When Falcons Fall

by C. S. Harris

  “Sybil?” Underwood’s face went slack with puzzlement. “She is, yes. Why do you ask?”

  “I’d like to see her grave.”

  Chapter 39

  Hero stood beside the low, lichen-covered wall separating the churchyard from the rocky hillside above. The weathered gray stone at her feet was small and unmarked, with a freshly picked bunch of lavender resting against it.

  She pressed the fingers of one hand against her lips as she felt an oppressive sadness wash over her. She could think of no greater sorrow for a mother than to bury her child. The very air here seemed heavy with despair, as if Anne Moss’s grief clung to this place, keeping her dead child company even when she was elsewhere.

  The angry caw of a blackbird cut through the silence. Hero looked up to see a tall, lean gentleman in doeskin breeches and an exquisitely tailored coat working his way toward her through the scattered tombs. There was dust on his fashionable beaver hat and traces of mud on his black top boots, and she waited until he came right up to her before saying, “How many miles have you driven in the last several days?”

  “Too many,” said Devlin, and swept her into his arms.

  It was a raw kiss, full of want and need, and probably totally inappropriate for a churchyard. And she knew then that whatever he’d discovered had left him troubled and unsettled.

  He let his hands slide down her arms, his forehead resting against hers for a moment before he released her.

  He nodded to the small, plain marker beside her. “Whose grave is this?”

  “Sybil Moss’s.”

  “So she wasn’t buried at the crossroads after all.”

  “No. The vicar managed to convince the jury she wasn’t in her right mind.” Hero paused. “The other girl, Hannah, wasn’t as lucky.”

  She was aware of him studying her face and wondered what he saw there. “You still think the deaths of those two young women are linked to what happened to Emma?”

  “Yes. Although I can’t understand how.”

  He reached out to take her hand in his. “I think I may have an idea.”

  They sat beneath a gnarled old yew on a bench looking out over the churchyard’s undulating turf and ancient, timeworn gravestones. He told her what he had learned about the woman called Emma Chandler and the tragic young earl’s daughter who had given her birth.

  “That poor girl,” said Hero when he had finished.

  “Which one? Lady Emily or her daughter?”

  “Both, actually. I never cared for Lady Heyworth. But I hadn’t realized quite how despicable she actually is.”

  “‘To coddle the fruits of sin is to condone the act that created them,’” quoted Devlin.

  “She said that?”

  “No; that was Miss Rowena LaMont.”

  “Lovely.”

  She understood now why what he’d discovered about Emma Chandler had affected him so profoundly. Like Devlin, Emma had been desperate to learn the truth about her birth and had come to this seemingly quiet, picturesque village on a quest to discover the identity of the unknown man who had fathered her.

  “Is that why Emma crossed Squire Rawlins’s name off her list?” said Hero. “Because she was actually looking for Archie’s father and she realized the man was dead?”

  “Except she didn’t cross off Lord Seaton’s name even though she knew before she came here that he’s dead too. She crossed off Atwater, although he’s still very much alive. And she drew Archie’s portrait, remember?”

  Hero thought about the way she herself had scrutinized the paintings in the Long Gallery at Northcott Abbey, searching for some elusive trace of resemblance between Sebastian and those centuries of long-dead Seatons. “Emma was an artist, accustomed to analyzing her subjects’ facial features. Perhaps that’s why she drew Archie—because she was looking for a likeness between him and herself, and she eliminated him when she didn’t find it.”

  “It’s possible. Or perhaps she crossed him off her list when she discovered the old Squire was as fair as his son.”

  “Was he?”

  “I don’t know. But Atwater is sandy haired.”

  Hero lifted her gaze to the ruins of the old medieval watchtower on the hilltop above them. “Sybil’s mother doesn’t believe her daughter killed herself—she says the girl was proud of the baby she was carrying. Although of course that could have changed very quickly if the baby’s father rejected her, which is quite likely if he was a gentleman.”

  “Was he?”

