Chapter 34
Nell entered their bedchamber ahead of Miles, her blood still simmering with apprehension. Lord Amstead had been all politeness to them for the rest of their meal and during the tense game of whist that followed. He’d instigated no quarrels and made no outright accusations. Even so…
Miles closed the door after her. “Pack your things,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
Nell didn’t need to inquire as to why. She’d understood as well as he had what the baron’s toast could have meant. “We can’t,” she replied. “We still have to speak to Mrs. Virtue.”
“To the devil with Mrs. Virtue. It’s too dangerous. If Amstead knows who we are—”
“Even if he does, he can scarcely admit it, can he? Not without revealing his connection to Mrs. Pritchard.” Nell limped to the fireplace, brow furrowed in thought.
“He must have received an express from London. Either that, or Innes did. Something from Mrs. Pritchard, presumably, giving him my name and description.”
“Which is exactly why we’re going,” Miles said. “Now.”
“We can go tomorrow. After we visit Bricket Lodge.”
“Nell—”
“One more night won’t make a difference,” she said. “And consider, this may be our last chance to speak to Mrs. Virtue, and to find out whatever it was she told Mr. Cowgill. We can’t let the opportunity pass.”
Miles uttered a blistering oath.
“You know I’m right,” Nell told him.
He glared at her as ferociously as a baited bear.
She held her breath, waiting for him to issue some high-handed husbandly decree.
But he didn’t. He was far too sensible.
“Very well,” he said at last. “But after we talk to her, we’re on the next train to London.”
She exhaled. “Of course.”
“I want your word, Nell.”
“You have it,” she said.
Miles was unmollified. Stalking to the wardrobe, he stripped off his coat and tore loose his neckcloth, casting both over a chair.
He was all scowls and grumbles until they retired to bed.
It was only then that his mood seemed to improve.
He held her and loved her with such reverence, such tender care, that Nell quickly realized it wasn’t anger that had made him so cross.
It was his overwhelming sense of protectiveness toward her.
He was afraid she’d be hurt. That he would lose her somehow.
A remote possibility, but one that was obviously still plaguing him the following morning when they set out after breakfast in their borrowed one-horse gig.
Miles stared ahead in stony silence as he drove over the remote country road. He wasn’t happy; that much was clear. Had it been up to him, they’d be heading to the platform halt instead of to Bricket Lodge.
“Have I shown you the spring mechanism on my new cane?” Nell asked when the silence between them had stretched on for nearly a mile.
She lifted the sleek black walking stick from the seat beside her.
It was narrower than her raven’s head cane, with a plain, curved handle.
“I need only press the inset button thusly and…voilà!” A blade shot out from the bottom of the cane. “Look how sharp it is.”
“If you’re attempting to reassure me,” Miles said, still staring straight ahead, “you’re doing a poor job of it.”
“What could be more reassuring than a spring-loaded blade?”
He flashed her a repressive glance. “This may come as a shock, but the thought of you fighting some villain with that cane does absolutely nothing to ease my mind.”
“I’m not inept, you know.”
“As I’ve observed. May I remind you that you’re also injured.”
She flushed. “I’m accustomed to my leg being—”
“I’m not talking about your leg. I’m talking about your shoulder.”
Nell fell quiet. He did have a point. “It doesn’t matter in any case,” she said at length. Retracting the blade, she set her cane back down on the seat. “In a few short hours, we shall be safely back in London.”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “We will.”
Bricket Lodge was situated on the edge of the river.
A sprawling mansion of fairly new construction in comparison to grand estates like Northwick Hall.
The gaudy fretwork and excessive embellishments marked it as the residence of a wealthy tradesman rather than the ancestral home of a member of the gentry.
Miles bypassed the front of the house in favor of the kitchen yard at the back. A young groom in his shirtsleeves was washing his face at the pump. He sprang up when he saw them drive in and trotted forward to take hold of the horse’s bridle.
“Are you stopping, sir?” he asked Miles. “Shall I water your horse?”
