Chapter Fifteen #2
“No, it shouldn’t.” Bancroft hesitated, a troubled expression on his face. “Chadbon is a decent man, who means well, but perhaps he accords too much importance to worldly appearance. For the best of reasons, I’m sure…”
Bancroft saw the best in everyone. Rupert liked that about him. But there were times when such good nature was shaded with willful ignorance.
“What reasons?” Rupert asked. “Political? To achieve his reforms and get his party into power?”
“Largely.”
“So all that happens around him is subservient to those goals…”
“Essentially, yes.” Bancroft grimaced. “I remember the girl, Dinah. Too young and vital to die. I am sorry for it. It is hard to understand God’s will sometimes.”
Rupert let that go. Instead, he sat forward. “Sir, what else has happened in the past that the Chadbons have covered up? For example, I heard that their son caused some trouble in his youth.”
“He did,” Bancroft said with a sigh. “There was a maid a few years ago, dismissed because of young Gerald’s philandering.
We spirited her away, Mrs. Thornfield and I, because the girl was with child.
She was given money for a fresh start in the north.
Another girl lost her position in London, so I heard, but I was not involved.
Gerald was married shortly after that. He is not a bad man either.
Just…ill-disciplined, entitled, thoughtless. ”
“Why?” Rupert asked. He’d been pretty ill-disciplined himself, though bothering his mother’s maids had never been one of his vices. No matter how pretty they were, it had always seemed vaguely distasteful. A willing girl was a joyous thing. One who was afraid to say no was quite another.
“Why was he so thoughtless and selfish? I suspect because his father—both his parents, in fact—were too busy with their important lives to educate him.”
Rupert said bluntly, “Are you sure it was the son and not Lord Chadbon, who seduced the maids?”
The vicar blinked. “Fairly sure. Such things never happened when His Lordship was young, nor after young Chadbon was married and moved away. What has this to do with Dinah Fenn’s death?”
“I’m not sure. Sir, did you see the dismissed maids actually leave?”
Bancroft’s jaw dropped. “The first girl, yes,” he said faintly.
“She stayed here overnight in our care before we put her on the stagecoach to York. The woman who met her there took her in as her widowed niece and wrote to me for a couple of years after. Both mother and child were doing well, the last I heard. She was taking in sewing to make a little money. But Grande, surely you don’t think there is some connection between these cases and Dinah’s death? ”
“Just the covering up. Tell me about the butler, Kemp. Exactly how devoted is he?”
“I believe the Chadbon family is his life. He lost the chance of marriage and his own family in his youth and thereafter seemed to live through his master. He is strict but basically kind.”
“Is he…balanced, do you think, in his devotion?”
Bancroft looked startled again. “Absolutely sane, I would say.”
“Do you know of anyone who isn’t? Anywhere in our parish?” Rupert already knew Bancroft would deny it, and he did.
“Not many people are mad enough to kill without reason,” he added gently.
Rupert doubted there was no reason, though it might well not be one he or Bancroft would recognize. It had to be a strong reason, too.
Politics.
Everyone at Chadbon Court was at the mercy of politics. Political ambition, political discretion, political maneuvering. Even the servants were ruled by it, though they might not be aware of the fact.
Who would benefit politically from Dinah’s death? Surely no one. A mere maid, an unwed mother-to-be. Her death in such a way threatened Chadbon more than it benefited him. Even his efforts to cover it up were risky.
Dear God. Was she a pawn, a throwaway piece in someone’s efforts to discredit Chadbon?
Who would do such a thing? Who were his political enemies?
Sir Colin Nye, the Tory they were wooing to support this bill. Was he there under pretense of listening? Just to damage Chadbon and his bill beyond repair?
Though the bill wasn’t his—it was the idea of Kate’s husband, Ambrose, apparently. Chadbon was giving it his clear support. And if it passed, it would be a considerable victory that might well benefit the Whigs at the next election and provide Chadbon with a prominent position in government.
Who would resent that most? Otteridge, probably, who had been prominent in the party for so long…
And both Nye and Otteridge had been out of sight when Dinah was killed. Otteridge was close by when Kate was shot at.
Mere speculation, Rupe, he told himself severely. Besides, who the devil would take a life, commit murder, just to discredit a political enemy, or to remove an obstacle to preferment? Only someone unhinged.
Which returned him again to the madman theory.
But it was such a very narrow, closed-in life they all led—or so it seemed to Rupert.
Chadbon and his desperate efforts to deal secretly with Dinah’s murder were proof of that.