  “Her mother thought so.”

  “What about the other girl?”

  “Hannah Grant? If she was with child, her mother didn’t know about it. But they never did a postmortem, so she might have been.” Hero stared out over the scattered gravestones, more sparse on this, the north side of the church. The north was traditionally considered unlucky, so people didn’t like to be buried there. “You think the same man could have killed all three young women? Sybil and Hannah because they were carrying his child, and Emma because she was his child?”

  Devlin squinted against the westering sun. “If he did, then our list of possible suspects has just been reduced to two: the Reverend Underwood and Major Weston.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

  “Atwater is fair-haired; Seaton and Rawlins are dead; and I can’t see anyone else in the village caring how many chance children he begets—or being educated enough to come up with an appropriate Shakespearean quote. Thanks to the old schoolmaster Archie’s father brought in, a fair number of the villagers are literate. But I doubt any of them are devotees of Elizabethan plays.”

  Hero said, “Not only is Atwater fair, but according to Anne Moss, he’s been desperately in love with Lady Seaton ever since he came here as steward. And when I think about the way he looked at her at dinner, I believe it.”

  “Which brings us back to Weston and Underwood.”

  She told him then about the discovery of the vicar’s copy of Hamlet. “Underwood claims someone must have taken the book from his library.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I don’t know. Sybil’s mother told me the vicar has always had an eye for pretty girls. Which is interesting because the vicar himself used the exact same phrase—pretty girls—when we were talking about Reuben Dickie. Seems Reuben has a nasty habit of peeking though the windows of cottages with attractive young women. He’s not supposed to go out after dark, but as we know, he does.”

  “Interesting. Have you told Archie?”

  She shook her head. “He’s gone off to Ludlow in search of Emma Chandler’s solicitors.”

  The bell in the church tower began to peal, slowly counting out the hour as Devlin rose to his feet. “I think I need to have a little chat with Reuben Dickie. He knows damned well where he found that book.”

  Hero rose with him. “What I don’t understand is, why would he lie?”

  “I suspect the answer to that depends on where he actually found it.”

  Chapter 40

  The village pump house was empty, the green deserted except for a couple of fat, waddling ducks that quacked at Sebastian as he stood for a moment beside the weathered old building. Then he went to knock at the last of that line of half-timbered, thatched cottages overlooking the broad expanse of turf.

  The door was opened by a slight, aging woman with a deeply lined face and white hair so thin it showed the pink scalp beneath. At the sight of Sebastian, she sucked in a startled breath and bobbed an awkward curtsy. The room behind her was small and low ceilinged, with dark, heavy beams and a vast, old-fashioned stone hearth from which rose the pleasant aroma of stewing mutton and onions.

  “Mrs. Dickie?” said Sebastian with a smile as he politely doffed his hat. “Sorry for disturbing you, but I’m looking for your son Reuben.”

  “Reuben?” She clutched the edge
of the door with gnarled, arthritic hands. “What’s he done?”

  “Nothing. I simply had some questions I wished to ask him.”

  “He’s usually at the—” She broke off, her eyes narrowing as she gazed beyond him, to the pump house. “Oh.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where he might have gone?”

  Her gaze met his, then slid away. “He likes to wander, ye know. Always goin’ off, he is. But he should be back by dinnertime. He does like his dinner, our Reuben. Ye want I should tell him yer lookin’ for him, my lord?”

  “That would be helpful. Thank you.”

  She bobbed another curtsy. But her face was tight, her eyes pinched with a fear that was both furtive and telling.

  Hiring a hack from Martin McBroom’s stables, Sebastian rode out to the former Dower House of Maplethorpe Hall.

  He could see Liv Weston deadheading spent blooms in the long border when he reined in before the house’s simple portico. She had an unfashionable straw hat tied over her fair hair and an apron protecting her serviceable, faded gown of dark blue muslin; a deep, weathered basket hung by its handle on one crooked arm.

