Chapter Nine
When Alden and Devlin rode their horses to the stable, no one was around, and he was glad. The noon hour had long passed, and he assumed everyone was busy in the house with chores, lessons, and such.
Devlin took Lord Edmond down from the back of Alden’s horse, and he placed him inside the barn at the back of the hall.
The weather was still cool, and so the body would keep for a time.
Devlin had the smell of the bog on him. He wanted more than anything to take a bath.
But he knew he had to let the household know what he’d found.
He headed toward the door to the kitchens, and every step up the path seemed heavier and more challenging to make as he got closer.
He and Alden entered the kitchen, and Marta took one look at him, and she knew. She gasped, and her hand flew to cover her mouth.
Devlin nodded. “Where is your lady?”
Marta cleared her throat and answered, her voice quivering, “She’s in the solar, Sir Devlin. With the children.”
Devlin left the kitchen, climbed the back stairs to the second floor, and entered the chamber that Rosalind used as a school room.
The children were seated around the table.
Ridley worked on his sums, and the girls both wrote on their boards.
Rosalind monitored their work. Grim appeared to be passed out, enjoying his rest in a square of sun that streamed through the glass window.
When Devlin stepped forward, the dog raised his big head, snorted in Devlin’s direction, and then returned to his nap.
That dog has become way too comfortable.
Then he turned to Rosalind, and she caught his expression. He didn’t have to say anything.
“You found him then?”
She was not surprised, and her face was emotionless. Devlin didn’t know what he’d expected, but no emotion was a surprise.
“Ridley, continue with the girls and help them with their letters and reading. I’ll be right back.”
Rosalind closed the door behind her as they left the room. By now, Benton and Marta, escorted by Alden, had joined Devlin in the hall. Rosalind quickly opened the door to Edmond’s bedchamber, and immediately closed it so they could talk without the children hearing.
“Tell me,” she said right away. “What did you find?”
“Edmond. He was at the bottom of the bog.”
Devlin searched everyone’s face. Marta looked genuinely surprised, and then she clenched her jaw. upset, Her hands shook ever so slightly. Benton looked stoic as he always did. His face gave away nothing. And Rosalind now looked nervous and curious.
“Could you tell if he was injured?”
“Did he have his sword?”
“Was he robbed?”
Devlin told them. He looked at everyone in the room and tried to discern from their faces if this news was surprising and unknown to them.
Marta looked pale, horrified, actually. Rosalind was also pale but not necessarily shaken.
And Benton appeared unaffected by the news that his lord had been rotting at the bottom of a bog.
“Then it was an accident then. We don’t know how he landed in the bog, but it seems that he must have got stuck in the mire and drowned,” said Benton.
Suddenly, Rosalind gasped and yelled, “Marta!”
Benton moved in slow motion to catch poor Marta as she swooned into a faint, but there was no way he would catch her in time.
Luckily, Devlin leapt into action and caught her before she hit the hard floor.
Rosalind rushed to put a pillow under her head, and as soon as she was sure Marta, while prone and passed out, was comfortable, she started to say something.
“I’m not finished,” Devlin stated quietly. “I would like to believe that this is true. But I did find something on the body.”
Rosalind lifted her gaze to his.
“Inside his cloak was a bag of gold and silver pieces. And that’s not all. His body was weighed down with rocks. Large stones were crammed in his trouser legs and his waistcoat. Someone didn’t want him found.”
All heads turned as Marta began to moan. “I killed him. It was me. It was the nightshade.”
Rosalind gasped at Marta’s groggy confession. Benton’s mouth dropped open.
Alden muttered, “Holy Mother…”
Devlin bent down and helped Marta to sit. “Choose your words carefully. Marta,” he cautioned. “Are you saying you poisoned Lord Edmond?”
Marta shook her head. “No, no. Well, yes, I guess I did, But not intentionally. Although he did deserve it, and I wanted to many times.”
Devlin looked at the woman as if she was ready to be committed to Bedlam.
What is she rambling about? Was that a confession or not?
“Take a deep breath, Marta,” Rosalind said calmly. “When you’re ready, tell us what happened.”
Marta extended her hand up, and Alden helped her to stand, but her legs remained unsteady. He helped her to a chair by the wardrobe.
“That night—the night that Edmond and Lady Rosalind argued so terribly, I knew that trouble was coming. His mood was nastier than ever before, I tell you. Once Lady Rosalind had run to her chambers, Lord Edmond remained at the table. He had practically passed out not long after she left. And that’s how I wanted him. Immobile.”
“So you poisoned him?” Devlin asked, not sure where she was going with her recounting of her part in this tale.
“No, no. I only meant to give him a sleeping draft that would keep him out until morning. When I saw he had passed out, I started to clear the table. But after a moment, he stirred a bit and started rambling and cursing about Lady Rosalind again. I ran back to the kitchen to get my tonics. When he sat up, I poured him some water and told him I added a tincture that would help with the headache in the morning.”
Under scrutiny, she burst into tears.
“The next morning, when I returned to the kitchen, I realized that I had not given Lord Edmond a sleeping draft. I picked up the wrong jar in my haste! I had given him the nightshade!” Her last words ended in a wail.
Devlin could not believe his ears. Now, another member of this family he had grown so attached to was complicit in the murder of Lord Edmond.
I need a strong drink.
“So let me get this straight. You thought to give Lord Edmond something that would help him sleep so he wouldn’t harm Lady Rosalind, and you poisoned him. By mistake?”
“Well, of course, it was by mistake, Sir Devlin. Our Marta wouldn’t kill anyone. Not on purpose. She’s not a murderer. Shame on you for doubting her sincerity. Can’t you see how distraught she is?” Rosalind said.
