by C. S. Harris
“The Turnstalls refused?”
“How could they do otherwise? I tried to reason with her, but Emily remained hopeful she could bring them around. Then, one morning in late August, we went for a walk along the estuary. It came on to rain not long after we left, so we turned back toward the house. A carriage was just pulling away from the gate as we came up. The instant she saw it, Emily started to run. Somehow she knew what was happening, even before we saw the face of her father’s solicitor in the window. She screamed and begged for them to stop, but the coachman only whipped up his horses faster. She ran after the carriage until she could run no farther. Then she simply collapsed in the middle of the road, sobbing.”
Sebastian watched the former governess swallow hard, her hands clenching around the edge of the windowsill before her. He remained silent, waiting until she was able to continue.
“She lay there for what seemed like forever, curled in a ball, hugging herself, while the rain poured down around us. I kept saying, ‘Lady Emily; you must get up. You’ll catch your death.’ Finally she looked at me and said, ‘You think I care?’”
“She took sick?”
“It didn’t seem so at first. I finally persuaded her to let me help her inside. Then she went wild—demanded we return at once to Pleasant Place so that she could confront her father. We left for home that very day. I never knew precisely what passed between them, but I believe she threatened to shame the family and destroy her own reputation by taking out an advertisement in all the London papers proclaiming the child’s birth—and abduction—to the world.”
“Would she have done it?”
“For the sake of the child? Oh, yes. And her father knew it. In the end, they reached a kind of compromise. She agreed to give up the child and keep its birth a secret, and he gave his word that the child would be educated and eventually inherit half of Lady Emily’s dowry—or all of it, should she never marry.”
“So what happened to her?”
“That very night, after her interminable meeting with her father, she collapsed with a raging fever and putrid sore throat. She was dead in a week.”
“Yet he kept his word?”
“He did, yes. There was much not to like about the Second Earl. But he was a man of his word. He genuinely loved his daughter—and mourned her death. He set things up so that even in the event of his own death, his solicitors would see that the child was sent to school at the age of seven, and that her inheritance would be safe from his son, Albert.”
“When did he die?”
“Four years later.”
“The new Lord Heyworth knew of the arrangements?”
“I assume he was told as soon as he came of age, although I can’t say for certain. The truth is, I’ve had little contact with his lordship since Emily’s death. Will asked me to marry him right after the funeral.” Sarah Hanson gave a short, sharp laugh. “Lady Heyworth was beyond horrified when I accepted. She actually tried to forbid me to do any such thing. After all, what would people think when they learned that her children had been taught by the local innkeeper’s wife?”
Sebastian smiled, “What, indeed?” He studied the former governess’s plump, good-natured face. Sarah Hanson might be both better educated and considerably better bred than her innkeeper husband, but the truth was, she’d been extraordinarily lucky to marry him. Most impoverished, aging gentlewomen lived out their lonely lives in fear and want.
Sebastian said, “Did Emma Chandler know who you were when she came here?”
“No. In fact, she registered under the name Emma Chance. But I knew who she was the instant I set eyes on her. She was so very much like her mother—only darker haired, of course.”
“Did you tell her you recognized her as Lady Emily’s daughter?”
“Not at first, no. I was tempted. But it didn’t seem right, putting myself forward like that. She hired Richard to drive her out to Pleasant Park the next morning. She told me later that she knew nothing about Lady Emily; all she knew was that the Turnstalls had been paying her fees at Miss LaMont’s Academy.”
“Did she give her name as Emma Chance when she went out to Pleasant Park?”
“She did, yes. I think she was afraid they’d refuse to see her if she identified herself to the staff as Emma Chandler. And she was right. It was the Dowager who met with her. As soon as Emma told her ladyship her real name, Lady Heyworth flew into a shaking rage. Called the poor girl a brazen, lying hussy and set up such a fuss that the Earl himself came on the run. It was Heyworth who told Emma he’d call the constables if she ever dared show herself near the estate again.”
“Charming.”
Sarah Hanson’s nostrils flared on a deeply indrawn breath. But all she said was, “Alfred Turnstall is very much his mother’s son.”
“Why was Emma given the name Chandler? Do you know?”
“Chandler was the name of the farm family that fostered her for the first seven years. She told me they were very kind to her. She had no idea Molly Chandler wasn’t her mother until one day when a solicitor from Ludlow arrived to carry her off to Miss LaMont’s Academy.” Her voice hardened. “It was such a cruel, heartless thing to do.”
“Yes,” said Sebastian.
It explained how the Turnstalls had known the reason for Sebastian’s arrival. Even if they hadn’t been closely following events in the papers, they would know that “Emma Chance” was really Emma Chandler. And with all the talk generated in the region by the Ayleswick murders, they would also know that Sebastian was investigating her death.
“When Emma came back from the park,” Sarah Hanson was saying, “she was devastated—both because of the way they’d treated her and because they’d refused to tell her what she was so desperate to know.”
