“He died by poisoning,” Lord Peregrine said. The volume of Milton was still in his hands, and at this point, he snapped it shut in a quick movement. “To me, that seems like the sort of murder that only a woman could have committed.”
“My innocence will be proven by the facts,” Rebecca responded. She managed to prevent her voice from shaking as she spoke. “Baseless speculations about the sorts of things that women do will not change that.”
At this point, Lord Peregrine smiled. It was a smile that made Rebecca feel entirely disconcerted in its suddenness.
“Believe me, madam,” he said smoothly, “No one wishes for you to be proven innocent more than I do.”
Rebecca frowned. What does he mean? she thought. Surely it is of no consequence to him one way or another if I am guilty or innocent in this affair.
She did not get any further opportunity to question Lord Peregrine’s words, however, because there was a knock at the door. The housekeeper entered.
“If you please, my Lord,” she said, curtseying to Lord Peregrine, “Her Ladyship has risen, and wishes to greet you in the drawing room.”
“Thank you,” Lord Peregrine said, inclining his head in acknowledgment. He waited for her to shut the door behind her before turning to Rebecca. “It is always a pleasure to see Her Ladyship,” he said.
Rebecca gave a small smile in reply, detecting that there was something still unsaid.
“This is precisely why I am here,” Lord Peregrine continued. “This matter of Charles’ murder is far too important to be left to the control of a fragile old lady.”
Rebecca waited for him to leave before she allowed herself a small smile.
Grandmamma Horatia may be an old lady, she thought to herself, but she is far from fragile. Indeed, I would wager that she is quite a match for you.
Chapter 27
Andrew had traveled through the night.
The journey had consisted of a great many stages and forms, but in his grief, confusion, and tiredness they had virtually blended into one. But at first light, he had arrived at the town of Netherbury, five miles from Godwin Hall, and from there he had set out on horseback.
Cantering through the familiar woods and fields that surrounded his childhood home, it was almost possible to convince himself that nothing had changed at all, that he would arrive back at Godwin Hall to find everyone just as he had left them.
But reality confronted him when he arrived at the front door and saw the expression of the groom who took his horse from him.
“My condolences, Your Grace,” the man said, bowing with an expression of kind and natural sympathy.
“Thank you, Thomas,” Andrew replied automatically. It was only when he had entered the Hall that the implications of Thomas’ greeting hit him.
He called me ‘Your Grace’. I am the Duke of Leinster now, he thought dazedly. How can it have come to this?
He had never wanted the dukedom, never coveted it, always thought that it seemed a rather burdensome title that he would gladly exchange for his liberty.
Yet, somehow, here he was.
He entered the house quietly, accepting the butler’s condolences but shrugging off the offer to announce him to his grandmother.
“No need,” he said. “I suppose she is in the drawing room? I shall find her myself.”
He noticed a set of trunks standing in the entrance hall but was far too preoccupied to think much of them. It was only when he reached the open door of the drawing room and heard the familiar voice speaking within that he realized to whom they belonged, and felt a tide of anger rising in his heart.
“I am deeply sorry that you were obliged to take the lead in the house following the death of my nephew,” the voice of his uncle was saying smoothly from within the room. “But rest assured that I will handle the matter from now on.”
“I have no need of help, Lord Peregrine,” Andrew heard his grandmother reply in her most imperious tone. He smiled. She could always be relied upon to assert herself.
“The matter is quite under control. Besides, Andrew will be returning soon. The household is his now, and it is only appropriate that he should take charge.”
“In normal circumstances, I would quite agree,” Lord Peregrine said. “But these are not normal circumstances.
There was a silence. Andrew could well imagine the expression on his grandmother’s face.
“Specifically,” Lord Peregrine continued, “The fact that your physician believed the late Duke to have been poisoned gives me reason to believe that someone stood to benefit from his death. I believe that a more neutral party, such as myself, should provide assistance in bringing the perpetrator to justice.”
“But you, Lord Peregrine, can scarcely be considered neutral,” Grandmamma Horatia intoned. “Furthermore, as I have already engaged a constable to assist in the matter, I do not believe that your help is needed.”
“A constable?” Lord Peregrine laughed derisively. “My dear lady, surely you cannot believe that the talents of a mere constable will be equal to a matter of this magnitude? Someone of rank is needed to ensure that justice is served.”
“Andrew is of rank,” Grandmamma Horatia replied coolly. “Now that Charles has died he is of one of the highest ranks in England. I believe that you know that better than most.”
There was a brief pause as if a sharp intake of breath had occurred. Then Lord Peregrine responded in a way that made Andrew’s blood run cold.
“When on his deathbed, your nephew accused Lady Rebecca Winterson of his murder. From what I have heard about the lady in question, from what I have seen of her, I do not believe that Andrew — that is to say, the Duke — can be relied upon to judge things impartially.”
“I think you underestimate him,” came Grandmamma Horatia’s cool response.
