There was a murmur of assent as Joshua and Charlie slunk away to sit in their rooms, a mere fifteen feet apart with the interlinking door locked and the key removed to prevent access, where normally it opened at will from both sides. Now the door was a barrier.
Quite how they reached the house, Joshua couldn’t remember. Side by side, he thought, but several feet apart as if repelled.
Time seemed endless. It was torture to be isolated, not knowing the outcome, and even luncheon, without which they normally could not survive, was left uneaten.
Having hastily washed and changed his dirty clothes, Joshua lay on his bed, listening to Charlie walking around the floor in the adjoining room. The footsteps stopped at the door, and the handle half-turned, before the steps resumed their endless pacing. He felt bereft, for there had scarcely been a day since Charlie’s arrival when they had not talked endlessly.
Joshua went to his side of the door, wondering whether to rattle the doorknob. He reached out to touch but the realization that it might have been him lying in Ed Salter’s place stopped him. What maggot in Sophie’s brain possessed her to behave as she did? He wondered where she was. He couldn’t hear her talking to Charlie, so assumed that she must be in her own room across the corridor.
He couldn’t remember whether she was still in the stable-yard when his father arrived. If not, he wondered if she was aware of the consequences of her actions. Somehow, he thought that she would care, for the grooms were her friends.
Joshua closed his eyes and then opened them, hearing again his father’s voice, as he leapt from his horse and strode forward. “Silence,” Tom Norbery had bellowed, “Get out of my sight. This man’s injury is more important than your petty squabbles.”
He had never known his father be so angry, but he realised that at a stroke, Tom Norbery had quelled Charlie’s accusations, and ensured that no one had time to listen. The grooms sprang into action, responding to their master’s orders and their wounded colleague’s need. For that he was grateful, but he felt anger at his stupidity for being caught in a coil not of his making.
Ed Salter’s injury should never have happened. The sight of blood sickened him, but not so much as the accusation of rape – and of whom? It was incredible that a girl of Sophie’s age should have carnal knowledge of the kind that he gained from a harlot in a bagnio. From where had she acquired it?
Honesty told him that, even in the darkness, he should have realised it wasn’t Millie. Her breasts would have overflowed his hands, whereas Sophie…
Joshua would have given anything to erase the memory of how responsive her pert nipples were, and the lustful feelings generated when she touched him. It was just as the Contessa had said. Damn the woman. That ensured he could never look Sophie Cobarne in the face without embarrassment; or Charlie without regret.
Three hours later, Squire Norbery summoned them downstairs. They emerged from their separate rooms at the same time, but neither spoke nor exchanged glances.
In the library, Joshua’s father sat at the desk writing, and continued for several minutes without acknowledging their presence as they stood before him.
“How’s Ed?” said Joshua, hating the silence.
“The wound has been stitched, and he is under sedation, but where there are horses, there is always a risk of lockjaw,” Tom Norbery said, looking from one to the other. “Now I want an explanation for the vulgar display of brawling that precipitated that poor man’s injuries. I hope you realise that you have both brought shame on Linmore by your actions. Charlie, I would like you to explain for what reason you picked up a hoof-paring knife as a weapon.”
“He raped Sophie,” Charlie repeated the accusation.
“No, I didn’t,” Joshua interrupted, “she –”
“One at a time,” Tom Norbery barked out. “You, Joshua, will be silent and allow Charlie to explain, and he will remain mute when your turn comes.”
When Charlie hung his head, Tom Norbery said, “In that case, I will ask questions. When did this incident take place?”
“It was late morning, and Sophie came out of the hayloft with her clothes in tatters. She told me that Joshua had –”
“Yes, as you said before, that he had molested her. Can you recall which clothes she was wearing at the time? I must ask you to bear with me, for I think it could be relevant,” he said, drumming his fingers on the desk.
“I’ve not seen them before,” said Charlie, with a puzzled frown. “I didn’t know she had any like them.”
Joshua watched as his father reached down behind his desk to lift a tattered, dirty white bodice and a skirt with blue stripes. “Would these be the ones?”
