Summerton (Lady Eleanor Mysteries Book 1)

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Summerton (Lady Eleanor Mysteries Book 1) Page 14

by Becca St. John

“What? Me? I’ve done nothing…”

  “I’m certain of it.” Eleanor cut her off.

  Caroline blinked.

  “Someone is trying to get to you. That’s why I wonder about your Jeremy,” his aunt amended, as she prepared to rise.

  “Of course, Jeremy and the notes. He knew the dead girl as well. What else aren’t you telling us?” he asked rather baldly, the sting of her secrecy still smarting. “Do you have another date with your friend?”

  “No,” she stammered, “not at all. I don’t know where he is.”

  “He will surface,” Eleanor said, “but, I think you should be there when we question the lads in the cellar. You could be of use.”

  “Me?” Caroline cried, as Summerton questioned, “Her?”

  Sir Michael nodded. “I see, Lady Eleanor, you have your suspicions.”

  “Yes, I do. Not about who is guilty but there are other…things.” She looked up at Caroline. “You will come with us, won’t you? The sooner the better.”

  She would override his other plans. He wasn’t quite ready for that. He wanted some time alone with Caroline, the men in the cellar be damned.

  “You don’t think they are guilty, so why are you holding them?” he asked.

  “They were found with the body. We have the right.”

  He just looked at her. She continued. “If you must know, I think they may be in danger for being found there. If I were the killer, I’d suspect they’d seen something. They are safer in the cellar than anywhere else.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. “I see.” He drummed the table, caught Caroline watching his fingers, and stopped. “Do you think they saw something?”

  “Of course not. If they had, they would have spoken up, to save themselves from being locked up.”

  That decided it. He’d gained ground with Caroline. They were coming together. He did not want to lose that momentum. “As you don’t think they did it, and they are secure, let them wait.” He stood. “I thought it time Caroline see the whole of St. Martins.”

  “You are too stubborn, Summerton,” Eleanor grumbled. “Very well, I will have a rest. Send a message when you are ready to speak with the…the—” she faltered, which was very unlike her, “—the prisoners.”

  “We will,” Summerton promised, pulling Caroline’s chair out for her.

  They left the dining room for the side hallway, passed through the rose room with its high ceilings and landscape painting, through another hallway. He stopped before a door he hadn’t crossed since youth. On this side, it matched the wood paneling that lined the wall. He wondered if the other side remained in good stead, or had rotted. He hoped not.

  “When I was a boy, this was my favorite part of St. Martins.” Anticipation reigning, he pulled a key from his pocket. “I’m ashamed to say, I haven’t been in here since, but Hitches promised me it is well kept. Just don’t take the stairs.”

  “Why ever not?” she asked, as if they would walk into an everyday space of no consequence.

  It held every consequence to him. He almost hated to step inside, and have today’s reality wipe away all the memories of playing soldiers and knights with his older brothers. Perhaps that’s why he’d not returned.

  “Rotted wood, most probably.” He explained the stairs, turning the huge, iron key in the lock. “My father would bring us down here…”

  “Wait.” She put a hand on his arm, stopping him from opening the door. ”Us?”

  He looked at her hand, feeling the disconnect. He’d brought her here, to bring her into the heart of the family, only to find himself getting lost there. “Brothers. I had two brothers. One, Stephen, drowned in the lake. Our nurse was flirting with a footman.” He turned the handle. ”My other brother, William, died of an inflammation of the brain.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “And your mother?”

  He’d been focused on his hand, turning that key, holding the door latch, but turned to her then. “My mother died giving birth to me. You lost your mother when you were three.”

  They watched each other, as if they could see straight inside, to a kinship of sorrows. Then she blinked, eyes widening.

  “What?” he asked, urgent now, as he thought she might panic and didn’t know why.

  “My mother…” she looked away, down, shook her head. “There was a coach robbery, and the highwayman strangled her.” Fierce, she met his gaze again. “Highwaymen don’t strangle.”