  “My husband isn’t here,” she said when Sebastian left his horse in the groom’s care and walked up to her.

  “Actually, I’d like to speak with you, if you don’t mind.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Why would I mind?”

  Her face was faintly lined and browned from her days spent in the garden, her nose small and upturned, her cheeks rosy. She didn’t strike Sebastian as the type of woman who would succumb to a fit of the vapors if she chanced to overhear her husband discussing an unknown woman’s murder. So why had Weston been so anxious that first day to keep Sebastian away from his wife?

  He said, “We’ve recently discovered that Emma Chance—or rather, Chandler—was the natural daughter of Lady Emily Turnstall. I understand you knew her.”

  Liv Weston’s face went slack with surprise. “Emily? I knew her, yes. We were in school together for a year, in Hereford. I had no idea she—” She broke off, her breath hitching. “Dear God, is that how Emily died? In childbirth?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “No. Although it wasn’t long afterward. When was the last time you saw her?”

  “It must have been . . .” She paused, thoughtful. “Yes—it was at a house party my parents gave the autumn before she died.”

  “Did she ever contact you after that?”

  “She wrote to thank us, of course. But when I sent her a letter several weeks later, she never answered.” Liv Weston was silent a moment, obviously doing sums in her head. “When was her child born?”

  “Late May. I’m told it came some weeks early.”

  Sebastian watched as a strange hardness crept over her features. “Who fathered her child? Do you know?”

  “No. It’s why Emma Chandler was here, in Ayleswick; she was trying to find out. Did you not recognize her? She resembled her mother quite strongly.”

  Liv Weston shook her head. “No. To be honest, I have only the vaguest recollections of what Emily looked like. It’s been so long. But . . . good heavens. Are you suggesting that’s why the young woman was killed?”

  He met her gaze squarely. “I think it a strong possibility, yes. How well do you remember that September? Do you have any idea who might have fathered Lady Emily’s child?”

  “Honestly? No. I was seventeen and very much wrapped up in my own affairs, while Emily . . . She was quite pretty, you know. Pretty and fabulously wellborn as well as wealthy. I remember being rather envious of all the admiration and attention she attracted from everyone without even trying.” She paused. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “Yet you invited her.”

  “I did, yes. We were friends at school. I liked her. But that didn’t stop me from being jealous once I saw how all the gentlemen reacted to her. When I heard that next summer that she had died, I felt . . . very small.”

  It was a startlingly frank admission. Liv Weston was obviously one of those rare people who had no difficulty acknowledging her faults. In that, she was most unlike her husband.

  Sebastian said, “Whoever fathered Lady Emily’s child forced her.”

  “Please tell me it wasn’t someone at our house party.”

  “Not a houseguest, no. She told her governess it was someone who lived in the area.”

  Liv Weston was silent again, and he knew she was running through the possibilities in her mind. Had she noticed Major Weston’s long-ago flirtation with the pretty young earl’s daughter? Sebastian wondered.

  Surely she had.

  He said, “Do you remember anything—anything at all—from those days that might help make sense out of what is happening now?”

  “Not really. You know what house parties are like. Lots of harmless flirting and some not-so-harmless affairs.” She let the basket slide down her arm to her hand and set it on the grass path at her feet, the secateurs resting atop the cuttings. She straightened slowly, the fingers of her hands knit together before her. “There is one thing. . . . Emily had what I thought at the time a rather strange fascination with a boy down at the Ship.”

  “You mean, Jude Lowe?”

  She shook her head. “No, not Lowe; his brother. He was slightly younger than she was, but so very attractive. It was as if she were obsessed with him. I remember he had the strangest yellow eyes; I’d never seen anything like them. I mean . . .” She stared at Sebastian, a faint touch of color riding high on her cheeks, then looked pointedly away.

  He said, “You mean Jamie Knox?” Knox wasn’t actually Lowe’s brother. But the two had been raised together like brothers, and Sebastian could see Liv Weston making the mistake.

