Murder and Misdeeds

by Joan Smith

  Luten noticed it when he came to the door a little later. He observed her a moment, with a strange twisting feeling in his chest, before tapping lightly and stepping in.

  “Oh, Luten. Thank you for the sheets,” she said.

  “You don’t have to make the bed yourself,” he replied. “My servants will see to it.”

  “Let them cook instead. I’m quite capable of making a bed.”

  She found the job awkward without Kate to help her, though. Luten watched for a moment, then went to the opposite side of the bed and began tugging at the sheet to straighten it out.

  “Did Blackmore order you off his land?” she asked, tucking in a corner.

  “I didn’t see him. I spoke with his game warden. The man made a point of telling me Blackmore was at the fair the day Susan vanished and entertained company that evening. Did you and Prance have any luck?”

  “You have to tuck the sheet under the mattress, Luten, or my feet will stick out tonight and be cold.” He began shoving the corners in. “We met a couple of schoolboys, fishing for tadpoles in the pond. They said the Wicked Baron had got her. In fact, they said they saw her in his saloon last night.”

  Luten dropped the sheet. “I knew it! Where are they? We must—

  “It is all a hum, Luten. They said she was sitting on Blackmore’s knee, kissing him, and he gave her some money. Gold coins. She was kissing him. That’s what they said.”

  “There might be something in it, if he fed her brandy,” Luten said, and began work again.

  “Well, if there is, Susan had dyed her hair. The lady who was kissing Blackmore was a dasher with black hair.”

  “Don’t they know Susan has blond hair?”

  “Apparently not. They are too young to be enamored of her,” she said, examining him closely. His pensive face revealed nothing. “Since he was paying the woman, it suggests she was nothing else but a light-skirt.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t entertain a light-skirt in his own home.”

  “Well, he is a bachelor.” She picked up the top sheet and shook it out. It seemed strange to be doing this sort of menial work again and positively unreal to be doing it with Luten. Yet he did a good job of it. Better than she. His emerald ring flashed as he reached out and caught the corner of the sheet and pulled it taut. He had lovely hands, with long, artistic fingers.

  “I think the lads were just making up stories,” she said.

  “Blackmore does have a reputation for liking women,” he replied. “No doubt you noticed it?”

  “Since he was equally charming to Reggie, I assumed it was just his normal manner. The lads I spoke of asked Reggie what their information was worth. It’s odd, though, that they insisted the lady had black hair.”

  “What does Prance think?”

  “He thinks it is all a hum.”

  Luten picked up the blanket and tossed it on the bed.

  “I don’t need that,” she said. “It was warm in bed last night. Just the counterpane.”

  When the silk sheet had been put on top, Luten unceremoniously kicked the soiled linen into the hallway. “There! We have made your bed, now w—you must lie in it.”

  He looked a little self-conscious at his near slip. Unlike Luten to come so close to a solecism. “We have made Susan’s bed. How foolish! We should have made up a different one. I only slept here last night because the others had no linen.”

  “It is no matter. When we get her back, we’ll make up another one for you.”

  She gazed at him a moment. “We will get her back, won’t we, Luten?” she asked uncertainly. When she felt her bottom lip begin to wobble, she caught it between her teeth in a gesture that always made Luten want to kiss away her fears.

  “There is no reason to think otherwise,” he said gruffly.

  “I wonder if she was in some sort of trouble. She didn’t say anything to you? Write anything, I mean?” She waited, hoping he would tell her what was in those letters they had exchanged recently.

  “Enceinte, you mean?” he asked.

  “I suppose that is the first thing that comes to mind when we speak of an unmarried girl being in trouble, but I didn’t mean that, necessarily.”

  After a frowning pause, he said, “If she was, she didn’t confide in me. I wish to God she had.”

  “Where would she go, if that is why she ran away?”

  “I expect she’d leave the parish. Go somewhere that she’s unknown until she had delivered the child and made some arrangements for its upbringing.”

