by C. S. Harris
“But you do sometimes, don’t you?”
Reuben shook his head again, harder and faster this time. “Things happen at night. Things people don’t want you to see.”
“Oh? Such as?”
Reuben quit shaking his head as a sly smile crept over his features. “You don’t know, do you? You think I’m so stupid, but there’s lots of things I knows that you don’t.”
Sebastian leaned against one of the pump house’s worn columns and crossed his arms at his chest. “If I wanted to find out about those things, where would you suggest I look?”
Reuben’s tongue crept out to lick his lips. “Depends what things you want to know about.”
Sebastian simply stared at Reuben expectantly, and after a moment his silence goaded the other man into saying, “Ain’t nothin’ there now, but if you’d looked in Maplethorpe Hall’s old carriage house a few days ago, ye might’ve seen somethin’.”
“How many days ago?”
“Oh, maybe around the time that pretty young widow was kilt,” Reuben said airily, and went back to his whittling.
Sebastian watched the man’s short, incredibly deft fingers peel away curls of wood to reveal what he now realized was a badger.
“Saw her, too, you know,” said Reuben abruptly.
“You mean, the night before she was killed?”
Reuben sucked his lower lip between his small, oddly spaced teeth as he focused on his carving. “I ain’t allowed out at night, remember? But she was up real early that mornin’.”
“You saw Emma Chandler on Monday morning?”
Reuben kept his attention focused on his carving. “Mm-hmm.”
“Did she have her sketchbook with her?”
“What’s a sketchbook?”
“The notebook she drew pictures in.” Was it significant, Sebastian wondered, that Reuben hadn’t asked, What’s a sketchbook? when Sebastian first inquired after it?
“Reckon she did,” said Reuben.
“Where did you see her, Reuben? And don’t pretend you don’t remember, because I won’t believe you.”
Sebastian said it with just enough menace in his voice that Reuben’s hands went slack, the knife tumbling from his grasp as his mouth formed a startled “O.”
“The old pack bridge, down past Maplethorpe,” he said in a rush, scrambling after his knife. “She was paintin’ a picture of it in that notebook of hers. What’d you call it?”
“A sketchbook. Did you speak with her?”
“Jist to say she was up awful early.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she hadn’t been able to sleep, so she figured she may as well come paint the sunrise.”
“At the pack bridge?”
Reuben nodded vigorously. “Said it was real pretty, she did.”
A single arch of dark, old red brick, the pack bridge was a relic of an earlier age, when England’s roads were so abysmal that most goods were hauled across country not in wagons or by canals, but on pack animals. Its track was narrow and seldom used now, but not entirely abandoned.
Sebastian stood on the grassy bank of the River Teme, the tip of his riding crop tapping against his high-topped boots. The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, the air heavy with the scent of the mint that grew in the dark, damp shadows of the bridge.
It was an out-of-the-way, deserted place for a young woman to visit alone, even in broad daylight. What the hell had possessed Emma to come here early on the morning of the day she was fated to die?
He climbed back up the bank to where he had left his rented hack, his gaze narrowing as he turned again to study the track that crossed the bridge and disappeared into the wasteland on the opposite bank. A marshy, uncultivated stretch of bracken and scrub, it extended as far as he could see. But somewhere to the south, he knew, lay the estuary of the River Severn and Bristol Channel and, beyond that, the North Atlantic Ocean.
And France.
Maplethorpe’s caretaker-gardener, Silas Madden, was weeding a bed at the far end of the water garden when Sebastian turned into the old hall’s once grand, formal drive.
Sebastian continued on around the ruined, blackened walls of the burned house to where the stable block and carriage house still stood. He dismounted, his gaze on the wagon ruts he’d noticed that first day, dry and crumbling now in the heat of the afternoon. From the distance came a man’s shout.
Sebastian ignored him.
A long, narrow structure built of the same red brick as the burned hall, the carriage house was quite large, with a row of six arched double doors. Each door sported a well-oiled and surprisingly heavy hasp and padlock, although most of the locks hung open.
Ain’t nothin’ there now, Reuben had said.
Sebastian thrust open the first set of doors, the afternoon sun throwing his shadow before him across the beaten-earth floor. It was a cavernous space, once home to traveling carriages, tilburies, whiskies, and dogcarts, but empty now except for a pile of discarded sacking, some cracked old harness hanging on a wall, and several bales of hay that looked very new indeed. A number of incongruous but undeniable scents lingered in the dusty air—pungent aromas left by recent stores of tobacco, wine, and brandy.
A noise from the near door brought Sebastian’s head around. His gaze met Silas’s.
“Tell Weston I want to see him,” said Sebastian. “Here. Now.”
Chapter 44
Major Eugene Weston arrived in less than ten minutes.
By then Sebastian was seated on a stone bench in the lea of one of the garden’s high yew hedges. The major came striding up the track through the spinney, arms swinging, face red from a combination of physical exertion and righteous indignation. He drew up abruptly at the sight of Sebastian.