  “Yes, that was his name. He went away a few years later, after the trouble we had. Frankly, I was glad to see the back of him. He may have been young, but he was dangerous. If anyone forced Emily, I’d say it was him. Jamie Knox.”

  Sebastian was seated at a table near the front leaded window of the Ship’s public room, a tankard of ale before him, when Lowe came to pull out the opposite chair, turn it around, and straddle it.

  “I hear you’ve been away for a few days,” said the publican, resting his forearms along the chair’s back.

  Sebastian took a long swallow of his ale. “I have.”

  “And did you discover what you were looking for?”

  “Partially.” Sebastian set the tankard aside. “What can you tell me about the deaths of Sybil Moss and Hannah Grant?”

  Lowe regarded him fixedly for a moment before answering. “Why are you asking about things that happened fifteen years ago?”

  “Because I’m not convinced their deaths were suicides.”

  Lowe blew out a long, harsh breath. “You and a fair number of other people.”

  “Oh? How well did you know them?”

  “Well enough. I was more than a bit sweet on Hannah when I was a lad, and Sybil was my niece.”

  “Anne Moss is your sister?”

  “My half sister, yes.”

  Sebastian was reminded, again, of just how interwoven the relationships between the inhabitants of a small, isolated village like this could be. “Do you know who the girls were seeing?”

  “Everybody knew. It wasn’t as if he ever tried to hide it.”

  “He?”

  “Seaton—the present lord’s father. Acted like he had some sort of medieval droit du seigneur over the prettiest girls in the village. Most of them lay with him willingly enough. But he wasn’t above forcing those who resisted.”

  Sebastian studied the publican’s lean, dark face. “You think he could have killed them?”

  Lowe shrugged. “Somebody did. I always figured he was as likely as anyone else.”

  “What manner of man was he?”

  “Leopold Seaton? Arr
ogant. Selfish. Thought the world owed him anything and everything he ever wanted. He was a rich lord—came into his inheritance when he was quite young. What do you suppose he was like?”

  Sebastian sipped his ale. “You wouldn’t happen to recall a young gentlewoman named Lady Emily Turnstall? She was a guest at one of the Irvings’ house parties back in the early nineties.”

  The publican’s mouth twisted in wry amusement. “Me and the Irvings, we were never exactly on visiting terms, you know.”

  “I’m told she was rather taken with Jamie Knox.”

  Lowe held himself very still. “Ah. I think maybe I do remember the lass, though I couldn’t have told you her name or even what she looked like. She wanted Jamie to let her draw his picture.”

  “And did he?”

  “He did, yes.”

  “Was she a good artist?”

  “Not bad. Nothing near as impressive as the young widow was killed last week, mind you. But not bad.”

  Emma’s artistic ability obviously hadn’t come from her mother. So where had it come from? Sebastian wondered. Or had it been a gift, a talent that was uniquely her own?

  “What’s she got to do with anything?” asked Lowe.

  “Perhaps nothing.”

  Lowe grunted. “Right. That’s why you’re asking about her, is it?”

  Sebastian ran one finger up and down the side of his tankard. “Why did Knox leave Ayleswick?”

  “M’mother told him to go. She was afraid he was gonna end up like Alex.”

  “You mean Alex Dalyrimple?”

  “Aye.”

  “Who cut Dalyrimple down?”

  Lowe’s hard gaze met Sebastian’s and held it. “He was Jenny’s husband. You think we were going to leave him up there to rot?” He looked around as two carters came into the public room, covered with dust from the road and calling loudly for ale.

  Sebastian kept his gaze on the tavern keeper. “Is it true what they say? That he was conspiring with the French?”

  “True?” Lowe gave a mirthless laugh. “Since when did the Crown ever care about the truth of their charges? Oh, Alex was a member of the local Corresponding Society; he never denied that. Thought every man should have the right to vote and even run for Parliament, if he wanted. That’s a far cry from ‘conspiring’ with the French. But a lot more dangerous when it comes right down to it, don’t you think?”