Andrew decided at this moment that there was no gain to be had in eavesdropping further, and strode purposefully into the drawing room, pausing to bow to his grandmother.
“My gratitude to you for your vote of confidence, Grandmamma,” he said. He turned to his uncle and gave a much shallower bow. “Uncle. I was not expecting to find you here.”
“How could I stay away, Duke?” Lord Peregrine responded, his voice dry and his expression unreadable. “I must see justice served for my brother’s firstborn.”
“No one wants justice for my brother more than I do,” Andrew responded shortly. Because it was true. In all of the chaos of his journey from London, in all of the intrigue and scheming that he suspected of his uncle, it seemed to Andrew that it had scarcely been acknowledged that he had lost, in rapid succession, his father and his brother.
“Of course,” Lord Peregrine smiled. “Yet I cannot help but feel, Duke, that you may find yourself too close to this matter to see it clearly.”
Andrew did not feel that this suggestion dignified a response. Instead, he turned to his grandmother.
“Where is this constable that you sent for? I must speak to him immediately. Whatever Charles said about Rebecca to implicate her in foul play is sheer nonsense. That must be established before we are to make any kind of sense of this tragedy.”
“I expect he will be joining us very soon, my dear,” Grandmamma Horatia responded. Andrew noted how dreadfully tired she looked and supposed that she could not have slept at all last night. He saw the suffering that he felt in his heart reflected in her aged face, and crossed the room to kiss her hand.
“Pray tell me, Grandmamma, if there is anything that I can do to alleviate your pain,” he said to her tenderly. She looked up at him with a tired expression.
“Charles is gone, my dear,” she replied. “Nothing that a human can do can alleviate that particular pain, for me or for you.” She took his hand in hers. “But we can ensure that no innocent party suffers needlessly for this.”
Andrew nodded. He kissed his grandmother again and made for the door, pausing only to address Lord Peregrine with icy politeness.
“My grandmother is very t
ired from all this sorrow, Uncle. She needs to rest.” He gave a smile that conveyed a great deal of steel. “I propose that you take a walk around the park to refresh yourself.”
“Thank you, Duke,” his uncle replied through gritted teeth. “Although as you well know, I grew up in Godwin Hall. I hardly need suggestions on how to pass my time here.”
So long as you do not pass it in causing mischief, Andrew thought. He nodded and gave another perfunctory bow before leaving the room.
He intended to find a servant and tell them to send for the constable, but he was distracted by the sight of Rebecca coming out of the library.
Her face was pale and drawn, and her hair was done back very simply in a manner that suggested to him that she had arranged it herself, which he found very becoming. Despite all the emotions that he was feeling, he took a moment to enjoy the sight of her.
“Becca,” he said in simple greeting.
Rebecca looked up. For a moment she seemed to scarcely recognize him, and then her face broke into a smile such as he had not seen from her since she came to Godwin Hall. The smile warmed Andrew’s face like sunshine, and he felt himself smiling back.
“It is good to see you,” he said.
“And you,” she replied. Although they had been parted for less than two days, it felt to Andrew as though he had not seen Rebecca for a decade. When his father had died, he had written to her at once, taking comfort just from the thought of her reading his words. That same comfort came to him now when he was still reeling from the loss of his brother.
“I am very glad that you are back,” Rebecca replied. Then she seemed to remember everything that had taken place, and took a step closer to Andrew, her hands outstretched. “And I am so sorry, so deeply sorry, for your loss.”
For a moment Andrew thought that she might be about to embrace him, or perhaps he thought that he would no longer be able to resist embracing her. However, they were interrupted by the noise of a door opening and one of the footmen coming into the hall.
“If you please, Your Grace,’ the footman said, bowing to Andrew, “Constable Langham has risen and asks for an audience with you.”
“Who?” Andrew frowned. The combination of seeing Rebecca again and the oddness of being addressed as ‘Your Grace’ had put the practicalities of the current situation entirely out of his mind, and it took him several moments to recover his faculties and nod. “Oh… yes. Send him into the study.”
The study had always been his father’s stronghold, the place where he had been summoned as a boy to receive paternal reprimands or occasional praise. He hoped that he might be able to draw upon some of that mythology, some of that strength, for what was about to follow.
He turned back to Rebecca. She was regarding him intently and with a newly-acquired wariness. Clearly, the footman’s interruption had been a stark reminder for her, too.
“I want you to know that I do not believe a word of it,” Andrew said in a rush. “I heard that Charles said something incoherent before he died, blaming you. It’s sheer madness, Becca. I will not stand for it, rest assured.”
“It was not incoherent,” Rebecca replied. Her voice was steady, but her glassy eyes betrayed fear. “Charles was quite lucid. That is the most horrifying part of it all. He went to his grave believing that I had poisoned him.”
