Chapter Three #3
Kate wandered outside, just in time to see a livery coat vanish up the path toward the stables. With nothing better to do, she strolled after it.
A gaggle of grooms and coachmen were playing cards just inside the open doors of a large tack room.
Beyond that was a carriage house, and a decent-sized cottage, outside which Lewis appeared to be haranguing the Chadbon coachman, a stocky, muscular man in his late thirties who didn’t look remotely intimidated.
Only when Lewis actually shoved him in the chest did the coachman react, swinging back his fist in a manner that was all too recognizable.
Time to intervene.
“You’re wanted at the house, Lewis,” she said, just loudly enough to penetrate their angry male skulls.
The coachman’s arm fell to his side, and the footman sprang to attention like a soldier before his general. She held Lewis’s gaze until he muttered, “Thank you, ma’am,” and took off at a run.
Kate turned to the coachman, who was already backing away to the cottage door. “What was that all about?”
“Boy’s upset,” the coachman said vaguely, adding as an afterthought, “my lady.”
“And you are head coachman here?”
“That’s right. Jack Irwin.”
“I thought I recognized you.” The Chadbons were frequent callers at the Ambrose house in London. “The indoor servants are all a little upset by last night’s…accident.”
Irwin nodded but said nothing.
“Did you know Dinah?” Kate asked mildly.
“Course I knew her.” Irwin couldn’t quite keep the scorn out of his voice, though she wasn’t sure how hard he bothered trying. “We eat with the indoor servants, you know.”
“How well did you know her?”
Irwin’s eyes fell. “Don’t know what Your Ladyship means. She was a housemaid, like the others.”
“Was she happy in her work?”
A quick upward glance of astonishment. “How would I know that?”
“Then what was Lewis quarreling about?”
“You’d have to ask—”
“I’m asking you.” Kate could be haughty when she wished. “To save your mistress—and the magistrate—the trouble.”
Irwin shuffled. “He liked the girl,” he muttered. “Seemed to think I was competition.”
“Were you?”
A strange, crooked smile. Impossible to tell if there was grief behind it or not. “No. Excuse me, my lady.”
Kate let him go.
To reach the driveway to the gates and the road into the village, she had to first walk back toward the house.
She was torn as to what to do next—walk into town to find Rupert as she had originally intended, or ask some questions among the servants and guests to establish who had seen what?
The latter was the work of the magistrate and his constables, of course, but she strongly suspected Lord Chadbon’s desire to keep the matter quiet would hamper such investigations.
Undeniably, it hampered Kate too. She was here to facilitate an alliance of disparate interests in support of Gilbert’s returning soldiers bill, which was to be presented in the House of Commons next spring.
Chadbon was vital to these efforts, and to Gilbert’s rising career as a whole.
Which was a consideration. Plus, it was a good bill that she honestly and wholeheartedly believed in.
Which was not necessarily the case with other matters she had aided.
Against those facts, a young woman, little more than a girl, was dead, her life stolen from her by shocking violence. The perpetrator of that crime should not walk free just to make His Lordship’s life—or Kate’s—easier. Someone had to stand up for Dinah, not bury her in a cloud of silence.
However, she should at least give the authorities the chance before she barged in, stirring everything up and alienating Gilbert’s friends…
Having reached that decision with some difficulty—waiting and doing nothing had never sat easily with her—she noticed Lord Chadbon himself hurrying toward the side door into the house. He was dressed for shooting and still carried his fowling piece over his arm.
Chadbon rarely did or said anything without a reason, and she wondered if he had taken a shooting party out to create deeper bonds or gone alone in order to leave the various factions unhindered by his hostly presence.
Although Kate half expected him to avoid her—he had not been best pleased by her presence last night, after all—he actually paused and greeted her, waiting for her to catch up.
“Lady Ambrose, good morning. I trust you had a good night, despite all the unpleasantness?”
“Such a tragedy,” Kate murmured noncommittally. “Is there any news?”
Chadbon grimaced. “The inquest will be held this afternoon at one. I shall have to go and identify the girl.”
“This afternoon! That’s rather quick, is it not?”
“It is supposed to be within a day. Gets it over with. I hope to be home again by three. I’m pretty sure Nye will work with us. Our main trouble now is to stop Otteridge walking away just because Nye is involved.”
“It’s like nursery politics,” Kate said unguardedly.
Chadbon blinked at her, clearly taken aback, and she mentally kicked herself for not watching her tongue. She was too distracted. If she had offended him…
He let out a bark of laughter. “Never thought of it like that before, but dash it, you’re right. Ha! Nursery politics!”