Chapter Seven The Woman at the Blue Hart #3
The innkeeper looked profoundly confused.
It helped.
Marianne leaned closer. “We will sit in your private parlour. If there is no such woman, no harm is done. If there is, tell her that Miss Vale of Lantern House asks, not the Rookwoods. Tell her I have seen Lady Evangeline’s letter.”
The innkeeper’s face changed.
Not greatly.
Enough.
He bowed stiffly. “This way, miss.”
The private parlour looked over the yard and smelled faintly of beeswax, damp wool and last night’s fire.
Mrs Alderley was settled near the hearth with tea.
Tom stationed himself in the passage after receiving from Marianne a look that meant listen but do not loom.
Sebastian stood by the window, his posture controlled and his eyes on every movement in the yard.
Marianne sat at the table and folded her hands, preparing herself for a woman who might lie, break, flee, or refuse.
They waited ten minutes.
Then fifteen.
Mrs Alderley consumed tea, bread, butter, two small cakes, and half the inn’s supply of local gossip through the maid who served them. Sebastian said almost nothing. Once, he turned to Marianne.
“You truly believe she may speak because you came from Lantern House?”
“I believe names of refuge travel by routes your clubs never map.”
He accepted that in silence.
At last the door opened.
A woman stood there with the innkeeper behind her.
She was perhaps thirty-five, though hardship had pressed age into the corners of her face.
Her gown was clean but worn. Her apron was flour-dusted.
A cap hid most of her hair, but one strand of dull brown had escaped near her temple.
She held herself as though ready to run, and when her eyes found Sebastian, all colour went from her face.
“No,” she whispered.
Marianne rose. “Mrs Pike?”
The woman stepped back.
“I said no,” she said, louder now. “I told you, Mr Weller, I don’t know nothing. I don’t know no one. You said she was from Lantern House.”
“I am,” Marianne said.
The woman’s eyes darted to Sebastian. “He’s Rookwood.”
“Yes.”
“They said they’d send Rookwood if I spoke. They said I’d hang for theft if I spoke.”
Sebastian had gone very still.
Marianne moved slowly around the table. “No one here will touch you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise that if anyone in this room means you harm, he must come through me first.”
Mrs Pike gave a short, frightened laugh. “You?”
“Yes. It surprises men too.”
Mrs Alderley said, “I struck a colonel once.”
The woman looked at the old lady, baffled enough that fear loosened by a thread.
Marianne softened her voice. “Mrs Pike, Lady Evangeline came to Lantern House. Lady Theodosia kept her letter. We know she did not sign willingly, if she signed at all. We know someone used her handwriting. We know you carried a packet.”
Mrs Pike covered her mouth.
Sebastian took one step forward. “What packet?”
The woman flinched so violently that he stopped at once.
Marianne turned to him. “Sit.”
His eyes flashed.
“Please,” she added, because courtesy sometimes worked where command would fail.
He sat.
The concession changed the room. Mrs Pike saw it. A Duke of Halgrave, seated because a quiet woman told him to be. Perhaps it did not make him safe, but it made Marianne stronger in Mrs Pike’s eyes, and that mattered more.
Marianne gestured to the chair opposite her. “Tea?”
“I can’t.”
“Then hold the cup. It gives the hands something to do.”
After a hesitation, Mrs Pike came in and sat. The innkeeper withdrew, closing the door with obvious relief. Marianne poured tea, added sugar without asking because frightened women often required it, and set the cup before her.
“What name do you use now?” Marianne asked.
The woman stared at the cup. “Mary Page.”
“Then I shall call you Mrs Page unless you prefer otherwise.”
A tremor moved across the woman’s mouth. “No one asks what I prefer.”
“Lantern House tries to begin there.”
Mrs Pike — Mrs Page — looked at her then, properly. “She said that.”
“Who?”
“Lady Evangeline. Not those words. She said Lady Theodosia asked what she wanted before asking what had happened, and it made her cry after, because no one had asked for so long.”
Sebastian’s face tightened.
Marianne saw it and continued gently. “Tell us what you know. Begin wherever you can.”
The woman held the cup with both hands. The tea trembled.
“I was not her proper maid,” she said. “Not always. I helped when Mrs Hales was ill, or when Lady Evangeline was in town and needed extra dressing. She was kind to me. Sharp sometimes, quick with a word, but never cruel. She noticed if you were tired. Gave me a ribbon once because she said the colour made me look less like boiled linen.”
Mrs Alderley sniffed. “Good girl.”
Mrs Pike’s eyes filled, but she blinked hard.
“Lord Ashmont’s man came first. Said there were notes to carry.
