Five
Rafe
“We all know there’s more behind that pretty face than curls,” his wife reminded Rafe as he frowned at the handsome young couple’s departure.
“I’m frowning because Miss Lavender might very well be right and I don’t like it.
We really don’t have enough staff to guard the manor against an entire inn full of invaders, if that’s what they are.
” They barely had enough food in the larder to feed the new arrivals, although he’d once fed an army on what could be foraged from the field.
He knew how to do it. But sorting gentry from rioting rabble. . .
“Your guests didn’t have the consideration to send anyone ahead to warn us of a large party.
I wonder, instead of being insurgents, if they were expecting the Priory to house them?
” Verity removed loaves of bread from their meager oven.
She was a lady who had never cooked more than an egg before marrying Rafe.
“They should have written ahead, if so. Arriving like this invites chaos. I better go back before they bellow the thatch off the rafters.” He grabbed a tray of pickled onions and cucumbers, cheese, and apple slices. At least the orchards had produced a decent crop this year.
The physically intimidating, blond American—Humphries, Rafe recalled—was taller and heftier than the others and almost literally throwing his weight around.
He appeared to be presiding over the group.
They’d discarded overcoats and hats and flung them over tables, preventing other guests from sitting while they occupied the space at the bar.
Rafe fought a smile as he noted the lion-maned gentleman smoothly inserting himself into the crowd.
A baron and a writer and lecturer on the arts, Lord Greybourne was Gravesyde’s newest and most sophisticated resident.
He took one of the recently installed new bar stools, and Rafe slid him a mug and a plate of the crackers he kept to suit Hunt’s American preferences. Greybourne nodded appreciation.
The baron’s young assistant worked in the men’s clothing shop across from the modiste.
To draw Greybourne out of his lair at this hour, the lad must have informed him of the peculiar party.
The baron was a scholar, not a hunter, but his curiosity was limitless—and like many in Gravesyde, he had reason to be cautious about strangers.
“You don’t need an heiress,” one of the visitors commiserate, pounding Humphries on his broad back. “Find yourself an obedient wife. Impoverished nobility litters the echoing halls of society.”
“But they don’t own the Priory.” Humphries didn’t sip his ale but shrugged off the older gentleman. “Keep your eye on the goal.”
“This may be the only unentailed land in all England available for your purposes,” a younger, more handsome gentleman acknowledged.
Land. Rafe poured more pints and felt his innards roiling. The bank claimed to own the village. Were they attempting to sell their empty cottages before the village could condemn them?
Although, it sounded as if the land beneath the crumbling cottages was more important.
“When will that pheasant be ready?” Humphries shouted. “I’m fair starved and ready to eat three!”
“I’ll stuff the pheasant when someone provides them,” Rafe said with a shrug. “It’s illegal to hunt them without the permission of the manor.”
Humphries slammed his fist on the bar, but it was too sturdy to rattle any glasses. “If I had a title, you would be out shooting birds now!”
Rafe had nothing to answer to that without being as rude as his guest.
Instead, one of the eccentric artists from Thea’s gallery spoke up from a table in the corner. “If you had a title, you’d be sitting there quietly appreciating your pint like the baron there.”
“Baron?” Several of the frockcoated gentleman glanced around in interest.
The American merely snatched up the last of the cheese and munched, glaring at the company.
Since no one in the bar apparently looked the way a baron should look, the gentlemen ignored the interruption and returned to praising themselves for their choice of location.
In his unfashionable but expensive country tweed and flat cap, Lord Greybourne finished his pint, slid his coin across the bar, and stood to leave, until loud curses erupted from above. He halted and waited.
The roiling in Rafe’s innards increased. Emerging from behind the bar, he aimed for the stairs, until Parsons, his ex-convict clerk, barreled down them, shouting.
“He’s hung himself, sir! Up in the attics. Just dangling!” As dark in hair and countenance as his reputation, the clerk took a deep breath and bent over, resting his big hands on his knees while catching his breath.
“Stay here, Parsons, man the bar. I’ll see to it.
” The attic dormitory for servants was up three flights of stairs.
Rafe didn’t bother asking who had hung themselves.
He gestured at Greybourne, who had the sense to slip quietly into the kitchen, where he might take the backstairs, while Rafe held out his arms and prevented a surge of guests from running up the main ones.
“I’m the bailiff. If you’ll send one person with me to identify the victim, the rest of you may return to your rooms to prepare for dinner. The staff has been carrying up hot water.” Which would be cold if they didn’t take themselves back where they belonged.
“Haggarty,” Humphries ordered, “You go with the bailiff. You’re familiar with most of the company.”
A young, slender gentleman grimaced but joined Rafe at the door. “At your service, sir.”
Finally, one who showed a little respect. Treating him as he would a raw recruit, Rafe simply led the way up the stairs.
The top landing led straight into a low-ceilinged dormitory he and Fletch, his partner, hadn’t had time to partition. They’d installed cots and hooks for servants or those customers with little coin, but with few people traveling to Gravesyde, they seldom had anyone up here.
It appeared the half dozen gentlemen had a dozen servants between them, and they were all milling about on the edges of the chamber, trying to get a better look at the man dangling from the exposed rafter in the center. A wooden chair lay on its side beneath him.
Young Haggarty had his sword out and, looking pale, rushed to the center, apparently prepared to lower the poor devil. Rafe held out his big arm and halted him. He wasn’t a trained constable, but he’d seen dead men before, and he’d learned a few things in this past year of dealing with tragedy.