  “I hate to think of her being alone. I wish she had written to me. Surely she would have, if—”

  “Don’t torture yourself with these useless imaginings, my dear,” Luten said gently. When he took her hand and squeezed her fingers, she had to blink away the tears. “She wouldn’t just run off with no money, or very little, and without her clothing. She would have invented a visit to a relative and gone in her own carriage. Susan isn’t a fool.”

  “Still, I can’t help feeling guilty. I haven’t written to her for a month. I should have kept a closer eye on her.”

  “She wasn’t your responsibility. She is no real blood kin to you. She was George’s cousin—and mine. If anyone should feel guilty, it’s I.”

  “We must find her, and when we do, I plan to make it up to her.”

  “I know how you feel. I feel the same,” Luten said, then shook his head wearily. “You’d best change for dinner.”

  When she had changed into her rose evening gown and gone out her door, she noticed the soiled linen had been removed. Luten must have taken it away. Probably just kicked it down the kitchen stairs. He had been very sweet, helping her with the bed. But he hadn’t revealed what he and Susan had been corresponding about.

  Belowstairs, Corinne discovered the others had already gone to the dining room. She hurried in after them.

  “Don’t blame me if the mutton is dry as a bone,” Mrs. Malboeuf said, slapping a nearly raw joint of beef in front of Mr. Marchbank. She wore a clean apron and had her hair tucked neatly under her cap. Marchbank picked up the carving knife, but his dazed eyes could hardly focus.

  “Let me do that for you, Otto,” Luten said, and carried the platter to the other end of the table himself, as Tobin was busy at the sideboard arranging vegetables.

  “Try to find a piece that is at least warm for me,” Prance said, with a worried eye at the puddle of blood gathering in the plate. Meat of any sort was his least favorite food. He felt like a cannibal when it was rare.

  “I shall just have vegetables tonight,” Corinne said.

  “There was a bit of ham in the larder,” Tobin told her, handing her a plate of ham sliced paper-thin to cover the plate.

  Coffen had no objection to raw beef, but said a bit of Yorkshire pudding would have been nice.

  “I only have two hands, haven’t I?” Mrs. Malboeuf barked, in a voice more usually heard in a kennel.

  “What happened to that footman you were going to send to the kitchen, Luten?” Corinne asked, when Mrs. Malboeuf had departed.

  “I decided he would be better employed in looking for Susan. It won’t kill us to fast for a few days. He has been out searching the fields and ditches and questioning the neighbors. He learned nothing new.”

  Prance related what the boys had told him about Blackmore entertaining a black-haired lady. When Coffen mentioned that he hadn’t likely kidnapped Susan if he already had a lady on kissing terms, Luten decided their story was a hum.

  The meal was nearly inedible, but at least there was not much of it. No soup, no fish course. Only the mutton, potatoes, carrots, and a runny syllabub for dessert. By the time the syllabub was finished, Otto’s head had sunk to his chest. Snoring sounds issued from his lips. The gentlemen carried him to the sofa in his study. When they returned to the dining room, they were too late to take port. Mrs. Malboeuf was already there. The plates had not been cleared, but she was making a great production of sweeping the floor.

  “If you’re looking f
or her ladyship, she’s in the saloon,” she told them.

  “A mouse, let alone a man, could die of thirst in this house, if he didn’t starve to death first,” Coffen said. He took the tray holding glasses and a bottle of port from the sideboard, and they went to the saloon, where Corinne sat on a footstool, alone, before the cold grate.

  “What a delightful scene!” Prance exclaimed. “Like something out of a melodrama. Patience on a footstool, smiling at ashes.”

  “She ain’t smiling,” Coffen said. “Nothing to smile at.”

  “That dinner was nearly as strange as our visit to Blackmore, Prance,” she said, with a wan smile, which did not prevent her from seeing Luten’s scowl out of the corner of her eye.

  “You are kind to call that meal strange. It was barbaric! Tomorrow we shall take dinner as well as lunch at the Rose and Thistle,” Prance said, patting her hand and drawing her to a sofa. “We don’t want our little Irish Rose to sink into a decline. I have been looking forward to seeing you in that gorgeous rose silk gown. Formidable!” he said, giving the word a French twist.

