“And the property, of course, belongs to Major Pennington,” observed his lordship, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Interesting, but hardly surprising, when one considers the matter.”
“Indeed?” Pickett’s eyebrows rose. “Why not?”
“Because,” Lord Buckleigh said with great deliberation, “I have every reason to believe that Major Pennington killed my first wife.”
* * *
Julia, meanwhile, had moved apart from the little group with Jamie.
“Jamie, what I said a moment ago—about Claudia—I am sorry you had to hear that. I know you loved her, too.”
Jamie nodded in understanding. “I’m glad you found your Mr. Pickett unharmed, in any case. I confess, when I first heard you had married a Bow Street Runner, I feared the fellow must have coerced you in some way. If I had not already come to the conclusion that I was mistaken, that little demonstration would have been sufficient to inform me of my error.”
“No.” She blushed very becomingly, as befitted a bride. “No coercion on his part was necessary. But on a related subject, you must allow me to thank you for standing up for him at the Brantley dinner last night, and again at church this morning. It was very kind of you.”
Jamie dismissed his own gallantry with a wave of his hand. “It was nothing. As it happened, I was well compensated for my efforts.”
“Indeed?” Julia cocked her head inquiringly. “In what way?”
“I had four guineas on your husband’s ability to open Brantley’s safe within the allotted time. Although,” Jamie added with a twinkle in his eye, “now that his credentials are established, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, after your departure for London, your Mama makes a point of counting the silver.”
“Very likely.” She made a moue of distaste. “I fear I did not help matters, for I neglected to tell Mama and Papa of my marriage until we arrived. You are well enough acquainted with Mama that I am sure I need not explain the omission.”
He gave a shout of laughter, then remembered his surroundings and lowered his voice. “Indeed not! But perhaps your parents will come about in time. Your Mr. Pickett seems to be a good man. Perhaps—” A shadow crossed his expressive countenance, and he added under his breath. “Perhaps a bit too good.”
Julia, thinking her ears must have deceived her, asked, “Too good? What do you mean?”
Jamie shook his head as if to banish whatever thought had clouded his brow. “Never mind.”
She would have pressed him for an explanation, but before she could do so, they were joined by the subject of the conversation himself, along with Lord Buckleigh and the coroner.
“Bad news, my lady,” Pickett said, taking her hands and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “The coroner has ordered an inquest for Tuesday morning, and since you and your father discovered the body, you will both be expected to give evidence.”
“By gad, Mr. Hughes,” Sir Thaddeus expostulated, addressing himself to the elderly coroner, “I don’t see why you must needs drag my daughter into this. I was the first one on the scene. By two lengths, in fact,” added the sportsman with some satisfaction.
“Nevertheless, you will both be needed to corroborate one another’s account,” insisted the elderly lawyer.
“And Mr. Pickett?” asked Julia, glancing from her husband to the coroner.
“His presence will be required as well. Although I understand he didn’t arrive at the scene until some minutes later, he might, given his background, have noticed something the two of you missed.”
“It isn’t the same as a trial, you understand,” Pickett added hastily, knowing the horror she’d once felt at the prospect of standing trial for her first husband’s murder. “No one is being judged, least of all you. In fact, you don’t have to answer any question you don’t wish to.”
Julia drew a ragged breath. “It’s all right, John.” She turned to the coroner with head held high. “Of course, Mr. Hughes. I will do whatever I must to see that justice is done.”
* * *
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. The groom’s death had cast a pall over the house on a day when, due to the Sabbath, activity was already restricted, and it was with a shared sense of profound relief that, shortly after dinner, the Runyon family dispersed to their separate bedrooms for the night.
“Not that I shall get a wink of sleep,” Julia observed, “for every time I close my eyes, I will see that poor man lying beneath the tree with his throat—”
“Try not to think of it, my lady,” Pickett urged, knowing even as he said the words that she would find it impossible to follow this advice. He thought briefly of giving her thoughts another, more pleasant direction, but given the circumstances, it seemed somehow inappropriate. He gave her a rather perfunctory kiss, and snuffed the candle.
