Chapter 42
Forty-two
Kate
When Fletch turned toward the old part of the manor on his own pursuit, Kate tugged his sleeve to catch his attention. She appreciated his polite consideration, but she really wasn’t the sort to be led about. “Where is Vivien?”
Around them, the crowd poured from the study, discussing the prisoners.
Impatiently, he frowned and nodded in the other direction, down the hall of the new wing. “Rafe locked her in one of the empty rooms so Hunt might interrogate her.”
“I want to talk to her. May I?” She didn’t know precisely what she wanted to say, but she’d sort it out. She was too uneasy to let this go. Hunt might be satisfied with leaving any decisions to a court, but she wasn’t.
When Fletch seemed hesitant, she added, “If Ana Marie died because of me, I need to know the details, please. I can’t sleep with this.”
Rafe emerged from the study with Hunt. Fletch reluctantly flagged them down. At his request, both men looked equally dubious, but Kate glared at them without flinching or bowing her head. She was learning to stand up for herself.
Reluctantly, Hunt sorted through his keys. “We’ll stand outside and listen. I suppose I’d appreciate a little reassurance that we’re not releasing another lunatic into our midst.”
“Vivian’s delusion has probably not reached the extent of murder. Yet.” Grimly, Kate accompanied Fletch down the hall. The manor had so many underused rooms that two entire wings might be turned into a prison, as well as the cellars and the monks’ crypt.
Leaving Rafe and Hunt out of sight, Fletch guided Kate into the nearly empty room, crossed his arms, sling and all, and blocked the door with his considerable presence.
At their entrance, Viven glanced up in distress. Tears stained her cheeks, but she straightened and recovered enough to glare at Kate. “Have you come to be rid of me, once and for all?”
For a change, Kate was grateful that Fletch held his tongue. “I want to know about Ana Marie. I had a lovely cousin I never had a chance to know. How did she end up at the bottom of the stairs?”
Vivien collapsed into the room’s only chair, a wooden one that creaked ominously at her abrupt drop. She wept into her handkerchief. A dramatic performance indicating guilt?
But before Kate could speak, Vivien sobbed, “She was the mother I wish I’d had!”
Oh, dear. Kate cast a glance at Fletch, who grimaced but nodded encouragingly. She liked to believe he had faith in her, not that he was at a loss for words.
“She should have stayed home!” Vivien wiped angrily at her cheeks. “None of this would have happened if Mrs. Marie had stayed in her shop, where she belonged.”
“She gave the shop to her daughter.” Kate understood how Fletch felt. She had no words to make sense of this.
“That simpleton doesn’t have half my talent or even her mother’s.
” Taking a deep breath, Vivien lifted her head to meet Kate’s eyes.
“When Mrs. Marie followed me here, I was terrified she’d blame me for what Wilma did and have me put off.
I worked too hard to have her take the place I’d earned with Miss Marlowe. ”
Oh dear, this did not sound promising. “You stole her reference letter?” Kate suggested.
“I saw her letter on Miss Marlowe’s desk and panicked. Why would she write here except to expose me?” Vivien seemed almost indignant. “So I took the letter, and when I realized she was applying for a position, I sent it to Wilma to ask what I should do.”
“Wilma can read?” Fletch asked, reminding them he was listening.
Vivien instinctively straightened her shoulders and patted her hair for this male presence. “Enough to get by. I didn’t expect her to follow me here!”
“So you stole Ana Marie’s reference letter, sent it to Wilma, but Ana Marie showed up without waiting for a reply.
You told her there was no opening, and instead of going home, Ana Marie didn’t believe you.
She stayed anyway. And then your. . . sister.
. . arrived?” Kate almost believed this tale.
The parts fit. She didn’t know how to address the strange relationship between the women though.
“I hoped Mrs. Marie would go home, where she belongs,” Vivien wailed, caught up in her own woes and not noticing word choices. “She didn’t need to work.”