Greybourne arrived from the back stairs and didn’t bother hiding his intake of breath at the sight. “Damn. I’ll send for the physician.” He dashed off, a baron acting in the place of Rafe’s lack of staff—a gentleman through and through.
“He’s dead,” Haggarty protested. “A physician won’t help him!”
He was quite definitely dead, but not from hanging, if Rafe’s experience told him anything. “We do things properly here, sir. A physician has to examine the circumstances and I have to write a report for the magistrate. Can you identify the dead man?”
The victim was not dark from throttling, but brown like the village’s half-Hindu physician. Balding, with a large, hooked nose, he wore one of those tunic things foreigners sometimes wore. Rafe assumed one of the gentlemen had brought a servant with them from India.
At Rafe’s question, Haggarty shook his neatly barbered dark hair and turned to a gray-haired servant. “Wilson?”
“He’s called something like Shander, sir, one of Mr. Humphries’ men.” Lean, thinning hair needing a good cut, this servant seemed a little older and more experienced than the others.
Shander. Chandar. Rafe had known Indian batmen in the army.
“He came up here whilst the rest of us was sorting the luggage in the luggage room. Bad back, he said. He left the footmen to carry Mr. Humphries’ trunks.” The gray-haired servant nodded at the mismatched assortment of younger men not sporting livery.
Rafe observed their worried faces. They didn’t look mournful, just scared. He’d deal with the dead man once Dr. Walker arrived and could witness taking him down. “Who found him?”
The servants didn’t want to answer. Interesting. “All right, then, I’ll take all your names and your employers and I’ll question you one at a time after the physician arrives.”
Undeterred by the second climb, Greybourne returned, wearing his best scholarly expression, as if dealing with a roomful of students, which they might as well be. “I’ve sent one of your ostlers to fetch Dr. Walker. Your guests are prepared to storm the stairs if they don’t have answers soon.”
Rafe turned to Haggarty. “If you would, sir, go down and tell them Mr. Chandar has met with an accident and ask Mr. Humphries if he might come up. I haven’t the staff to send up more hot water, so if they wish to wash before dinner, the others need to go to their rooms now.”
“They’ll be needing us to help dress,” one of the unnamed servants protested. “It’ll be our heads if we ain’t there.”
Greybourne slid a notebook from his pocket. “I’ll take each of their names as they leave.”
“And their employers.” Having an aristocrat as an assistant was a new experience, but Rafe respected men over titles.
The baron was a scholar who spent his day scribbling.
If he wanted to play Rafe’s subordinate, he wouldn’t argue.
Although Rafe was reasonably certain Greybourne lingered from curiosity.
Out of sheer perversity, Rafe kept Humphries’ man until last, so he was still there when his employer arrived, huffing, puffing, and cursing.
Behind him followed Dr. Walker. Although dressed respectably, the physician was female and a person of color, and Humphries blocked her way into the attic as if she were a servant whose time was of no importance.
“What the devil is this all about?” the American cried from the top of the stairs. “You want to kill me by making me climb up here?”
“If you would, sir, the physician is behind you. I need her in here.” Refusing to answer stupid questions, Rafe took a step toward Humphries, prepared to move him physically, if required. He more than matched the American’s size. It would take a lot more than an overweight bully to intimidate him.
Humphries glowered and reluctantly moved off the landing, into the attic. He scarcely took a second look at the servant hanging from the rafter but turned his displeasure on the small woman now free to bustle into the room.
“Note the position and height of the chair, please,” Rafe ordered as the baron approached the corpse, knife out. “Leave the knot intact.”
“What the devil are you doing? Cut the poor fellow down or I will! Get the darky outta my way.” Shoving past the lady physician, Humphries stormed toward the corpse.
Rafe stepped in front of him, almost daring him to try to push past as he had Dr. Walker.
Greybourne courteously offered his arm to the petite doctor so she might crouch down to examine the floor and the dead man’s boots. A short, round wren of a woman, Meera Walker wasn’t physically impressive, but Rafe knew she possessed more medical knowledge than most male physicians.
Humphries visibly steamed. He gestured at a servant hovering on the other side of the room. “You don’t have to obey these local yokels. Cut Chandar down and carry him to the stable. Then go down and set out my dinner suit and shaving gear. You will have to step up to his place.”
The stocky servant appeared willing but Greybourne turned his sword in his direction. “Mr. Russell and Dr. Walker are the authorities in this room. You will obey their orders or answer to me.”
“What is this revolutionary nonsense?” Humphries cried. “That is my servant. Jones does as I say, not as some darky—”
Not particularly tolerant of bigotry, Rafe placed the point of his knife at the big man’s throat.
“One more demeaning word about Dr. Walker, and I will have you arrested for obstruction of justice and locked in the Priory crypt. The magistrate won’t return for days and the cook is out of town, but you probably won’t starve. ”
Round face mottled with rage, Humphries hurled insults like a tantrum-throwing toddler.
“Take him down now, please.” Dr Walker quietly interrupted the tirade.
Rafe lowered his knife to help Greybourne respectfully lower the remains of the dead servant to the floor.
The physician examined the man’s bare throat, then removed the victim’s shoes.
Even Humphries shut up to stare in sick fascination.
Rafe nodded agreement as Meera spoke.
“The victim died by garrote, not hanging. You might want to search the premises for a strong wire.”