Ten
Rafe
“I’ll admit, I’m at wit’s end, and Fletch will tell you I haven’t far to go.
” Rafe tugged at his tangled mop of curls while he strode about the derelict, garish manor chamber that had acquired a mattress on the floor.
An innkeeper and bailiff, he wasn’t familiar with the Priory’s bedchambers.
But the public rooms he’d seen in the old part of the house were far more habitable than the abandoned grandeur of this faded parlor in the new wing.
He glanced into the courtyard but it was quiet now. No intruders in sight. “I have the captain’s soldiers hunting, but your prowler had too much of a head start.”
Arnaud grunted in disgust. “The hound chased him away before I could even reach the door. In this weather, it’s damned slippery on that rocky hill. We can hope he fell and broke his neck.”
“That won’t aid our cause. We need to interrogate the fellow.” The tutor Rafe now knew was a duke’s son paced the tile floor, also, occasionally glaring out the window.
Rafe really should have perceived the young man’s air of authority sooner, but he’d not had too many dealings with Birdwhistle-Fortescue. Verity was the one who worked with him, but Rafe’s unworldly schoolteacher wife had little experience with the aristocracy, or people in general.
“Has Weston given you any notion of why assassins are after him?” Arnaud asked. “It is hard to imagine they have followed him, but what else can we assume, especially if servants are garroted for no reason?”
“Monty has no notion of why he was attacked. He recently spoke in the House of Lords against the practice of using Parliament to break the entails on great estates, which isn’t as selfish as it seems. Our father never signed an entailment agreement, and like Wycliffe, is intent on dividing his estates up as he desires.
My bullheaded brother simply believes that if an estate is entailed, there is likely a reason, and Parliament has no business interfering in private business.
” Fort stopped to stare out the window. “I cannot see how that is worthy of assassination.”
“As experience tells us, keeping all the productive land in the hands of the nobility is reason for revolution,” Arnaud answered wearily.
“Although, if stupid nobles cannot sell off their entailed lands to pay their gambling debts, the law does serve the purpose of providing a roof over the heads of their families.”
Rafe groaned as the conversation strayed from his purpose. “I am not interested in political philosophy. Is Lord Weston directly or indirectly preventing some powerful noble from selling off his land for whatever purpose?”
“He’s only one man,” Fort protested. “They’d have to shoot half of Parliament if that was their purpose.”
“The kingdom is full of angry mobs who would happily set fire to all Parliament,” Rafe had to point out.
“If the newssheets are to be believed, we had almost no harvest this year because of blamed volcanoes halfway around the world. Through no fault of their own, families are starving. Instead of helping, Parliament hiked bread prices with the Corn Laws that profit only landed gentry. Men are looking for people to blame. Isn’t that how revolution started in France? ”
“Anger isn’t sensible or governable.” The son of said landed gentry, Fort took the path of logic.
“It is unlikely for a single revolutionary to climb a wall in search of a man with limited power. It is the duke who controls the estate, is it not? Radicals tend to congregate in mobs—unless, of course, there is some personal connection. A woman scorned, a tenant mistreated. . . ?” Arnaud rubbed his jaw, possibly recalling his own suffering at the hands of Parisian mobs.
“May I interview Weston?” Rafe asked, returning to the point again. “I have an inn full of suspects and a murder on hand. I don’t like the coincidence of assassins and intruders.”
For a brief moment, the duke’s son appeared as uncertain as any youth. “He’s in a lot of pain and is sleeping. I don’t want to disturb him, I’m sorry. We can call for you when he wakes, or you can leave a list of questions. . . ?”
“I want to take a look around, talk to some of your stable men. Maybe he’ll come around while I’m here.
” Rafe picked up his hat and strode for the door.
He’d had to declare he’d had measles as a child before the diligent servants would allow him even close enough for the tutor to let him in.
Devil if he knew if he’d had whatever measles were.
“Has Humphries given any indication that he’s actually talked to the bank about their derelict properties?” Fort asked, halting Rafe’s progress.
The authoritative nobleman had returned.
Rafe rubbed his head and thought about the question.
“It’s rather obvious that half the village is abandoned, but they are all grousing about Hunt’s absence, not Bosworth’s.
I have yet to see any of them communicate with the banker.
Humphries has a lawyer type with him who’s asking questions, but the American prefers to argue and shout about building plans and lot sizes, as if he owns the place. ”
“Someone should write the bank and make inquiries,” Arnaud suggested. “With Hunt and Sutter gone, we have no authorities. Should we ask Clare, as one of the manor owners, to write?”
“Thea and Lavender are also owners. Perhaps not disturb Clare and have them send a message? Will Bosworth heed them?” Fort didn’t appear confident of the outcome.
Arnaud laughed. “Thea is capable of writing and signing herself as Lady Lavinia’s secretary. That ought to make our banker sit up and pay attention.”
“That won’t help me with murder, but resolving any questions is a start, thank you.” Rafe slammed the hat on his head and strode out to interrogate anyone who dared cross his path.
Most of the old soldiers Hunt allowed to camp and work on the grounds knew Rafe and accepted him as the kind of mess sergeant they remembered as keeping them fed in times of hunger. As long as he wasn’t accusing them of public drunkenness, they enjoyed talking.
What would happen to them if someone like Humphries took over the manor? The disabled old soldiers had no pensions, no homes, and no livelihoods now that their nation no longer needed them.
Rafe lacked time for speculation. He found a few lay-abouts unwilling or unable to help with the orchard harvest, but none had seen the intruder.
One of the stable boys said he’d seen what he thought was one of the harvest workers coming from the orchard side of the hill, but he hadn’t paid attention.
Unable to find satisfactory answers, Rafe strode down to where workers scrambled up trees.
Patience, one of the heirs and Arnaud’s sister-in-law, was directing the removal of apples to the cellars until they could hold their cider-pressing festival.
Rafe had arrived in Gravesyde in time for last year’s festival.
He’d been here a year now. He intended to stay, if he had aught to say about it.
He needed to be finding a gift for Verity for their first anniversary, not worrying about losing the home and family they were building.
“No, I haven’t seen anyone out of place,” Patience replied to his questions. “But then, we have a lot of workers who come just for the harvest. I doubt I’d recognize them all. Check with Mr. Cooper?” She gestured at the lanky field steward ordering a ladder moved to the next tree.
When questioned, Cooper shrugged. “They’s all working as far as I see. If the tavern were open, you might find strangers there. When is Lavigne returning?” Arnaud’s brother operated the tavern.
“Whenever he accumulates all the supplies he’s after. Maybe I can have my clerk run the bar a night or two while Henri is gone. Working men don’t come to my pub often.” Rafe didn’t know how he’d run the inn with his only clerk working at the tavern, but the idea was viable.
First, he’d make more inquiries about the servants in his attic. Both a murderer and a possible assassin in one tiny village was simply too much to accept.