In spite of her declaration that she would not be able to shut her eyes, Julia fell asleep quickly but, whether from a lack of laudanum or a mind weighed down by the day’s events, Pickett lay awake at her side for the long watches of the night.
And so it was that, in the wee hours after midnight, he heard the soft sound, scarcely more than a vibration, of footsteps overhead. The Runyon ghost, it seemed, was restless. Pickett could relate; he was more than a little restless himself. He slid out from under the bedclothes as quietly as possible, but as he reached for his breeches, Julia rolled over.
“John? Where are you going?” she asked sleepily.
“I, er, your father asked me to look into something,” was his evasive reply. “With everything that happened today, I almost forgot.”
She raised herself up on one elbow. “You will be careful?”
“My lady, you grew up in this house,” he pointed out. “What do you think is going to happen to me?”
“I—I don’t know.” Until he had been injured, it had never occurred to her that what he did was dangerous, that in pursuing justice he might be putting his life at risk. It was a new and unwelcome realization which had only been strengthened that afternoon when the horse Lucifer had returned to the stable without him. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“If I see your father coming after me with a cricket bat, I promise I’ll run,” he said, then leaned over the bed to kiss her lightly. “Go back to sleep, my lady. I’ll be back shortly.”
He did not take a candle, nor did he put on his shoes, for he wanted no light or sound to betray his presence. With one hand against the wall for guidance, he padded bare-footed down the dark corridor and up the stairs to the floor above. This, it seemed, was the same one his wife had shown him the previous morning: there was the schoolroom, with the governess’s bedroom beyond, and there at the end of the hall was the nursery, the faint glow emitting from the open door suggesting the existence of a midnight visitor. Slowly, so as not to make any noise, he paced with measured steps down the passage until he reached the nursery door.
He drew up short on the threshold. A single candle had been lit and set on a chest of drawers, whence its flickering light illuminated the slender, golden-haired form of a woman. Julia? She stood with her back to him, one hand resting on the elaborately carved cradle and rocking it gently. He had no idea how she had contrived to reach the nursery ahead of him, but surely that was less important at the moment than comforting her for the barrenness which, it seemed, had not been entirely banished from her thoughts, even by the grisly events of the afternoon.
Soundlessly, he crossed the room to stand behind her, then slipped one arm about her waist and dropped a kiss onto her golden curls.
Her reaction astounded him. She tore herself away from him, then whirled and slapped his face. Stunned, they stared at one another, and Pickett found himself confronting a stranger, a woman of at least thirty whose wide blue eyes regarded him with consternation. Before he could question this apparition, she picked up her skirts and her candle, and disappeared through the wall. Or so it might have appeared, had Pickett’s own brief stint as a footman not acquainted him with the hidden stai
rs that allowed the staff to move virtually unseen between the servants’ hall and the family’s rooms. He moved quickly to the jib door that concealed these stairs, but by the time he found the hidden catch and flung the door open, the woman was gone. No light from her candle illuminated the descent, and although Pickett could hear her footsteps echoing far below, he knew better than to attempt to go plunging down the narrow steps in the dark.
And so there was nothing he could do but stand looking down into the darkness, rubbing his stinging cheek and muttering, “I think I just kissed a ghost.”
* * *
He returned to the bedroom to find Julia asleep, and for this he was grateful; he had not yet decided how much, if anything, to tell her of his night’s wanderings. He did not climb back into bed at once, but sat in the chair before the long-dead fire, pondering this latest discovery and what it might mean. After several minutes, he moved to the writing desk and lit a candle, then positioned the embroidered fire screen to prevent the light from falling on his wife’s face and disturbing her slumber. He fumbled in the desk drawer for paper, pen, and ink, and sat down to compose a letter to Patrick Colquhoun, Esquire, of the Bow Street Public Office at Number 4 Bow Street, London.
