Chapter Fourteen
April whisked into Piers’s room like a gust of wind.
“Something happened to him while he was unconscious,” she blurted.
“Perhaps he dreamed, or maybe just had time to think about his life. Whatever, he’s decided he deserved what happened to him.
Certainly, he seems to understand it, and he’s not prepared to land anyone in trouble for it. How maddening is that?”
“Very maddening, since he’s the only witness we have.
” Piers was standing before the glass, tying the simple knot of his cravat.
“And he gave me much the same impression last night. Nor did he appear to care that his attacker could try again, though he’s prepared to go along with keeping his recovery quiet. For now.”
“He tried to put the blame on nameless poachers,” April fumed. “Wouldn’t say who he was meeting at the summer house. Because his lover was his attacker? Or because the lover’s name would lead us to the attacker?”
“Either,” said Piers, dropping the quizzing glasses around his neck. “Have you breakfasted?”
She sighed. “No. Barley, the constable, was here, but I think he’s just going through the motions to please Mr. Alexander. And to be seen by us.”
“He could be useful,” Piers said thoughtfully, “with his local knowledge.”
“Not if Edward just denies everything. Unless something drastic changes, Edward won’t charge anyone with the crime.”
Piers met her gaze in the glass, then turned to face her. “We have turned a blind eye to certain crimes in the past. Would it be so bad in this case? If Edward recovers and mends his ways, and the attack really was a once-in-a-lifetime moment?”
“Can an attack that violent be once-in-a-lifetime?” April demanded. “Particularly if he gets away with it. It’s lawless.”
Her turbulent eyes met Piers’s and cleared into rueful laughter. “I know. I know. I should be transported twelve times over. I’ve grown smug and soft and self-righteous. But I don’t like violence.”
She had reason. He put his arm loosely around her, rested his forehead against hers.
“We haven’t given up,” he said.
“I don’t want this to be our first failure,” she admitted.
Because they were with his friends who already found his interest in such puzzles amusing? “We’re bound to fail sometimes. Neither of us should mind that. We still do some good.”
She frowned. “Meaning that in this case it might be worse to succeed?”
Something struck a chord. “Hardly,” he said, and yet he wondered.
***
THE RAIN CAME ON DURING breakfast, making outdoor activities less appealing.
Piers spent the morning mostly in the library, thinking, mulling, adopting and discarding plans.
Including the abandoning of the investigation and simply protecting Edward by announcing that he had not seen any attacker and had no idea how he came to be hurt.
That could work, and he was beginning to think it would be the best option.
In between, or even during these cogitations, he conversed desultorily with his friends and got intrigued again by Mal’s new thesis on Pliny.
Around midday, Hubb wandered into the library. “Lady Petteril has invited the terrifying old dragon to luncheon.”
Hale grinned. “I like her. She’s sharp as a tack.”
“As long as she’s on her best behaviour,” Piers said vaguely.
It appeared she was—at first.
Erudite conversation neither confused her nor led her to show off. She seemed as happy to discuss the weather, and there was no obvious derision in her face at either. She even laughed at Fosterson’s jokes and discussed the health of Great Aunt Prudence—apparently an old friend of hers—with April.
“I expect she likes you,” the old lady remarked—accurately, as it happened. “Not just in the common way, are you?”
Although she spoke pleasantly enough, Piers caught the glint of mischief in her bright eyes. As though she knew that common was exactly what April was and wanted to see if she would rise to the bait.
“Like all the Withans, my wife is unique,” Piers said. He kept his voice light and good-natured, and Lady Temperley met his gaze with limpid innocence. All the same, she must have got the point because she changed the subject.
All went well until Becky got in Stewart’s way.
Stewart was re-filling wine glasses, while Becky cleared dishes from the table.
While Stewart was adept at most tasks, domestic and otherwise, Becky did not normally serve or clear away at table.
She was a chambermaid and didn’t know the rules.
So she collected a plate from the wrong side of Lady Temperley and Stewart, moving at the same time, jostled her arm so that a splash of gravy landed on the tablecloth.
It would have been worse, except that Stewart steadied her arm with his free hand and jerked his head to show her the correct side.
“Idiot girl,” Lady Temperley snapped.
Becky smiled a tremulous apology at Stewart, which was not lost on the old lady.
“What are you smiling at him for, girl? It’s back to the old man for you.”