  Luten gave a huff of disgust. “A cold, slithery gown for our delight, Countess?” he asked. “What a deal of discomfort you ladies put up with to amuse us.”

  “Don’t pay him any heed,” Corinne said to Prance.

  “I never do, my sweet. How should I pay heed to anyone or anything else when I am by your side, basking in your radiance?”

  “You’d ought to be paying some heed to poor Susan.” Coffen scowled. “As soon as I’ve had a gargle, I mean to ride around the neighborhood. Luten plans to search Blackmore’s place. What are you going to do, Reg?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can amuse myself.”

  “I ain’t worried about you. I’m worried about Susan.”

  “I shall drive into East Grinstead and engage the locals in gossip, see what I can pick up.”

  “Go and sit yourself in a snug tavern, having a few wets, you mean,” Coffen said accusingly.

  “Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Luten said. One part of the idea’s charm was that it got him away from Corinne. “I’ll mention the broadsheets and the reward to Otto, if he’s sobered up yet. What sum do you think we should offer?”

  “We?” Prance asked. “Surely the reward will come out of Susan’s money. How does one word it—’Reward for any information leading to her discovery’? And a description, of course. Blond hair, blue eyes, five foot three inches.”

  “Four inches. And she was wearing a blue mulled muslin dress,” Coffen said. His blue eyes stared into the distance.

  Prance got a pen and paper, and they wrote up the notice while they had their port. Shadows were lengthening by the time they had agreed on the details. They were about to leave when the door knocker sounded. They all gave a start of alarm.

  “The ransom note!” Coffen cried, and went pelting to the door.

  Tobin beat him to it. It was Jeremy Soames who had come to call. He still wore his blue jacket and top boots.

  He made a rustic bow and said, “Pardon my outfit. I decided to stop on my way back from the auction. Any news?”

  “Did you get your horses?” Coffen asked.

  “I did. And a dandy farm cart as well. It will come in handy for moving manure and marl about the fields. So you’ve heard nothing about Susan?”

  “No, nothing,” Luten said.

  Soames looked around the room, then went to sit beside Corinne on the sofa. “This must be very trying for you, Lady deCoventry,” he said. “You and Susan were such good friends. She often spoke of you.”

  “We are all very worried,” she said.

  “You mustn’t let it get you down. Why don’t I take you for a hurl in my carriage tomorrow? Or better, come to me for tea. You must be starved here. Mrs. Malboeuf is a wretched cook.”

  Mr. Soames’s greenish eyes glinted hopefully. Corinne realized that he was trying to court her. Her fortune didn’t match Susan’s, but she had a small country property, a house on Berkeley Square, and a competence. No doubt she seemed rich to him.

  “I would rather not commit myself, Mr. Soames,” she said. “I want to be free, in case anything comes up, you know.”

  “Dash it, why don’t you call me Jeremy? We have known each other for years, on and off.”

  “Thank you, Jeremy. Perhaps another time.”

  He seemed satisfied with his progress. “I am off, then. I have a little something I mean to check up on tonight. I shall be in touch tomorrow. Think about my offer. My housekeeper is an excellent cook.”

  This speech revealed his standing. A gentleman’s housekeeper was not expected to cook as well.

  After he left, Coffen said, “He’s got his eye on you, Corinne, now that he’s lost Susan.”

  “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s an heiress for?” Prance said airily.

  “I’m hardly an heiress,” Corinne said.

  Coffen fell into a heavy frown. “That kooie bono you mentioned once, Prance—”

  “Cui bono? Who profits? Now, there is an idea, Pattle! Who inherits Appleby and the money if Susan—God forbid—should turn up dead?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to say,” Coffen said. “Soames inherits. That’s who. Susan’s papa and his were not only cousins but close friends. Of course, it wasn’t likely that Susan would die before Jeremy, but Jeremy was to get the lot if Susan died before she married. And Susan was to get Oakhurst if Jeremy cocked up his toes.”

  “Now, isn’t that interesting!” Prance said.

  Luten detached himself from the chimneypiece where he was lounging and came to attention. “He said he was going to check up on something.”

