Chapter Four #3
“My constables asked around the market,” Remington said, “and your meeting with the maid was noted by several people.”
“It’s a small town,” Rupert said, as though excusing the gossips.
“It was their impression that you and she already knew each other. That your greeting was one of old friends.”
Rupert smiled and sipped his brandy.
“Well?” Remington barked into the silence. “Were you?”
“Was I what?” Rupert asked. “An old friend of Dinah’s? I’d met her before, yes. In London last year.”
“In your capacity as a clergyman?”
“Not exactly,” Rupert said. “I held no position in the church at the time.”
“But you were an ordained clergyman?”
“I was.”
Lord Chadbon intervened. “And where exactly did you meet Dinah Fenn? Because it was not in my townhouse, where she was employed at the time.”
“No, it was not,” Rupert agreed. “I met her in the Red Lion.”
Chadbon blinked. “In a public house?”
“Precisely.”
Paxton spoke sharply from the fireplace. “Sir, were you the father of her unborn child?”
Kate bit back a groan of as much pain for Dinah as annoyance with Rupert, who didn’t even have the grace to try to look surprised by the question.
“No,” he said.
Rupert never lied. Or, at least, he never had in boyhood. This young man of the world, this cynical clergyman, was a stranger to her.
“But you knew of her condition,” Paxton pressed.
“It was what she wished to discuss with me,” Rupert said simply.
And that was not only plausible, it rang true. Kate breathed again.
“Why?” Remington asked. “What could you do for her?”
Rupert took a drink. “Nothing, as it turned out.”
“I suppose you were still in London in June of this year?” Paxton said casually.
Kate tensed, for it was clearly a trap. Rupert could deny being in Chadleigh this summer, but she knew very well that Chadbon, his wife, and his household had spent much of it in London, which was no doubt exactly where Rupert had been.
“Actually, no,” Rupert said.
Remington blinked. “No?” he challenged.
“No, I was not in London. I was in Brussels from late May until mid-July.”
“Brussels?” Chadbon sounded affronted. “What the devil were you doing there?”
“Oh, following my nose,” Rupert said vaguely. “Lots of my friends were there, so I tagged along for a lark.”
“Then you were there at the time of the Battle of Waterloo?” Chadbon said in open disbelief. “Was that a lark, too?”
“No.” Rupert’s gaze fell to his brandy glass. He swirled it once and sipped, before lowering the glass and meeting Chadbon’s hard eyes. “I’m not the father of Dinah’s child. I couldn’t be, could I?”
“Not if he was out of the country for all of June,” Paxton said reluctantly.
“Can anyone vouch for your being in Brussels?” Remington demanded.
“Lots of people,” Rupert said. “I celebrated my first weddings there, among the British visitors. That was a lark.”
Remington grunted and exchanged scowling glances with Chadbon.
“Look, lad, I won’t lie to you. You have to be under suspicion.
You knew the deceased better than a clergyman should.
You were a guest at Chadbon Court, and you hung about after bidding your hosts goodnight in order to meet the deceased.
You had ample time to take the dagger from His Lordship’s study.
You claim to have been in the orangery, from where you would have had a clear view of the murder, and yet you say you saw nothing.
And then you happened to find her body. And the butler finds you bent over her, your hand almost touching the dagger hilt.
Had you just stabbed her? Giving the dagger a last twist to be sure she was dead? ”
Kate felt sick. She wasn’t surprised to see Rupert whiten. She had to distract their attention from him, give him time to recover.
“It’s all circumstantial,” she said. “There is no evidence for such a heinous accusation.”
“Rot, there’s enough to hang him,” Remington growled. “Unless he can give us a name. Who was the father of her child, Grande?”
“I cannot say.”
“Then I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder. You’ll be held pending further inquiries.”
Kate jumped to her feet and went to stand in front of him. “But you can’t! He didn’t do it. For one thing—” For one thing, he was with me for a large part of that time in the orangery, and—
“Kate,” Rupert said, setting his glass on the table and rising to his feet to set her gently aside, “don’t worry. It’s a misunderstanding that will soon resolve itself.”
He took her hand, his eyes boring into hers. “Not a word,” he breathed. “Promise me, Kate.”
He gave her no time to answer, merely bowed briefly over her hand before dropping it. He picked up the glass again, knocked the rest of the brandy down his throat in one practiced movement, and smiled to the company in general.
“Hie me to the dungeon, then! And would someone be so good as to tell Mrs. Bancroft that I won’t be in for tea after all?”
He strolled to the door ahead of Remington. A large constable waited there. Remington nodded to him and closed the door behind them.
“A word, Lady Ambrose,” Chadbon said coldly.