An Independent Woman

by Candace Camp

  Juliana and Nicholas exchanged glances. Hakebourne’s words confirmed what she had overheard between Crandall and Sir Herbert. Hakebourne was silent for a moment as he ate his breakfast ham, looking thoughtful as he chewed. Finally he said, “I think he got money from Seraphina, too. Don’t know where she came up with it, with all she’d lost.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Last time I saw him, when I purchased the hunter, Crandall was hinting that Seraphina was giving him money. I was surprised…after what he’d done to her, you know, but he said she knew she’d better pay him to keep him from telling Sir Herbert her secrets.”

  “What secrets were those?” Nicholas asked.

  “Don’t know, really. Crandall wouldn’t say. He was like that—always finding things out about people, getting information that would embarrass them, then using it against them. Usually to get money.”

  “What a despicable excuse for a human being!” Juliana exclaimed.

  Hakebourne turned his interested eyes on her. “He did it to you, too?”

  “No. I’m sure he would not have hesitated to, though, if he had known anything he could use against me. I never liked him, but I hadn’t realized he would stoop to extortion.”

  “Wasn’t much Crandall would not stoop to,” Mr. Hakebourne mused. “But I think he was worse lately. More desperate for money.”

  “Why is that?” Nicholas asked, leaning forward interestedly.

  “Well, actually, I think it was because of you.”

  “Me?” Nicholas looked surprised. “Because he thought I would send him packing?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. But I think it was more that people were calling in their debts. Until you came along, you see, a number of people just assumed that Crandall would inherit the family fortune when the old Lord Barre died. Not everyone, of course. Some people knew that the line came down through your father, my lord. The downy ones.” He paused, then added, “Not me.”

  “Really,” Juliana murmured. “You surprise me.”

  “Oh, well, I’ve got plenty of town bronze, you see. But I’ve never been much of one for the books or things like family trees and so on.”

  “Was Crandall telling everyone that he expected to inherit?” Nicholas asked.

  “It wasn’t so much that,” Hakebourne said. “It was more the way he talked about Lychwood Hall and how he was always coming back here, taking care of matters. He acted as if it would be his someday. But then, when the old lord died and everyone found out that it wasn’t Crandall who inherited the estate but somebody no one even knew…well, then there were plenty who got worried about their money. Didn’t know whether they’d ever get any of it back. They started plaguing him, calling in his debts and so forth.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Hakebourne took the last bite of food left on his plate and washed it down with a gulp or two of tea. “Well…” He patted his stomach in satisfaction. “You keep an excellent table, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hakebourne. I hope you will continue to enjoy our hospitality for a while.”

  “Really?” Hakebourne looked surprised but pleased. “I was thinking…well, since you don’t really know me and I was friends only with Crandall…well, that perhaps I should be on my way soon.”

  “Nonsense,” Nicholas replied, favoring the man with a smile. “I would be quite honored if you would stay on with us at Lychwood Hall.”

  “Well.” Hakebourne beamed back at Nicholas. “Demmed decent of you, my lord. I wouldn’t mind, I confess. After all, there’s Crandall’s funeral. Must pay my respects, you see. And, well, it’s a bit uncomfortable for me in London right now. Hard to keep the creditors from the door…especially after Crandall wouldn’t return my money.”

  Assured once more that Nicholas was happy to have him escape his creditors at Lychwood Hall for the time being, Mr. Hakebourne went happily on his way.

  “He seems to be dealing admirably with his grief over Crandall,” Nicholas commented dryly.

  “Yes. I thought it was interesting that Mr. Hakebourne’s indignation over Crandall’s cheating ways evinced itself only as it affected himself.”

  “I think we can agree that Mr. Hakebourne is not a man of strong moral fiber,” Nicholas went on. “But I wonder if he has it in him to murder Crandall, especially since it would not benefit him.”

  “He certainly seems to be one who does only what benefits him,” Juliana agreed.