Piers, about to step in verbally, suddenly set down his glass.
Vaguely, he was aware of April saying everyone was muddling through in difficult circumstances. Of tears welling in Becky’s eyes as she seized the last plate and cutlery and fled.
Peggy had just come in with a light, creamy dessert. “Don’t cry, silly,” she muttered to Becky, her voice not unkind. “You never stood a chance with Edward either.”
Piers stared fixedly at his glass. Either. Did that mean neither Becky nor Peggy had stood a chance with Edward? Or that Becky had stood no chance with some other man?
What man?
Back to the old man, Lady Temperley had said viciously.
Becky still in her crumpled clothes from the day before at three o’clock on the morning Edward was attacked.
Becky. Was Edward protecting Becky? Because he cared for her? Or because in his new understanding, he owed her? What relationship had his intervention ruined for her?
The gears of his brain turned and clicked into place. He had all the pieces of the puzzle. And none of the proof.
***
“YOU HAVEN’T GIVEN UP at all,” April accused, as soon as she had shut the bedroom door behind them.
Piers had almost dragged her with him upstairs and now went straight to her desk to take out the notebook. She knew he would try fitting every fact and every observation into whatever new theory he had come up with.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” he said unexpectedly, flipping through the pages as he walked to the bed and sat on it.
“How everyone suffers by comparison? We both considered Becky as being physically capable of striking Edward so hard. Peggy we only considered in so far as some besotted man defending her honour.”
April’s eyes widened. “Peggy? You think Peggy did it?”
“No, no, think the other way. Becky had another man. Why shouldn’t she?
She’s a kind, hard-working girl, and pretty in her own way.
She’s just not beautiful beside Peggy. She’s probably always suffered by that comparison, so she couldn’t believe her luck when Edward’s roving eye finally noticed her. ”
April sank down beside him on the edge of her bed, watching him scan the notes they —mostly April—had made since coming here.
“He turned her head?” she said slowly. “She probably thought he wanted to change, to settle down and had picked her, the good girl to Peggy’s flirt. But why do you think she had a previous commitment? We never heard any such thing.”
“No. And maybe she didn’t. But Lady Temperley had heard it.”
“Back to the old man,” April quoted. He had expected her to pick that up, though she’d been too incensed with Lady Temperley’s cruelty at the time. “But what old man? Becky’s father? He doesn’t live in the village but further east with an older daughter.”
“How do you know these things?” he asked, briefly distracted.
“I ask,” April said.
Piers cast the notebook onto April’s lap.
“I think we have to change our plan. Even if I’m right, there is no proof if Edward won’t make a complaint, and I don’t believe he will.
Pretending Edward is still asleep won’t protect him forever, and in any case, you’re right.
Unchecked, violent impulses tend to get worse.
If Edward wants to remain at risk, then we might as well make use of him. ”
“As what?” April demanded.
Piers’s eyes gleamed. “Bait.”
***
APRIL WAS IN THE GAMES room at the back of the house, playing an unexpectedly hilarious bout of billiards with Claudia and Meg—they were all a little hazy as to the rules, and only April had ever played before, with Piers—when Piers himself sauntered in.
“Thought you’d like to know,” he said, watching critically as April bent over the table to line up her shot. “Edward woke up.”
Amongst the exclamations of surprise and relief, April didn’t mind missing her perfect shot, particularly not for a good cause.
“What did he say?” Meg asked.
“Who hit him?” Claudia demanded.
Piers spread his hands. “He says he didn’t see, that someone crept up behind him in the dark. But he seems no more upset than if he’d had his cork-drawn in a tavern brawl. Fosterson thinks he’ll recover fully and has gone down to the village to consult with Dr. Forbes, the local man.”
And to spread the word about Edward’s recovery. Stewart had been dispatched to the inn upon the same errand, in case the servants didn’t gossip fast enough.
“And so all your puzzling has come to naught,” Claudia teased.
“I’d rather that than be contending with murder,” Piers said. “As it is, I shall regard it as a happy ending. At least until Edward tells us what he’s hiding.”
“Is he likely to?” April asked.
“Oh yes,” Piers said definitely. “He’s already torn between his own loyalties.”
Footsteps padded surreptitiously on toward the baize door to the servants’ hall. Someone had overheard. Knowing Piers, he had timed it that way.
***