Andrew did not have the least notion of what he ought to say in response to that. He settled for taking Rebecca’s hand. It was not quite a handshake, and it was not quite anything else. He merely took her hand and said, looking steadily into her eyes, “Well, then my brother was wrong.”
The look that Rebecca gave him at that moment filled him with an emotion that was quite unlike anything he had ever felt before. But he could not linger in the enjoyment of that feeling for long, because at the other end of the corridor he could see a man being shown into his father’s study.
“Forgive me,” he said, giving the hand in his a final squeeze, and hurrying down the hallway.
The man that was waiting for him in his father’s study rose to his feet with a sort of nervous energy that betrayed a lack of comfort around aristocracy.
“My Duke,” he said, tripping over his words and butchering the correct form of address. “Thank you for meeting with me, sir.”
Andrew was not particularly disposed to smile at this constable, but certainly, he had no intention of holding the man’s clear discomfort against him. In a sense, he thought it is comforting to see that someone else is as uncomfortable with the idea of my dukedom as I am.
“Mr. Langham, I assume?” he said.
“Indeed, Your Grace,” the man replied, seeming to have got hold of himself enough to offer a passable bow. “At your service.”
“At the service of the truth, I hope,” Andrew replied. It was not that he wished to be pedantic or to wrong-foot the constable, but he felt a great deal of discomfort at the idea that this man would be looking to him for instructions on how to pursue the matter of his brother’s death, despite the fact that he had not the faintest idea of how to give such instructions.
“The truth, Your Grace, of course,” the constable replied, offering another superfluous bow. “It is in my first attempts to establish the truth of what happened to Your Grace’s brother, the late Duke, that I have requested an audience with Your Grace this morning.”
“Well, ask me anything you like,” Andrew replied, “I shall do my best to assist you in whatever manner I can. But first, I wish to address the matter of my brother’s accusation of Lady Rebecca Winterson.”
A hidden part of him had suggested that if he simply ignored the fact of Rebecca’s implication in Charles’ death, then it would go away, but the more mature part of his mind knew that he was far better addressing the matter head-on.
“Indeed, Your Grace,” the constable said. “I have heard it from your family’s physician that your brother seemed quite convinced of Lady Rebecca’s guilt. I wondered if Your Grace might be able to enlighten me as to why your brother might have made such an… outlandish accusation.”
“May I speak plainly with you, constable?” Andrew asked. The man inclined his head to indicate in the affirmative, and Andrew continued, “I believe the reason is simply that Charles felt bitterly toward Lady Rebecca.”
“And why should he have felt bitterly towards the lady?” the constable asked. His expression was rather owlish as if he was taken aback to find himself embroiled in the affairs of the aristocracy. “If I may be so bold as to ask, of course.”
“She did not love him,” Andrew replied plainly. He knew that some people of his rank would think it unseemly to disclose so frankly to a mere constable, but his grandmother had always imbibed him with the belief that in matters of great importance, the wisest course was always complete honesty. “She did not wish to marry him.”
“And am I to assume that Lady Rebecca’s adverse feelings toward the marriage were not shared by Your Grace’s brother?” The man blinked again, and Andrew started to wonder whether the show of discomfort was perhaps an act, a way of demonstrating naivety in order to elicit information.
“They were not,” Andrew replied shortly.
“Your Grace’s brother did… ah, to use your own words… did he love Lady Rebecca?”
“Insofar as he was capable of loving anyone,” Andrew replied. He hoped that he was not saying anything unwise in adhering to his grandmother’s maxim of honesty. “He tended to regard people more as possessions than as fellow creatures with whom he might share love, but yes, I believe that he loved Rebecca in his own way.”
“I see.” Mr. Langham nodded contemplatively. “A man will say and do all manner of things when he finds his heart broken,” he said.
Andrew had the odd feeling that Mr. Langham had only said this because he thought it was what he wanted to hear, and felt a surge of irritation. This may have been compounded somewhat by the fact that Rebecca’s Christian name had slipped from his lips without him so much as realizing, and he hoped that Mr.
Langham had not noticed.
“Lady Rebecca did not owe my brother her heart,” he replied shortly. “What Charles chose to make of that fact was his own business. The crucial point at hand, however, is that Lady Rebecca was not responsible for my brother’s death.”
“With respect, Your Grace, how can you be so sure?” Mr. Langham asked. “Your faith in the lady’s good character is quite evident, and I am sure that Your Grace has his reasons. But it strikes me that poisoning is a uniquely female form of murder, and it does seem from what Your Grace says that Lady Rebecca had good reason to wish your brother dead.”
“Rebecca has never wished anyone dead in her life,” Andrew replied stoutly. He was growing more uncomfortable by the moment, particularly given the number of ‘Your Grace’s’ that Mr. Langham seemed to scatter at will throughout his sentences. Moreover, the truth was that he did not know why he had such complete faith in Rebecca, save that he knew beyond all doubt that to believe Rebecca capable of murder would be anathema to his very soul.
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