“That depends,” Miles said. “Is Mrs. Virtue at home today?”
“She is, sir,” the lad replied.
“Excellent.” Miles jumped down from the gig. Coming around to the other side of it, he lifted Nell out of her seat, setting her feet gently on the ground.
Warmth radiated through her at his touch. But this wasn’t the time to indulge the sensation. Marshaling her thoughts, she collected her cane. She couldn’t put her weight on it yet, but it bolstered her confidence to have it with her.
Miles offered his arm and Nell took it, accompanying him to the back door. A scullery maid answered their knock. She admitted them into the warm kitchen and, on learning the purpose of their errand, immediately hared off to fetch Mrs. Virtue.
Nell and Miles were left standing there, amid the smoke from the fire and the steam from the pots boiling on the stove, subjected to the curious stares of the cook, the kitchen maid, and a stray footman enjoying a cup of tea at the work table.
The housekeeper appeared in short order. She was an older lady. Approaching sixty, if Nell had to guess. Her gray hair was tucked under a cap, and her black stuff dress was neat as a pin. She looked them over with an air of reserved civility. “Ma’am. Sir. How may I help you?”
“My husband and I are visiting from London,” Nell said. “We have a private matter to discuss with you. If you might spare us a moment alone?”
Mrs. Virtue pursed her lips. She was too well-mannered of a servant to question them about their business here in the kitchen, with the other members of staff craning to hear. “Indeed,” she said. She gestured to the slate-tiled hall. “My apartment is through here.”
Nell and Miles followed her into the housekeeper’s room. It contained a small table, an iron bedstead, and two horsehair chairs. The starkness of the furnishings was softened by a lace tablecloth and a vase of fresh flowers.
“I don’t know what this is in regard to,” Mrs. Virtue began after shutting the door. “But—”
“I am Miles Quincey, editor in chief of the London Courant,” Miles said without preamble. “I have reason to believe that you spoke to a reporter of mine some months ago. A man by the name of Lawrence Cowgill. He was a guest here at the time.”
Mrs. Virtue’s face betrayed a flash of alarm. “I’m sorry but I—”
“He paid you, I presume,” Miles said.
The housekeeper blanched. For a servant to sell secrets about their employer was a betrayal of the worst kind. “You can’t be saying that, sir.”
“No one knows but my wife and me,” Miles said. “We’d prefer to keep it that way.”
Nell stepped forward. “All we ask,” she said, “is that you tell us exactly what you told Mr. Cowgill.”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Mrs. Virtue returned. “I’d have thought he’d have printed it by now anyway. I looked for it in his column for two months straight. If he—”
“Cowgill is dead,” Miles said bluntly. “He was murdered.”
Mrs. Virtue’s jaw went slack. She staggered backward, sinking into one of the horsehair chairs. “Murdered?” she breathed. “Heaven help me.”
Nell perched on the edge of the chair opposite her. “You had suspicions about something, was that it? Something that happened at Northwick Hall?”
Mrs. Virtue nodded mutely.
“Did it involve Miss Fawn-Purvis’s elopement?” Miles asked, coming to stand beside Nell.
“She didn’t elope,” Mrs. Virtue replied sharply. “She had no one to elope with. She was going to London to see a solicitor.”
Nell pulse quickened. “For what purpose?”
“Something had upset her,” Mrs. Virtue said. “She told me she needed to speak to someone impartial, but quiet-like, without anyone else knowing. She’d written to him, she said.”
Nell leaned toward her. “Do you know why she—”
“All I know is she left on the train,” Mrs. Virtue said.
“Wouldn’t take any servants with her. She was afraid someone might report back to her brother.
It were simple enough, she told me, to travel straight to London.
She planned to hire a cab at the railway station when she arrived to take her to the solicitor’s office. ”
Nell’s stomach sank. She thought of what had happened to Flora Brent at the railway station. Is that what had happened to Jane Fawn-Purvis? Had she arrived alone and vulnerable only to be intercepted by Mrs. Pritchard?
