedom. Her father’s gold, which no one knew of but her, could set her free. She could marry Tom and be rich and happy. Now Tom was gone, the gold was gone — no, still sitting in the safe, infuriatingly, but out of her reach. Her choices had narrowed… to marry Edward and embrace the hideous prospect of life as a peeress, to live meekly with her aunt or her mother, as if she were still a child, or to marry Ulric and be free.

And yet… to be tied to Ulric forever… was that truly what she wanted? Yes, if it would give her the fortune that was hers. She could even live here, in Pickering, without her aunt or anyone to look disapprovingly at her.

Without anyone to play chess with, her mind instantly responded. Without anyone…

She was aware of him the instant he entered the room. There were voices in the saloon next door, but he was here. How she knew it was him she could not say, but she was quite certain of it, so when he came up behind her and put his arms around her waist, she was not alarmed. Nothing Edward did could ever alarm her.

“What are you doing?” he said quietly.

“Watching the raindrops run down the window.”

“That sounds boring.”

“No, not at all. Rain is never boring.”

“But people are? Is that why you are in here, because the raindrops are more interesting than the company next door?”

“The raindrops are more in tune with my mood.” There was the lightest touch, so light she might almost have imagined it, on one of her shoulders. “What are you doing?” she said sharply.

“Kissing your shoulder.”

“You should not be doing that.”

“I know, but you have the most enticing shoulders, do you know that?” His lips moved delicately along and then up her neck. How improper it was! Yet she made no move to stop him. If only he were not so tempting! Life was much simpler when he did nothing but rant at her, his face stern and unyielding. But this gently affectionate man was very, very hard to dislike.

“Have you ever wondered why it is,” she said pensively, “that a lady prepares for the evening by exposing her neck, her shoulders and half her chest to the world, while covering her bare arms decorously with long gloves? A man, on the other hand, is covered from neck to toes. Only his face is uncovered.”

The kissing paused. “I suppose it must be because a man chooses a woman for her beauty, so she must needs display her charms, whereas a woman chooses a man for his position in society, and he has no need to display anything.”

“Yet in reality both choose according to money — her dowry and his income.”

“You are cynical, my love. You forget that some people, men and woman alike, may choose for love. As I do.”

“What is love?”

He shifted a little at her back, and she heard the surprise in his voice. “A profound question. Who can say? Writers from time immemorial have tried to encapsulate it, but I suppose we each of us experience it differently.”

“But how can one tell one is in love?”

“One simply knows,” he said, his arms tightening around her momentarily, as if for emphasis. “You knew you were in love with Shapman. I know I am in love with you.”

“But if I were to fall in love with someone else, would it be the same or different?”

He chuckled, a low rumble that she felt in her back as he held her tight. “An unanswerable question. But you will know. Are these questions leading anywhere? Or are you merely tormenting me?”

“Tormenting you? How am I tormenting you?” She slithered out of his hold and spun round to face him.

“Dearest Tess, you know how I feel about you. If I thought you were talking about me—”

“You flatter yourself!” she said coldly, then winced at the pain on his face. Impulsively, she reached out and laid a hand on his chest. “Forgive me. I spoke thoughtlessly. I am only… it is just that… I cannot tell…”

She drifted into silence, quite unable to formulate a coherent sentence. How could she raise his hopes by telling him anything of her confused feelings at that moment? These intimate moments brought her very close to loving him, and she was not at all sure she wanted that. It would only complicate her life still further.

“Shall we play chess?” she said briskly. “There is a set in the other room.”

His expression shifted, no longer hurt, merely resigned, she thought. But he nodded, and they joined the others in the saloon, and no one commented on their long absence.

She could not concentrate on the game, and expected to lose, but perhaps Edward was out of sorts too, for once again she defeated him, which he accepted graciously.

“My mind is elsewhere tonight,” he said. “I think I shall retire.”

“Of course. Are you quite well?”

“Oh… I suppose so. What ails me is not anything which can be fixed by a sleeping draught or a dose of laudanum, anyway. Goodnight, Tess.”

The Edgertons and Rycrofts had got up a game of whist, but between rubbers, there was a shift as Sandy begged for a turn, so Captain Edgerton wandered across to the chess table.

“May I give you a game, Miss Nicholson? Or backgammon, if you wish for a change.”

“By all means let us play backgammon. There is a board on the shelf over there.”

