Chapter Seven The Woman at the Blue Hart #4
Not the pallor of faintness, but of a man whose blood had retreated from every part of him that did not require it for standing.
“My father knew,” he said.
Marianne did not answer.
Mrs Pike began to cry then, silently, as if even now tears might be used against her.
Marianne moved the ink and paper aside and placed a clean handkerchief near the woman’s hand. Not Sebastian’s this time. Her own. Plain cotton, practical, laundered thin.
“We need your statement,” she said gently. “Only what you know. Only what you saw or heard. Not guesses. Not guilt. Truth.”
Mrs Pike looked at Sebastian, then recoiled again.
Sebastian saw it.
This time he understood without being told. He stepped toward the door. “I will wait outside.”
Mrs Pike stared.
Marianne too felt the significance of it. He did not argue. Did not insist on hearing every word. Did not claim his sister’s story gave him right to another woman’s fear. He simply bowed, once, stiffly, and left the parlour.
Mrs Pike watched the closed door. “He’s not like the old Duke.”
“No,” Marianne said. “I am beginning to think not.”
The statement took nearly an hour.
Mrs Pike spoke haltingly at first, then with increasing steadiness as Marianne wrote.
Mrs Alderley, far from sleeping, proved an excellent witness, interrupting only when dates required clarification or when Mrs Pike used “he” too often and the old lady demanded, quite rightly, that villainy deserved names where possible.
Tom was summoned to sign as second witness, which made him solemn enough to look twice his size.
Mrs Pike signed as Mary Page, formerly Sarah Pike, with a shaking hand.
When it was done, Marianne made two copies of the most important points. One she folded and tucked into her reticule. One she placed with the original statement inside a cloth wrapper Mrs Pike provided. The plan was to return all to Lantern House before dark.
Plans, Marianne reflected not long after, were often most admired by the people least consulted by events.
The first sign of trouble came in the yard.
Sebastian had arranged fresh horses, and the ostlers were changing the team while rain clouds gathered once more in the west. Mrs Alderley had been assisted into the carriage and was complaining that no one had allowed her to interrogate the cook.
Tom stood by the rear wheel, watchful. Mrs Pike had retreated into the kitchen, pale but steadier, with a small purse from Sebastian that she had accepted only after Marianne explained it was for removal if she chose, not payment for testimony.
Marianne carried the cloth-wrapped statement beneath her cloak.
That was the mistake.
Or rather, the mistake was that someone believed she did.
She was halfway across the yard when a horse near the stable door reared suddenly, shrieking, its hooves striking sparks from the cobbles. A stable boy cried out. A crate toppled from a cart. Men shouted. The yard erupted into motion.
Sebastian moved toward Marianne at once.
“Stand back!”
But she had already seen the man.
Not the frightened stable boy. Not the innkeeper. Another man near the flour sacks by the kitchen entrance, cap pulled low, hand moving not toward the horse but toward her cloak.
He wanted the papers.
Marianne did not run backward.
She stepped sideways, into the confusion, and shoved the cloth-wrapped bundle not into her reticule, where any thief would look, but through the open top of a flour sack standing beside the kitchen door. Her hand came out dusted white. Then the man reached her.
Sebastian reached him first.
The collision was brutal but brief. Sebastian seized the man’s arm and wrenched him back from Marianne. The horse reared again. A hanging crate slipped from the cart above them. Marianne saw the shadow fall.
“Sebastian!”
She had never used his name before.
He looked up.
In the next instant, he shoved Marianne aside with enough force to send her against the stable wall as the crate crashed down where she had stood.
It split open, spilling straw and broken crockery across the cobbles.
The horse screamed again. The man twisted free, leaving half his sleeve in Sebastian’s grip, and bolted toward the arch.
Tom went after him, shouting.
The groom followed.
Sebastian turned to Marianne. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
The answer was becoming too familiar.
He reached for her shoulder, then stopped before touching. “You struck the wall.”
“I am not porcelain.”
“Do not make a joke.”
“It was not a joke. Porcelain is less useful in a yard.”
He looked as though he might shake her if he were a different man. Instead, he drew one harsh breath and turned toward the arch where Tom had vanished. “The papers.”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“In flour.”
He stared at her.
She crossed to the sack, plunged both hands into it, and withdrew the wrapped statement coated in white dust.
Sebastian looked at the bundle, then at her flour-covered gloves.
