An Independent Woman

by Candace Camp

  “It was rather a blur of people,” Juliana admitted. “But as you said, if he was in the gardens, it wouldn’t have been difficult to come into the house and go to that room. Perhaps he even followed Crandall there.”

  Juliana unpacked the basket, and they ate as they talked, scarcely noticing the excellence of the meal Cook had prepared for them, so deep was their involvement in the subject.

  “I have been thinking of something else,” Juliana said, when they reached a lull in their discussion of Winifred and her lover. “One of the servants, Annie, left abruptly. Mrs. Pettibone had to hire a new maid.”

  Nicholas looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

  “Annie was very scared, she said. She told Mrs. Pettibone she wanted to go home. She was the maid who dropped the plate that day at breakfast, after Crandall was found dead.”

  “What are you saying?” Nicholas asked. “Do you think she may have had something to do with the murder?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think much about her fear at the time. It didn’t seem unreasonable, given that a man had just been murdered in the house. Several of the servants were jumpy. Indeed, I have been more apt to start at shadows than before. But everyone else seems to have calmed down. As Mrs. Pettibone pointed out, surely it was not a random killing. The murderer would have no reason to harm anyone else.”

  “Unless they had seen something,” Nicholas mused. He looked Juliana. “Is that what you are suggesting?”

  “I’m not sure,” Juliana admitted. “Perhaps it means nothing other than that Annie is more nervous than the others, more easily scared. But what if she saw someone go into that room besides Crandall? Or what if she saw something that might somehow identify the killer—like that jewel I found?”

  “Then she would have good reason to worry that the killer might have seen her, too. That he might decide she is too dangerous a loose end to leave hanging around.”

  Juliana nodded.

  “Perhaps we should make a visit to the village tomorrow,” Nicholas said. “Visit Annie and find out exactly why she is so frightened.”

  “I think that would be a good idea.”

  Nicholas set his plate aside and stretched out on his side, propped up on his elbow. “And now,” he said, “I am tired of talking about murder and murderers. I came out here to be alone with my wife.” He stretched out his hand to Juliana, and she took it.

  He tugged her down onto the blanket with him, and she nestled against him, her head in the crook of his arm.

  “I have been wanting to get you to myself all morning. Sitting there with the estate manager, all I could think about was you. I have no idea of half of what he said.” Nicholas smiled down at her, his eyes warm as they traveled over her face.

  His other hand rested on her stomach, palm flat against her, and as he spoke, it drifted, sliding up over her rib cage and onto the soft mounds of her breasts. Juliana felt the flood of pleasure in her loins at his touch, and she closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feelings he aroused.

  Nicholas smiled at the stamp of desire on her face, and he bent to brush his lips against hers, murmuring, “You are so beautiful.”

  He kissed her mouth again, and his lips traveled across her face to nibble suggestively at her ear. Juliana shivered in response, aware of the throbbing that started between her legs, the ache that would grow and spread until she was completely caught up in it. Her throat tightened in anticipation.

  “Is this what you brought me out here for?” she asked teasingly, opening her eyes and looking up into his face. His hair glinted black as a raven’s wing in the sunlight, and his eyes were searing.

  “Precisely,” he replied, and bent to nuzzle her neck. “I meant to carry you away and ravish you.”

  Juliana let out a breathless little giggle. “My lord…you are quite scandalous.”

  “My lady…I am quite desperate,” he replied, his hand roaming lower, curving over her abdomen and delving into the valley that lay between her legs.

  Juliana found herself quite wantonly opening her thighs at his touch, and he stroked her through the material of her clothes, heightening the fire that already burned there. He bent and kissed her, his hand bunching up her dress, pulling it and her petticoat upward, until her legs were exposed. He slid his hand beneath the petticoats, caressing her stockinged calves and gliding up, seeking out the heated center of her desire.

  He caressed her through the thin material of her pantalets, thoroughly dampened now, and Juliana arched up against his hand involuntarily.