“You mean, the names of her mother and father?”
“Yes. She broke down crying on the stairs up to her room.”
“And that’s when you told her what you knew and showed her the letter?”
“Yes.” Sarah Hanson turned to look at him, her face stricken. “I wish to God I hadn’t. It’s why she went to Ayleswick, isn’t it? She was trying to figure out who her father was. She went there, and now she’s dead.”
“How did she react when you showed her Lady Emily’s letter?”
“At first, she was excited to read it. But by the time she finished, she was pale and shaking. If anything, she seemed more devastated than when she’d returned from Pleasant Park—although I could never understand why.”
“She didn’t tell you she was in love with a young man from Ayleswick?”
He read the dawning comprehension and horror in her eyes. “Dear God, no. What was his name?”
“Crispin, Lord Seaton—the son of one of the men who may have raped her mother.”
Chapter 37
Monday, 9 August
Early the next morning, before he left the village of Kirby, Sebastian visited the small fifteenth-century church with its flying buttresses and fan vaulting and soaring stained-glass windows.
Even in death, the grand inhabitants of Pleasant Park refused to mingle with the common folk of the village. Rather than be buried in the churchyard, generations of Turnstalls lay in a private crypt beneath their own chapel in the north transept. An ornate jewel of Italian marble, delicate tracery, and masterfully carved, life-sized effigies, the chapel was crowded with memorials to past generations of Turnstalls, some extraordinarily ornate and pretentious, others less so.
Emma’s mother had warranted only a small brass plaque inscribed, LADY EMILY TURNSTALL, MAY 1775–AUGUST 1792.
Pausing before it, Sebastian ran his fingertips along the engraved letters and felt the tragedy of the young woman’s death hollow him out inside. How many women? he wondered. As one century followed the next, on down through the ages, how many women had seen their lives shattered by an unintended pregnancy that ran afo
ul of their society’s cruel, unforgiving conventions?
He wondered if Emma Chandler had come here to the church before she left the village. From Sarah Hanson she would have heard the answer to two of the questions that had haunted her since childhood: She would have learned the name of the woman who had given her life and she would know that her mother had both loved her and wanted desperately to keep her.
Yet the discovery would have been bittersweet, for the mother she had sought was long dead, never to be seen or touched. Standing here, reading her mother’s stark memorial, she would have felt the awful finality of it, the inescapable sadness of realizing she would never know her mother’s smile, never breathe in the scent of her skin or hear the sound of her laughter. Never hear her say, I love you.
And he wondered, had anyone ever said those words to Emma before Crispin Seaton? Probably not since she’d been dragged away from the happy farm of the couple who had given her their last name. What would it have done to her to read her mother’s letter and realize that she might lose Crispin too? There were seven men mentioned in Emily’s letter. The odds were slim that her mother’s rapist would turn out to be the father of the man Emma loved. Yet the chance was there.
She could have decided to ignore what she’d learned, turned her back on the past, and embraced the future she surely wanted. Instead, she’d been driven to learn the truth. Disregarding her society’s conventions, she’d disguised herself as a widow on a sketching expedition and gone to Ayleswick.
Had Emma somehow discovered the information she sought? Sebastian wondered. Was that why she had died? Had her reappearance in her father’s life threatened the guilty man so much that he had killed her? Killed his own daughter?
It was possible. Horrifying, but definitely possible.
Chapter 38
Shortly after breakfast, Hero left Simon with Claire and took the shady path that rambled through stands of old-growth oak and beech, to the water meadows.
It had rained during the night. But now the air was clear and fresh with the new day, the sunlight filtering down through the leafy branches overhead golden and warm. Wrapping her arms around her bent knees, Hero sat on the moss-covered log where Emma’s body had been found and stared out at the slow-moving river. Devlin was right; there was nothing particularly picturesque or unusual about this stretch of the Teme. So why had Emma Chandler’s killer chosen this spot to stage her suicide?
Why?
A hawk circled overhead, riding an updraft, and Hero tipped back her head, watching it. The silence and isolation of the place settled heavily upon her. She could hear nothing but the sigh of a faint breeze through the treetops and the whine of unseen insects. Then a boy called to his dog somewhere on the opposite bank, and the moment was broken.
“What happened to you?” she whispered, as if the dead woman’s spirit still lingered there, haunting this place. “What, and why?”
Why would someone kill an unknown young woman? Lust was the obvious answer, except the girl hadn’t been violated and there were no signs that she had been killed trying to resist a sexual assault. Which suggested that either the killer knew exactly who she was and why she had come to this small, out-of-the-way village, or . . .
Or her identity was meaningless and she’d died simply because she’d somehow seen or learned something her killer didn’t want known.
Hero was contemplating this last possibility when she became aware of a strange sensation creeping over her, tense and unsettling.
She was being watched.