“Did she tell you why she wanted to keep her appointment from her brother?” Miles asked. “Was it because she suspected him of something?”
“I know nothing of what she suspected,” Mrs. Virtue answered. “Naturally, I have my own suspicions, but I’ll not give voice to them. I have no intention of finding myself jailed for slander, or libel, or whatever it would be.”
“If what you have to say is the truth, no one can prosecute you for making it known,” Miles said.
The housekeeper shook her head. Her mouth was set in a mulish line. “It’s a small world in this part of Hertfordshire, and I have my livelihood to think of. I’ll not be caught maligning the new baron or that good-for-nothing valet of his, no matter what they might have done.”
“You believe they did something to Miss Fawn-Purvis?” Nell asked.
“Someone must have, mustn’t they?” Mrs. Virtue retorted. “Jane Fawn-Purvis left on that train for London. But she never came back, did she? And no lawyer ever came down here after her. It’s only her brother who claims to know what happened to her. And how could he, I ask?”
“How could he, indeed,” Nell replied grimly.
· · · · ·
Miles and Nell returned to Northwick Hall in the early hours of the afternoon. Their journey back was largely made in silence, both of them privately pondering the implications of what they’d learned from Mrs. Virtue.
It was only as they rolled up the drive to the stone stable block at the hall that Nell finally spoke. “I suppose we must hand it all over to Inspector Garrick,” she said in a tone of defeat.
Miles liked it no better than she did. Every fiber of his being was urging him to continue chasing the story. To keep going until he’d run Amstead, Innes, and Mrs. Pritchard to ground and held them to account for whatever they’d done to Cowgill and Miss Fawn-Purvis. Not to mention Miss Brent.
But there was more at stake here than his desire for a story. He had Nell to think of now. Her safety eclipsed every other concern.
“It would be the wisest course,” he said. “Someone will have to question Amstead, and he’s not likely to provide answers if that questioner is a newspaperman.”
Nell clutched to the padded bench seat as the gig bounced over the gravel.
“It’s too dreadful. To think that he might have done this to his own sister.
To have gotten rid of her so callously. And working with the likes of Mrs. Pritchard, too.
How on earth would a gentleman of his stature even have come into contact with such a person? ”
“You forget that, until recently, Mrs. Pritchard was the proprietor of a gentlemen’s establishment.”
“I know that. My point is, Lord Amstead never goes to London. He’d have had no opportunity to avail himself of her offerings. If he does know her, they’d have had to meet some other way.”
“We shall have to leave it to Garrick,” Miles said.
He guided the horse to the entrance of the stables, bringing the gig to a halt.
No groom emerged to meet them. Most of the outdoor staff were off on the shoot with Lord Amstead and the other gentlemen.
But not all of them. There had been a lone lad present this morning when Miles and Nell had departed.
It was he who had hitched up the gig for them.
“What is it?” Nell asked.
“No groom,” Miles said.
“He’s probably in the kitchen having a cup of tea.”
Miles gazed up at the main house, frowning. “Possibly.”
“I can go up and fetch him if you like,” Nell suggested. “I could use the exercise.”
“You’re not going anywhere on this property on your own,” Miles said. “I’ll put the horse away myself. We can walk back together.”
Tying off the reins, he jumped from the gig and came around to assist her down. He set her lightly on the ground. She stood back, holding her cane loosely in her hand, while he unhitched the horse from the gig. When he’d finished, she walked alongside him as he led the horse into the stables.
The interior was dark, save for the shafts of sunlight that shone through the doors. Some of the horses knickered in greeting to their returning friend as Miles settled him into an empty loose box. It was the work of a moment. A few seconds, merely, during which Miles’s back was turned.
It was long enough.
He was just securing the door when a noise sounded behind him. He spun around in the same instant a figure sprang from the shadows and grabbed Nell by her throat.
It was Mrs. Pritchard.