  “Nicholas…”

  His own desire spiraled at the hunger in her voice, and he untied the drawstring of her undergarment, sliding his hand beneath it and down into the hot, slick folds of her femininity. Juliana’s breath caught at the pleasure that shook her.

  “What if…what if someone sees us?” she asked.

  “No one will come by,” he assured her. “But if you want me to stop…”

  “No!” Juliana smiled at him, her eyes filled with promise, and she reached up, curling her hand around his neck, and pulled his head down.

  Their kiss was slow and deep, and desire burgeoned within her. He caressed her intimately, pulling her pantalets down. She opened herself to him eagerly, and he moved between her legs, freeing himself from his own breeches.

  And then he was inside her, filling and fulfilling her, and they were surging together, soaring to their shattering moment of completion.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON Nicholas and Juliana went into the village to the home of Annie Sawyer’s parents, where they were surprised to learn that Annie was not there.

  Her mother, flustered by the arrival of such important visitors, could scarcely put two coherent words together at first. She flew about, whisking invisible dust from this chair and that, clucking about where they should sit, before she dashed off to prepare tea and biscuits for them. But finally, when the niceties had been observed, and Juliana had complimented her on her home and the quality of her biscuits, she was at last able to calm down and reveal that they had missed Annie by a day.

  “Set off yesterday, she did,” Mrs. Sawyer said, nodding and glancing toward her younger daughter for confirmation. “Went to her cousin’s in Bridgewater.”

  “Bridgewater?” Juliana asked, turning toward Nicholas.

  He nodded. “It’s east of here, a two-hour ride or so.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Sawyer agreed. “She was so insistent about going. To tell you the truth, she’s not been the same since Mr. Barre died. She was jittery and jumpy.”

  “Did she tell you why?” Nicholas asked.

  “She said she was frightened because of him being killed, that’s all. I told her there wasn’t any reason to think anything would happen to her, but she wouldn’t say anything else. I tried to get her to go back to Lychwood Hall. I said they’d give her her job back, they’d understand she got scared. But she wouldn’t do it. Then when she got that money yesterday…well, she just up and left.”

  “Money?” Juliana sat up straighter. “She got some money?”

  Her mother nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes, my lady. Such a lot of money it was, too.”

  “How? Who gave it to her?”

  “I don’t know. It was in a packet at our door when we went out yesterday. Annie’s name was on it. She turned real pale, and I had to make her open it, but then when she did, there was fifty pounds sterling in it!”

  “Was there a letter with it?” Nicholas asked.

  “No, nothing, my lord. I didn’t know what to make of it. I asked her who would be sending her such an amount of money, but she wouldn’t tell me. She just said it was better I didn’t know, and after that she threw her things together and took the mail coach when it came through. I couldn’t get a thing from her.” She looked anxiously at Nicholas and Juliana. “She’s not in trouble, is she? My Annie’s a good girl—she really is.”

  “I don’t think she’s done anything wrong,” Nicholas reassured her. “
But it is possible she might know something about my cousin’s murder.”

  “Annie? How could she know aught?” Her mother looked genuinely confused.

  “I don’t know. But I must speak with her. If she does know something about who killed Crandall, then she herself could be in danger.”

  Mrs. Sawyer sucked in her breath sharply. “My Annie? In danger? Bertram Gorton—he’s a butcher in Bridgewater. That’s where she’s staying. My niece Ellen married him two years ago, and that is where Annie went, to stay with them,” Mrs. Sawyer told him quickly. “Will you go see her, sir? Will you help her?”

  “Yes,” Nicholas promised. “I will do whatever I can to help her.”

  “DO YOU THINK Annie knows who killed Crandall?” Juliana asked a few minutes later, when the two of them were in their carriage rolling back to Lychwood Hall.

  “I don’t know. She obviously knows something that scared her,” Nicholas replied. “Whatever she knows, the killer must have been afraid she might tell it. He must have been the one who sent her the money.”