  “Of course, he might not have been telling us the truth about why he pursued Crandall here—or at least not the full truth.”

  “That’s true. And his eagerness to tell us all about everyone else’s reasons for disliking Crandall is a little suspicious. He doesn’t seem like a killer, but I don’t think we can cross him off the list just yet.” She sighed and stood up. “Little as I like it, I must see to arrangements for Crandall’s funeral. And doubtless there will a multitude of other things to do. I must check on Lilith and Winifred, and see what I can do to ease their pain. And, of course, we must find out who killed Crandall.”

  “Juliana…” Nicholas said, rising as she stood up. There was a note of warning in his voice. “Do not lose sight of the fact that someone in this house killed Crandall and may not look kindly upon your asking questions. Please don’t go about questioning people without me along.”

  “I have to talk to everyone, anyway,” Juliana pointed out reasonably. But as Nicholas’s eyebrows knitted darkly, she added, “However, I promise I will be very careful to say nothing to alarm the killer.”

  From Nicholas’s expression, she suspected that he had some doubts about her carrying through on that promise, so she slipped quickly out the door before he could bring up more objections.

  She spent much of the rest of the day trying to keep the household running smoothly. The servants—like everyone else in the house—were somewhat on edge. Dishes were broken and things overturned. Juliana noticed that the maids seemed to work in pairs now, and it didn’t take much guesswork to figure out that they were afraid to be by themselves in the large house.

  It did not help matters any that the village constable spent most of the day interviewing all the members of the household. The man was quite deferential when he asked Juliana questions, and he accepted without question her statement that Nicholas had been with her the entire night after they left the party. But his very deference worried her, for she feared he would not look seriously at any of the Barre family or their guests, but would concentrate solely on the blacksmith, without making an effort to get to the truth.

  Given the sort of person Crandall had been, it seemed likely to her that the killer had hated him and no one else would be in danger. Still, she understood the general air of uneasiness that pervaded the house now. What had once seemed secure and safe, protected from any of the evils of the outside world, had been invaded by evil. It was not hard to feel suddenly afraid.

  The responsibilities of arranging the funeral fell largely to Juliana, as did dealing with the visitors who came to offer condolences, since both Crandall’s wife and his mother kept to their rooms.

  She went first to visit Winifred, whom she found sitting, still in her dressing gown, staring dully out the window. She turned as Juliana came into the room and tried to smile.

  “I came to see if you wanted anything,” Juliana told her, crossing the room and sitting down on the vanity bench near Winifred’s chair.

  Winifred shook her head. “They brought me something to eat, but I couldn’t.” She looked at Juliana, her face pale and older than her years this morning. “I’m a terrible person.”

  Juliana wondered wildly if the girl was about to confess to killing Crandall, but she said only, “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “But it is.” Winifred nodded her head. “I can’t cry about him. I want to. I have tried to. But I cannot.” She leaned forward, looking at Juliana earnestly. “My husband is dead, and I—I feel relief.”

  She brought her hand up to her mouth, coverin
g it as though to keep the feelings inside her. Juliana did not know what to say. She could understand quite easily how anyone married to Crandall would feel the way Winifred did.

  “His mother is prostrate with grief,” Winifred went on in a low voice. “I know when the maid comes in, she expects to find me crying, too. You have come to try to comfort me. But I…” She sighed and looked out the window again. “When I met Crandall, I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen—that dark hair and those splendid eyes. And so sophisticated. So witty. He had done so much, seen so many things.”

  Winifred’s eyes sparkled a little at the memory, and she went on, her voice almost happy. “I couldn’t believe that he singled me out among all the girls there. I was barely out of the schoolroom. And I had been nowhere, done nothing. But he paid me so much attention that my mother warned me to be careful of his intentions. He would have waltzed with me three times that evening if my mother had not strictly forbade me.”

  “It sounds very romantic,” Juliana said, hoping her own dislike of Crandall did not show in her voice.

