As Death Draws Near

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Shoulda let ’em have their rebellion. And crushed ’em once and for all.” The mill owner’s eyes narrowed.

  “I believe there was concern for the loss of life of British soldiers and innocent civilians,” Gage chimed in. “Not to mention the cost.”

  “Let the papists pay for it,” he snapped, defiant to the end.

  “With what?” Marsdale drawled idly. “From what I can tell, most of them don’t have two pence to rub together.”

  “That’s because they bury it in the ground like their potatoes, hidin’ it away so we don’t know they have it.” Mr. Gibney retorted.

  The mill owner huffed. “If they bother to exert themselves to work at all. Most of ’em are as lazy as the day is long. They want everyting to be given to ’em.”

  I frowned. I’d heard these same complaints and thoughtless jests made about the Irish in London and Edinburgh and elsewhere for most of my life, and never thought twice about them. But being here, seeing how they worked in the fields and their shops and in service at homes, I’d seen no evidence of this being true.

  Marsdale was right. I’d seen the old cottages and mud daub homes of the lower classes of Irish society, a large majority of which were Catholic. They didn’t appear to have an abundance of extra income, nor did I believe they were burying it and saving it for a rainy day, or the moment they finally kicked the English off their island.

  How could these men not see it? How could they not hear how ridiculous they sounded? They were wealthy Anglicans, part of the small majority controlling the island. Most of these men protesting the tithes were poor Catholic farmers.

  Mr. Gibney forked a bit of beef steak, gesturing with it, so the juices splattered across the table. “To be sure. Ye don’t see the Presbyterians and Methodists complainin’.”

  “Do their churches and clergy not share in the tithes?” Gage asked carefully.

  “The Papist priests were offered the same, but they refused.”

  Marsdale sat back, waving a footman over to refill his glass. “Probably worried the government would expect them to lie on their backs and give them something in return.”

  It was a crude, but somehow effective metaphor. And managed to successfully silence the men at the table long enough for their host to distract them with a new topic.

  Whatever hopes I might have held that the situation in Ireland was not volatile had been effectively crushed. Not everyone at the table had spewed the same vitriol, but they also hadn’t spoken up to suppress it, which was almost equally disturbing. Gage’s eyes reflected the same troubling thoughts mine did. Even Marsdale appeared slightly dyspeptic, as if the discussion as much as the food had not agreed with him.

  So when Mr. LaTouche asked to speak with me and Gage privately as we left the dining room, I suspected he meant to apologize or soften the hateful words of his friends. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back and frowned at the pedestal of the sculpture we stood next to in the rear of the entry hall where he had pulled us aside. He stared for so long that I turned to look, wondering if he wished us to examine it.

  His eyes lifted and his mouth pressed into a thin, humorless line. “I’m the gentleman who was seen behind the abbey.”

  I stiffened in surprise, but Gage made no discernable reaction. I turned to look at him curiously, realizing he’d already known, or at least guessed. Had he seen something in his face tonight that I had not?

  I turned back to Mr. LaTouche as he continued to speak. “I did not realize it was important for you to know, or otherwise I would have informed you earlier, of course.”

  “Why were you there?” Gage replied.

  He inhaled deeply, seeming to force his next words out. “Miss Lennox contacted me and asked me to meet her there.”

  My husband’s eyebrows lifted nearly as high as mine did. “She contacted you? How?”

  “By letter.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “I don’t. I . . .” He hesitated. “I burned it.”

  Gage’s brow furrowed. “Before or after she was found dead?”

  “After.” I could tell that inside he was squirming with guilt even as his exterior remained rigidly still.

  “I see.” An entire soliloquy was contained in those two words. “And what did she tell you?”

  I noticed Gage didn’t waste time by asking if he’d ever managed to speak to her, for we already knew they’d been seen together. But Mr. LaTouche didn’t know that. I could see in his eyes that he wondered just how much we knew, trying to calculate how much to say. When finally he exhaled, allowing his tight shoulders to relax a fraction, I thought we might get the truth.

  “I suppose you could call me a family friend, and I assume that’s why she contacted me and not someone else. She must have known I lived nearby. She . . .” He shifted his feet, frowning. “She wanted me to make contact with Lord Anglesey on her behalf, to warn him of a rebellion some Catholics in the area were planning.”

  A strange look entered Gage’s eyes, and I couldn’t tell whether he believed him or not.

  “Did she say who?” Gage asked.

  He shook his head, glancing back down the hall toward the room where the others were gathered. We could hear the low rumble of their voices. “She wouldn’t be specific. Honestly, she wouldn’t tell me much of anything. Expected me to just take her word for it.” He wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something foul, and I thought of all the reactions I’d seen from him that night, it was the most genuine.

  “Did you do as she asked?”

  He lifted his nose into the air, almost in affront. “I did not. Frankly, I didn’t believe her. Or at least, I didn’t believe her words merited so drastic a measure as reporting them to the Lord Lieutenant.”

  “Then did you inform Chief Constable Corcoran?”

  “I did not.”

  Gage’s eyes narrowed, studying him. “So you told no one?”