He set up the pieces and they began to play, but he too seemed preoccupied, and after one rather muddled game, they abandoned the board, refilled their glasses and settled down to conversation.

“Do you truly believe you can find Miss Peach?” Tess said, before the captain could begin one of his anecdotes from India.

He sighed. “I am not optimistic. Nor do I feel I make much progress on finding your father’s murderer. This investigation is turning out to be one of my most spectacular failures.”

“I am sorry Tom Shapman threw everything off course by his foolish confession,” she said quietly. “And for my part in that, I also apologise. I am too prone to speak without considering the consequences.”

“There is no need for any apology, Miss Nicholson. You did not ask him to confess, after all. But even if he had not done so, I am not at all certain that I would have been any further forward. There is no trace left behind at Corland to point a finger. The axe was accessible to anyone. The room was easy to find, your father’s habits known. No one appears to have benefited by his death, apart from you, but I do not see you as a murderer. No one had a grievance deep enough to suggest murder as a solution. Until I can find a reason why anyone should have wished to murder your father, I cannot begin to guess his identity.”

“My father was a wicked, thieving man, Captain. Someone must have hated him.”

“Actually, no. He was generally well liked. Not generous, but despite the penny-pinching, he paid his bills on time. The managers of the businesses he owned all said he treated them respectfully. No bullying or shouting, nothing untoward at all. He would call once a week to collect the takings, leaving the agreed sum for wages and expenses, sign the account books, drink a glass of sherry and chat for ten minutes, then away. He belonged to a political society here, but they all speak well of him, too. If he had any vices, he kept them well hidden.”

“Any vices other than stealing from people, you mean,” she said acidly.

The captain grinned. “Yes, apart from that, but none of those defrauded knew of it. There might have been suspicions, but nothing more than that. But while it is infuriating to be unable to find his killer, I find myself fascinated by the man himself. For thirty years he has been quietly lining his own pockets, amassing a fortune, and for what? He had no need of money, one might think. He was very comfortably situated at Corland, happily married, wanting for nothing, and yet all the time he was squirrelling away his gold bars. Have you any idea why?”

She sipped her wine, considering the point. “He said to me once that money is the real power in the world, that money means not being beholden to anyone. It is freedom… oh, and the ability to recover from a disaster. I wonder if he feared a disaster?”

“Ah… if someone were to find out he was not ordained, perhaps? That would be a crime too great to ignore, but if his secret were uncovered, with a fortune in his hands, he could make a run for it and start a new life somewhere else.”

“Do you think someone found out?” she said. “That would be something that might drive a man to murder, perhaps.”

“It might,” he said thoughtfully. “But if he wished to hide that secret, murder is not going to help, and if he wished to expose it, there are better, safer ways, without risking the gallows. It is a puzzle, is it not, Miss Nicholson? An insoluble one, perhaps, yet I cannot quite let it go. Then there are all those strange little disconnected matters that niggle at my mind. Hiding the axe in the urn, for instance. Mr Eustace collecting a lady from a Pickering house of ill-repute. Miss Peach’s disappearance, muttering about laudanum and mule droppings. Miss Franklyn seeing a man in the woods, watching her. And that clock…”

He turned his gaze on the mantelpiece, where the ormolu clock ticked away.

“I have seen a clock very like it somewhere else, but I cannot for the life of me remember where.”

***

I t took Michael just two days to find the clock again, although it was pure happenstance. He had begun again on his round of all those who had known Mr Nicholson, and after the distinguished members of the Pickering Political and Philosophical Society, he had moved down the social scale to the businesses that Nicholson had owned. The chandlery was the most important, for it was where Miss Peach had taken lodgings, and so he talked to all the other residents. The last of them was a well-dressed widow of around sixty, Mrs Clegg, who lived in two rooms on the top floor.

“I am so sorry to trouble you again, ma’am, but Miss Peach is still missing, and I should like to ask you one or two more questions, if it would not be too much of an imposition.”

“Not at all, Captain Edgerton. Do come in. May I offer you some tea? Or a glass of wine?”

“Thank you, but Mr Cartwright downstairs filled me full of port and macaroons. If I take another mouthful I shall burst.”

She laughed, and ushered him into the room. And there it was on a shelf, for it was too large for the mantelpiece, an ornately exotic ormolu clock in a room filled with unpretentious furniture and virtually no other decorative piece. When she had repeated all that she knew of Miss Peach, none of which was new to him, Michael asked the question buzzing in his head.