  “Going to see that no one’s found Susan, the bounder,” Coffen said, legging it toward the door. “I’m after him.”

  “Go with him,” Luten said to Prance.

  “In my second best evening jacket? Oh, very well. But I shall demand that Susan replace it if it’s destroyed.” He darted out after Coffen.

  “Perhaps you should go with them,” Corinne said to Luten.

  “The two of them can handle Soames. I still want to make a search of Blackmore’s outbuildings.”

  He also hurried out, leaving her alone. With a long evening of waiting stretching in front of her, she hopped up and asked Tobin to have Susan’s mount sent around with Coffen’s and Prance’s, then darted upstairs for her pelisse. She would follow Soames with Coffen and Prance—and make a great mess of her good rose gown, but it couldn’t be helped. She could not face the evening alone in this inhospitable house with the cold grate.

  She felt that they were finally on the right track. Soames had offered for Susan, she had tumbled to his mercenary nature and jilted him; he had taken his revenge by trying to force her into marriage. And if that failed, he still got her money by killing her.... Had he already done it? Pray God they were not too late!

  Chapter Twelve

  Appleby was dim and gloomy, but when Corinne left it, she felt she had stepped into a dark tunnel. A tattered rag of cloud hid the waxing moon. A scattering of stars twinkling bravely in the black velvet sky was pretty but gave poor light. The fresh air was welcome, however. A warm breeze carried the spring scents of blossoms and grass and earth.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she spotted Coffen and Prance, waiting for their mounts, and darted forward to join them. The mounts were brought around, and Prance gave her a lift into the saddle of Susan’s gray cob, Dancer. Prance had brought his mount with him. Coffen rode the aging hack that was kept for Otto but seldom ridden. The three rode down the pebbled drive to the main road.

  “Luten won’t like it, your coming with us,” Coffen said to Corinne, with very little hope of deterring her.

  “He won’t know. He’s gone to Blackmore’s by the back way. We leave by the main road.”

  “In theory, I am against your coming,” Prance said. “But welcome to the chase, cara mia. Did anyone happen to notice which way Soames went?”
<
br />   Coffen said, “I caught a glimpse of him through the trees. He turned right into the park. He’s either taking a shortcut home or he’s up to something. Ride carefully. He’ll hear three horses creeping up behind him. Why don’t you go along to the tavern by the main road as you planned, Reg? If he outwits me, you might pick up the trail and follow him.”

  “Very well, but you must defend me if Luten cuts up stiff.”

  “Don’t know who put him in charge anyhow,” Coffen muttered. A mutiny occasionally broke out in the ranks of the Berkeley Brigade, usually when Luten was not present, and usually amounting to no more than a few grumbling complaints.

  “Nor do I, but you must own he considers himself our chief. You will have more need of this than I.” So saying, he handed Coffen a dark lantern. “Of course, you have a pistol?” he asked. They drew their mounts to a stop.

  “Of course I have,” Coffen replied.

  “With bullets?” Corinne asked.

  “Tobin fixed me up.”

  “Adieu, then,” Prance called. He dug his heels into the side of his showy bay mare and clattered on toward the main road, headed to East Grinstead.

  Corinne and Coffen followed Soames, keeping a good distance behind him. In the shadowy night, Soames was more likely to hear them than see them. He jogged along at a canter for about a mile, obviously not in a great hurry, but not dallying either. Then he veered left behind a hedgerow.

  “That hedgerow is the border between Appleby and McArthur’s farm,” Corinne whispered.

  When they passed through an opening in the hedgerow, Soames had disappeared from view. Coffen scanned McArthur’s meadow. The moon peeped out from behind the clouds. Moonlight silvered the shivering grass and limned one ancient oak in charcoal against the sky. Trees at the far end of the meadow formed a dark, hulking shadow. Willows, they looked like.

  “Must be a stream there,” Coffen said. “P’raps Susan has drowned. We’ll check it out tomorrow in daylight.”

  “The whole area has been searched. There! He’s heading to that building!” Corinne exclaimed softly.

  “I don’t see him.”