  “It was.” Winifred’s mouth curled in fond reminiscence. “When he asked me to marry him, I was the happiest girl in England.” Her smile faded. “But later he regretted marrying me.”

  “No, Winifred…” Juliana wasn’t at all certain that she spoke the truth, but she could not keep from wanting to shield Winifred from sorrow.

  Winifred shook her head, casting a grateful look at Juliana. “You are very kind. But it is the truth. I know it. The other day…when Lord Barre said that about the blacksmith’s wife—”

  “I am so sorry you had to hear that,” Juliana told her, reaching over to take one of the girl’s hands.

  “It was not the first time it had happened. I had heard things, whispers among the servants, Seraphina taking Crandall to task…. I knew. And I knew it was because he should not have married me. Mrs. Barre said as much.”

  Juliana gritted her teeth. “You must not mind what Lilith says. She is a—well, she can be quite cutting and mean. It has nothing to do with you. That is simply the way she is. And she would have thought no one good enough for her son. When we were young, she worshipped him.”

  “That is true,” Winifred agreed. “Even now, I think, though sometimes he was not very nice to her. He would always ask her for money. I know many times she did not want to give it to him, and he would get quite sharp with her. He would talk about how she was concerned with the way things appeared, so she would not want her son to wind up in debtors’ prison and be a blot on the family name. And he would look at her in this taunting way that made me surprised that she didn’t just slap him down. But she never did. Eventually, she would give him the money, or some jewelry to sell.”

  “So, you see, you cannot take what Aunt Lilith said as the truth.”

  “But he thought so, too. I know it. I wasn’t clever enough for him. I didn’t know anybody or know how to do things. He never once took me to London with him, and when I asked…” Now the tears that Winifred had been unable to bring up before filled her eyes. “He told me that I would embarrass him. That his friends would dismiss me as a country simpleton.”

  Juliana felt an upswell of sympathy for the girl. Winifred was better off without Crandall, Juliana was sure of that. But her future would not necessarily be a happy one. From everything Juliana had heard the past weeks, Crandall had been penniless; he would leave his wife nothing. Of course, Nicholas would allow her to live here, and he would not make Winifred feel the sting of being a poor relation. But even so, she would know that was what she was.

  Juliana got up and crossed over to the girl, kneeling down beside Winifred’s chair to look her in the face. She laid her hand on top of Winifred’s and said, “I have known Crandall since he was a boy, and I know that he was capable of being as cruel and unbending as his mother. Everyone frowns on saying ill of the dead, but the truth is that Crandall often played fast and loose with the truth. You must not put too much faith in what he said to you. He probably just did not want to have a wife in London.” She looked at her significantly. “Crandall’s faults were not your responsibility. And I—well, it seems quite understandable to me that you find it difficult to cry over him. Sad as it is to say, I don’t think anyone in this house particularly mourns him, except for his mother.”

  Winifred looked at her sorrowfully. “I know. It is sad. But thank you for saying what you did. It makes me feel…a little better.” She gave Juliana’s hand a squeeze and offered her a small smile.

  “Now…do you think you might eat a little something?” Juliana stood up. “I can send one of the maids up with a cold luncheon for you, if you wish.”

  “Yes, perhaps I can.” Again Winifred smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  Juliana left the room, reflecting that she found it difficult to picture Winifred as the killer. While the girl clearly had ample reason to dislike her husband, she seemed to have been more sorrowful over the loss of their early love than angry with Crandall, and inclined to lay the blame on herself rather than where it belonged.

  Of course, the girl could have been putting on an act for her benefit, but if that were the case, why would Winifred not have pretended to be mourning her dead husband instead of candidly talking about the poor state of her marriage?

  Juliana rang for a maid and ordered a light meal brought up to Winifred, adding, “See if you can get her to take a little nap, as well, will you?”

  After the maid left, Juliana made her way to Lilith’s room. Whatever the awkward state of their relationship, Juliana could not help but feel for the woman. She was probably the only person in the whole house who felt sorrow for Crandall’s death.