“I say,” blustered Weston, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “It’s not exactly the done thing, now, is it? Poking about without anybody’s leave? Sending a man messages by his servants? How would you like it if—”
“In my experience,” said Sebastian, crossing his arms at his chest and leaning back in his seat, “smuggling gangs have a nasty habit of turning lethal when they find themselves in danger of being exposed. Is that what happened? Did Emma Chandler accidently stumble into your little operation here? Is that why you killed her?”
“Kill her? Me? What a preposterous notion. And as for smuggling . . .” Weston gave a tinny laugh. “This isn’t exactly Cornwall or Kent.”
“True. Which makes it so much easier to maneuver, doesn’t it? Far more comfortable to land your goods near Newport or Chepstow without all those annoying revenue officers sticking their noses into everything. Part of each cargo is probably sent directly to Hereford and Worcestershire, while from here you can supply all of Shropshire and a good section of the hills of eastern Wales, as well.”
Weston gave Sebastian a wooden stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sebastian heaved a pained sigh, his gaze on the major’s flushed, sweaty face. “You basically have two options: You can tell me what I need to know, or you can answer some decidedly awkward questions posed by His Majesty’s revenue men.”
Weston spread his arms wide and smiled. “There is nothing here for anyone to find.”
“Not now. But that can be fixed.”
The smile slid off the major’s face. “What does that mean?”
“Use your imagination. And if you take one more step, Silas,” Sebastian added calmly as he shifted his weight to draw a small, double-barreled flintlock pistol from his pocket, “I’ll blow your bloody head off. First yours, and then the major’s.”
Silas, who had been sidling toward him along the hedge with a pitchfork gripped purposefully in his hands, froze as Sebastian pulled back both hammers with an audible click.
Weston turned a sickly shade. “That will be all, Silas,” he said, his voice whee
zing. “Thank you.”
For a moment, Silas looked as if he might balk. Then he shouldered his pitchfork and turned toward the stables.
Sebastian shifted the muzzle of his pistol to the major. “Make up your mind. I don’t have all afternoon.”
Weston waited until the caretaker was out of earshot, then cleared his throat, a tic spasming the flesh beside his right eye. “I have your word as a gentleman that if I answer your questions, you won’t inform the revenue men?”
“Not unless I discover Emma Chandler was killed because of your little adventure.”
Weston licked his dry lips. “What do you want to know?”
“What night did your latest cargo arrive?”
“A week ago yesterday.”
“Sunday night?”
“Yes.”
“And you sent it on again when?”
“The next night.”
“So, Monday?”
Weston nodded, his jaw thrust forward in a way that pursed his lips.
The shipment would have been brought in from the estuary by packhorses, then reloaded here into wagons and sent on its way buried beneath grain or some other legitimate product. And Sebastian found himself thinking about Reuben Dickie’s brother, Jeb, and the shipment of timber he’d recently hauled to Wales.
“That’s the night Emma Chance was killed,” said Sebastian.
“Yes. But the one has nothing to do with the other. Absolutely nothing.”
“Emma Chance didn’t come back here again that evening and see something you didn’t want her to see?”
“Of course not. How careless do you imagine we are?”
“And you’re certain the shipment wasn’t already in the carriage house the day she came to sketch the hall?”
“No! I tell you, it arrived that night, long after she’d finished and gone away. Besides, Silas was watching her the entire time she was here, just in case she got too curious.”
“Pitchfork at the ready, one assumes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And the next night? What time did the wagons leave?”
“Just before dawn—so Tuesday morning, actually. Any earlier and there’s always a danger of arousing suspicions.”
“Were you here Sunday night?”
“Good God, no. You don’t seriously think I deal with any of this myself?”
“No,” said Sebastian.
Weston’s role was undoubtedly minimal and would extend little beyond supplying the critically necessary funds. Smuggling was a lucrative but capital-intensive business. Because customers paid for their smuggled goods only on delivery, the money to finance each run up front had to come from the likes of merchants and landowners—wealthy men who risked their investment but not their lives.
The real dangers were run by others: by the crews of the black-hulled cutters that plied the channel; by the fishermen who ferried the cargo ashore in their small boats; by the impoverished, starving countryfolk who served as tubmen and batsmen, or who guided ponies loaded with ankers of brandy and wine or oilskin-wrapped packets of tobacco, silk, and lace. Moving under cover of darkness from one isolated safe house to the next, they were the ones who ferried the goods inland, the hooves of their pack animals muffled with rags. They were the ones who faced death or transportation if caught.
But while their risks were high, they were paid pennies. The handsome profits generated by their labors were pocketed by men like Weston, who were seldom caught. Yes, he allowed the old hall’s carriage house to function as a way station. But if it were ever discovered, he could simply claim it was used without his permission or knowledge. The actual management of the operation would be handled by someone else—someone with the kind of skills needed to negotiate with ships’ captains and coordinate the laborers who actually moved the goods. Someone who probably didn’t even live in Ayleswick.
“What about Monday night?” said Sebastian. “Were you here then?”
