by Louise Allen
‘Ours?’ She leaned back in his embrace to study his face.
‘I am beginning to have my suspicions – ’
‘My lady.’ Porrett stood on the step. ‘Lord Northam is in the drawing room.’
‘Who?’ Guinevere blinked at him. Was this some kind of dream and Augustus was not dead at all? She must be losing her mind.
‘What the devil is he doing here? I thought he understood that he needed to keep his distance,’ Jared said, cold anger in his voice. ‘This is the last thing we need.’ When she stared at him he snapped, ‘Theo.’
‘Oh. Theo. Of course.’ Guin gave herself a little shake. No ghosts. ‘When did he arrive, Porrett?’
‘An hour since, my lady. I have prepared the Chinese rooms for him.’
‘He should have the master suite by rights, but I suppose he will not mind for one night. I really cannot face the upheaval of moving now.’ She stepped away from Jared and mounted the steps. ‘Ask the maids to draw us all hot baths, including for Faith and Dover. And send up tea trays. I will greet Lord Northam. Faith, you and Dover go to your rooms, bathe, rest.’
She was conscious of Jared on her heels as she went down the hall to the drawing room door. Surely now he did not suspect Theo of anything?
Her nephew by marriage was pacing up and down the room but he turned with an audible sigh of relief when they entered.
‘Theo, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘Escaping the law, I suspect,’ he said grimly. ‘No sooner had the funeral guests gone than that da – that confounded London magistrate turned up at Felling Hall along with our local man. He was waving an anonymous letter that had advised him to search in the clothes press in my dressing room in London. He’d bullied his way in past the staff and was unsurprised to find two empty bottles that had held my father’s medicine hidden in a pair of old boots.
‘There was easily enough gone to have killed Uncle Augustus if boiled down to a syrup and then mixed with marchpane, apparently. I asked him why, if I was a parricide, I had not removed the bottles from there? I enquired if I appeared to be a complete idiot. He advised me not to take that tone with him.’
Theo stopped, took a deep breath and continued rather more calmly. ‘I enquired – in much the same tone – who was supposed to have written the letter. I produced my valet, and Perkins pointed out that with the house in turmoil during my father’s last days and death half the Household Cavalry could have trooped in and out concealing bottles and not been noticed.
‘Sir Andrew Hewson, the local magistrate, who had the benefit of hearing the tale fresh from beginning to end and having no axe to grind, pointed out that what I said had some merit. His colleague then demanded to know whether you had access to my dressing room, Guin.’
Jared said something savage under his breath and Guin discovered that cold fury had a remarkably energising effect. ‘What did you say to that?’ she enquired.
‘I hit him. Quite a good left hook, actually.’ Theo’s grim expression was at odds with his tone.
‘And why are you not under arrest for assault on a magistrate, if nothing else?’ Jared enquired. ‘Lady Northam, do sit down, you must be exhausted.’ He stalked over to the sideboard, poured a glass of brandy and brought it back to her.
‘Sir Andrew appeared to think that I had the right to defend the honour of a lady and that Spurgeon – that’s the London man – had gone too far. They retreated to consider the situation and the moment they were out of sight I left. I don’t know what, if anything, you have discovered, but I am damned if I am going to sit at Felling and wait for them to turn up and drag me off in chains.’
Guin gulped a mouthful of brandy. ‘I have a very strong inclination to give way to hysterics,’ she said, wondering why she wasn’t.
‘We need a council of war,’ Jared said. ‘But you and I are going to bathe and change first. It is time to take control of this situation, to turn and set the hounds on our pursuers.’ He held out his hand to Guin. ‘Lady Northam? You have had a long and difficult day but I think you have it in you to join our council.’
‘Certainly, Mr Hunt.’ She let him draw her to her feet, feeling his strength and his anger flowing through to her. His instinct, his duty was to protect her, but he believed in her, that she had the intelligence and the strength of will to cope with this. I could love this man, she thought as they walked up the stairs leaving Theo pacing again. Perhaps I already do.
