Mally : Signet Regency Romance (9781101568057)

by Heath, Sandra

  As they walked back to the house, Mally glanced up at Castell Melyn for a last time. A solitary light burned in one of the towers, winking slightly in the gathering darkness.

  Chapter 14

  “Come through into the kitchens, my dears,” said Pattie. “It’s warmer here.”

  They pushed open a studded wooden door and the smell of blackberry jam was immediately stronger. Warmed jars stood on the scrubbed table and another pan was bubbling slowly on the range which had been installed earlier that summer. Pattie polished a last cup and set it carefully on the dainty blue and white saucer. “There, I’ve kept the pot hot.”

  “Where’s Mother?”

  “Gone to her bed—Lucy’s attending to her.”

  “Pattie, what’s been going on here since Mrs. Harmon died?” asked Mally, watching the tea as Pattie poured it.

  “Going on?”

  “You know what I mean. Lady Annabel and I have just witnessed an incident which is alarming in its implications, to say the least. Jasper Turney—”

  “Oh, that one! Ne’er-do-well. Him and his crony Brew Darril. And now they’re taking young Jacob in tow as well—it’s not right, not right at all. Duw, they’re the worst pair of poaching scoundrels this side of Hereford. Always conniving at something outside the law. And now, since Mrs. Harmon’s death, what with Dr. Towers standing up to them like that, they’re setting about—about—”

  “A witch hunt?” asked Annabel.

  Pattie put the teapot down and placed the woolen cosy over it. “Well, we all know that that Jamaican was in Llanglyn that night, and I saw him out in the lane myself. Whatever I might think of Jasper, he is right about this, and justice isn’t being done. No, it most certainly isn’t.”

  Mally lifted a cloth which covered fresh-baked raspberry buns. “Well, Pattie, if they do lynch this poor fellow from Castell Melyn, then the law will catch up with them all right. It will achieve nothing.”

  “Miss Mally, feelings are running very high around these parts. Those up at Castell Melyn are not liked, and only the catching of the murderer will stop it all.”

  “And Dr. Towers insists that the man could not have been in Llanglyn?”

  “Yes. Sticks to it like a fly to treacle.”

  “Oh, Pattie, Dr. Towers would hardly—”

  Pattie sniffed. “Him and that there Mr. Vallender are as thick as thieves. Towers would say anything to please him, you mark my words.”

  Annabel raised her eyebrows. “Our Mr. Vallender certainly manages to put people’s backs up, doesn’t he, Mally? Mm? He must have brought the absolute end in wooden spoons with him from America.”

  Pattie pushed the tea toward Mally. “Mrs. Berrisford says as you are going to stay up at the castle next week or the week after.”

  “Yes. Lady Annabel is filled with a desire to come face to face with the wraith of Lady Jacquetta.”

  “That old tale! There’s never been a ghost up there, never in all these years. But Miss Mally, don’t go. Stay back here, where it’s—”

  “Safe? Pattie, we are going there. I will not pass judgment on anyone at the castle. And I regard Mr. Vallender as my friend—indeed, he is to be the best man when I marry Sir Christopher. Now, you can hardly expect me to join in the general howling, can you?”

  Pattie took a long breath. “No, Miss Mally. Let’s talk of something else then, shall we? Here, I baked these for you, they were always your favorite, weren’t they? And Miss Maria’s.” She glanced nervously at Annabel, for she had been told not to speak of Maria in front of the guest.

  But Annabel was looking at the raspberry buns. “Those look quite delicious. But, I had the dismaying experience of discovering this morning that my favorite spencer is somewhat tight. Get thee behind me, raspberry buns!” She got to her feet. “I shall take myself to that genuine fifteenth-century fourposter you promised me, Mally. I trust only that our forebears appreciated the finer points of soft beds.”

  Mally grinned. “Soft? Good heavens, no. That would have been considered namby-pamby.”

  Annabel smiled sweetly. “I know—hard bed, hard head. Ah, me.”

  Pattie smoothed her apron. “Don’t you pay any attention to her, Lady Annabel. That is the finest bed in the marches, the very finest.”