“What happened when Wilma arrived?” Fletch asked, not concealing his disgust.
Viv’s shoulders sagged again. “She had the reference letter and used it to get past the footman. I don’t know how she found Mrs. Marie, though. I suppose no one thought she looked out of place.”
Wilma did, indeed, look like all the other harmless sewing women.
Caps covering their graying hair, black gowns in the same shapeless fashion, heads down.
. . Once inside, she could have taken the service stairs easily, without anyone giving her a glance.
Perhaps if more women looked up instead of down.
. . They might be seen and not treated like furniture.
Vivien continued, her voice cracking in anguish.
“When Wilma’s angry, she just. . . doesn’t think before she pushes.
She once broke Henry’s arm when he climbed a fence she told him not to—because he might get hurt.
We learned to stay out of her way. Only, if there was an argument, Mrs. Marie was not the sort to stand aside.
Wilma was really angry with Mrs. Marie for putting her off.
Mr. Morgan is a thief, not Wilma. That day she accused us of theft, Mrs. Marie wouldn’t listen. She simply locked Wilma out.”
Killing seemed like such a drastic solution, but to a lunatic. . . “You’re saying Wilma sneaked into the manor, found Ana Marie, argued, and just. . . pushed her down the stairs?” Kate wasn’t prepared to believe this any more than that they meant to kill her.
“I know you think Wilma tried to kill you that day.” Vivien wrung her handkerchief.
“But she had only heard about you from Mr. Morgan. She didn’t know what you looked like.
But she knew Mrs. Marie stood in her way and hated her for calling her a thief.
But planning to push anyone. . . She never did anything like that before. ”
That anyone knew of, Kate thought. She was learning to be suspicious.
“I’m sure she only intended to tell Mrs. Marie to go home.
” Vivien’s voice dropped to a somber whisper.
“At the time, I didn’t think anything of it when Wilma said she meant to apply for a seamstress position.
We needed the money. I didn’t think. . .
that she knew Mrs. Marie wouldn’t stand in her way. ” She scrubbed at her eyes again.
“Wilma may only have meant to scare Mrs. Marie, or at the most, cripple her so she couldn’t work or tattle on the two of you,” Fletch suggested. “Unfortunately, the result is the same, I’m sorry.”
For the first time, Vivian awoke to the likelihood that Wilma might be sent up for murder. She went wide-eyed in panic. “You can’t send her away! Who will take care of Bets and Henry? Mr. Morgan isn’t their father. He won’t do it!”
“Mr. Morgan will be sent to assizes for kidnapping, at the very least,” Kate said gently. “Gravesyde does not have a workhouse or orphanage. The children are now your responsibility. We’ll all attempt to help, of course.”
Vivien stared at her blankly.
At the sound of silence, Rafe barged in. “Who let Hugh out of the stall that day you fell on the stairs?” he demanded, apparently still irate about that.
“Wilma,” the girl whispered, jarred back to the moment. “He’s my pa. I pretended to sprain my ankle so they wouldn’t be noticed.”
“You said you were pushed,” Rafe reminded her. “You accused some unknown person of pushing you.”
Vivien sighed and crossed her hands in her lap. “It sounded scarier than saying I tripped.”
Kate rolled her eyes. They wouldn’t have seriously considered that Ana Marie was murdered had it not been for Vivien’s lie about being pushed. Of course, she said that’s what Wilma did all the time, push. So it had probably come easily to her tongue.
Kate didn’t know what else to say to the stricken young woman. She turned away, taking Fletch’s arm, leaving Hunt and Rafe to question her more. They were the authorities, not her.
All she’d wanted to know was what happened to Ana Marie. Knowing it wasn’t about her wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped.
“There are no easy answers, are there?” She wiped an errant tear as Fletch led her down the long hall toward the main manor.
“Well, the chit could abandon the children and run off with the actors and sew costumes.” Fletch didn’t sound much concerned.
