Chapter 41
Forty-one
Rafe
Most of the manor folk and half the village crammed into the normally spacious study in the manor’s new wing. Rafe edged his wide self toward the desk and away from the door, creating an opening for Meera Walker to enter.
“Wilma’s arm will heal,” she announced, after Hunt pounded his fist on the desk to halt the nattering. “Mr. Morgan’s wounds have been treated poorly for a week and the infection is serious.”
Morgan could rot in hell for all Rafe cared.
But if anyone else showed up, they’d have to move this meeting into the billiard room.
He briefly entertained the thought of holding court while knocking balls about.
He was no doubt giddy with relief that the culprit was caught. “Little Betsy?” he asked.
“I had to sedate her. She’s terrified and hysterical,” the physician said. “She told me her mother promised they would go home, and she could have her pets again, if she let her out of the wine cellar.”
“The child is not as stupid as she seems if she figured out how to find the keys,” Hunt suggested.
“My fault,” Lady Elsa admitted. “One of the maids found the child at the service entrance, crying. I told them to let her talk to her mother, to calm her down. Apparently, Wilma knew where the keys hang. A knife isn’t hard to find in a kitchen.
A lost child wandering into the kitchen.
. . we just directed her back to the cellar. ”
“I have a notion they’ve been educated in thievery,” Rafe added. But if the boy had been given any instructions, he hadn’t followed them. He’d stayed in the schoolroom. Again, smarter than he seemed.
“How much can we believe their stories?” Hunt sat on the edge of his mahogany desk, leaving his chair to his steward, Meera’s husband, who took notes of the proceedings for the assize judges.
“What the children have told us mostly agrees with statements from Miss Vivien and Morgan.” Rafe set his scribbled interview notes on the desk for Walker, but they were meager.
“Morgan’s a petty thief. He’s somehow got it in his thick head that Kate’s farm belongs to him.
Damien has explained, but he refuses to believe.
If the old goat had funds, he’d probably drag Kate into court.
He’s that dense. Or the fever has infected his upper story.
Otherwise, he’s not a complete lunatic. He’s been living out by the farm and Hall, waiting for Wilma to come through on her promise to force Kate to move in with her sister. ”
“He’s not completely innocent! He had to have carried Lavender in and out of the cart,” Kate argued, more indignant about that than her farm.
“Morgan is muddled with fever and most likely not in his right head when he did that,” Rafe warned.
“He thought—and I use that word loosely—she was you. Lavender had that bonnet pulled over her head. She was passed out on the floor. She was wearing a dress and thus, female. His goal was Kate. Wilma told him she’d arrange everything, he only needed to haul Kate out. ”
“So Morgan thought he was carting me to the Hall, where he thinks I belong—with my sister?” Kate winced. “And then they were all going to move into my house?”
“Stop thinking it’s your fault,” Rafe ordered. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Wilma’s. She’s madder than Morgan. I’ll make a wild surmise that she believed you’d be the only one in the shop, and that he’d just tie you up, bundle you to the Hall, and you’d stay there, terrified.”
“Why the Hall?” Brydie intelligently asked. “Everyone knows we’re living in the village now.”
Rafe shook his head. “In her cracked mind, Wilma thought she’d neatly take care of Kate and the actors at the same time.
If you and your sister occupied the Hall, the actors had to leave.
She’s wily enough to know they’d testify to her thievery if they saw her, and she had plans to stay in Gravesyde. ”
Hunt’s brow lowered dangerously.
His wife spoke over the outbreak of questions.
“I have seen something similar when dealing with a deranged officer while I was in Egypt. He believed all he had to do was order what he wanted, and his men would make it happen. Fortunately, he was sent home before he caused any harm. The physician called him delusional.”
Meera nodded. “It’s not an uncommon infliction. I am inclined to believe some of our politicians are under the same impression.”
Rafe snickered. Hunt snorted.
Walker glared at his wife. “I am not writing that down. You are saying that in Wilma’s mind, she believes if she wants something, it will happen if she gives everyone a little shove.”
While Clare and Meera bickered over the wording, Kate and Brydie shook their heads in dismay. Rafe understood their confusion. Dealing with the delusional required round-about thinking.
Fletch brought the audience back to attention. “But according to Jasper, Wilma didn’t give him poison mushrooms. Vivien did.”