  Agitated, she stepped away, paced. “Oh, Summerton, what a fool I have been not to think of that.”

  He took her shoulders, held them. “It couldn’t be the same person. That was almost twenty years ago. He would be too old to be skulking around our woods.”

  She was breathing too fast. He urged her over to a chair, sat her down, chafed her hands. He didn’t know what else to do, to distract her.

  “We will tell Eleanor and Sir Michael, but they will tell you what I just said. That highwayman would have no reason to follow you here.”

  “What if it isn’t a highwayman, what if it is someone cursing my family?”

  “Then he would have killed you by now,” he snapped out before thinking. Good God, he should have held his tongue.

  The key still protruded from the lock. “Come on, let’s go in there. Step away from everything.”

  “It’s magical to you.” She didn’t ask, she knew.

  “The way a doll’s tea set would be to a girl.”

  She snorted. “Very few dolls in my growing years. I played in the mill, with my father.”

  He hadn’t thought.

  “Well, we played with wooden swords and shields we’d made ourselves. Inspired by this room, family stories of knights defending the place.” He held out his hand, and she took it. “This part of St. Martins is so old the corners are square.”

  “That means it’s old?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” he informed her, as he pushed down on the lever, unlatching the lock, “Easier to scale square corners. They soon abandoned that design for rounded towers.”

  Immediately, upon opening it, he noted the old wood paneling on the far side of the door. Worm holes, but waxed nonetheless. He was proud and excited and wary.

  Ridiculous for him, Duke of Summerton, Earl of St. Martins, to fear showing his ancestral home to his bride.

  It wasn’t that bad. Not yet. But it would be. Bringing it back to snuff would be a huge expense. He determined to do just that, or if that proved impossible, he would completely demolish what was beyond repair and rebuild it.

  He led Caroline along a cold stone passage, past an ornately paneled curtain wall, and into the only surviving structure of the original St. Martins Hall. The great hall, where knights had gathered to plan attacks, great men to negotiate peace, and the entire household to wait out a siege.

  The peaked leaded glass windows opposite them filled a wall the height and width of the room, their stained glass mosaic telling a story of battles, losses, and heroics.

  “This part of the hall was built by Henry St. Martin,” he explained, “though these windows are newer. That wall was destroyed in a siege in—” of course, she wouldn’t be interested in battles and defenses and power struggles that began and ended hundreds of years ago, “—during an ongoing skirmish. We managed to hold our own, but it was a close call.”

  He wished she would say something, anything. Give him a clue that would help interpret her frown, as she looked from the windows to the high arched ceiling and intricate wooden hammer-beam trusses that held it up.

  At least, he hoped they held it up. The rot couldn’t be seen from here, any more than he could see her thoughts written on the bare stone walls that had once been plastered white and graced by exquisite tapestries. He knew of the tapestries, threaded through with precious metals, but they’d been painstakingly stored. He had never actually seen them.

  If this marriage didn’t work, perhaps he could sell them.

 
Without the rest of her money, particularly given the stigma a failed marriage would paint on both of them, he’d have no way of reclaiming these walls. And they did need reclaiming. No mistaking the streaks, damp from a roof that had been leaking since he was a boy.

  Without a word, she crossed the stone floor, stepped onto a Persian carpet lugged back from some crusade by an ancestor who had, surely, believed his descendants would treasure and care for the piece.

  She stopped by the large carved host chair at the head of an oak table as thick as the length of her palm, long enough to seat ten people on each side, yet so narrow guests knees might touch in the middle.

  The table gleamed.

  Hitches, of course. He’d known, without being told, the new duchess would be shown the rest of the house. The butler had obviously removed the dust covers and hired a troop of maids to sweep and clean.

  An expense the estate could ill afford.

  He was grateful, no matter the cost. Not so much as a cobweb drooped from the stone buttresses above. Sweet oil so lavishly rubbed into the furniture, it scented the great space. No doubt Hitches had overseen the application on a regular basis to keep the ancient wood from disintegrating.