When they assembled again, clean and refreshed, Faith and Dover appeared, both saying that they too were revived and wanted to be involved. Jared waited for the footmen to deposit plates of food by each chair, poured wine all round and then, with no protest from Theo, took control.
‘We have two strands to this persecution. If I am correct, then both Lady Northam and the late Lord Northam – and by extension you, the new, Lord Northam – are targets.’
‘Me?’ Theo began, then subsided at a gesture from Jared.
‘Lady Northam unwisely eloped with, and married, Francis Willoughby, a man in need of money and completely unscrupulous about how he earned it. He thought his new father-in-law would give him funds, either to maintain the marriage or, perhaps, to buy him off. He was sadly disappointed, almost penniless and, I suspect, desperate because moneylenders were after him.
‘He brought his new wife here to Allerton because he expected to find help from the one person who would never let him down, however outrageously he behaved, his sister. I overheard the cook, Mrs Turner, speaking of how Master Frank had enjoyed her lemon tarts and how he had eaten them in company with the footman, Thomas Bainton, who used to work here and then, most conveniently, transferred his services to the new owner.’
‘And Frank is short for Francis,’ Guin said. ‘He had a habit, which very soon grated on my nerves, of saying, I will be frank with you, and then smirking at the pun.’
‘The headstone on his grave refers to his father Henry and his sister Elizabeth. Mr Quenten at Cross Holme called his wife Lettie, a shortening for Elizabeth, and their younger son, Hal. The older child, Charles, is named for his paternal grandfather and it seems logical that the younger is called after his mother’s father, Henry.’
‘So Mrs Quenten was Francis’s older sister and she blames me for his death,’ Guin said slowly. ‘Of course, she would have heard the rumours about it not being an accident, about Augustus’s intervention preventing the magistrate accusing me of causing it. She must have been in anguish when she realised that Francis had come to her for help and found none. I wonder why he did not know they had moved,’ she added, puzzled.
‘I expect that will become clear eventually,’ Jared said.
The relief of at last finding some logical explanation for this nightmare was almost overwhelming. ‘But nothing happened for months after I married Augustus.’
‘You were far away and I expect, at first, she was too deep in grief. Then, with time, she must have become obsessed and vengeful. But she had no agent for her punishment of you and, I imagine, no experience of hiring ruffians or criminals. Then you and Lord Northam came up here and Thomas, who had known Francis as a young man, was sent to ask for employment, to work his way into your trust. That is how the persecution moved to London. It must have been Thomas who put the firework down the chimney.’
‘And he took in the sweetmeats. He could time poisoning them to fit with Theo being in the house.’
‘Probably the staff at our London house knew him,’ Theo put in. ‘He’ll doubtless have delivered messages for my uncle. He could have got in unremarked, stolen the medicine and hidden the empty bottles for the magistrate to find.’
‘But the attacks on you were not very serious, my lady,’ Faith interjected. ‘I don’t understand that.’
‘Mrs Quenten wanted to torment Lady Northam, I suspect.’ Jared said. ‘They were trying different things, watching the effect on you. She aimed to torture, not to kill, because that would have been too final, would have ended your punishment too soon.�
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‘But Augustus,’ Guin murmured. ‘What had he ever done to her? He even had her brother decently buried.’
‘I suspect the idea of inheritance had been growing in her slowly, perhaps almost unrecognised until she met Lord Northam for the first time, at her father-in-law’s funeral. It was brought home to her that Northam was an elderly man. The families had grown apart and if she had thought about it before then she would know that there were several people between her husband and sons and the title. But here was the reality, and he was a man she had no reason to love – he had, she thought, aided her brother’s killer. She must have investigated, found that his brother was elderly and ailing also. Just two old men between her family and a title, a rise to status and fortune.’
‘And one young man,’ Theo pointed out, indignant. ‘I am not ailing.’
‘So you must be suspected of killing your uncle and hastening the death of your father,’ Guin said, appalled. ‘Thomas would have reported back that you had money problems and that you ran tame in our house – and look how easily the rumours about you and me spread.’