Dear Sir, he wrote, it appears that I am in no danger of being dispatched back to London with the haste which I had originally feared. In fact, my father-in-law’s groom has been murdered. I hope to find his killer and thus win some measure of respect from Sir Thaddeus and Lady Runyon, although I do not flatter myself that this would win their whole-hearted approval of me as a husband for their daughter. I hope you will pardon my presumption in asking for your help in this matter. I hesitate to ask, since you have done so much for me and Mrs. Pickett (oh incredible words!) already, but I know of no other way to obtain the information I require. I wonder if you will be so good as to make inquiries at the Horse Guards on my behalf and discover anything you can about a Major James Pennington, familiarly known as Jamie, of Norwood Green, Somersetshire, who is known to have served in the Low Countries with the seventh cavalry in 1796, and more recently in the Peninsula. In particular, I wish to know if a woman has been following the drum under Major Pennington’s protection. I dare offer no further explanation here, lest this letter fall into indiscreet hands before I am prepared to voice suspicions which may yet prove to be groundless, but please believe I would not make such a request without just cause. Until my return to Bow Street I remain, as ever,
Your most grateful servant,
John Pickett
Chapter Eight
Which Finds John Pickett’s
Investigations Underway
May 1796
Somersetshire
Having reached a deep gorge safe from prying eyes, Jamie judged it time to call a halt. Claudia drooped against him and, much as he treasured the feel of her light, warm weight against him, he could not like the way she bent forward almost double over his arm, clutching her abdomen and moaning piteously. He had cracked a couple of ribs himself once, when in his younger days he had fallen out of a tree in the orchard adjoining the vicarage, but although it had hurt like the very devil, he could remember suffering none of this groaning agony. At last, he reined in his horse along a stream and dismounted, then lifted Claudia down.
“I need to water the horses,” he told her apologetically. “If you don’t mind waiting—”
She nodded. “I’ll be all right.”
She removed her shawl and began to fold it. Jamie, seeing what she was about, took it from her trembling hands and made a cushion of it, then placed it on the ground and settled her on it.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and turned to the horses.
He untied Claudia’s mare from his saddle and, after allowing the horse to drink its fill, gave it a slap on the rump that sent it back the way they had come—back, in fact, to Buckleigh Manor, where its appearance would no doubt raise the alarm, if Tom the stable boy had not already done so. Having seen his own horse watered, Jamie withdrew a handkerchief from the pocket of his tailcoat and plunged it into the cool stream. He wrung out the excess water, then carried the wet handkerchief to where Claudia sat and dropped to one knee before her.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t wait any longer,” he said, tipping her chin up with one hand while he bathed her poor battered face with the other, dabbing away the dried blood caked about her nose and the corner of her mouth. “We must reach Bristol before nightfall. Once there, we should be able to lose ourselves easily enough in the city.”
“Jamie, I can’t ask such a thing of you,” Claudia protested weakly. “You were to have succeeded your father as vicar of the parish. You can hardly do so while keeping a mistress.”
“A mistress?” Jamie scowled at her as fiercely as ever his lordship had done, but Claudia was unafraid. “Do you honestly believe I could ever think of you in such sordid terms?”
She gave a feeble smile, a grotesque twisting of her unblemished lower lip. “It is what I shall be, whether you choose to think of it that way or not.”
“Claudia, all I want is to get you away from that bastard before he kills you. As for—the other part—we need not—that is, I won’t—what I mean is, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It will be enough for me, just having you with me.”
“I could not be so cruel as to deny you, after all you have given up for me. Besides—” Coloring rosily, she looked down and began plucking blades of grass with great concentration. “—there have been times of late, with Buckleigh, when I—I would close my eyes and—and try to imagine it was you.”
“My darling!” He cradled her head gently against his shoulder, and pressed kisses into her bright hair.