  When Annabel had gone, Mally took a bun. “Pattie, now that we are alone, perhaps we can talk about Maria.”

  “Mrs. Berrisford was telling me what you discovered. I cannot understand it, Miss Mally, for she loved that Mr. York. Oh, she didn’t tell the half of it to your poor mother, but she told me. She loved him so much, she was going to send Mr. Clevely’s ring back and everything. She’d made up her mind. In fact, on the night of the murder, she had gone to meet Mr. York to tell him that she had accepted him.”

  “Mr. York proposed to her?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.”

  “Did you meet him, Pattie?”

  “Yes.” Pattie looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know whether I should tell you all this, for if your mother found out how I’d helped Miss Maria, I’d be thrown out of this house, I know that I would.”

  “Pattie, I won’t rattle on you, the very idea! What was he like?”

  Pattie sat down and poured herself a cup of tea, and then sat back, looking fondly at the black cat curled up on the rocking chair. “Oh, such a nice young man. He talked strangely, mind, but then he was an American. And he treated her like she was procelain. Such manners.”

  “Mother speaks of him as being totally unsuitable.”

  “He was virtually penniless, that’s why. He was only with Mr. Vallender because of that. Mind, he liked Mr. Vallender, always defended him if anything detrimental was said. Miss Maria liked him too, spoke most strongly for him, she did. Oh, when I think of how happy she was, Miss Mally, I just cannot believe that all the time she was meeting someone else. It just isn’t possible.”

  Maria had liked Richard Vallender. Mally found herself wondering again about the enigmatic Mr. Vallender.

  “Pattie, the day before Maria left Dr. Towers came to speak with her.”

  “Yes. She was out there in the gardens, breaking her heart over Mr. York. We couldn’t get any sense out of her and we were so afraid that she’d seen Mrs. Harmon’s murderer or something—” Pattie took a long breath. “But, then the doctor came and whatever it was that he said to her halted the tears right enough. There was—oh, I don’t know—an air about her for the rest of that day.”

  “An air?”

  “Yes, you know, an excitement. And then, when we rose from our beds the next day, she’d gone. Just like that. No note. Nothing at all. We knew she’d gone properly when we found her clothes had been taken as well. Not all of them, just enough to fit in that leather handcase she had.”

  “And then you heard that Mr. York was dead.”

  Pattie’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes. And coming on top of Maria going, Mrs. Harmon being murdered an’ all, it was such a shock. I liked him, Miss Mally, and he’d have made a splendid husband for her. She did so love him.” Pattie sniffed. “Which is why I will not believe she has gone away with another man, this fellow with the phaeton.”

  Mally put down the bun slowly, a new thought creeping horribly into her mind. “Pattie, you don’t think— I mean, if Maria ran away and then Mr. York was found.”

  Pattie put down her cup and saucer abruptly. “Oh, no, Miss Mally. No, no, we cannot believe any such thing. Don’t even say it. I beg of you.”

  “Then it had crossed your mind, hadn’t it?”

  “No!”

  Mally fell silent, poking the crumbs of the bun around the plate with a thoughtful finger. Pattie watched her. “She loved him, Miss Mally, she loved him and nothing will change my mind on that. She had nothing to do with his death.”

  The clock on the man
tlepiece ticked softly in the quiet, and the cat stood, arching its back as it stretched. Then it turned around on the cushion several times and settled down to sleep again.

  Mally sat back. “I think that that animal has good sense. Bed would seem to be in order, don’t you think?”

  “Miss Mally, do you believe Miss Maria has eloped?”

  “I don’t know, Pattie. But I do know one thing—tomorrow I intend taking myself across to Llanglyn to pay a visit to Dr. Nathaniel Towers. I would very much like to know what he had to say to her the day before she left, wouldn’t you?”

  “He might tell you, Miss Mally, but he denied saying anything much to her when your mother and I faced him with it. You ask him, Miss Mally. And we’ll see.”