‘If Theo is accused of murder and hanged then Elizabeth could have it all – a title for her husband and son and revenge on you, Lady Northam,’ Jared said. ‘She has never met Theo and I assume that by this stage she is too far gone in her obsession and her plotting to even consider what she is doing to an innocent man, one who is simply a name on a page to her.’
‘But can we prove it?’ Theo asked. He reached for a cake from the plate beside him, took a bite and washed it down with brandy without looking, then winced at the mixture.
‘We need to get our hands on Thomas, sir,’ Dover said. He passed Theo a tea cup and slid the brandy glass away. ‘Try that, my lord. We could get a confession out of him and hand him over to the magistrates.’
‘We have only circumstantial evidence,’ Jared pointed out. ‘And he has every incentive to keep quiet – the image of a noose is powerfully motivating.’
‘We could beat it out of him,’ Dover muttered. When Guin looked at him, shocked that for a moment her reaction had been approval, he added, ‘I suppose the magistrates wouldn’t like that.’
‘But how are you involved, Jared, except that Augustus employed you?’ Guin asked, realising the moment she said it that she had used his first name in front of everyone, then discovering that she did not care. ‘How can this connect to you?’
‘My family comes from this area. In fact now they are close neighbours of the Quentens. When I was growing up Cross Holme was simply a farm called, I think, Crossholes. They obviously attempted to gentrify it when they had to move. I suspect that my sister-in-law and Elizabeth Quenten are friends. I cannot imagine that Bella is part of the plot to attack you, Lady Northam, let alone murder your husband, but Mrs Quenten could well have engaged her sympathies, convinced her that you had killed Francis. Thomas would have reported my name to his mistress.’
‘But you changed it,’ Guin pointed out. ‘You told me you had.’
‘Not well enough, I think.’
‘She was looking for you in Whitby, wasn’t she? You were taken by surprise, but she was not. She was confirming a suspicion.’ Jared stayed stubbornly silent, but Guin kept thinking, working it out aloud. ‘When I sat down in the Quenten’s parlour the chair was warm. Someone had only just left it. If it had been your sister-in-law then she could have been observing us, looking at you. She thought she recognised you, but was not certain.’
‘So she followed us down to Whitby to make sure, face to face,’ Dover said.
‘So who is she?’ Theo asked. ‘Who are you, come to that?’
Chapter Twenty One
‘I am Jared Hunt and her identity is not relevant, Jared said flatly. ‘Bella has presented me with a dilemma and I suspect she will think she can put pressure on me that will divert me from my allegiance to Lady Northam.’
Stubborn man, Guin thought. Did he really believe he could keep his identity secret from her now she had so many clues? If it were not for the situation they found themselves in then she would have to respect his privacy, but not now that Theo was in danger too.
‘So what do we do now?’ Theo asked. ‘We’ve circumstantial evidence, we can show motives, but that is all.’
‘Find Thomas,’ Jared said grimly. ‘The fact that he has gone missing is damning.’
‘Unless the magistrate thinks I killed him too, to add verisimilitude to my story,’ Theo said gloomily.
‘We need to tell the staff here – the ones we inherited from the Quentens – that Thomas is dangerous,’ Guin said, getting to her feet. ‘What if he comes back here and they hide him under our noses out of misplaced loyalty?’
‘Yes, do that, then go to bed,’ Jared said, standing as she did. ‘You must be exhausted. We need to sleep on this.’
Guin found Cook and Mrs Mountjoy and Porrett all together taking tea in the housekeeper’s room.
‘Please, sit down and I will join you if I may.’ At Mrs Mountjoy’s flustered agreement she closed the door and sat down at the end of the table. ‘It is about Thomas Bainton. Have any of you seen him since we left this morning?’
All three heads shook and all three looked puzzled. They could be lying, of course, but she doubted that they were such good actors.