  Mere months ago, he’d brushed away thoughts of cost, accepted his life of ease. Now he measured every action, every goal, by its weight in silver or copper or gold, or any damn thing he could use to pay for it.

  Disheartening.

  She stood inside the massive fireplace, looking up into the dark throat of the chimney.

  “That was added later. The original hearth was in the center, where the table is now.”

  “Modernization,” she murmured with a laugh.

  “Exactly. That,” he pointed to the oversized hearth she stood in, “is a perfect example of why they tore down the rest of the original hall. Drafts from these huge open fireplaces couldn’t warm a bear in the summer. Impossible to keep heated.”

  He never should have shown her in here. The east wing was worse, with its buckling floors and pocked wall fabric. He should have secured her hand before bringing her to either part of the Hall.

  Honesty was overrated.

  “This is the real thing, isn’t it?” She’d just noticed the gallery above. “Where are the stairs?”

  “Beyond the wall there, but—” He’d already told her not to take them. The wood floors, supports, and stairs would be rotted with damp. No telling which step would hold and which would fall away with the slightest pressure.

  “Summerton.” His Aunt Eleanor and Sir Michael stood by the curtain wall. “I really think we need to question those lads now.”

  “I see,” he responded, though he didn’t at all. In truth, he didn’t care.

  “Cara?” He put out his hand. “Shall we go?”

  She looked over her shoulder, eyes fixed on that dangerous staircase. Was that longing in her gaze? “It’s not going anywhere.” He hoped.

  “Oh.” She sounded deflated, like a child who had to give up a toy, but she took his hand.

  This ruin might just win her over in a way he couldn’t.

  Deflating to find yourself in competition with a crumbling bit of stone.

  CHAPTER 14 ~ Prisoners of All Sorts

  The place was immense, full of twists and turns, impossibly wide hallways, and sweeping stairways leading to elegant galleries. There were narrow stairs and warrens of working spaces for the servants, below stairs. The house would require a massive number of servants, if it were working at its best, which it was not. Not now, not yet.

  And there were troubles. The housekeeper gave her an evil eye when they passed through, on their way into the bowels of the hall. They’d had a verbal tussle the day before, when Caroline told her she wanted to tour the servants sleeping quarters in the morning. The woman was in luck. Caroline’s day had been realigned.

  Just as well. She shouldn’t get involved. She’d been a fool to imagine herself a partner to Summerton. Weak to fall in love with him, as she was doing. Did he really imagine she could help him restore this massive place? One of many homes belonging to the Duke of Summerton. What ever made him think her qualified to be the mistress of such an undertaking? Ancient halls, priceless art, and history. The history of it all! No wonder the aristocracy were so protective of their lot.

  Her heart beat with nerves. She knew nothing about great homes. It would take an artist to see to the renovations and the tasks. Good grief, she’d not know how to scrutinize Mrs. Beechum’s order of things. She was not up to the role, thank you very much. She was not born to it, and it was too late to start training now.

  Traversing the original keep to the deep belly of the place, through hallways paneled in dark wood and smelling of linseed, they’d seen everything from stark castle stone to rooms dressed in silk and overseen by cherubs dancing along the cornices.

  Fascination drew her in, moth to flame.

  And like a moth to flame, it would burn her up to nothing. An overwhelming and hungry beast, it would require more than money to bring back. It needed expert care.

  Expansive and varied as her father’s enterprises were, she understood their structure, their needs. She’d been raised within the belly of business…which was a far cry from the hodgepodge of bygone ages lovingly crafted and furnished with treasures acquired over the centuries.

  What did she know of such things?

  Murder, she must think of murder. They were headed into the cellars, to speak with the newspaper lads.

  Ah, yes, she could hear the prisoners. They could not be far now in this dank, cold place. Once below ground, they’d gone from the bustling activity of the kitchens, the servants’ dining area, and further, into storage areas, and now the cellars.

  She listened to the chatter as they made their approach.

  “Would you stop bouncing on your toes! I’m about dicked in the nob with all your wiggling and talking. We need to think!” one complained, his a voice so young it hadn’t cracked yet.