  Chapter 15

  The rain streamed down, tamping on the cobbled square and running in rivulets down the street toward the church. Even the Three Feathers was quiet and deserted, its sign creaking as it swayed in the icy wind which howled down from the mountains.

  Mally climbed down from the landau and hurried toward the steps leading between George Cunningworth’s grocery store and the livery stable. Her pattens were awkward and she could not go very quickly, so that in no time the rain had soaked through her pelisse to dampen her shivering shoulders. She had climbed halfway up toward the doctor’s rambling old cottage, when she turned to look back. Mrs. Harmon’s house stood opposite. The curtains were tightly drawn, and there was no smoke from its chimneys. It looked empty and forlorn.

  Mally hurried on up the steps and through the green painted gate of the doctor’s cottage. She knocked, pressing beneath the tiny porch to get out of the rain as much as she could. To the left of the cottage was the upper portion of the churchyard. The wind whispered coldly through the yew trees, and the rain glistened on the gravestones. She looked toward the church itself. Daniel’s grave was just visible, the gray marble cross quite plain and uncluttered.

  Quickly she turned her back toward it, holding her breath to force away the wave of sadness which swept immediately over her. But before she turned she noticed the other grave close by. Also plain and without any fancy trappings. Was that Andrew York’s grave? Mother had said it was but ten feet away from Daniel’s—

  The door opened suddenly. Dr. Towers ushered her in. “I’d forgotten my housekeeper had gone to visit her sister, Mrs. St. Aubrey, and I sat there waiting for her to show you in. I saw you come up the steps. Come and sit by the fire. There now, let me take that wet pelisse.”

  She bent to unstrap the wooden pattens, and immediately felt at least two inches shorter. She was still shivering when she held her cold hands out to the roaring fire. Copper pans and bowls gleamed in the hearth, and a bowl of dark red chrysanthemums filled the air with their sharp scent. She looked quickly away from them.

  She watched the doctor as he went to a cupboard to take out two glasses and a decanter. His periwig was freshly powdered, and its black satin bow as perky and flouncy as ever. He prided himself on his wig-bows. His brocade waistcoat was his one salute to fashion, for it was crimson and was quite the most splendid Mally had seen outside London. His buckled shoes clumped on the red-raddled floor as he brought the glasses and wine to a low table.

  “A glass of Malmsey, Mrs. St. Aubrey—I take it this is a social and not a professional visit.”

  “Some Malmsey would go down very well, Dr. Towers. But surely I am not to be called Mrs. St. Aubrey in so stern a fashion. When I was a child you called me Miss Mally, and I see no reason for that to change, do you?”

  He smiled. “Soon it will be Lady Carlyon—I thought perhaps a little healthy respect now would not come amiss. However, as you say, it was always Miss Mally, and Miss Mally it shall be again. Now then, what brings you to me so swiftly after your arrival at the courthouse? It was only yesterday evening, so I understand.”

  “Yes.” She sat in the proffered chair and sipped the wine. “Dr. Towers, I think you probably know what I am about to ask you.”

  “What I said to your sister which made her leave? Yes, I thought that that would be the reason you are here. Well, I will be honest, I cannot remember what I said. In fact, I don’t think I said anything of importance.”

  She studied his wrinkled face. “Then it will surely be the first conversation you have taken part in which you cannot recall months later, let alone days or weeks.”

  “Nonetheless, Miss Mally, I cannot remember this one.” He met her gaze steadily.

  “So, you know nothing about it at all.”

  “Nothing.”

  She sipped the wine again. “And nothing about her association with the late Mr. York?”

  “I know of it, yes.”

  “And not merely because of your friendship with Mr. Vallender, I take it. Dr. Towers, my sister is with child, isn’t she?”

  He exhaled slowly. “That is asking me to divulge facts about another patient, Miss Mally.”

  “You don’t have to divulge it, I can see it in your face. Maria is expecting Mr. York’s child.”

  “I have admitted nothing.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Please don’t say it like that, Miss Mally, for it would be wrong of me to say anything. It is hardly my place to utter a word, is it?”

  “Perhaps not, but then we don’t know where Maria is or who she is with, do we? Unless—do you know?”