Fletch kept his voice calm but his fingers clenched, Rafe noted uneasily. His friend had kept his fists remarkably restrained earlier, but everyone had limits. Fletch’s coat sleeve was still damp from attempting to wash out Wilma’s blood.
Unfortunately, his partner had jumped into the weakest point in an already weak case.
With a little more understanding of human nature than Fletch, Rafe tried to explain.
“Both Morgan and Wilma claim Vivien knows nothing of mushrooms. Vivien says her sister gave her the basket in interest of helping her courtship and told her not to eat any of it, to leave it all to Jasper because there wasn’t enough to feed a young man.
” Rafe cracked his knuckles, knowing Vivien was the biggest question mark in their case.
“Then Lavender sent Vivien away, as she usually does. And since she has no real interest in Jasper, Vivien left the basket and took the opportunity to work on a gown for herself at the manor.”
“Have Lavender verify that,” Hunt ordered, gesturing for a footman to find the missing modiste. “This case is so full of holes, we could use it for a sieve.”
Rafe grimaced, knowing he was right. They had witnesses to Wilma holding a knife on her own child and attacking Fletch. Morgan had admitted to carting off Lavender, although he didn’t consider it kidnapping. Both Morgan and Wilma had been present when Kate had found Lavender tied up and drugged.
But Vivien. . . Rafe tried to talk out his doubts. “If Vivien knew nothing of mushrooms, we must assume they didn’t expect her to help them carry out Kate?”
Kate carried that thought further. “If Vivien were part of their plot, she would have stayed at the inn, and they wouldn’t have taken the wrong person. Instead, Vivian returned to the manor, which, I suppose establishes an alibi. She did finally finish those hems as well as her own gown.”
Hunt frowned, not at all happy with the lack of any clear tale.
“If I understand this insane plot rightly. . . Two dimwitted lunatics poisoned young Jasper in order to kidnap Kate. Discovering doors locked, Morgan broke through a window. Finding a female passed out on the floor, with a bonnet covering her hair, he assumed Wilma had knocked out Kate, as promised, so he hauled her off in the actors’ cart.
And then what? They planned to imprison her at the Hall, while they moved into Kate’s house? ”
“Kate was a major obstacle to Wilma’s plans.
It’s more likely she meant to kill Kate and blame it on the actors,” Fletch offered, causing everyone to wince.
“But then, Wilma discovered Morgan had mistakenly taken Miss Marlowe. By the time we arrived, she was in a panic. Hugh was merely thinking of his stomach. But proving any of this is impossible unless one of them confesses, and I’m not certain either has the capability to do so. ”
Fletch being sensible. . . Rafe twitched his shoulders in relief as some of the weight of his duties fell off.
“And the court might rightfully reject the meanderings of witless lunatics,” Hunt agreed with a frown.
Rafe wondered where Damien was. Their lawyer was the one to speak on what the courts might accept.
“What about poor Ana Marie?” Clare Huntley demanded, giving up on the current case and returning to the original one. “Did they kill her, believing she was Kate?”
Another thorn in his side. Rafe scowled.
“Vivien swears she was carrying gowns up and down the front stairs, not the service stairs where we found Mrs. Marie. A maid who dusts the vestibule confirms Vivien always uses the front rather than the back stairs. The maid is incensed by the breach in protocol and remembers clearly.”
Having been summoned, Lavender arrived with her sewing basket while Rafe was speaking.
The crowd parted to let her in so she could reply.
“I spoke with my workers. Odila is the only one who conversed with Ana Marie. She encouraged her to apply again, but to me, in person. She told her to take the service stairs down so Mrs. Upton wouldn’t catch her away from her appointed tasks.
Odila didn’t speak up because she thinks the fall was an accident and she is feeling guilty. ”
“Wilma wasn’t in the manor to push her. She didn’t show up until a day or two after Ana Marie died,” Kate said worriedly. “If neither Wilma nor Vivien did it, could it have been an accident?”
Rafe knew that was what she wanted, but he had doubts about that as well.
“The children tell me they arrived weeks before their mother started working for Lavender. Their landlord threw them out after Vivien left and Wilma couldn’t pay the rent.
Vivien was not pleased when they showed up.
She says she warned Wilma that Ana Marie worked at the manor, so she couldn’t take a position there.
I daresay Wilma simply didn’t show her face until Ana Marie was. . . removed.”