What if one of his guests was both more and less than they seemed?
A public face and a private one must come naturally to such people.
Otteridge, Nye, the young and ambitious Newman with the wandering eyes.
Still, something niggled at him. Some vague, distant memory of his father’s conversation years ago… Had Sir Colin Nye not been one of Winster’s clients in the Commons? And there was something to do with Nye’s wife dying…or perhaps his betrothed?
All Chadbon’s guests had lives he knew nothing about. Perhaps Kate knew more. He just hoped she wasn’t asking prying questions of the wrong person—at least when Rupert wasn’t there to protect her.
“I’ve been invited to dinner at Chadbon Court again tonight,” Rupert remarked. “Still making up the male numbers.”
Bancroft smiled tolerantly. “I could never make up my mind if it was a perk or a mere duty of the post. After all, I owe my living to His Lordship.”
“You must know some of his current guests quite well by now. Marcus Otteridege, for one.”
“Yes, I have met him several times.”
The inflection in his voice caught Rupert’s attention. “You don’t like him?” Which was rare. The vicar liked everyone.
“I have no reason to dislike him,” Bancroft said mildly. “Like Chadbon, he was very focused on matters that I could not affect, so he barely noticed me.”
“Whom did he notice?”
“Powerful political figures. And pretty women.” Bancroft smiled apologetically. “Merely straying eyes, you understand. Nothing scandalous that I ever saw. But his wife noticed.”
Rupert waited, holding his gaze, but the vicar was silent. “Sir, I need to know. It concerns Dinah Fenn and possible danger to others.”
Color seeped into Bancroft’s pale cheeks. “There is nothing I can accuse him of, either to his face or to you. I would not impugn a man’s reputation over a misunderstanding.”
“What misunderstanding?”
Bancroft sighed again. “Look, I shall tell you, but it goes no farther, Grande. My feeling is doubtless without reason—it stems only from bruising I once saw on his wife.”
Rupert’s breath caught. “You blame him?”
“I have no such evidence. There was a bruise on her temple, covered quite artfully by the styling of her hair, but close up it could still be seen. I heard her tell Lady Chadbon that she had foolishly walked into an open door while woolgathering. But I sat beside her at dinner, and when she reached for her shawl, her gown moved and I glimpsed another ugly mark on her shoulder. If she hit a door, it was with some force.”
“As if she was shoved, or struck into it?” Rupert said slowly. Men did beat their wives. It wasn’t even a crime. But it was violence against someone who could not fight back. Like Dinah.
Bancroft spread his hands. “I have no such proof, and to the world it is none of my business. Or yours. But I confess it did give me a distaste of the man.”
Distaste was one thing. Fear was another.
*
Kate, trying to balance urgent investigation with her own safety, went downstairs early for the predinner gathering in the salon, in the hope of encountering one of her chief suspects or someone who could shed light on their whereabouts. Andrew, the first footman, was at the salon door.
“Am I late?” she asked him, to ensure he noticed her.
“No, my lady, you’re first,” he replied, opening the door for her.
She took up position on the sofa by the window, from where she might see Rupert arriving, and drew a copy of the Ladies’ Magazine toward her. She had not long to wait.
Marcus Otteridge walked in, also alone, and this time Andrew left the door ajar.
Otteridge’s little eyes lit up at the sight of her. He even sped up and sat down next to her. “Lady Ambrose, just the person I wished to see. How are you after last night’s shocking incident?”
“Perfectly well, as you see. But you know we have agreed for the good of the party not to talk about it.”
“Not to anyone else,” Otteridge said, as though shocked. “But between us, it is different. I for one am delighted to see you well enough to come to dinner this evening.”
His smile lingered. Had she ever noticed before how lascivious his eyes were beneath their bushy brows?
“But then,” he continued, “you were not exactly unwell yesterday evening either. What were you doing outside at that time of night?”
She hadn’t planned on being the one answering the questions. “Taking the air, as I said. Even when it seems a good idea, one feels cooped up in one’s room for so long…”
“But you weren’t cooped up, were you, my dear? The rain had been off for half an hour, and yet you were soaked.”
Her stomach lurched but she forced herself to meet his gaze, eyebrows raised. She was hardly required to answer him and so she did not.
“I’d suspect young Newman of cutting me out,” he said playfully, “but he played cards and then was in and out of the library all evening.”
“Cutting you out?” she repeated, staring. “My dear sir, I am the wife of your honorable friend.”