Nothing wrong in it, he said. Ladies had their little secrets, and gentlemen theirs.
I said I would not carry love letters. He laughed and said they were not love letters, only arrangements.
Then Mr Mordaunt’s clerk came. Said it was for Lady Evangeline’s protection.
Said if her father knew every little thing, there’d be trouble. ”
“What did you carry?” Marianne asked.
“Two notes. Maybe three. One to the modiste. One to an address near St James’s. One from Lady Evangeline’s room to Mr Mordaunt.”
“From her room?”
Mrs Pike nodded. “A packet.”
“What was inside?”
“I didn’t look.”
The answer came too quickly.
Marianne waited.
Mrs Pike’s shoulders shook once. “Not then. Later I saw enough. Samples. Bits of writing. Old notes, a list she had made, a page torn from a music book where she had written verses in the margin, invitations she had answered. Anything with her hand on it. They said they needed to compare something for the settlement. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I was paid two guineas.”
Sebastian’s voice was low. “Who paid you?”
“Mordaunt first. Then another man.”
“Ashmont?”
“No. Lord Ashmont gave orders like he expected the room to thank him for breathing, but he did not pay servants himself. This one was older. Dark coat. Grey hair. Not titled, I think, but the titled ones listened.”
“Name,” Sebastian said.
Mrs Pike shook her head, frightened again. “They called him Blackwood.”
The name entered the parlour and seemed to darken the fire.
Sebastian’s hand closed slowly at his side. “Blackwood is not a name.”
“It was what they called him.”
“Where?”
“In a room. Not a house. A club, maybe. I was taken through a back door with the packet. There were gentlemen. Lord Ashmont. Mr Mordaunt. The Blackwood man. Another I didn’t see clear.
They were arguing. Lord Ashmont said the girl would not wear the gown, and Blackwood said a refused gown was as useful as a worn one if the rumour went first.”
Marianne wrote quickly, though her stomach had tightened.
Sebastian looked as if he had turned to stone by force.
“The night of the ball,” Marianne said. “What happened?”
Mrs Pike swallowed. “I was told to be at Lady Honoria’s back entrance. I was to collect a note and make sure wine was sent to Lady Evangeline’s retiring room. Not from the main tray. A particular glass.”
Sebastian rose halfway from his chair.
Marianne did not look at him. “Was there something in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs Page.”
“I don’t know!” The woman’s voice cracked.
“I swear it. I only know she was well when she went in, laughing and angry because someone had said she was wearing blue silk when she was in white. Later she looked pale. Not drunk. Not like that. Heavy. Confused. She kept saying she must find her brother. Lord Ashmont said she had already embarrassed herself enough. Mr Mordaunt said the papers must be concluded before morning.”
Sebastian’s voice, when it came, was almost unrecognisable. “Where was I?”
Mrs Pike looked at him then with terror and pity together. “Your father sent word you were not to be disturbed.”
The room went silent.
Even Mrs Alderley said nothing.
Sebastian did not move. It was the stillness of a man struck in a place too deep for outward reaction.
Marianne forced herself to continue because stopping would not spare him, only prolong the wound. “You said there was a particular glass.”
“Yes. I took it. I was told it was cordial. For nerves. Ladies took such things. I thought…” Her face crumpled. “I did not think enough.”
“Was Lady Evangeline asked to sign anything that night?”
“I did not see her sign. I heard her say she would not. I heard Mordaunt say it had already been done. I heard Lord Ashmont laugh and say she would thank them when she was less overwrought.”
Sebastian turned toward the window.
Marianne saw one hand brace against the sill.
“And afterward?” she asked.
“Afterward everything went mad. Lady Evangeline accused everyone. She said the letters were wrong. She said she had not written them like that. She tried to get to His Grace — well, he wasn’t Grace then.
Lord Halgrave, I mean. They would not let her.
Then she was sent away. I thought I could say something, but Mr Mordaunt came to me first. Said I had stolen a brooch.
Said there were witnesses. Said if I returned to Halgrave House, I would be taken up.
He gave me money and an address. Told me to disappear. ”
“And did you?”
“What else could I do? I was a maid. No one believes maids unless they are accusing another maid.”
Her bitterness was quiet and complete.
Sebastian turned back. “My father met Mordaunt after the scandal.”
Mrs Pike looked at the table. “Yes.”
“You saw them?”
“Once. At Halgrave House. In the small morning room. The old Duke said something about containment. Mr Mordaunt said silence could be purchased less dearly than contradiction. I was outside with a tray. When they saw me, they stopped speaking. That night, the steward told me I was accused of theft.”
Sebastian’s face had gone pale.