  Juliana knocked quietly at Lilith’s door, half expecting Lilith to call to her to leave, but after a moment, she heard Lilith say, “Enter.”

  She stepped inside. Like Winifred, Lilith was sitting in a chair beside the window, gazing lifelessly out. Of course, nothing, not even extreme grief, could have made her appear so slovenly as to wear a dressing gown in the afternoon. She was dressed in a severe black dress with a high collar and long sleeves; not even a ruffle relieved the plainness of the dress. Her hair was done up in its usual elegant way, anchored with a black comb.

  Lilith turned to look at Juliana sourly. “Have you come to gloat?”

  “Aunt Lilith!” Juliana exclaimed, shocked by the animosity in the older woman’s voice. “Of course not. How can you say that?”

  “Why not? I’m not a fool, Juliana. I realize how much you dislike me.”

  “You have given me little reason over the years not to,” Juliana pointed out quietly. “However, I cannot believe that even you would think I would take satisfaction in your grief. I am very sorry for your loss.”

  “I hope you do not expect me to believe that you feel grief for Crandall.”

  “No. I am not a hypocrite. But I know that you—”

  “You know nothing,” Lilith cried in a low voice. “Nothing about how I feel. I held him in my arms when he was a baby, and I knew no one would ever make me feel that way again. I loved him.”

  Juliana felt a stab of pity for the woman, despite Lilith’s harsh dismissal of her sympathy. “I know you did.”

  Lilith turned and looked up at the portrait of her husband that hung on the wall. “Of course,” she said with some bitterness, “I loved his father, too. For all the good it did me.” She studied the portrait for a moment. “I thought he hung the moon and stars when I married him. We were perfectly matched in every way. A perfect couple…that’s what I believed.”

  She frowned, seeming to come out of her reverie, and her mouth twisted as she turned back to Juliana, snarling, “It was all her fault!”

  Juliana stared at her, taken aback by the hatred that shone in the older woman’s eyes. “I—I beg your pardon?”

  “Your mother! The ever-so delicate and lovely Diana. The Huntress. An apt name—though one would never know it from that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-
mouth face. So sweet, so quiet, so ‘in love’ with her dead husband.”

  “She loved my father very much.” Juliana felt compelled to defend her mother. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What was my mother’s fault? I assure you that she never meant to do anything to upset you. She was very grateful to you for letting her live here.”

  “Grateful! Hah! Does one express one’s gratitude by stealing another woman’s husband?”

  “What?” Juliana gaped at her. Had Crandall’s death unhinged his mother?

  “She was a huntress indeed, though she was sly about it. She never let anyone know as she went about working her wiles on him. She was so pitiful, so sorrowful—no doubt she needed his big strong shoulder to weep on. No doubt she needed him to explain this business matter or that to her. And all the while she flirted with him, teased him, encouraged him….”

  “No! Aunt Lilith, I don’t know why you think this, but you are wrong!” Juliana exclaimed.

  “Wrong? I think not.” Lilith stood up, facing her, the long-ago fury lighting her eyes once more. “I am not mistaken in the slightest. Why do you think you were allowed to live here for so long? Why do you think you were taken in and educated with my own children?”

  “You’re mistaken,” Juliana repeated faintly. “It was because my mother was your cousin.”

  “You think I wanted her here?” Lilith scoffed. “I can guarantee you that if she had been here on my say-so, the two of you would have been tossed out of your house within weeks of your arrival. It was my husband who housed you and your mother in that cottage. It was my husband whom she thanked—in that very special way of hers.”

  “No.” Juliana stared at her aunt, aghast. Her stomach knotted within her, and she turned away, unable to remain in Lilith’s company a moment longer. “Please. Excuse me.”

  She hurried to the door and out into the hall, not stopping until she reached the safety of her own room. There, she sank down onto her chair and dropped her head into her hands.