Eighteen
Rafe: Friday
The next morning, apprised of last night’s intruder, Rafe returned to the Priory and propped his weary bones against a wall in what had become the earl’s salon, instead of sickroom.
While waiting for the rest of the company, Rafe eyed the mural with distaste.
“Are these. . . fairies. . . doing what I think they’re doing? ”
While Lord Fortescue anxiously hunted chairs for the ladies, Arnaud inspected the faded wall decor. “Wings, angels, teaching mankind,” he suggested.
“Naked,” Rafe added flatly. “Naked heavenly cherubim fornicating.”
“A truly terrible artist.” Arnaud shrugged.
In his throne of a bed, his lordship looked a little less gray today. “Viscountess couldn’t afford better. Probably imported a lover to paint it.”
“You’re speaking of my great aunt,” Arnaud reminded him without rancor.
Rafe had learned that Hunt’s cousin wasn’t much on expressing himself, except in his paintings.
He returned to pacing in front of the long windows.
The autumn courtyard scenery wasn’t much better than fading fornicating cherubim, but it did contain real living creatures.
No intruder would dare brave the pack of dogs currently rooting through the potatoes and gourds.
The manor had apparently thought it necessary to post the pack of hunting hounds to guard duty.
The physician had ordered the new mother not to take the stairs, so Rafe didn’t expect Clare to join whatever discussion the manor inhabitants planned.
Minerva arrived in her place, prepared to take notes.
The librarian and Weston exchanged pleasantries and insults, so Rafe assumed they were acquainted.
Lavender, sewing basket in hand, had volunteered to stay with the students.
Their cousin Patience ruled the orchard.
In the midst of harvest, she couldn’t leave.
So all the younger ladies except Thea were accounted for.
Perhaps she had elected to stay away—or talk to the dowagers, who wouldn’t condescend to enter a gentleman’s chamber.
Lord Fortescue appeared more tense than anyone else in the salon.
“I don’t think we should bring the prisoner in.
For all we know, Humphries has an army to storm the manor if we don’t comply with his wishes.
Given last night’s encounter, I don’t want any of his people learning the arrangement of rooms, and we certainly don’t want them to know Weston is here. ”
Rafe shrugged. “I’m happy questioning a prisoner in the stable. Without Hunt, we have no magistrate and no need of a courtroom. Besides, it sounds as if he’s only guilty of trespassing and stupidity. Tell me what you want done with him—other than drown him—and I’ll handle it.”
“He’s one of the inn’s guests,” Fort warned. “Are you comfortable with that?”
“Their coins are nice but I’d still throw the obnoxious lot of them in the river, if I could.
” Rafe had held a grudge against wealthy gentry since they’d ruined his father’s inn.
But he’d given some thought to his duty in this case.
“I’ll just inform him of trespass and fine him, so if you want to ask questions first, you’d best come with me. ”
“Best you don’t go out and identify yourself, Fort,” their noble patient admonished. “Not if you mean to continue spying on the lot.”
“That’s what’s worrying me.” Fort began to pace.
“Calendar is simply hired help and likely knows little.
We are aware that Haggarty and Humphries have fortunes, connections, and influence.
You tell us Gladstone operates a consortium of wealthy investors.
And if the Featherstone mentioned last night is the head of a criminal enterprise as you claim—"
“Perhaps we might arrest everyone with stone in their names,” Minerva suggested, presumably just to annoy Fort at his most pompous.
Weston glared at her. “Jefferson Featherstone owns half the gaming establishments that Prinny and his friends attend. We’re likely the ones to be beheaded if we arrest him for anything short of treason.”
Rafe tried to recall which one of the privileged louts was Featherstone. He thought it might be the tall, smooth-talking one he’d actually believed to be a noble. He was a gentleman criminal? Live and learn.
The tutor simply shook his rumpled hair and continued. “We need to learn more about the leaders of this apparent consortium, not the lackies like Calendar. How much do we reveal we know when questioning the prisoner?”
“Nothing, which is about the sum of all we know.” Arnaud watched the doorway with a frown.
“I shall go. I can order the rat drawn and quartered. Once he starts quivering and whining. . .” His voice shifted to arrogant French scorn, reminding everyone that he was once a wealthy aristocrat.
“I shall ask the questions. If there is any in particular—”
Thea rushed in, her hair tumbling out of loose pins, her refined features drawn in apprehension. “Something is wrong. The sensation woke me at dawn. I thought I was dreaming and fell back asleep and overslept. But I can still feel it.”
Rafe came alert. He wasn’t superstitious, but Thea’s phantoms had found jewels and killers before.
“Feel what?” the earl asked irritably. “The nightmare?”
