As Death Draws Near

by Anna Lee Huber

  “I would agree with you. That’s one of the reasons I found it so shocking. Quiet and considered. Not out for adventure.” She pressed a hand to her chest over her pectoral cross. “Maybe her family had been wronged by a Catholic in some way, or she believed they had.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think this was about revenge, or anything of the like. I don’t think she would have been able to hide her feelings so well had it been that. But something definitely motivated her. I only wish I knew what.”

  • • •

  The promised blue skies of earlier that morning continued to prove true, I noted, as I descended the steps of the back portico into the garden. It was the type of day Gage and I would have spent lounging on some lower fell, watching the clouds stream by had we still been on our honeymoon. It was nearly as lovely here in Rathfarnham, except for the weighty matters that occupied my thoughts.

  I turned my steps toward the orchard, wanting another chance to search the box we’d found Miss Walsh hiding in. If all of the students and sisters had alibis for the time of Miss Lennox’s murder, then it was also unlikely that any of them murdered Mother Fidelis since it was a logical assumption she had been killed by the same person. Which meant that if what Miss O’Grady had heard while searching for the sister was someone scrambling to hide in that box, then it was someone who knew the abbey grounds well, but was not a sister or student. Perhaps one of the hired staff.

  I frowned at the thought as I hurried down the central walk toward the summerhouse. I wasn’t far from the white wooden structure when I heard the sound of voices. Were the students out here sketching again for their drawing class? Except it was Sunday, and I believed the reverend mother mentioned that this would be the girls’ recreation time.

  Almost immediately, I recognized the distinctive pitch of Miss Walsh’s taunt, but this time it was not aimed at Miss Cahill or any of the other girls, but Davy. He stooped over to pick up a pile of cuttings which must have fallen out of the wheelbarrow before him, clearly flustered by the cluster of girls seated on the steps of the summerhouse. Miss Walsh stood next to the wheelbarrow, twirling a length of thorny stem she must have plucked from his pile.

  “Who’s goin’ to be yer sweetheart now, Davy?” she teased with a cock of her hip.

  His face burned a bright ruddy shade. “She weren’t my sweetheart,” he bit out in a rough voice, his mouth contorted with discomfort.

  “No? Well, if you’ll be bringin’ me flowers like ye used to bring Miss Lennox, I’ll tink about it, to be sure.”

  I opened my mouth to interrupt, but Miss Cahill surprised me by speaking up first. “Leave him be, Eliza. Yer bein’ cruel.”

  Miss Walsh swiveled toward the girl where she’d emerged from a spot farther down the path. Her eyes narrowed maliciously. “Oh, I see now. Yer sweet on ’im, too.”

  Miss Cahill glared at her over the sketchbook she clutched to her chest, while Davy hurried to push the wheelbarrow restacked with its burden away. As he was about to see me anyway, I decided it was best to make my presence known.

  “Miss Walsh,” I snapped in a cool voice, which made everyone but her jump as they turned my way. I nodded at Davy’s wide eyes as he scooted by. “Have you nothing better to do with your free time?”

  “Not since you took my book,” she declared cheekily.

  I arched a single imperious eyebrow, refusing to be spoken to in such a manner. Before I could deliver her a set-down, Miss Cahill spoke again.

  “She’s s’posed to be workin’ on her drawin’.” She shot a defiant glare at Miss Walsh. “Since she missed class the other day.”

  Miss Walsh’s gaze promised retribution. “’Tis finished.” She lifted her chin into the air in challenge.

  I held out my hand. “Then let me see it.”

  She hesitated a moment, and then climbed the stairs to the summerhouse to snatch her drawing from where it lay on the top step. I noticed none of the other girls came to her defense. The sketch she triumphantly handed me was an abominable mess. But as much as I wanted to tell her so, I bit my tongue, recognizing I would be behaving no better than her if I humiliated her in front of her friends.