  “No.”

  “And you also know nothing about someone else who is seeking her whereabouts?”

  He would not look at her. “No.”

  “Then perhaps I shall soon find someone who can help me. At the castle when I go there to stay.”

  He sat forward. “You are going to stay there?”

  “Yes. At Mr. Vallender’s kind invitation.”

  “I—I did not realize you knew him so well.”

  She thought that the doctor was very taken aback, although he was striving to hide it. “I do not know him well, Dr. Towers, but Sir Christopher does. Sir Christopher, Mr. Vallender, and Daniel were close friends in their youth.”

  He sat back again, toying with the stem of his glass. “I had not realized. I knew that Mr. Vallender and Daniel were once friends, of course, and that that was the reason for buying Castell Melyn.”

  “We met him when out driving in Hyde Park.”

  “How—fortuitous.”

  “Perhaps. We shall see, shall we not? Well, I will take my leave of you now, Dr. Towers. Has it stopped raining?” She went to the window and raised the lace curtain.

  Outside, the rain still streamed down relentlessly. Over the roof of the grocery store in the street below, she could see Mrs. Harmon’s house. “I hope they catch the man who murdered that old lady,” she said, dropping the curtain again.

  “Oh, they will, Miss Mally. In the end they will.”

  “You know that there is a virtual witch hunt for that Jamaican, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I could hardly remain unaware of it.”

  “You are sure about him, aren’t you? Absolutely sure?”

  “Yes, Miss Mally. Poor Abel is wrongly accused. He did not murder Mrs. Harmon.”

  She took her pelisse from the hook in the hall. “Does Mr. Vallender know what’s going on here?”

  “No, it was relatively peaceful when he left to go to London.”

  “What happened then? What started it all?”

  “The vicar, I suppose. He sent word to the army fort in Abergavenny, asking them to come and arrest Abel. They came, out there in the market square on market day. There couldn’t have been a more attentive audience had they planned it. The officer in charge came up here, to ask me again if I knew Abel had not done it. I said that Abel could not have left his sick bed that night. The officer accepted my word and took his men back to Abergavenny. To say that my name is disliked in Llanglyn at the
moment, Miss Mally, would surely be to put it excessively mildly. They blame me, and Mr. Vallender, for keeping a murderer free. That is how they see it.”

  “But you know different?”

  “Yes, I know different. Abel is not a murderer.”

  “But he was in Llanglyn that night, wasn’t he?” she said softly, turning to face him as she tied her bonnet ribbons again.

  “No.”

  He opened the door and the sound of the wind and rain blustered into the low-ceilinged hallway. Mally strapped on the pattens. “Dr. Towers, when you avoid my eyes so often, as you have done this morning, and when Pattie says she saw him, then I know I would prefer to believe that she is the one who is speaking the truth.”

  “Miss Mally, we have been friends for too long to let anything rankle. Abel did not do anything to Mrs. Harmon, he was too ill to leave his bed. Those who think they saw him are mistaken.”

  She stepped out into the rain, her pattens sounding oddly hollow as she went down the path.

  Chapter 16

  “There!” Annabel arranged the ribbons at the throat of her gown and stepped back to admire the effect in the mirror. “I am ready to sally forth!”

  Mally stared at her, from the velvet roses topping her jaunty emerald green hat, to the elegant frilled green pelisse and flounced muslin walking dress. The picture was completed by shiny patent slippers peeping from beneath the hem.

  “You look fit for a drive in Hyde Park maybe, but not for a visit to Llanglyn on market day! You’ll be like a butterfly in a bees’ nest.”

  “That, my dear Mally, is the intention. I have moldered in this house for more than a week. Positively moldered! It has rained ever since we arrived and now, at long last, it has stopped. And I intend stepping out looking my very best. All the clod-hoppers can gape, if they wish. Perhaps they know nothing of ladies of quality.”

  “Your eyes will cross if you look down your nose much more, my lady.”

  Annabel smiled quickly. “Well, I didn’t come here to talk recipes, learn to crochet, or to help bottle jam!”