“It’s what we make of difficult circumstances that reveal our characters, I suppose.
When life threw manure at you, you married, and raised three beautiful children, without pushing anyone down stairs. ”
“Manure?” His odd manner of looking at life and finding respectable words for expressing himself aroused her dormant humor.
He ignored her comment and insisted on strolling into the main house as though he lived there.
Kate didn’t know why he wanted to go to the library, but he obviously had a mission. They passed the dining room where a late luncheon buffet had been set out. The courtroom crowd was swarming the tables.
She was peckish, so she knew Fletch must be also, but apparently he was more interested in whatever goal he had in mind.
“I am trying very hard to be civilized,” Fletch said with discomfort. His big, brown hand covered hers on his arm as they reached the library doors. “It takes a man of character to deserve a woman of character.”
She bit back a smile. If this was his way of courting, she wouldn’t argue. “I think a man must already be of strong character to survive years of war and. . . manure. . . thrown at him.” Blushing at her forwardness, Kate let him lead her into the late earl’s grandiose library.
Where the librarian, Oliver, Davy, and their tutor, sat at a long table, perusing sheets of. . . hieroglyphics, Kate assumed, from what she could see.
The boys politely came to their feet and bowed at Kate’s entrance, as if she were a grand lady. Or perhaps it was in respect for the former major, who settled her into a chair across from them.
“Tell us what you’ve found. I don’t want to start any more foolish rumors of treasure.” Fletch took the seat beside her while the boys returned to their chairs.
“Clock design.” Davy pushed one sheet to Fletch. “Correct weight of pendulum. We must open it.”
That’s when Kate noticed the long brass pendulums on the table, wrapped in felt. She hadn’t paid attention to the clock all week, because it had been silent. These were what made it work?
Impatiently, Oliver shoved one of the pendulums across to Fletch.
The tutor spoke up. “Oliver, explain why you wish it opened.”
The boy grimaced. “It might have information to help with the map.” He pushed another drawing across the table.
Minerva Upton, the librarian, gestured at a box set to one side. “The boys have considerately packed all your tools.” Amusement danced in her eyes.
“We have permission to do this?” Fletch stroked the engraved brass piece as if it were a prized pet, apparently reluctant to damage the beautiful workmanship.
Both boys nodded. Mr. Birdwhistle answered for them. “We have spoken with the Huntleys. The captain said anything that keeps the. . .” He hesitated.
“Frigging nuisance quiet,” Davy supplied without expression.
Kate hid her laughter. The captain’s language was always colorful. She’d attempted to impose a fine on the gentlemen when they cursed, but their substitutions tended to be even more imaginative and sounded equally obscene. Manure, indeed.
“Well, if I fix the clock, it won’t be quiet.
” Fletch opened the tool box. “First, you must understand that the weight of the pendulum itself measures the time. The only thing they should contain, at best, is a small container of mercury. Mercury adjusts weight for temperature to ensure accurate time.”
“Which it hasn’t kept in forever. Housekeeping will appreciate anything even resembling correct time,” Minerva said. As the housekeeper’s daughter-in-law, she’d have discussed the clock with her. “Maids don’t own watches.”
Fletch chose a tool. “If the mercury containers have been removed, I cannot immediately repair them. Our scholars will need to calculate the amount of mercury necessary to keep pendulums of this length on time, and we’ll have to order it.”
People departing the luncheon buffet drifted past the library while Fletch worked. Arnaud and Thea, Davy’s sister, glanced in, presumably at the unusual sight of her brother conversing with adults. As Fletch carefully removed the back plate on one pendulum, the pair entered to watch.
Dirty old stones tumbled out. Thea gasped.
“Diamonds?” Minerva whispered.
Catching a glimmer of crystalline light, Kate raised her eyebrows. She’d never seen diamonds in anything except jewelry—and never in this quantity.
Davy and Oliver grabbed for the yellowed, folded parchment that fell out with the stones.