  “You need to add some shading. I cannot tell from which direction the sun is shining.” I lifted my gaze to glare at her. “And do not simply draw a circle in the top corner and call that done.” The mutinous gleam in her eyes told me she had been prepared to do just that. “These proportions are also off. That flower is as big as your classmate’s head. Fix it.” I passed her drawing back to her, ignoring her scowl. I waited for her to take her seat on the summerhouse steps, not trusting her to do a thing I said once I turned my back to her.

  However, I also did not have time to stand about monitoring troublesome girls. Were any of the sisters keeping an eye on the students, or was this their recreation time as well? I lifted my gaze to survey what I could see of the gardens from where I stood.

  It was then that I caught Miss Cahill’s eye. She was watching me through her eyelashes, but she did not flinch and look away as she had done so often before. I glanced at the ever observant, ever spiteful Miss Walsh, and the other girls who were now whispering with one another, their anxious gazes on me. If Miss Cahill wished to speak with me, this was certainly not the place to do it.

  I pretended to ignore Miss Cahill as she strolled past me, but I saw which path she disappeared down. Then I fastened one final glare on the girls at the summerhouse and turned to walk off. Miss Walsh was not cowed, I knew that, but perhaps some of her friends would think twice before laughing at her mockery of others again.

  I did not have to go far before I rounded a bend in the path and found Miss Cahill perched on a bench among hedges dappled with Japanese roses. She looked up at me, still clutching her sketchbook to her chest.

  “Might I sit with you?” I asked lightly, and she nodded. I arranged the skirts of my deep charcoal riding habit next to her on the stone bench, and watched a pair of bees flitting through a patch of yellow irises across from us. “I thought maybe you had something you wished to tell me, and you didn’t want to do so in front of the other girls.”

  She lowered her book to her lap and stared down at it, clearly struggling with herself over something, perhaps gathering the courage to speak.

  “May I see them?” I asked, gesturing toward her book, thinking this might distract her from her anxiety.

  She blinked at me and then slowly handed me her sketches. I flipped through the pages, making casual remarks of praise as well as a few helpful suggestions. Though she still didn’t speak, I could tell she was listening intently, while at the same time her mind worked furiously, deciding what, if anything, to say to me.

  Finally, she licked her lips and gasped. “One of the girls, she . . . she told us we shouldn’t talk to ye. That you and yer husband were no friends to Catholics.” Her eyes lifted to meet mine, as if she was afraid what she would see. “Are you?”

  I met her gaze squarely, trying to decide how best to answer. “Miss Cahill, do you trust the reverend mother?”

  Her eyes widened. “Of course.”

  “Then do you think she would have asked us here, allowed us inside the abbey, if she did not trust us to conduct these inquiries into the deaths of Miss Lennox and Mother Mary Fidelis with integrity?”

  She stared up at me as if this realization had escaped her.

  I smiled gently. “She could have demanded we leave at any time.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s true.” I glanced back toward the irises. “Is that why all of the girls have been afraid to confide in us?” I tilted my head. “Other than the fact that when they confided in Mother Mary Fidelis, she was then killed.”

  She gave a small hiccup of surprise. Apparently, Miss Walsh had not relayed my message. I sighed, unsure why I was surprised by this.

  Miss Cahill’s hand tighten
ed in the folds of her dull gray skirt before she suddenly blurted out, “Miss Lennox, she told me she’d been engaged to marry before she came here. Before she decided to become a nun.”

  My heart kicked in my chest at this revelation. Marsdale had mentioned he’d gotten the impression she was engaged the last time he’d spoken to family members about her a year earlier, but I’d dismissed it as nothing. Even Marsdale had admitted to being confused on that point, and neither Lord Gage, nor Wellington, nor even her parents in their letter had mentioned anything about a broken engagement.

  “When did she tell you this?” I asked.