Marta began to wail again at his questioning.
“I’m not saying she did it on purpose. I can believe her. But I don’t know if the king will.”
Marta yelled out, “It’s over! I’m done for. They’ll take my head or lock me up in the tower for sure!” Her wails grew louder, and she looked ready to faint once more.
“There, there Marta. They will not do any such thing. Say, you did give him the nightshade. It wasn’t enough to kill him. And you certainly didn’t weigh his body down in the bog. There is another person, I believe, who is responsible.” Rosalind stated with conviction.
“She’s right. Marta certainly couldn’t have weighed a body down and hauled it into the bog. We still have too many loose ends here.” Alden said.
“All right,” Devlin said firmly. “Marta, pull yourself together. I need you to be able to think. All of you, think! Was there anyone who came to the manor or any meeting that Lord Edmond had in the weeks leading up to his disappearance that seemed off? Or a message he received, or any change in his mood that seemed unusual that would indicate something was wrong or that he was being threatened?”
Everyone in the room was quiet.
“Alden!” Devlin barked and made Marta and Rosalind jump. “Get Ridley in here. He knows when anyone comes and goes, and the good Lord knows he moves about without being seen or heard. He may have seen or heard something the others didn’t know about.”
Alden opened the door to cross the hall to the solar, and Ridley tumbled into the room.
Devlin, not at all surprised, asked, “Ridley, was there anyone unusual in the manor or did you notice any strange behavior out of Lord Edmond in the weeks before his disappearance. This is important, son. Any detail, even if you’re not sure it means anything, might help us figure out what happened. ”
Devlin almost didn’t notice that he had called Ridley “son.” Use of this term of endearment and the realization about how fond he had grown of the boy shocked and left him bewildered.
He had vowed never to have children. After all, what did he have to offer?
But no, he felt protective and even more determined to solve this mystery and clear all of them of any suspicion or wrongdoing.
Ridley sat on the edge of Edmond’s bed and thought.
By now, Rosalind was pacing, trying her hardest to recall any minute detail.
Marta sat in the chair, wringing her hands.
Her face was white as a sheet and a light sheen of sweat glistened across her brow.
Alden had taken a kerchief and fanned her vigorously.
Bentley sat in the desk chair and fell asleep.
When he let out a very healthy snore, Devlin sighed and gave a defeated shrug of resignation.
But Ridley suddenly sat up tall on the edge of the bed. “I may have something!”
“Well, go on then, Ridley, tell us.”
Ridley recounted what he had seen and heard just a few days prior to Edmond’s disappearance.
“I was doing my morning work like I always do. The sun wasn’t up yet, and everyone except Marta was still asleep. I took some firewood to the lord’s bedchamber. I was super quiet because I didn’t want to wake him. I put the firewood in the wood holder there. I stoked the fire and added a log.”
“Ridley, get to it,” Devlin prompted. “We know you stoke fires each morning already.”
“I was about to leave the room when Lord Edmond started thrashing and moaning in his sleep. He had done that before, especially after a night of drinking and whorin’.”
Rosalind gasped, and Marta sat straight up in her chair. “Ridley Shaw! You watch your tongue. And around our lady too! I’m not so far gone over here that I can’t get up and box those ears!”
Both Devlin and Alden hid a grin. Neither doubted that Marta, nearly in a dead faint or not, wouldn’t follow through with her threat.
Ridley quickly apologized and continued his tale. “At first, the sounds he made were just his usual miserable moans and groans. But then he started talking, almost yelling, really, as he thrashed about. Some of the words were hard to make out, but he kept saying two words over and over.”
Everyone leaned in, waiting for Ridley to reveal Edmond’s sleep talking. Ridley paused dramatically.
“He said freedom whispers.”
Devlin started pacing, Marta fell back into her chair, Alden commenced fanning her again, and Benton, who managed to wake up for Ridley’s disclosure, snorted in exasperation.
Devlin turned to Rosalind. “Does that mean anything to you? Have you heard it anywhere before?”
Rosalind shook her head.
“Are you sure that is what he said?” Devlin asked.
“Oh yes. I am sure. He said it over and over and even yelled it out a couple of times.”
“Was there anything else, Ridley? Anything else that seemed amiss the day before or around that same time?”
“Yes, there was,” he said. “It was his desk.”
“What about his desk, Ridley?” Rosalind asked. “I was here in the days before and the day after Lord Edmond disappeared and nothing looked amiss.”
“That same morning, I noticed that the desk was askew in the room like it had been pushed away from its place on the floor, and most of the drawers were open. There were papers scattered about and even some on the floor. And the inkwell…it had tipped over, and there was ink everywhere.”
“Did you look at any of the papers, Ridley?” Alden asked eagerly.
“No! Definitely not. If the old lord had woken up and caught me snooping around the desk, I’d have got a thrashing for sure.”
“Marta, did you clean up the papers or ink?” Rosalind asked.
“No, milady. I never saw anything like that, and I always tidied the lord’s room every day after the morning victuals.”
“Benton, what about you? When you helped your lord dress that morning, and really every morning, did you see anything unusual?”
“Not a thing, milady. The room looked much as it does now. Nothing looked out of place.”
Rosalind thought for a second. “It does seem Lord Edmond was upset about something. But then again, he was often in a rage. It could have been anything.”
“So basically, we’re no closer to figuring this out since we found the bloke.” Alden sighed.
“Not entirely true, Alden,” Devlin said. “We have the words he kept repeating in his sleep. It could be a clue.”
Marta, who had finally composed herself, stood and announced, “Nothing is ever solved easily on empty stomachs. We’ll sup early this evening.” And with that she left the room.