Chapter Nine #2
“I know,” Peggy said. “The bell never stops—” She broke off with a gasp as she understood the implications behind Piers’s words. Her eyes widened in an odd mingling of alarm and resignation. “You saw her?”
“Indeed,” Piers said, touching his chin.
“The water jug?” Peggy asked sympathetically.
“Chamber pot.”
The girl snorted with laughter and then tried to cover her lapse with a cough. “I’m very sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be. It was empty. However, the situation won’t do. We shall speak to Mrs. Riley this afternoon.”
A large young man lumbered through the baize door at the back of the hall and halted as though frozen by the unexpected sight of them.
“Harold from the village,” April murmured helpfully.
Of course. The brother of one of Edward’s abandoned conquests. “Just the man I want to see,” Piers said, strolling toward him. The door to the office appeared to be open, so he gestured toward it. “Harold? I’m Lord Petteril. Shall we step in here for a moment?”
Harold’s worried frown cleared at Piers’s unthreatening tone. He seemed happy enough to follow Piers and April into the office, as though he had been there before.
“You live in the village, Harold?” Piers began, gesturing for the big lad to sit, while he perched on the edge of the oak desk. April took the comfortable chair behind it.
“Yes, sir.”
“With your family?”
“Yes, sir. My dad’s the blacksmith.”
“Will you be following in his footsteps?”
“Maybe,” Harold said dubiously. “I’m strong enough, but don’t really got the knack. I’m good at carrying things. This is a good job.”
“You’re a great help to us,” April told him, and he beamed at her. “Do you have a big family at home?”
“Just Ma and Dad and Anne.”
“Your sister?” April said. “Isn’t she a friend of Edward’s? The footman here?”
“Not anymore,” said Harold. “Hurt her feelings.”
“But you didn’t mind coming here to work with him?”
Harold appeared to consider that. “It’s better since he went to sleep,” he admitted. “Don’t like him much.”
“Because of Anne?”
Harold thought again. “Mostly because of him.”
“Is he...unpleasant to you? Orders you around?”
“I like orders,” Harold said. “I don’t like when he makes fun of me.”
“No, no one likes that,” Piers agreed. “We hear you escorted the two temporary maids back to the village last night?”
“We all went together. Me and Janet and Fran. Saw them to their doors.”
“What did you do then?” April asked. “Did you stay at home, or go out again?”
“Went to bed. I was tired and had to get up early again to come here this morning.”
“Of course you did. By any chance, did Edward give you a message to pass on to Anne?”
Harold shook his head, his expression blank.
“Thanks, Harold,” Piers said, straightening. “You can get back to work now.”
Harold lumbered to his feet and smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“What do you think?” April said as his steps retreated.
Piers could hear Harold’s voice asking Peggy for instructions. “I think he’s more than strong enough. And he has motive enough. I’m just not sure he recognises it as such. He seems more of a gentle giant type to me. So far as one can ever tell. We probably need to call on his family.”
“And at Edgwick Farm,” April said. “After luncheon? Though I suppose we are hosting a party.”
“So we are. Shall we wash for luncheon?”
In his bedchamber, he was mildly surprised to discover a tall young man brushing mud off his pantaloons from this morning’s walk.
“Good morning, my lord.”
It was the voice that placed him, along with the task he had clearly undertaken on his own initiative.
“Good morning, Stewart,” Piers said, pleased. “How are you?”
“Very well. As you appear to be. I was surprised to get your summons.”
Piers liked Stewart in part because he always spoke to him like a human being. He didn’t my lord him with every breath or speak with an excruciatingly refined accent. He sounded what he was, a Scotsman of some education and no pretensions. Though his past was colourful.
Piers said, “We find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of hosting a party in a large house with far too few servants. And, as it turns out, a mysterious attack on one of the few, who is now unconscious.”
“Then I’m not here purely for my valeting skills?”
“Not purely,” Piers said, eying Stewart’s efforts through his quizzing glass. “Though I’ll not deny those are useful too.”
“What in particular would you like me to do?”
“Perhaps help serve at table?” Piers suggested. “Exercise a bit of staff supervision, although Mrs. Riley seems quite capable of discipline. Also, keep an eye on our patient.”
“In case someone tries to finish the job?”
“It crossed my mind. And—er...how are you with formidable old ladies?”
***
DR. JOSEPH HALE, SOON to be the vicar of St. Dunstan’s, discovered his betrothed alone in the dining room, gazing out of the window.
He had come across her earlier, in a similar position in the library.
Then, she had been looking out upon a scene that included Withy on a garden bench talking to his wife.
This view was of the other side of the garden and there were no Withans in sight.
“Hungry?” he asked lightly.
Turning, she gave him a rueful smile. “Just a little...unsettled,” she said, with more softness, and more openness than he had seen in her since their arrival at Temper House.
“It’s odd seeing him again,” Hale said, returning the favour. “So Withy, and yet so not.”
“He is changed,” she said. “How could he not be? To be inveigled into marriage by such a creature, to be made a laughing stock—”
“I don’t think he was,” Hale interrupted.
“Inveigled, I mean. From something he let slip, he had to persuade her. I’d say she is definitely beneath him, no gentleman’s daughter, though she has learned well.
So yes, the marriage is unequal. But she is not grasping. In fact, I would say she is devoted.”
Hostility flashed in Claudia’s eyes once more. “Would you? But then, like Piers, confronted by a pretty face, you forget to use your brain.”
“Is love ever all about the brain?” he asked, irked. “Or don’t you know?”
She coloured. “What do you mean by that?”
I mean, do you love me? Or was I only ever second best? At least he didn’t say the words aloud, although he did blurt something almost as bad. “You did not accept me until Withy was married.”
Her shock was unexpected. She even made a movement toward him before she stopped herself. She was considering what he had said, analysing it. Hope soared, because the thought seemed to be new to her.
Mal wandered in. “Luncheon is coming,” he said cheerfully. “Seems an age since breakfast. Fancy a game of pall-mall this afternoon?”
“Why not?” Hale said. “Providing the weather holds and our hosts are not too busy investigating their mysteries.”
He spoke lightly, but he knew an odd feeling at the loss of his moment with Claudia. He didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing. Was honesty ever too much?
“The footman?” Mal said, as though he had forgotten, which he probably had.
Hale hadn’t forgotten him for a moment, and from the sudden flash of guilt in Claudia’s eyes, neither had she. It was all a mess. And it might be best if this was one puzzle Withy never solved.