Chapter Four #2
Mr. Hardy’s expression was blank. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and his dark hair was pasted in strands against his forehead.
He always seemed a bit on the somber side, the sort of man you didn’t necessarily want to cross.
His strength and dark presence was the reason that Anne Seward had been able to take over as the owner of the tavern, after all.
Without Mr. Hardy as her enforcer, she would not have been able to hold the place. He said nothing.
Jane glanced at Byron and then back at Mr. Hardy.
“I suppose you know what happened this morning, then. And you likely don’t want him in here, but the thing is, we are here to see if we could find anyone to speak to about last night, anyone who was sober, that is.
Those who were working at the tavern might have seen something, we think.
Lord Byron claims he did not hurt Anne.”
“Claims?” repeated Byron. “No, it’s not a claim. It’s the truth. I did not touch her.”
Mr. Hardy looked Byron over. “You’re the one, then, the one they chased off this morning.”
“You weren’t here?” said Jane. “Mr. Hardy, I thought you resided here, at the tavern.”
“I do,” said Mr. Hardy. “But I wasn’t here last night. I just got back around noontime today. I don’t know what to make of what happened.”
“Well,” said Byron, “I didn’t do it.” He touched his chest. “I want everyone to understand that is the truth.”
“We don’t know that anyone did it,” said Mr. Hardy.
“We don’t?” said Jane. “I thought she was strangled.”
“Well, there aren’t any marks on her,” said Mr. Hardy. “So, strangling seemed a likely cause of death.”
“No marks at all?” said Byron. “She can’t have just up and died. Was she ill?” He considered. “What am I saying? Yes, she must have simply up and died. I’m exonerated.”
“Can we see her?” said Jane.
Byron turned to look at her in astonishment.
“You would have her laid out—” Jane broke off. “Well, who would do it? She doesn’t have any female family members, does she?”
“She’s still in her bed,” said Mr. Hardy. “I am going to see that she is laid out for viewing and for any visitors who would like to come and pay respects.”
“So, could we see her?” said Jane.
Mr. Hardy hesitated and Jane could see that he wanted to say no. Typically, Jane would have broken in and said to never mind it, but she found that she wanted to see this for herself. It wasn’t an interest in seeing a dead body, but it was in finding the truth of this matter.
“Well, if she’s still in the bed, I think I remember the way,” spoke up Byron. “Follow me.”
Mr. Hardy’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t say anything.
Byron led them up a set of stairs to the next level in the tavern. The first open doorway led to Miss Seward’s bedchamber.
She had been covered with a sheet, but she was still lying there on the bed.
Jane looked around the room. “My lord? Is this how it all looked this morning?”
Byron looked around, too. “I think so.”
The room was sparse. It contained only a small washstand, no writing desk or any other furniture.
The window was open, the white curtains fluttering outside, into the breeze.
Jane went over to it, looking down out of the window, and she could see that there was a ladder beneath it, leading right up to the window.
“This is odd,” said Jane.
Byron came over to peer down at that, too. “Quite odd. Someone was coming and going in Miss Seward’s window, it seems.”
“Make haste about all of this if you don’t mind,” came Mr. Hardy’s strangled voice from the doorway.
Jane turned to him. “You and Anne had a close relationship, did you not? This must be difficult for you.”
Mr. Hardy’s expression twitched, but he still looked blank. “Yes,” he said, the pitch of his voice never wavering, “ever so close.”
Hmm. Jane wasn’t sure what that was about, but she found it curious. She turned back to the window, to the ladder. “Do you know why there is a ladder propped up against Miss Seward’s open window?”
“I do not,” said Mr. Hardy. “You said you wished to see her. You are looking at everything but her.”
“True,” said Jane. “Apologies.” She went to the bed and moved aside the sheet.
“Curious,” said Byron. “No marks indeed.”
“Her lips are rather blue, do you not think?” said Jane, tilting her head to one side, still holding the sheet up.
“Would you call that blue or more of a purple color?” said Byron.
“I wonder if she was poisoned,” said Jane. “There must be some way to know for sure about that. Perhaps if we called in the local doctor? Has anyone examined this body, Mr. Hardy?”
“I know less of this than you do,” said Mr. Hardy. “I tell you, I was not here last night.”
Yes, he’s rather harping on that, is he not? thought Jane.
“I arrived around noon. I came into the place, found her, was quite alarmed, and then the girls who work in the kitchen here told me what happened,” said Mr. Hardy.
“And what did they say?” said Byron.
“They said that a man woke the entire street up shrieking at the top of his lungs and that a number of men barged in, thinking the shrieking was coming from poor Anne’s own throat.
They were there to protect her. But they instead, found a man in Anne’s bed, and Anne dead.
They chased him to your house, Miss Austen, where you informed them he was a baron.
After that, everything broke up and everyone went back to their business, and Anne was forgotten.
” There was a bitterness to this last pronouncement.
Jane nodded. It would make sense, she supposed, for the nearby townspeople to come and see to Anne if she were in trouble.
It would also make sense for the townspeople to be quite taken up by the prospect of a mob chase, a public hanging, and all of that sort of sordid behavior.
People, in general, were drawn to the sordid.
They could not help themselves. It was just part of human nature.
After all of that died down, however, they would have left it and returned to their own affairs.
“So, you never spoke to Mr. Eves?” said Jane.
“Not today,” said Mr. Hardy.
“He seemed to be leading the mob when I spoke to him this morning is all,” said Jane. She looked at Byron. “We should speak to him.”
“All right,” said Byron, shrugging. He was still looking at Anne. “I do wonder how I ended up in her bed.”
Jane scoffed. “Oh, that’s the thing we’re puzzling over, is it? That seems clear enough, I should think.” She dropped the sheet back down over Miss Seward. “You should perhaps call for a doctor to look at the body, Mr. Hardy.”
“All right,” said Mr. Hardy.
“All right,” said Jane, nodding.
“You don’t mean right now?” said Mr. Hardy.
“Well, I don’t think we should wait for much longer.
She’s been dead for quite some time now,” said Jane.
“I think the sooner a doctor looks at a corpse, the more he’s able to determine.
We don’t need a gentleman doctor, really, I don’t think.
I should think the surgeon, Mr. Fields, might suffice. I can send for him, if you like.”
“I shall send someone for Fields, of course,” said Mr. Hardy. “Are you going to wait here?”
“Well, I think we should speak to the staff,” said Jane. “Someone must know about this ladder.”
“Indeed, that’s quite astute, Miss Jane,” said Byron.
“Miss Austen,” she said to him.
He gave her a small, satisfied grin.
She might despise Lord Byron, she thought. If it only weren’t for the fact that there was something about the way he smiled that was a bit infectious.