  Mr. LaTouche seemed to finally grasp how unimpressed we were with his actions. “Until now.” As if that made up for his failure to do so before.

  My husband’s voice was sharp when he next spoke. “You claim to be eager to see Miss Lennox’s murder solved, and yet you didn’t stop to think this might be important for us to know? Why did you not tell us before?”

  He stared at us, seemingly flummoxed, but Gage was having none of it. He arched his eyebrows, demanding an answer.

  “I . . . I thought you might accuse me of something unsavory. Or try to blame me.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes at his display of affront.

  “When did you meet her?” Gage demanded to know.

  “Once. A few days before I heard of her death.” He sniffed. “So even if I’d written Lord Anglesey, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.”

  “Maybe not for her. But perhaps for the other victim.”

  He stared at us stonily, making it clear how little he cared about Mother Fidelis or any of the nuns.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Do you believe him?”

  Gage flicked a glance at me before resuming his determined stare ahead into the gathering dusk. “I don’t know.” He pulled on the reins, slowing the Friesians for their turn out of LaTouche’s drive. “He appeared to be answering us in a straightforward manner, but something wasn’t right. I can’t quite put my finger on what, but I’m not sure I trust his recounting.”

  I agreed. “There were times when I felt he was being honest, and other times when I was certain he couldn’t be. For instance, why did it take him so long to explain why he hadn’t told us about all of this sooner? It was almost as if he had to think up a reason then and there.”

  He grunted. “No one in this entire benighted place seems either willing or capable of telling us the complete truth.” His voice turned dry. “Though I think we would rather have been spared the helping of
bile we endured at dinner.”

  I pulled my shawl tighter around me against the chill of twilight. “How can people be so hateful?” I asked in a small voice I wasn’t sure Gage could even hear.

  He reached over to rest his hand against my leg in reassurance. I laced my fingers under his, trying to fill the cold spot that had opened up inside my chest with his warmth. I was grateful he didn’t try to explain it away or tell me to forget it. Some things just couldn’t be fixed with words, no matter how wise.

  Neither of us spoke as we traveled the mile of roads separating Eden Park’s drive from the Priory’s. But as we turned between the entrance gates, and Gage nodded to the cadets Corcoran had stationed there for us, I voiced a question which had been nagging at me for months.

  “Does it bother you that people still call me Lady Darby?” I stared ahead as I asked it, but when Gage lifted his gaze to me, I turned to meet it, knowing I would see the truth in his eyes even if his words said otherwise.

  He slowed the horses as we traversed the narrow drive through the trees, his face tight as he measured his words. “I won’t say that I’m not irritated that your former husband’s name is still attached to you, especially knowing how he mistreated you. And I suppose a primitive part of me wants to stamp you with my name, to claim you. But I know you are just as much a victim of the vagaries of society’s laws of decorum as I am. I hear how you correct people. It’s not your fault if they will not listen. Nor would I blame you if you tired of asking, particularly when they’re merely passing acquaintances.”

  He paused, stopping the carriage in the middle of the drive to look at me fully. My throat dried under the intensity of his gaze. “The important thing is that no matter what name you are called by—Lady Darby, or Mrs. Gage, or Dame Pumpernickel . . .”

  I smiled.

  “I know you are mine. I only have to see the way you look at me . . .” he drew me closer “. . . or hear the way you say my name when we’re alone.”

  “Sebastian,” I chided gently, feeling my skin flush.

  “Yes, that way.” His mouth captured mine in a kiss I felt singe me clear to the tips of my toes. Only the impatient stamping of the horses pulled him away. Even so, he kept his arm wrapped tight around me and my head on his shoulder.

  He halted the phaeton in the carriage yard and one of the stable lads ran out to grab the bridles of the steeds. Jumping lightly down, he came around to lift me out, grinning at the pink I could still feel cresting my cheeks. “I want to speak to the cadets and survey the area to be sure all is well before we retire. I’ll only be half an hour or so.”

  “Then I think I’ll take a short walk in the gardens. The night’s so lovely. I won’t go far,” I promised, still smelling the ashes from the scorched outbuilding, courtesy of last night’s unwelcome visitors.

  He nodded and, with a swift press of his lips to my temple, set off back down the drive.

  I knew it was more than likely that Homer had retired hours ago to wherever the gardener lived, but the fact that I had met him at dusk before made me hope he might still be about. I entered through the side gate and followed the path toward the place I’d glimpsed two nights past where four tracks seemed to converge together to form a small circle. Staring intently into the growing dark, I stood at the center and spun to peer down each of the trails, looking for any sign of the gardener. When nothing caught my eye, I sighed and stopped to tip my head back to look up at the last remnants of red tinging the undersides of the clouds above me.

  It was then that I heard the sound of something scratching in the earth somewhere to my right. I pivoted, trying to see what it was, but it remained hidden behind a line of hedges. Lifting my skirts, I hurried down the path nearest to it, hoping to find another path which would lead off in that direction. From what I had seen from the windows above, the gardens seemed to be laid out in a linear fashion, making them easier to navigate. True to form, I saw the path almost immediately, slowing my steps as I neared the hedge row. The sound had stopped, but I saw a man was still there, bent over examining something. I tried to make as much noise as I could as I approached so as not to startle him, and soon enough, he flicked a glance over his shoulder at me and his mouth widened in a broad grin.