  Surely a frightened child wouldn’t be up to murdering, twice?

  “Your grace!” A footman ran to catch-up to them from behind. “Your grace!” he panted, catching his breath. “A messenger has come, and he says it’s urgent. Hitches said you would want to see him at once.”

  They all stopped. The lads in the cellar, alerted to their presence, tried to sneak glances at them from between iron bars, designed to keep tipplers out, but now held the lads captive.

  Summerton looked at the cellars and then back at the footman.

  “I will be there shortly,” he offered.

  The footman held his ground. “Hitches said this was most important, your grace.”

  “You go ahead, Summerton.” Eleanor patted his arm. “And Sir Michael, you join him.”

  “But we need…”

  “No, you don’t. I will tell you exactly what happens. Trust me.”

  “This can wait until I meet with Hitches,” Summerton said.

  “Trust me, Summerton,” Eleanor told him.

  “We have the footmen to keep us safe,” Caroline added.

  Summerton had his eye on the two footman. One led them down into the underbelly of the hall, another followed, each of them carried lanterns. Despite the side torches spaced along the walls, the extra light was needed. The cellars were abysmally dark.

  “Go.” Eleanor waved them off and took Caroline’s hand. “No sense dallying down here.”

  “Fine,” Summerton said to their backs. “Come along, Sir Michael. Let us see what is so bloody important.”

  “Language,” Eleanor scolded, without bothering to turn around. Caroline did look back. Summerton had turned, too, his scowl transforming to chagrin when he caught Caroline’s eye. He dipped his head and went off, hurrying to catch up with Sir Michael.

  She and Eleanor reached the barred wall of the beer cellar. Huge kegs filled the room, dwarfing the lads, who looked even smaller by comparison. Dim light came from torches that bracketed the hall on either side of the low curved ent
rance. The lads ignored the comfort of two stools to stand back, in shadow.

  Eleanor studied the boys. “What do you see, my dear?” she asked, startling Caroline.

  What was she supposed to see? “Two young and slight lads, nimble but not strong, I would guess.”

  “No sign of beards yet, would you say?”

  Ah, yes, she’d notice their youthfulness. “Their voices haven’t even changed yet.”

  “Exactly,” Eleanor exclaimed, as she put a key Hitches had given her into the lock. “You,” she signaled the footmen, “Make sure they don’t rush past us when we go in.”

  “We didn’ do nothin’, I promise we didn’ do nothin’. We shouldn’ be in here, and they took my…” One of the lads started to protest.

  “Shush! For the love of goodness, will you keep yourself quiet!” the other hissed, grabbing the arm of the talkative one to pull him back.

  “They need to know, we have to get outta’ here,” the first boy argued. “I don’t like dark places.” The comment earned him an elbow in the ribs. “Ouch, why’d you do that?”

  “Just be quiet!” the second one ordered.

  Watching this little tableau, Caroline asked, “Surely one of the footmen will come in with us?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Eleanor answered. “The lads have been searched for weapons.”

  “But…”

  Eleanor stopped what she was doing. “Come, child, you never struck me as cowardly or foolish. Think. Think of what we are looking at.” And with that, she stepped into the cellar, pulling Caroline with her.

  “Here,” she said as she passed the key through the bars to one of the footmen. “Lock it and then go down the passage. We wish to speak to the lads in private.”

  CHAPTER 15 ~ News from Manchester

  A well-rounded, diminutive gentleman stood in the study, pressing his back against the corner he occupied. His eyes widened when Summerton and Michael walked in, and he rubbed his watch case as though he hoped a genie might appear to save him.

  From what? He hadn’t been summoned, so he was there of his own volition. By dress, he was a gentleman, and should have been comfortable in a room designed for business. He’d certainly ridden hard enough to get here, judging by his mud-stained boots and creased buckskins. Multiple layers of dust clung to an immaculately tailored tailcoat. Though his collar was still high, his cravat had fallen.

 

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