Holding herself very still, she glanced around the water meadow, her gaze raking the reeds down by the river and the tangled undergrowth of the stand of alders and willows that pressed in close. She was not a fanciful woman, but she profoundly regretted not bringing her pistol with her. She was searching about for a stout stick when a vague rustling drew her attention to a nearby patch of blackberries.
“Hullo,” she said, recognizing the short, squat man barely visible through the brambles. “It’s Reuben, isn’t it? Reuben Dickie?”
“Aye, ma’am.” He stepped reluctantly from behind the blackberries, obviously discomfited to have been seen. And she wondered how often he did this—watched people quietly, without their knowing.
“Why were you watching me?” she asked with a smile. She hoped the smile didn’t come off looking as tight and forced as it felt.
He touched his forelock and bobbed his head. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it, ma’am.”
“Do you come here often?”
“Sometimes.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. She realized that his other hand gripped a small book, elegantly bound in blue leather. But he was holding it awkwardly against his leg, as if anxious to hide it from her view.
“You have a book, I see,” she said, still smiling.
“What? Oh, aye, ma’am.” His small eyes slid away.
“Where did you get it?”
“Found it, I did.”
“Oh? Where?”
“I dunno. Just found it.”
“When?”
“When? Few days ago, I reckon.”
“It looks like a lovely book. May I see it?” She held out her hand, and though he hesitated, she kept her hand out and gave him a stern look.
He stumbled forward and surrendered the book.
Somehow she knew, even before she saw it, what she would find engraved in gold lettering on the spine.
Hamlet. William Shakespeare.
She opened the book to the last page with hands that were not quite steady. Where the final words of the play should have been was now only a gaping hole. The last sentence had been neatly sliced away by a knife.
“Where did you say you found it?” Hero asked again, flipping to the inside front cover.
“I dunno. Always finding things, I am. Things other folks throw away.”
“You think someone threw this away? It’s a lovely book.”
“Well, they must’ve, else how would I have found it?”
“Only you don’t remember where?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Was it around here?”
“Oh, no, ma’am.”
“How can you be certain, if you don’t—”
Hero broke off, her attention arrested by the owner’s name written in a small, cramped script on the flyleaf.
The Reverend Benedict Ainsley Underwood.
“I had no idea it was missing,” said the Reverend, staring down at the small, leather-bound volume in his hands. “You say Reuben claims to have found it?”
“You think he might not be telling the truth?” asked Hero.
They were seated in the Reverend’s book-lined study overlooking the churchyard. An ornate ormolu clock on the mantel ticked loudly in the sudden silence. The Reverend cleared his throat. “Let’s just say that Reuben sometimes invents his own truths.”
“He also claims not to remember precisely where he found it.”
“Yes, well, that doesn’t surprise me. There’s nothing wrong with Reuben’s memory. But if he thinks he might be in trouble, he is not above playing up his mental deficiencies for sympathy.”
“Why would he think he might be in trouble?”
The vicar exhaled a long, pained breath. “Some years ago, when he was younger, Reuben . . . Let’s just say he had a habit of roaming at night and peeking into people’s windows, especially cottages with pretty young girls. The old Squire, he told Reuben he was going to put him in the stocks if he was caught doing anything like that again—forbade him ever to be out after dark, in fact. But I’m afraid he does still go out at night, probably far more than anyone realizes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he found the book on one of his illicit midnight sojourns and that’s why he won’t admit to remembering anything.”
Hero thought about the night she and Devlin had seen
Reuben on the village green, and the way his brother, Jeb, had come out to coax him back inside.
The vicar ran his fingertips along the small book’s spine. “It’s disconcerting—frightening, even—to think that poor young woman’s killer could actually have been here, in my house . . . stealing my books. . . .”
“When do you think the book was taken?”
“I’ve no idea. It’s been several years since I last read Hamlet. It could have been gone for some time without my knowing it.” He rose to inspect a shelf that Hero saw contained a row of several dozen small, similarly bound volumes. They must have been tightly packed in before, because the space left by the missing play was not obvious.
“Have any others been taken?” she asked.
He stooped to inspect the titles. “Doesn’t look like it, no.” He straightened and cast a bewildered look at the towering, crowded cases around them. “Although I can’t with any honesty say nothing has been taken from any of the other shelves.”
“You have an impressive collection,” said Hero.
The Reverend smiled with obvious pride. “Thank you.”
“Do you remember who might have been in here last Sunday or Monday?”
“You mean around the time that unfortunate woman was killed?” He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. One day does tend to blend into the next.”
“Could you perhaps recall the names of those who might have been here in the last several weeks?”
He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Perhaps. But . . . I really don’t think I ought to be providing such information to anyone. We may not be Papists, but we are still bound by the sanctity of the confessional.”
She shifted her gaze to the window and the expanse of worn, leaning headstones that stretched beyond it. “I’m told Sybil Moss is buried in your churchyard.”