“Of course not. What do you think? That I plow my own fields and shear my own sheep as well?”
“So how do you know what actually happened on either night?”
“Because I would have been told, had anything untoward occurred.”
“Silas handles everything here, does he?”
“He’s very reliable.”
“I’ve no doubt that he is,” said Sebastian. “How long have you been dabbling in the free trade?”
Weston’s jaw jutted out mulishly. “What the devil business is it of yours?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet. “If you’d rather answer the questions of His Majesty’s revenue men—”
“Fifteen years,” snapped Weston. “What else was I to do, after Liv wheedled her father into leaving his will the way he did? He was in his dotage by then, you know. The will never should have been allowed to stand, but it was. So what would you have me live on? Pin money doled out by my own wife, just so she can waste the ready on her damned gardens? I had no choice!”
“It’s her fault, is it?”
“Of course it is!” Weston stared at him, eyes wide, nostrils flaring with his hard, quick breaths.
Sebastian studied the man’s flushed, overfed countenance. “Do you remember a young woman named Lady Emily Turnstall?”
Weston looked confused. “Who?”
“Lady Emily Turnstall. She attended a house party given by the Irvings in September of 1791. She was just sixteen, and very pretty.”
Weston huffed a disbelieving laugh. “Do you seriously think I remember every green girl I ever met?”
“She was the daughter of the Earl of Heyworth. Quite richly dowered.”
Weston shook his head. “Sorry. If I ever met her, I don’t recall it. What has she to do with anything?”
“How about Alex Dalyrimple?” said Sebastian, ignoring the question. “The man who was gibbeted in 1793. You do recall him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Radical bastard. If you ask me, he should have been drawn and quartered as well as gibbeted.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? The brute terrorized the entire parish for months. If he’d had his way, they’d have set up a guillotine on the village green! No man or woman of birth or breeding would have been spared.”
“Took it personally, did you?”
“Who wouldn’t take it personally?”
His tone was one of moral outrage. But there was an element of bluster there too, that told Sebastian the man was being less than honest.
About any number of things.
Chapter 45
The discovery that Ayleswick was part of an established smuggling conduit opened up a disturbing new possibility.
Free traders had long been used by both London and Paris to secretly slip men and messages back and forth across the Channel. And Sebastian had no doubt that Paris had moved quickly to exploit a smuggling operation that was already in existence when Lucien Bonaparte arrived in Shropshire as a paroled prisoner of war. From his days as an exploring officer, Sebastian knew enough about the way these things worked to have a pretty good understanding of how messages would move along the route, first to Ayleswick, and then to whatever trusted courier finally delivered the sealed packets to Bonaparte himself.
It was possible Eugene Weston knew his smuggling operation was being exploited by Paris, although Sebastian found that unlikely; the man’s role was that of financier and nothing more. Yet given the distance of some thirty or more miles between Ayleswick and the Bonapartes’ estate in Worcestershire, forwarding such messages would have been both time-consuming and delicate. Was that the real reason Lucien had brought his family to spend the summer at Northcott Abbey? To be in closer contact with Paris now that the situation on the Continent was sliding toward disaster? Were the repairs to his estate simply a convenient excuse? And if so, what was
Lady Seaton’s role in all this? Did she know of her guests’ contact with Paris? Or was she simply being used?
Pondering the possibilities, Sebastian rode through the village, then spurred his horse on to Northcott Abbey. As he rounded a bend thickly planted with rhododendrons, a vista opened up before him and he found himself looking down on the ornamental lake, its normally placid, reflective surface now ruffled by a stiffening breeze. A familiar figure clothed in breeches, high-top boots, and a well-tailored coat paced back and forth before the picturesquely sited Roman temple.
Sebastian checked for a moment, then wheeled his horse down the slope toward the lake.
The drum of hoofbeats brought Lucien Bonaparte around, his brow furrowed with the agonies of poetic composition. But at the sight of Sebastian, his face cleared. “Good afternoon, my lord! This is a pleasant surprise.”
Sebastian swung from the saddle and dropped easily to the ground. “Good evening, Senator. How is the epic coming?”
Lucien Bonaparte heaved a weary sigh. “There is a reason the ancients personified the Muses as female. I fear Calliope is a fickle creature, capricious and at times damnably difficult to woo.”
“You come here every day to write?” asked Sebastian, his attention shifting to the folly beside them. Although built as a ruin, the temple’s roof was more than solid enough to provide a poetically minded guest with shelter from sun and rain. Through the single row of thick Doric columns, Sebastian could see that Lady Seaton had even softened the temple’s stone benches with mounds of plump cushions in delicate shades of teal and peach.
“Every day except Sunday, from ten to one,” said the Senator with obvious pride. “And sometimes, as today, I return again to work in the late afternoon.”
“Art requires dedication.”
“It does, it does.” Lucien’s good-humored smile remained in place, but his eyes were shrewd and watchful. The man was no fool; he knew Sebastian wasn’t here to discuss his epic poem on Charlemagne. “So tell me, my lord; how is your investigation into these dreadful murders progressing?”