For one absurd moment, with danger still echoing in the yard and half the inn watching, he began to laugh.
Not loudly. Not freely. But a short, incredulous sound escaped him, more breath than amusement, and it transformed the terror just enough for Marianne’s own breath to return.
“You hid a witness statement in flour,” he said.
“It was nearest.”
“Of course it was.”
“You would have put it in your coat and been robbed by a child.”
“I dispute that.”
“You may. You would still have been robbed.”
The laughter vanished quickly, but something of its warmth remained in his eyes.
Then Tom returned, wet, muddy and furious. “Lost him, miss. Beg pardon, Your Grace. He had a horse waiting beyond the trees.”
Sebastian’s expression hardened. “Then he knew the yard.”
“Or had help,” Marianne said.
The innkeeper swore softly when he saw the flour sack, then apologised to Mrs Alderley, who had leaned from the carriage to demand whether anyone had been killed and whether luncheon would be delayed.
They searched the yard, but the attacker had left little: a torn sleeve, a boot mark in mud, and the knowledge that someone had attempted to seize Mrs Pike’s statement almost before the ink had dried.
Mrs Pike, when told, went white enough that Marianne feared she might collapse.
“You see,” the woman whispered. “They know. They always know.”
Sebastian looked at her, and whatever remained of ducal command in him lowered itself.
“Mrs Page,” he said, “my presence frightened you earlier, and with cause. I did not understand what the Rookwood name sounded like to someone who had been threatened with it. I understand better now. You have my word that no accusation of theft will be revived against you by my house. If any man uses my name to threaten you again, send to Lantern House or to me directly.”
Mrs Pike stared at him.
“Your father used that name too,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied. “That is why I must use it differently.”
Marianne looked away.
Some apologies mattered because they were made to the right wound.
They departed the Blue Hart later than intended, with the sky closing dark above the road and the first sharp drops of rain striking the carriage roof before they had gone two miles.
The statement, original and copies, rested now inside a plain sewing basket Mrs Alderley had insisted upon purchasing from the innkeeper’s wife, who seemed glad to exchange it for coin and distance from danger.
No one, Mrs Alderley said, would search sewing first because men could never find needles when sitting upon them.
For several miles, the carriage moved through heavy silence.
Mrs Alderley slept again, though with one hand on the basket. Tom and the groom rode behind. Sebastian sat opposite Marianne, his coat damp at one shoulder, his expression shadowed.
At last he said, “I frightened her.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was my title. Or the size of the carriage. Or the shock of seeing someone from Halgrave.”
“It was all of those. And history.”
“The Rookwood name was used like a threat.”
“Yes.”
His gaze dropped to his gloved hands. “I did not consider how it would sound to someone powerless.”
“No,” Marianne said. “But you did consider it when you saw it. That is not nothing.”
He looked up.
It was not forgiveness. She could not grant him what was not hers to give. But it was recognition, and he seemed to receive it as carefully as a fragile document.
After a time, she added, “I may have judged you too quickly.”
His brows lifted faintly. “That must have caused you pain.”
“Do not make me regret the admission.”
“I would not dare.”
“I did not say wrongly,” she continued. “Only quickly. You were arrogant.”
“Were?”
“Are. But not only arrogant.”
“Your generosity overwhelms.”
“You are also grieving, guilty, intelligent, occasionally willing to learn, and far more obedient to Mrs Finch than expected.”
This time the smile came quietly.
“Mrs Finch is terrifying.”
“Yes. We are very proud of her.”
A gentleness settled for a few moments, unexpected and uneasy but not unwelcome. Rain moved across the carriage windows in silver threads. The road grew rougher. The sky lowered.
Then the left rear wheel struck a rut with a crack that made Mrs Alderley wake, Tom shout, and the carriage lurch hard enough that Marianne caught the side strap and Sebastian caught her wrist.
Not roughly.
Reflexively.
The carriage shuddered to a stop.
Outside, voices rose. The coachman cursed. The groom dismounted. Tom appeared at the window, hair plastered to his forehead.
“Wheel’s damaged, Your Grace. Axle maybe too. Road’s foul ahead. There’s a posting inn half a mile back.”
Sebastian did not swear. Marianne suspected this was because dukes had been trained to perform displeasure without ordinary language.
“We return to the inn,” he said.
Mrs Alderley peered out. “Do they have supper?”
Marianne almost laughed, then discovered she was too tired.