Arnaud took the lady in his arms to steady her. “Spirits?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder and wrinkled her brow, as if concentrating. “I don’t normally, not like this. They’re usually just energies attached to places or things. But this. . . this is awful. I feel as if I’m suffocating and screaming at the same time.”
Stern visage hardening, Arnaud handed Thea over to Minerva. Rafe knew the comte had seen horrors the rest of them could only imagine.
“Have tea brought up. Send for Meera,” Arnaud ordered, before turning to Rafe. “Outside, quickly. Let us hope we are not too late.”
Confused, Rafe had no idea what he was about, but over the objections of the duke’s sons, he loped after Hunt’s large cousin, who broke into a run as soon as he was out of sight of the ladies.
For the normally reclusive artist to take command like the aristocratic leader he’d once been was so unusual, that Rafe knew better than to question.
In the stable, men went about their work of mucking stalls and filling feed buckets as if all were well. The workers glanced up in startlement at the unexpected intrusion, but Arnaud didn’t stop to explain. He strode over to a stall, yanked the bolt, and flung open the door.
His curses were a good indicator that the prisoner was no longer with them. While Arnaud stormed out, shouting for the stable manager, Rafe peered into the stall.
A plump man tied at wrist and ankle lay sprawled in the hay, his breeches soiled, his face pale and still. The straw around him had been disturbed, shoved helter-skelter, leaving only dust beneath him—as if he’d thrashed about in a nightmare. Rafe backed out and sent one of the men for Meera.
Damnation and triple damnation. He needed to heave all the inn’s guests out on their haughty ears, kick their fat posteriors down the road. . .
Clenching his fists and pacing, Rafe listened as Arnaud questioned the workers until he located the one who should have been standing guard.
The portly, older man, who had most likely been a former soldier, rubbed his unshaven jaw sleepily. “It were just a’fore dawn and quittin’ time. I thought as he was come to take my place. Offered me a sip from his flask and told me to go on. I warn’t much awake and figgered it was best.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. He’d have court-martialed the. . . He wasn’t in the army any longer and these were simple men, not trained sentries. “Can you describe him?”
The soldier rubbed his eyes as if that would help recall. “Youngish, mebbe? Weren’t too big anyway. It were dark and he wore a cap pulled down and a coat what swallowed ’im. It were nippy and I just figgered he borrowed it. Warn’t really lookin’, if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, Rafe did. He held up his hand to prevent a stone-faced Arnaud from going temperamental on the witness. “If you remember anything else, let us know. A man died tonight because you weren’t alert.”
Rafe glared at the others gathering. “That goes for all of you. It feels safe here, but it isn’t. We are fortunate thieves didn’t make off with the lady’s valuable cattle.” He nodded at the stalls containing some of the best purebreds in the kingdom, raised by Lady Elsa and her husband.
The men looked suitably guilty and disturbed.
Meera rushed in, giving the stable manager excuse to shout his men back to work. Steaming and pacing, Arnaud stopped to bow courteously to the little physician and hold the stall door for her, every inch the gentlemen he pretended not to be.
Dr. Walker muttered unintelligibly under her breath as she surveyed the scene, not approaching the body until she’d examined its surroundings. “No blood, but unless he was suffering from demons, it is unlikely that he died naturally.”
“My conclusion also.” Rafe had seen death in many forms. Most generally, the dying did not thrash vigorously. Of course, with arms and legs tied, the poor git had had no other means of fighting.
The physician crouched beside the body and examined his throat, then looked under his eyelids.
“Bruising at the carotids, bloodshot eyes. Our killer knew what he was doing if he meant to render his victim unconscious so he couldn’t scream.
” She pulled back Calendar’s shirt to examine his rib cage.
“More bruising. He’s been suffocated as well as strangled.
Perhaps he didn’t think his hands strong enough to cause death. ”
Rafe understood. He wasn’t ignorant. He knew what a carotid was. He’d seen them slit often enough. Perhaps he should be grateful there was no blood. They’d rendered the victim unconscious, squeezed his chest with knees, and placed. . . what? “No pillows. How?”
Arnaud frowned and studied the stable proper. “Any half-empty feed sacks?”
Lingering anxiously, the stable manager nodded. “Usually we don’t leave them half-empty. But we found that one on the stack of full ones.” He retrieved a half-filled burlap bag of grain. “Thought we had thieves.”
Arnaud held the now malleable bag out to Meera. “Placed over his face, like a pillow?”
Rafe checked. The grain bin in the prisoner’s stall had been filled, presumably with the missing feed. Proof positive of murder as far as he was concerned.
Meera nodded. “Sat on him, squeezed the breath out of him, held the bag over his face when he started gasping for air. Unconscious in a minute, dead in five. I’d say he’s done this before.”
Arnaud slammed his big fist against a wall. Rafe would rather punch a killer.