  “M’lady, now wha’ brings ye out on such a fine night?” he remarked, rising to his feet. “Be wishin’ to perfume yer dreams?” He opened his hands to reveal a shy little violet, its dusky purple petals washed gray by the lack of light.

  I moved closer to better see.

  “They likes to shelter among the other plants sometimes, like a lil’ girl run off to hide. I could put ’er in a pot for ye to have in yer chamber, if ye wish.”

  “Oh, that would be lovely,” I told him in delight.

  His craggy faced was soft with pleasure.

  “There’s some in the shed there.” He gestured. “Won’t be but a moment.”

  “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’ll join you,” I replied, falling in step with him. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Is there?”

  “Yes. You told me about Rathfarnham Castle. How your father and mother worked there. About the peculiarities of the place.”

  “So I did.”

  “And you mentioned there were secret tunnels.”

  This finally caught his attention, and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Ah, now,” he exhaled, as if this explained something. “I shouldn’t have done dat.”

  “I’m not after some lark or chasing adventure.” I stared up at him seriously as we reached the shed and he turned to face me more fully. “You’ve heard my husband and I are investigating the death of those two nuns?”

  His expression turned grim, and he reached out to open the door. “I have. The poor lassies.”

  “Then you must realize why I’m asking.” I stood by the door, speaking to his back as he searched for a small clay pot among the detritus on the shelves built into the opposite wall. “Would you tell me how many tunnels there are and where they lead? Does one of them lead toward the abbey?”

  He crossed back toward the small wooden table set near the door and put the pot there before carefully placing the violet he had dug from the ground, roots and all, into it. I watched him begin to pack more dirt around it, allowing him to consider my request. When he’d finished, he nodded once and glanced up at me.

  “There be three. One leads to the church—the old one, St. Peter and Paul, in the graveyard. The second goes to the cellars o’ the Yellow House.” He paused, as if grasping the import, and I held my breath. “The third opens in the meadow on the other side o’ Nutgrove Avenue, near the abbey. There be a wild cherry tree growin’ by a wall, and some blackthorn, I believe. It’s been some time since I’ve been dat way. Behind dem be a set o’ stairs leadin’ down.”

  A thrill of excitement ran up my back at this confirmation that I had been right. Miss Lennox and Mother Fidelis must have known about the tunnel and taken it. That’s where they were going. To Rathfarnham Castle.

  “Thank you,” I told him. “You have just helped us immensely.”

  “Wait, m’lady,” he gasped, recalling me when I would have dashed off to tell Gage what I’d learned and suspected. He held the potted violet out to me.

  “Oh, yes,” I replied with a little laugh. “Thank you.”

  But instead of releasing it when I grasped it, he held fast. I looked up into his eyes, having no difficulty reading the worry stamped there at this proximity.

  “Go wit care. Don’t go blunderin’ into someting ye don’t understand.”

  Some of my enthusiasm dimmed at his display of concern. “I will,” I promised him.

  He must have been satisfied with my response, for he released the pot.

  I tried to retrace my steps back through the garden, but being partially distracted by my e
xcitement over what I’d just learned, I must have taken a wrong turn. By the time I realized it, I seemed to have strolled deeper into the gardens nearing the boundary between it and the forest beyond. I stared around me in confusion, trying to regain my bearings. I looked for a light from the windows of the house, but either there wasn’t one, or the trees to my right blocked them. I decided to circle around them to see if that was the case, but then something to my left caught my eye.

  It was difficult to tell in the soft darkness of evening, when the stars were only just beginning to appear in the sky, but I thought it had been the silhouette of a woman, her skirts swishing about her. I hurried in her direction, thinking she could lead me back to the house. Rounding a corner, I caught sight of her as she turned another bend.

  “Wait.” I clutched the pot against my chest with one arm, and picked up my skirts with the other. “Miss! Please. Will you wait?”

  I didn’t know if she couldn’t hear me, or if I had merely frightened her, but her steps seemed to quicken. I caught a glimpse of her as she darted around another corner. But although I ran to catch her up, when my feet reached the spot where she had last disappeared, I could no longer see her.

  I pressed my free hand to my side, trying to catch my breath. Who had the woman been? A servant, surely. But why had she fled?

  Before I could contemplate the matter further, I heard the sound of voices coming from the opposite direction. Grasping my pot tighter to my chest, prepared to pursue lest I lose sight of them, too, I moved forward to peer around a hedge to see a woman and a man standing beneath a tree. I opened my mouth to speak, but something in the edge to their voices made me stop. They appeared to be arguing, and though I could not clearly make out what they said, I did recognize the female’s strident brogue. It was Bree. And if I was not very much mistaken, the man was Constable Casey.

  I shrank deeper into the shadows of the hedge, observing them as a sickening feeling twisted about inside of me. Not again. This had already happened to me once before. This betrayal. Lucy, my lady’s maid before Bree, had been seduced by a handsome face into sharing private information about me. I had thought Bree to be wiser than that, more loyal.