  “A few weeks ago, she confided in me because I’m facin’ a similar choice. Me parents have arranged a marriage for me, but I don’t know if I be wantin’ to go through wit it.” She glanced up at me with eyes that pleaded for me to understand. “She was tryin’ to help me, and I didn’t want to be betrayin’ her trust by tellin’ her secrets when I’d no right to do so.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  Her eyes dropped to her lap, where she was worrying the fabric of her pinafore.

  “Her fiancé, her former one. He lives here in Rathfarnham.”

  I blinked in shock. “You’re certain he lives here? He didn’t just pay her a visit?” But then I remembered that the mother superior had already said she’d never had visitors to the abbey.

  She nodded resolutely. “She said he lived in a great house not far from here, wit tall white pillars like a Greek temple.”

  I caught myself just in time before I gasped. There might be more than one home in Rathfarnham with white pillars, but at the moment I could think of only one. And there just happened to be a young man living there, recently returned from Oxford, who would be of the right age to wed Miss Lennox.

  Knowing what I did now, I had to wonder who had broken the arrangement. Had the wedding already been canceled, or had Miss Lennox jilted her fiancé in order to join this convent and spy for Wellington? How had her ex-fiancé felt about that?

  “Did I do the right ting by tellin’ ye?” Miss Cahill asked anxiously. “Is it all right I shared her secret?”

  “Yes. It most certainly is,” I told her, pressing a hand to her arm. “You did the right thing.”

  I only wished she’d done so sooner, but I could not berate her for her loyalty to Miss Lennox. Not when this matter had clearly tormented her. The smile she gave me was filled with such relief, that I forced myself to smile back.

  “Did she tell you anything else about her former fiancé or their broken engagement? Had she seen him?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t tink so. She just explained how she knew ’twas a tough decision, for me an’ everyone involved. That whatever I did decide, I might have to live wit the repercussions the rest o’ me life.”

  That statement sent a chill down my spine. For Miss Lennox had been speaking from experience, and whatever repercussions she’d been living with, they had been far shorter lived than she could have ever known.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Despite Gage’s wishes, despite Anderley’s vehement protests, I was not going to sit about waiting for my husband to return before I spoke to Colin LaTouche. Not when that young man could depart on his Grand Tour at any moment, if he hadn’t already done so. “Within the week,” he’d told Gage, and that had been three days ago.

  Bree knew better than to try to persuade me from a course I was determined to take, but Anderley—his loyalty being to Gage—did not understand he would have been better served to hold his tongue. Most of his complaints I was able to ignore as, rather than taking the phaeton that morning, we had instead ridden on horseback, so I could drown out his nattering beneath the canter of our horses. In any case, there was nothing he could do to divert me from my path, not without behaving well outside a servant’s decorum. There were some distinct advantages to being a lady.

  However, I did not disregard his concern completely. After all, I was not a fool. I was well aware of how dangerous a man could turn when cornered. I knew that Anderley was armed, as Gage had instructed him to be, so I told him to accompany me inside and wait just outside the drawing room door rather than join Bree and the other servants belowstairs. Should I have need of him, I would call out. This silenced his more heated objections, but I partially suspected he was thinking of other ways to make his displeasure known later.

  We were in luck. The butler informed us Colin was still in residence, though his father had gone to Dublin. I refused to allow myself to contemplate what that meant for Gage, and whether he was in any danger. Dublin was a large city. There was no reason to think their paths would cross.

  The butler eyed Anderley askance when he followed at my heels and stood at attention outside the drawing room door, but he did not object. I was certain my remark about protective husbands and the coy glance I cast his way helped explain matters to his satisfaction. He needn’t know my husband had no reasons to fear my infidelity.

  “Lady Darby, this is a lovely surprise,” Colin proclaimed, though I noticed there was a hesitation in his step as he entered the room before he approached.

  “I know you weren’t expecting me. But there’s a matter I was hoping you could help me with.”

