Chapter Twelve
Rupert, in slightly grubby shirt sleeves, materialized out of the gloom to stand at the bars of his cell, blinking in the sudden light from Kate’s lantern.
“Kate?” he said with the same sort of pleased astonishment with which he’d greeted her at Chadbon Court.
The wretch had forgotten she was involved in this. In fact, judging by the smell of alcohol as she drew nearer, he had forgotten he was involved in it, too.
“Rupert, are you foxed?” she demanded.
“Devil, a bit,” he said cheerfully. “Here, Salter, make your bow to—” He broke off.
“Forgotten my name?” she asked sweetly.
“No. Just considering you might not want it bruited abroad.”
A man in a tattered and filthy coat loomed up from the pallet on the left. “Don’t worry, miss. Any friend of Mr. Grande’s is fine with me. Me lips is buttoned.”
“Sergeant Salter of the 95th Rifles,” Rupert said. “An old friend I knew in Brussels.”
Sergeant Salter was thin to the point of emaciated, and one sleeve of his coat flapped about when he moved.
“You were at Waterloo,” Kate guessed.
“I was. Wouldn’t have survived either without him.” Salter jerked his head at Rupert, who looked startled.
“I didn’t sew you up!”
“There’s more to life than sewing a man up and mopping his fevered brow.” Salter grinned. “Like an ear that don’t judge and a tongue that don’t lecture. And a bloody fine brandy.” He coughed. “Begging your pardon, miss, not used to ladies’ company these days.”
Kate regarded him with some interest. “So what are you doing in here?”
“Drunk and disorderly, miss,” he said with a regretful sigh. “Up before the beak tomorrow. Could have knocked me down with a feather, though, when I met the chaplain here. Magistrate must be a complete—”
“I’d ask Salter to speak for my character,” Rupert interrupted, “but I hope he’s clear of Chadleigh by then.”
Salter grinned, quite unoffended. “We all know I’d do you no good. Still, it’s a rum rig, banging up the parson! Come to let us out, miss?”
“No,” Rupert said firmly.
Salter shrugged philosophically.
“You’re right, though,” Kate agreed, deciding she would just have to trust the soldier if she was to talk to Rupert at all.
After all, he appeared to hold the curate in high regard.
“It is rum. None of this makes sense. I need your help, Rupert. Tell me about Dinah. Are you sure she wouldn’t have indulged in blackmail? ”
Rupert shook his head decisively. “Lord, no. There was no malice in her. What on earth makes you wonder about blackmail?”
“I just can’t find a reason for anyone to kill her, and one of the footmen told me she was frightened by someone bothering her. This footman, Lewis, stole the dagger from Chadbon’s study, and gave it to her for protection. Temporarily. Or so he says.”
“You know, I think I’ll go to bed,” Salter said, sitting down rather suddenly on his pallet. He rolled over onto his side, dragging the blanket up around him.
“He’s been drinking since midday,” Rupert explained, swiping up a flask from the floor and turning it upside down. Sighing, he pushed the stopper in and threw it onto the other pallet.
Kate produced Gilbert’s flask from her pocket and passed it through the bars.
Rupert grinned. “You are wonderful, young Kate.”
“It’s only wine. Do they feed you in here?”
“Three meals a day. Of a sort.” He tipped up the flask and took a mouthful before passing it back through the bars.
“I’m still awake,” Salter said from the bed.
“You’ve had enough,” Rupert replied.
“I have,” Salter agreed.
Kate felt her lips twitch. “None of this bothers you, does it, Rupert?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. Dinah’s death bothers me a lot. And this isn’t where I meant to spend my time as curate. No point in throwing things, though, is there?”
“No.” Distractedly, she sipped the wine and passed the flask back to Rupert. “Was she frightened?”
“Of what would happen to her if she was dismissed, yes.”
“But not of one particular man?”
“Not as far as I know. She never gave me that impression. If she really was, it must have been of someone who arrived after I last spoke to her. Was one of Chadbon’s guests bothering her?”
“It’s possible, though Lady Chadbon is quite careful about such things, and the guests themselves are very aware of the dangers of scandal.”
“There wouldn’t be any,” Rupert pointed out. “The girl would simply be dismissed, and no one would ever know.”
She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was aware of such things.
He frowned. “That was really all that frightened her, what frightens most maids, being dismissed. So why would she accept the dagger from the footman when she knew he’d stolen it?”
“To put it back?” Kate suggested.
“Only, she didn’t, did she?”
“She might have,” Kate argued. “No one but Otteridge seemed to notice it was gone from the study, so she could have put it back without Lewis’s knowing. Which puts us back to who else took it from the study?”