  “The thing is, how can the murderer be certain that Annie won’t tell what she knows? How can he know that in a few weeks or months—or years, even—she won’t be consumed by guilt or fear, and reveal the killer’s name?”

  “He can’t,” Nicholas replied flatly. “That is why Annie is still in danger. And she will continue to be until she reveals what she knows. Once she has told, there will be no reason for the killer to go after her. But as long as she is silent, the killer will be safe—and he can ensure her permanent silence only by killing her, too.”

  “Then I suggest we go talk to her tomorrow,” Juliana said.

  Nicholas nodded thoughtfully. “But I think it’s best that we tell no one where we are going or why.”

  “You think it’s someone in the house, don’t you?” Juliana asked quietly.

  “I can’t be sure. It could have been someone else. But Annie was terrified to stay in that house. That implies to me that she thought it was one of us who murdered Crandall, not someone from the village. If she had thought it was a villager, surely she would not have gone to her parents.”

  “There is the money, as well.”

  “Yes. It has to be someone who has that sort of resources. The blacksmith and Sam Morely do well enough, but I can’t imagine either of them being able to lay his hands quickly on fifty pounds.”

  “I think it would be best to tell everyone at Lychwood Hall that she has left. That way, whoever it is will think that his bribe has succeeded,” Juliana suggested.

  Nicholas nodded. “Yes. And I would like to see everyone’s expressions when they hear she’s disappeared.”

  So that evening at supper, after the soup had been served, Juliana said casually, “We went to visit Annie Sawyer this afternoon.”

  She glanced around the table, trying to judge each person’s reaction. Most of them gazed back at her blankly.

  “Who?” Seraphina asked.

  “One of the maids,” Winifred explained. “The girl who left the other day.”

  “Oh.” Seraphina returned to her soup, uninterested.

  “Yes.” Juliana could not tell whether Winifred’s look was anxious or merely surprised.

  “Is she going to come back to work here?” Winifred asked. “I think she was merely upset because, well, you know, because of what happened.”

  “Nonsense. I wouldn’t have her back,” Lilith said scornfully. “She’s clearly unreliable.”

  “No, I don’t believe she will return,” Nicholas said. “She has left the town entirely.”

  “The devil, you say,” Sir Herbert commented. “Where’d she run off to?”

  “I have no idea,” Juliana lied. “Her mother doesn’t know. She just said that she caught the mail coach yesterday. She said she was scared, you see. Which makes one wonder what frightened her so.”

  “Why are we talking about one of the maids?” Seraphina asked, bored.

  “The girl is silly,” Lilith said. “Scared of ghosts or some such nonsense. A thrashing would drive that idiocy right out of her head.”

  “Yes, I know how fond you are of that sort of solution,” Nicholas told her coolly, his eyes flat and hard.

  Lilith raised her brows slightly, then turned back to her soup.

  “I think she knows something,” Juliana told them.

  “Knows something?” Winifred asked, looking puzzled.

  “About the murder, you mean?” Sir Herbert asked.

  “What?” Lilith asked, looking surprised. “You think that Annie killed Crandall?”

  “Well…” Sir Herbert glanced at Winifred, then away. He squirmed a little uncomfortably in his seat. “I wouldn’t think it’s impossible. Crandall, um, did have a certain reputation.”

  Seraphina seemed to have caught on to what the others were talking about at last, for she nodded at her husband’s remark, adding, “Annie is a pretty girl.”

  “You mean you think Crandall made advances toward the chit?” Peter Hakebourne spoke up. “And she killed him?”

  “What nonsense!” Lilith exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “How can you say such a thing? Do you think you can impugn Crandall’s reputation that way simply because he is no longer here to dispute it? I won’t have it!”

  Hastily, Juliana said, “We are not trying to cast any aspersions on your son, I assure you. I don’t think that Annie killed Crandall. But what if she saw something? Or found something?”