“Oh Jamie, I was such a fool for marrying Buckleigh!” she cried, giving in at last to the tears she had held back so bravely for so long. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, sweeting,” he insisted.
“But your career—your future—”
In fact, this was a subject that had preyed heavily upon his mind ever since they had made their escape, but he could not burden her with this knowledge on top of everything else she had suffered. “I daresay I should have found the church deadly dull work, anyway,” he said with a shrug.
“But what will you do? How shall we live?”
“Papa had just given me the bank draft that was to cover my tuition at Oxford,” he said, patting his breast pocket. “It should cover an ensign’s commission just as well. Would you be willing to follow the drum with me, Claudia? It would not be a luxurious existence—not by any means—but we would be together, and no one need know that we are not truly man and wife. The enlisted men wouldn’t care in any case, while as for the officers—well, since Lord Buckleigh never took you to London, the likelihood of encountering anyone who would know the truth would be slight. Will you come with me?”
“Yes, Jamie, with all my heart,” she said, eyes aglow beneath their bruises.
He took her left hand and slid his lordship’s wedding ring off her finger, then withdrew the signet ring from his little finger and with it replaced the other. “I, James Matthew Pennington, cannot take thee, Claudia Elizabeth Runyon Buckleigh, as my lawfully wedded wife, but I promise nonetheless to love you, comfort you, honor, and keep you in sickness and health; and, forsaking all others, to keep only to you so long as we both shall live.”
Her fingers tightened about his. “I, Claudia Elizabeth Runyon Buckleigh, cannot make to you vows which I have already made to another, but I promise that I shall love you as well as any wife could ever love her lawful husband, and that I shall never, ever give you cause to regret the sacrifices you have made for me.”
“As if I ever could!” said Jamie, and sealed his vow by kissing her with as much feeling as he dared, given the condition of her abused lips.
At last they broke apart, and Jamie rose reluctantly to his feet. “I wish I might allow you to rest longer, but I dare not linger. At any moment, Lord Buckl
eigh may realize you have flown and set out in search of us.”
He took her by the arms and lifted her to her feet, then stared with horror at the shawl on which she had been sitting. A bright red stain, dotted with clots of a darker red, spread across the green and gold paisley print. He looked behind Claudia, and saw the stain mirrored on the back of her skirts. He had younger sisters still in the schoolroom, so he knew about a young woman’s monthly flow, but surely this was too much. Was it possible for a woman to lose so much blood every month and still survive? Unless, of course, the blood was not hers alone ...
“Claudia,” he said in a strangled voice, “Is that—are you—are you going to have a baby?”
She looked at the spreading stain on the shawl, and although her gaze was filled with sadness, it held nothing of surprise. “Yes,” she whispered, then added sadly, “at least, I was.”
* * *
March 1809
Somersetshire
Having posted his letter to London the next morning, Pickett had only to fill the hours until he might expect to receive a reply. He decided to begin his investigations with a visit to Tom’s widow.
“Shall I come with you?” Julia offered, after being informed of his plans for the day. “I should not want to interfere, of course, but it would be quite proper for me to pay a call of condolence. I was married long before Papa hired poor Tom, but I remember him well as Lord Buckleigh’s stable hand, for he would take charge of my horse every time I rode over the downs to visit Claudia.”
Pickett shook his head. “Thank you, my lady, but I think I had best make this call alone.”
Her face fell, and he resisted the urge to change his mind. He had reason to believe her family might be more deeply involved than she knew, although at the moment he failed to see exactly how this connection might dovetail with murder. Until he received a reply to his letter, he thought it best to keep his wife at a distance from his investigations. It was curious, in a way; he’d never had anyone to confide in except for his magistrate, who had never expected to be told every detail of his investigations, much less the minutiae of his life. Before he had met Lady Fieldhurst, he had never realized he was lonely. Ironically, now that he had made up his mind not to confide in her, he realized how much he had come to treasure an intimacy that went far beyond the physical.
For Deader or Worse Page 9