Chapter Five
Chadbon had always known that maid would be trouble.
She was much too pretty, her eyes too bold.
The footmen had all lusted after her, and even Chadbon’s most austere guests tended to notice her.
He should have made Marjorie get rid of her, but the country had seemed a safer place to keep her than the London house, where she had already distracted several good men—including Nye, the old reprobate, and Newman, the young one.
Even Otteridge had looked. But then, Dinah had been damned decorative.
He had never minded looking at her himself.
Until she’d been lying on the ground with his own dagger through her heart.
The scandal of a pregnant maid in his household could have been dealt with. A murdered one on the premises was harder, but pregnant and murdered presented difficulties that would have daunted a lesser man. Even without his young ally Ambrose’s wife interfering and defending the likely murderer.
“Forgive me, Lady Ambrose,” he said more softly as soon as they were alone, “but I fear I must remind you of your promised discretion and your duty to your husband.” And to me. He didn’t need to say the words. She was a quick little thing and would take the hint.
She swung away from him, but not before he had glimpsed the emotion in her eyes.
Good God, don’t tell me she’s fallen for the curate’s pretty face? But then, his family had been neighbors of hers. Chadbon could forgive old loyalty, provided it was tempered by good sense and a healthy sense of self-preservation. And current loyalty, of course.
“There is no need,” she said with deliberate lightness. “I am well aware of my duties and my husband’s debt to you. Nor have I forgotten our mutual aims. Which is why I would counsel you against this rash arrest of Mr. Grande.”
Chadbon stared at her. “He was bent over the body, almost holding the knife! He has a sordid past with her, a fact an innocent lady like yourself may not have understood from his answers, and a dashed good reason to keep that quiet. It is not I but the evidence that moves against him.”
She nodded, which was something of a relief. “I quite see that, but as you say, our aim is discretion. A churchman accused of such a crime is bound to cause unsavory gossip and draw attention to the location of the murder.”
“Not if it is done quietly. Grande has been in Chadleigh less than three weeks. No one will notice the lack of him.”
“Mr. Bancroft might.”
“Mr. Bancroft didn’t wish for a curate in the first place. Grande will quietly disappear, be tried in a provincial court, and vanish without fuss.”
“A man with such a surname?”
“It is not unique. He himself says the Winsters do not acknowledge the connection. Your scruples do you credit, Lady Ambrose, but they are neither necessary nor wise.”
“And yet we would not wish to be known as the people who had rushed an innocent man to his death while letting a murderer go free.”
Chadbon frowned. In spite of everything, her words caused a pang of unease. In truth, he didn’t much care whether Grande had committed the crime or not. His attention was on the larger picture. But she had a point about its becoming known.
“We must cover our backs,” she said.
He nodded reluctantly. “Remington knows his business. There is bound to be evidence, and he will find it.”
“In the meantime,” Lady Ambrose suggested, much more conciliatory than she had been, “I would advise he be treated well, just in case we have made a mistake. And you will allow me to look into the matter with the utmost discretion?”
Chadbon felt his jaw drop. “You?”
She smiled. She really had a rather lovely smile. Ambrose was lucky to have her.
She said, “Who will pay attention to a mere curious woman? At the very worst, I shall stir up nothing that could harm us. At best, I can find evidence of the truth that will bring the guilty to justice and preserve all our reputations going forward.”
Chadbon hesitated. It was not in his nature to cede this kind of control, particularly not to a female.
But despite her youth, she really was quite the asset, not just to Ambrose, but to the whole wing of the party that Chadbon led.
“I cannot believe Ambrose would thank me for using you in such a purpose.”
“Oh, he will, my lord,” she said seriously. “Your cause is his, as you know, and I will disgrace neither of you.”
“Dear me, I never imagined that you would! But such a sordid matter as this murder—”
“We are all aware of the imperfections of the world,” she said lightly.