“What a lovely clock! Elephants — so unusual.”

“A parting gift from my employer,” she said, but he thought her smile seemed a little strained.

“Do you know Apstead House?” he said.

“I do, yes.”

“Have you ever been inside it?”

“Why do you ask, Captain?”

“Because there is a clock there which is almost identical to this one. Perhaps it is identical, for I can detect no difference. That is a curious coincidence, is it not? One might almost suppose that two such similar clocks might have been intended for the same house, one for each saloon, perhaps. One wonders just how such a handsome timepiece comes to grace the lodgings of a widow of modest means.”

“You think I stole it?”

“Did you?”

“No! You are right that it came from Apstead House, but that was my home for many years — over twenty-five years. Those clocks were bought for me, Captain Edgerton, a gift from Lord Rennington. Such a generous man! When he died, Mr Nicholson came and asked me to leave. No, he didn’t ask. He ordered me to leave, standing over me while I packed my personal effects, but he wouldn’t let me take anything from the house, not a thing, even though so much of the art and porcelain had been bought for my pleasure. I don’t doubt his right to do it, and he was perfectly civil over it — sympathetic, even — but it was hard, very hard, to leave my home after so long. That clock had been undergoing repairs at the clockmaker’s, so when it was ready, I quietly paid the bill and brought it here. It’s almost the only thing I have left of Henry now. That and the jewels he gave me over the years, which pay for my rent and keep me in tea.”

“You mean there was no annuity? No settlement? After twenty-five years as his mistress?”

“Nothing. Not a penny piece. He left the house to Mr Nicholson, and perhaps he assumed that he would look after me, but he threw me out and installed those girls there. A mistress would have cost him money, you see, whereas a brothel would make a profit and he could still take his pleasure whenever he wanted.”

“So you were Nicholson’s mistress, too?”

She bridled a little. “I was Henry’s mistress. The late Lord Rennington. He owned Apstead House and paid the bills. However, I used to oblige Arthur from time to time. No one else, but he was a great friend of Henry’s and more my age. Henry came to me more for companionship by that time, so he thought I’d be pleased to have a younger man, and he always assumed that Arthur would look after me when Henry was gone. They used to drive over together at first, go to their political meeting, then come here for a good dinner and cards or music or whatever Henry wanted. Latterly it was just Arthur, but I still thought of myself as Henry’s mistress. He used to write to me, you know, when he couldn’t see me for a long spell. He had others before me, but no one else after he met me. Just like an old married couple we were.” She smiled, lost in memories. “He was a lovely man. Not like Arthur. He had a certain… well, a superficial charm, but the way he treated me… that was not charming.”

“You must be angry at the way he has treated you.”

“Angry? No. I never expected to be kept in luxury for the rest of my life, Captain Edgerton. A mistress rarely has a prosperous old age. Henry was very generous, so I’m quite comfortable here, with enough jewels still in the bank to feed and clothe me for a good few years yet. An annuity would hardly have made much difference. I would have liked a little cottage, perhaps, furnished with a few bits and pieces from Apstead House. There was a lovely little davenport… and the spinet, although it would be too fine for these rooms. And perhaps the lacquered vases in the hall. They were a birthday gift from Henry. I’d have liked to leave my home in some dignity, instead of all in a rush. But I bear Arthur no grudge.”

“So you did not kill him, then?” Michael said in innocent tones, and waited to see how she would react.

She burst out laughing. “And how would I have done that, Captain? He was murdered in the middle of the night, wasn’t he? In his bed at Corland Castle, a place I have never been to in my life. I might have poisoned him, if I’d had a mind to do away with him, but slashing him with an axe? Not likely.”

“I should be happier if you had someone who could vouch for you being here on the night in question.”

“What was the exact date?” she said, rising, and opening a drawer.

He told her, and she pulled out a small book and flicked through the pages. “Ah, here we are. I was at a musical evening at a friend’s house. A respectable friend,” she added with a wry smile. “The widow of a corn merchant. She will remember it, for her daughter spilt wine on my gown. Shall I give you her name and direction? She will tell you who else was there — about a dozen of us, altogether. Dinner beforehand, music till eleven, then I walked home with the milliner from across the street.”