  “Of course.” He guided me toward a yellow silk settee positioned near one of the windows and sat down beside me a proper distance away. “What can I do for you?”

  I noticed that his grammar and elocution were closer to that of a proper Englishman than his father’s. Courtesy of his time at school in England, I supposed.

  “Some information has come to light. Information that concerns you.”

  His eyebrows lifted, but he did not squirm. “What information?”

  “Were you acquainted with Miss Lennox, the postulant who was killed outside the Rathfarnham Abbey a few weeks ago?”

  His face paled, and I knew I’d taken the right tact. To see what he would divulge himself before pressing him for the rest.

  “Yes. Yes, actually I was.” His eyes searched my face, perhaps wondering what I already knew. “We were once engaged to be married.”

  “Before she decided to enter the convent?”

  “Yes.” His voice was quiet, his gaze steady, though I detected some strain behind his eyes.

  “Were you close?”

  “I thought so.” He fell silent, his brow furrowed in thought. “No, I know we were.”

  “It must have hurt you deeply when she broke it off,” I guessed, seeing his reaction. “Particularly, when she told you why.”

  “Actually, in a way it made it easier. To think she was throwing me over for God instead of another man.”

  “I’d not thought of it that way,” I admitted. “However, I suspect your father was furious.”

  He nodded tentatively. “He was. He wanted our match for political reasons. So to see her jilt me, well . . . yes, he was angry.”

  “Angry enough to hurt her?”

  I could see in his eyes that he knew what I meant.

  “No. Not in that way.”

  “Are you sure? Did you know she wrote to your father? Asked him to visit her?”

  “Yes.”

  I studied him, trying to figure out what he knew, how to convince him to share it. “Did he tell you why?”

  “Yes. Just as he told you.”

  So his father had told him of our previous conversations. In order to keep their stories straight?

  “What about you? Did you hurt her?”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled in remembered pain. “No. Never. I would have gone to the stake rather than harm her.”

  Something in this quiet young man’s voice made me want to believe him. “You were seen with her the day she was killed.” This was only a presumption, but a good one, seeing as Davy had observed a gentleman with her, and Mr. LaTouche had denied it so forcefully.
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  His eyes dropped to the carpet. “She wrote to me. Asked me to come. At first I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t yet know she’d spoken to my father. But I couldn’t not go.” He glanced up at me as if to see whether I understood.

  Had I been in his situation, with Gage asking for me, I knew that I would have gone. No matter how he might have hurt me. I nodded and he exhaled in release. It was then that I realized he was almost eager to be telling me this story. To be sharing it with someone. It weighed on him, and whatever he’d told his father of it, it had certainly not been the full truth.

  His smile was pained as he thought back. “She seemed so glad to see me. So relieved.” His knee began to bounce as he struggled to suppress his distress. “She told me the truth. About why she’d ended our engagement and entered the convent. About the tithe war and her gathering information.”

  “She told you all that?” I asked in surprise. “Did you ask why she hadn’t been able to tell you before?”

  “She said Wellington didn’t believe we would be able to keep the secret, or act accordingly. That he believed my father would give her away.” He scoffed, looking upward. “He was right. My father hates papists. And to see the girl who jilted his son become one made him livid. He never would have been able to feign his hatred if he’d known it was all a ruse.”

  His animosity must have been very evident to the Ribbonmen, which was why the deception had been so effective.

  “But to not tell you?” I argued, knowing how much that must have hurt.

  He swallowed. “I understand. I know why they had to do it that way.” He smirked in self-deprecation. “Or, at least, I accept it now.”

  “Did she tell you why she agreed to this scheme? Why she agreed to spy on the tithe protestors?”

  His voice hardened. “Because of my father. Apparently, he was close to bankruptcy and started bribing officials to approve false manifests for his ships, so he could short his investors the profits they were due from those ventures. But Wellington promised to convince the government to overlook his past disreputable practices if she would do this for them.”