“Or Otteridge could have been lying.”
Kate nodded. “And he was one of the people who left the drawing room after I came back from speaking to you. Lewis saw him go downstairs. But I’m not sure he’d bestir himself to lie in wait just to bother a maid, let alone kill her. And he seems much too good-natured.”
“Are ambitious politicians good-natured?” Rupert wondered.
He had a point. “Outwardly, they can be. They have to be, really, in public, though I suppose they could be quite different in private. They all know the importance of this conference, but I suppose Dinah’s beauty was out of the ordinary.
Otteridge and Newman would both have noticed her in the London house, too. ”
“Newman,” Rupert said thoughtfully. “Met him on Tuesday evening. Ladies’ man, isn’t he?”
“A bit, I think. Enough to make his wife jealous. But he’s a relative newcomer to the circle. He needs Chadbon’s support and should be keeping his nose clean.”
“What one should do is not always what one does, when temptation rears its charming head. What of Nye?”
“Ah, that’s something I wanted to tell you. I don’t know if it’s important, but according to your Mr. Bancroft, Nye grew up at Tetley Hall. He sold the place to Mr. Gibb when his father died.”
Rupert thought about that. “Interesting, though I can’t quite see how it helps us.”
“Neither can I,” Kate admitted.
“Perhaps we should be looking at this from Dinah’s point of view. She understood men. She knew how to discourage as well as entice. She could have misjudged, of course, but in the general way of things, who are maids most frightened of?”
“Those with the power to dismiss them,” Kate said slowly. “It should never even come to Lady Chadbon’s ears except as a by-the-way. Mrs. Thornfield would handle it. Or Kemp.”
“Dinah didn’t like Kemp.”
“Well, as you said, he’s a bit of a martinet. The house runs very smoothly and he takes the honor of the family very seriously. He—” She broke off suddenly, staring at Rupert. “Would he really murder a maid under his supervision? Because she was with child and embarrassed the household?”
“Wouldn’t do it myself,” Rupert said, “but there are a lot of strange people with very fixed, even obsessive ideas. Not saying Kemp’s one of them. I don’t know the man. He goes to church, but he’s not the confiding sort, or at least not to a mere curate.”
“He could certainly move easily about the house, and he kept a close eye on Dinah, who was apparently inclined to shirk. Or so he said… He heard you call out very quickly, didn’t he?
” It set off another cascade of thought.
“And oh, Rupert, Remington himself turned up too quickly, didn’t he?
The boy caught him close by. What if he was the one lurking in wait for her? ”
“Remington? Why would he?”
“Lewis implied she could have had more than one admirer outside the household. Or perhaps Remington was angry with her for turning him down.”
“That’s a big perhaps.”
“But not an impossible one.” She lowered herself to the floor, gathering her legs under her. Only then did Rupert sit on the floor of his cell and cross his long legs. What an odd courtesy, she thought irrelevantly. “He was very eager to have you blamed and locked up.”
“For Chadbon’s sake, I thought.”
“If Chadbon had left the drawing room, I would suspect him,” Kate admitted.
“Sometimes I wonder if he isn’t too good to be true.
His perfect public and private life, all the threads he holds together of various alliances for different purposes…
And his son bothered the maids. What if he suspected Dinah’s child was Gerald Chadbon’s? ”
“It wasn’t. And no one knew she was with child.”
“Is that true? She lived in a dormitory with other women, under strict supervision. I don’t know what they suspected or whom they told.”
“Dinah seemed sure she was undiscovered.”
“Christopher Carver claims he didn’t know.
He also claims he was in bed, but he could have gone down to Chadbon Court and waited to meet her.
So could Elizabeth Gibb. Elizabeth might not have known about the child, but she could well have known of Carver’s liaison with Dinah.
And she is jealous by nature. She certainly looked askance at me, covered in mud and smelling of horse as I was. ”
The corners of Rupert’s eyes crinkled. “Well, you’re not just in the common way, Katy. People do notice you, muddy or not.”
For some reason, she blushed and hurried into speech. “Her jealousy also gives Kit Carver a stronger motive not to be found out. She could make his life unendurable.”
“Do you believe that?”
She scowled. “I don’t know. He seemed really shocked and grieved by Dinah’s death, and yet… I was never sure he wasn’t acting.”
Rupert nodded, then shrugged. “Some people are like that. They play a part—or various parts—all through their lives. It can guide their behavior, even enliven their otherwise dull lives. A great but impossible love with a beautiful serving girl followed by an equally great sacrifice on the altar of duty. And settling down to be a contented husband and an excellent squire.”
Kate felt her eyes widen. “Did you always notice such things?”