‘This may be hard to believe, but we fear that Thomas has been behind those attacks on me and probably Lord Northam’s death as well. We think his mind has been turned by my first husband’s death.’ She could hardly accuse the Quentens yet, not without proof. ‘He seems to blame me for it and Lord Northam for supporting me. You heard about the way our carriage was damaged so that there was almost a very nasty accident?’ Again, a trio of nods. The arrival of the four of them on horseback would be the talk of the servants’ hall. ‘There can be no doubt that Thomas damaged the axle and the brake. He is dangerous.’
‘He was always a wild young man and Mr Frank led him astray with his own carryings-on, if you’ll pardon me saying so, my lady, seeing you married him.’ When Guin made a vague gesture Cook pressed on. ‘He was a charmer, Mr Frank. He was just fifteen when the mistress married Mr Quenten and she brought him with her because their parents were dead some years past. His sister doted on him and Thomas would have walked through fire for him. Spoiled rotten, that lad.’
Mrs Mountjoy was looking uneasy. ‘It was a shock when we found out you’d been married to him, my lady. We didn’t like to talk about him, seeing how badly it ended, but perhaps we should have done, told you how Master Frank grew up here.’ She looked sharply at Guin. ‘Do you expect Thomas to come back?’
‘He needs friends now, shelter. He must realise we know he is behind these attacks. Would he think you would give him help?’
‘You were always too soft on him, Mrs T,’ Mrs Mountjoy said abruptly to the cook. ‘I never trusted him – not that I ever suspected any real harm or I’d have told your ladyship when you took him on. Just thought he was indulged because he’d been Master Frank’s friend and he led him astray. But he seemed to have sobered up. Oh Lord, if I’d said something perhaps his lordship would be alive now?’
Guin looked at Porrett who sat shaking his head despairingly. He looked near to tears. ‘I do not think so, Mrs Mountjoy,’ she said as soothingly as she could manage. ‘We had no suspicion what would happen. But you must not let him in if he comes and we must make sure all is secure at all times.’
‘Don’t you worry, my lady,’ Mrs Mountjoy said. ‘You’ve been a good mistress here and his lordship was a fine man. If that rapscallion shows his face around here I’ll take Mrs T’s carving knives to him.’
‘I’ll load the blunderbuss,’ Porrett said. ‘The one I keep in the silver safe in case of burglaries.’
‘Thank you, all of you. Mr Hunt is doing all he can to put a stop to this business.’ She stood up and Porrett hurried to open the door for her, shoulders back as though he was a soldier going on parade. Yes, she felt confident they would not take Thomas’s sid
e in this.
Guin made her way slowly up the servants’ stair to the ground floor. She could hear Jared and Theo talking as they made their rounds of the doors and windows at the far end of the house. No-one was in sight and she went into the study, took down the atlas from the shelf and opened it on the desk. Cross Holme house was not marked, presumably because it was still a humble farm when the area was surveyed, but she could find Crossholes Beck which narrowed the area down somewhat.
There would be farms scattered about, and they too would not be marked, but she doubted somehow that Jared was the son of a farmer. She circled round the area with the tip of her finger. No manor houses marked, no hamlets close by, only a house called Ravenscar marked by a little black square and labelled in tiny block capitals.
Ravenscar. How did she discover who lived there? Perhaps one of the road books that were in the carriage would tell her, but it was to late to go out and find one now. Frustrated, Guin replaced the book on the shelf next to the equally battered old copy of the Peerage and opened the hidden door to the staircase leading up to her bedchamber. Jared was right, they all needed to rest, to sleep on this.
And I should stop being so inquisitive. He will tell me when he is ready, she chided herself as she reached the small landing area outside her door and let herself into the room, making Faith, who was laying out her nightgown, jump.
‘I’m sorry, Faith. Just unlace me and then you be off to your bed. I am sorry you have had such a frightening day of it.’
Faith sniffed. ‘I’ll give that Thomas frightening if I get my hands on him. And don’t you worry, my lady, Mr Hunt will make all right, just you wait and see.’ She helped Guin out of her gown and into her nightgown and turned back the bed. ‘Shall I brush your hair, my lady? That’s very soothing.’