“I shall neither be shocked nor contaminated by my inquiries—my very discreet inquiries. I do have your permission to ask among the servants about Dinah? On Lady Chadbon’s behalf, of course, since she will want to write to the family… ”
Chadbon thought about the nightmare of scandal erupting over his head and ruining everything. Perhaps Kate Ambrose’s instinct to cover their backs was a sound one.
“Quiet and discretion are our watchwords,” he warned.
Lady Ambrose’s hand moved. He almost thought she was crossing her fingers. “Oh, absolutely, my lord.”
*
Mr. Remington insisted on sending Kate back to Chadbon Court in his own carriage, which was quite annoying when she wanted to snoop around the outside of the house to discover the way into the cell in which Rupert was incarcerated.
However, as the magistrate escorted her from the study, she did spot the half-open door next to it, and the staircase leading downward.
This would be the discreet way prisoners could be brought before him without troubling his family or servants.
And at least it gave her a clue as to which side of the building housed the prison.
Remington hustled her straight into his waiting carriage and although she pressed her face to the window, she could not make out much around the side of the house.
Still, at least with a little persuasion and cajoling, Chadbon had given her leave to pry. Doubtful what good she could do, but since Rupert had forbidden her to tell his family, poking her own nose into the matter seemed to be his only hope.
She had barely seen him for years. They had grown up and grown apart into very different lives, yet suddenly the idea of a world without Rupert somewhere in it was unbearable, unthinkable. Perhaps it was the sheer injustice.
She thought about that as the carriage rumbled along the country lanes.
The temporary curate was seen as a nobody, a safe sacrifice on the altar of the greater good.
He wasn’t, of course. One word to the marquis or his heir would have them down here blistering Chadbon, the magistrate, and anyone else who stood in their way.
And Kate had no doubt that they would prevail.
Lord Winster was a force of nature, and he would carry Rupert off in triumph—probably to the archbishop’s palace at Lambeth, where, in debt to his father, Rupert would feel obliged to stultify and forget his own ambitions. Whatever they were.
Rupert would hate it. But it would be better than being hanged or transported. So she did pause to wonder, briefly, why she was giving in to Rupert’s stubborn, shortsighted wishes here.
Because she always had? Because it was friendship, or loyalty, or childish honor?
Whatever, in her heart she had no choice, although the practicalities might well prove impossible.
It had never entered her head that he was guilty of murder.
But she could imagine him seducing the maid all too easily.
She remembered the brief, somehow intimate glance between them as she had gone into dinner on Rupert’s arm.
He had said he wasn’t the father of Dinah’s child, but he was certainly hiding something, and she didn’t know why or for whose good.
He hadn’t mentioned Kate’s presence in the orangery, either. If she could find a way to explain that to Remington without making Rupert look like a serial philanderer, then she would do so. In the meantime, she had the true killer to find.
The carriage dropped her at Chadbon Court with time to spare before tea. She spent it at her desk, writing down the names of everyone she had seen leaving the drawing room yesterday evening before Dinah’s body was discovered.
Most of the ladies, she recalled, had made use of the retiring room after dinner, before the gentlemen had joined them. The doctor believed Dinah had died no longer than an hour or two before she was found, which was after the men had abandoned the port and brandy in the dining room.
Had they all come in at once? She cudgeled her brain, going over each guest. The trouble was, she had been distracted by the novelty of Rupert’s presence.
It had seemed so odd to see him among such serious company.
She remembered his inclining his head toward Miss Nye, who was Sir Colin’s unmarried sister and acted as her brother’s secretary and general drudge.
Miss Nye had sat on Rupert’s other side at dinner, of course, and she had seemed gratified that he spoke to her again.
And then she had fluttered off out of the room.
Kate scribbled down her name—although she rather boggled at the idea of the kindly Miss Nye plunging a dagger into the heart of a passing maid—and the approximate time she had left the room: twenty minutes or so past nine.
She was back before Rupert left at around ten, though, for he had made a point of saying goodnight to her.
When had he become so considerate? In her memory, Rupert’s basic kindness was of the careless variety. She doubted he would have noticed a put-upon spinster’s loneliness, let alone acted upon it.
No one had left the room after Rupert until Kate had slipped away…