Chapter Seven #2
“Oh dear,” Kate said, and abruptly changed the subject. “I understand Mr. Grande spoke to you recently about Dinah.”
The coachman’s face reddened, but he didn’t drop his gaze. “With respect, my lady, that’s not your concern.”
“Actually, it is, since I have been asked to make it so by your master and mistress.” Surreptitiously, she crossed her fingers, since this was something of a stretch of the truth. “Were you happy with the arrangement Mr. Grande suggested to you?”
“Happy enough,” Jack said with a hint of aggression.
“Happy enough to agree?”
“If it was what the girl wanted.”
“Did you ask her?”
“No.” He actually sounded shocked. “She might have had better options, for all I knew, girl like that. I was waiting till the curate suggested it to her.”
“I think he was going to the night she died.”
Jack nodded and dropped his gaze. “That was my understanding.”
“It’s a tragedy,” Kate said. “Did you see her at all that evening?”
He shook his head. “No, they were all busy in the house. Saw her at tea in the servants’ hall about half past six, and that was all.”
“How did you find her?”
“Never spoke to her.”
Was there a hint of regret there? Or was he just being defensive? Kate persevered. “Did she seem worried? Relieved? Happy?”
Jack scratched his chin, looked up at the sky, then chewed on his lower lip. “Sort of excited,” he said at last. “Distracted.”
“Why do you think that was? Because she had heard you were willing to marry her?”
Kate expected him to look pleased, even to preen a little, but he only frowned. “Not sure it was that kind of excitement.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t what she wanted in life. I always knew that.”
And yet he’d been prepared to marry a girl he knew would only be settling for him because she was desperate and had no other way out.
Kate had seen him with his horses. He was a gentle and kind man beneath his brusque exterior.
Dinah and her child could surely have been content with him, which made the tragedy of her death even worse.
“You think she had hope of a better offer?” Kate asked. Not Rupert. Please not Rupert…
“Maybe,” Jack said without conviction.
“Like whom? Lewis was in no position to marry her.”
“Nor anyone else on the staff.”
“What about other people’s staff? A gentleman, even?”
“Gentleman wouldn’t have married her. She knew that much.”
Kate nodded. Rupert had said more or less the same thing. Dinah had been well aware that the squire’s son, the father of her child, wouldn’t marry her. But had she hopes of Rupert’s goodness? Had she even known of his aristocratic birth that put him much farther above her even than the squire?
She dragged her mind back to practicalities. “After you ate in the kitchen, did you go back there at any point? Did anything take you near the courtyard garden or the orangery?”
“No. I played a hand of cards with the grooms, locked up the carriage house, and went to see my horses had water enough. Then I went indoors to my own cottage.”
“When did you hear what had happened?”
“When the lad was sent to fetch the doctor. Never seen old Kemp so white and rattled.”
“Kemp came himself?” Kate asked in surprise.
“I think he was keeping it from as many people as possible. He never said what had happened, just to fetch Dr. Paxton to the walled garden, outside the orangery.”
Interesting. Though she couldn’t quite see how it made any difference. “Can you think who might have wanted to hurt her? Or silence her?”
The coachman shook his head slowly. “No, my lady, I can’t. But if I find ’im…” He dashed the back of his hand over his face and turned away. “Excuse me.”
Kate sloshed thoughtfully through the mud and back to the house, holding up her skirts and swerving around the worst puddles. She left her dripping umbrella in the stand by the door and was fortunate enough to run into Kemp in the hall.
“Breakfast is served, my lady,” he informed her.
“Excellent. Thank you. Oh, Kemp?”
He had already turned away toward the back of the house, but he faced her again at once with another slight bow, his face as wooden as ever. She walked up to him, since she had no desire to shout.
“My lady?” he said distantly.
“As you’ll know,” she said, “I’m staying on at the court in order to help Lord and Lady Chadbon in this sad matter of Dinah Fenn’s death.”
“Very good of you, my lady,” he said expressionlessly, and she had the impression he didn’t think so at all.
“You are in overall charge of the staff, and I can’t imagine much gets past you where they are concerned.”
Kemp, apparently immune to charm or flattery, said nothing at all. No muscle twitched in his face or body to betray discomfort or gratification.
“What was she like, Kemp?” Kate urged. “What was your opinion of Dinah? As a housemaid and as a person?”
“The maids come under Mrs. Thornfield’s supervision, my lady.”
“I know they do,” Kate said pleasantly. “But I would like your answer.”
Kemp cast a quick glance toward the back of the hall, as though trying to conjure a distraction that might end this conversation that he clearly didn’t want. Why was that? Was he just following his master’s orders for discretion? Or did he have something to hide?
“She was a bit of a flighty girl, to be frank,” he said at last. “But she was improving under Mrs. Thornfield’s training. She still had a tendency to avoid work, rarely did anything she wasn’t ordered to specifically, but she carried out her duties adequately and with care.”
“Meaning she didn’t break anything?” Kate asked, trying to inject a little humor.
Kemp’s expression never changed. “As Your Ladyship says.”
“Did she quarrel with other members of staff?” Kate asked.
“Not to my knowledge. She was a pleasant enough girl.”
“She was also extremely pretty. Did that cause problems among the male members of your staff?”
“No, my lady, it was never allowed to. There is no fraternizing among the staff. This is strictly enforced for their own sakes as well as for the family’s.”
“Of course,” Kate said, “very right and proper. But you can’t stop people feeling, can you? A lovesick footman mooning after his ladylove does not always attend to his duties with the speed and care I know you would insist upon.”
“Indeed. There was nothing like that.”
“Kemp, I am accusing no one, and I most certainly don’t want him dismissed, but I already know Lewis was besotted with her.”
The first hint of emotion flashed in the butler’s eyes. “He never laid a finger on her.”