  Juliana cast a quick glance around at her last words, hoping that something would show in one of the others’ faces when she mentioned finding something. If she was right and the ruby had been lost by the murderer, he or she might have realized that the jewel was missing. But she detected no knowledge of anything in anyone’s eyes.

  “But if that were the case, if she saw something, why wouldn’t she have spoken up?” Sir Herbert asked.

  “I don’t know. Obviously she was quite frightened. She might have thought the killer would go after her if she told what she had seen. Or perhaps she isn’t quite sure who it is,” Nicholas pointed out.

  “But if she has taken off, how are we to find out what she knew?” Seraphina asked.

  “I suppose we cannot,” Juliana replied, frowning. It wasn’t difficult to appear frustrated, she thought, for she found herself stymied by the others’ lack of expression.

  “Well,” said Lilith firmly, “this is scarcely a fit conversation for the dinner table.”

  Juliana gave in meekly, taking up her spoon, and the discussion died.

  THEY TOLD NO ONE of their plans to travel to Bridgewater the next morning. When they went down to breakfast, they found Lilith and Peter Hakebourne there, along with Sir Herbert. They talked casually of a number of things, primarily the weather and Sir Herbert’s plans to buy a new pair of grays for his carriage.

  Lilith inquired politely, with a notable lack of interest, into what Juliana planned to do that day.

  “I thought I might go see Mrs. Cooper,” Juliana lied. It was the best excuse she could think of for being gone most of the day.

  Lilith nodded. “More tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Juliana handed her the cup.

  Lilith, she noted, seemed in slightly better spirits today. There was a little more color in her cheeks, and she was participating in the conversation.

  That conversation turned to the estate crop, with Sir Herbert evincing interest in it and Mr. Hakebourne looking thoroughly uninterested. Juliana wondered how long his lack of money would overcome his sheer boredom at being stuck in the country.

  Juliana pushed her eggs around her plate. Her stomach was far too jittery for her to eat any more of them. She took a few sips of tea and another bite or two of toast, and cast a glance around her at the others’ plates, hoping that they would soon finish. She was eager to be on their way, worried that Annie Sawyer might take it into her head to go someplace else before they got there.

  At last the others began to finish, and Juliana sai
d, “If you will excuse me…?”

  “Of course, my dear.” Nicholas jumped up to pull out her chair.

  Juliana stood up quickly. Her head spun at the movement, and she swayed. Nicholas reached out and grabbed her arm.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, frowning.

  “I felt…a trifle dizzy…” Juliana said, surprised. She placed her hand against her stomach, which was now rolling uneasily.

  “Perhaps you’d better lie down,” Lilith suggested.

  “Yes, perhaps, for just a moment,” Juliana agreed.

  They left the room, Juliana holding on to Nicholas’s arm rather more tightly than she normally would have. The floor seemed somehow to move beneath her feet, to tilt and undulate….

  She stopped, pressing her hand to her mouth. She swallowed hard, concentrating on keeping her food down. It would be too humiliating to toss up her breakfast here in front of everyone, especially Nicholas.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said. “You look terribly pale. I’ll carry you up the stairs.”

  “No, I can walk,” Juliana protested, but he paid no attention, sweeping her up in his arms and starting up the stairway.

  Juliana closed her eyes and let her head rest upon his shoulder, putting all her efforts into trying to control her nausea. Had she eaten something bad? she wondered. Or could it possibly be…no, surely it was far too soon…. Even if by some chance she had gotten pregnant already, it seemed unlikely that morning sickness would start so quickly. Still, she could not quite douse a little flicker of pleasure. A baby…Nicholas’s baby…

  She swallowed again and realized that, oddly, her mouth seemed to be watering excessively.

  They had barely reached the room, where Nicholas laid her down on her bed, when Juliana’s maid came rushing into the room. “Mrs. Barre rang for me and said you was ill!” she exclaimed, hurrying around the side of the bed and reaching out to feel Juliana’s forehead.

  The room was spinning badly now, and Juliana gritted her teeth. “I feel sick….”