“Yes, that’s what she was wearing,” Charlie said in triumph.
Tom Norbery nodded. “These were given to me by Millie, the dairymaid, who found them dumped in the dairy after luncheon, apparently having been borrowed from her earlier in the day by your sister.”
“She’s lying. Sophie had no reason to wear such clothes.”
“I would agree with you, Charlie. No reason at all, except that she was wearing them with black riding boots when she climbed the hay-loft ladder this morning. Boots that no dairymaid would wear, clearly visible under a striped skirt made for a shorter woman. She was seen by one of the coachmen. He also noticed that the door of the pitch-hole over the yard was closed before Joshua’s arrival, ten minutes later.”
“No,” said Charlie, appalled. “You’re making excuses because he’s your son.”
Squire Norbery gave an exasperated sigh, and rubbed both hands over his eyes. “No, I am saying it because it is the truth as I was told by a particular groom who had no reason to lie, and an extremely irate dairymaid who will have to be found new clothes to wear at work. I will call her to speak for herself,” he said in a weary voice, and rang a handbell.
The door opened immediately, and a footman looked into the room.
“Hayton, please ask Millie to come in, and request Miss Jane to bring Sophie.”
“No,” said Charlie in rush. “I won’t have her interrogated.”
“Very commendable, if you think it would injure her sensibilities, but I fear she has none. Never mind, I have already spoken with her and she claims to have no recollection of the time to which this relates,” Tom Norbery said, watching Charlie’s look of astonishment. “Hayton,” he said aside. “I trust that you know how to keep your tongue between your teeth. This is not for servants’ hall gossip.”
“Beg pardon, sir?” said the footman with the air of one afflicted with deafness.
“Good man. Now send in Millie, and wait outside.”
Millie entered the room looking concerned, and then glowered at Charlie and gave Joshua a quick smile of support. She inspected the clothes on the floor, and confirmed without hesitation that they were the same ones borrowed by Sophie. No, she hadn’t asked for what purpose they were required, because she hadn’t thought it was her place to question what the gentry did. But in the light of all the trouble it caused, she was of a different opinion, as she quickly told Charlie.
“That sister of yours ought to be ashamed of herself, borrowing my clothes to entrap a young man, and then to ruin them. Unlike her, I don’t have any more to replace them,” she said, a picture of moral indignation.
“Millie…” Squire Norbery warned, but the woman hadn’t finished.
“If I’d known she would do what she did when you two was off on your travels, I’d have told her to sling her hook, and find summat better to do with her time. Calls herself a lady,” she said in a voice full of scorn. “She’s no better than the light-skirts who walk the streets in Norcott Town.”
“You’re lying,” said Charlie, outraged.
“No, I’m not,” she retorted, “as anybody who was here before she was bundled off to school will tell you. I never thought to see such goings on at Linmore.”
“Be quiet, the pair of you,” snapped Squire Norbery.
Joshua was agog with curiosity, while Charlie, separated from him by the length of the desk, quivered with anger, as the dairymaid lapsed into silence.
“That will be all, Millie. I will ensure that your garments are replaced,” said Squire Norbery. “But remember, I do not wish you to repeat a single word of what has passed in this room to anyone. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said the dairymaid with a sniff as she bobbed her knees. “I beg pardon for speaking out of turn, but I’m that moithered by what ’appened, and didn’t want Joshua to be blamed when it wasn’t his fault.”
“Nor will you discuss anything of what occurred outside today.” Tom Norbery’s voice was icy cold. “You may go, but I will speak again with you on this matter later.”
Suitably chastened, the woman bobbed her knees and scurried from the room.
Tom Norbery let out an exasperated sigh as the door closed behind her.
“We will be extremely lucky to keep this unpleasant episode quiet,” he said. “Now we will proceed with something that should have been resolved last year when you returned from Europe. I thought it best after Matthew’s death to leave the pair of you together, but evidently I was mistaken.” His tone expressed his disappointment.
In fact, they were rarely together, for Sophie had introduced Charlie to her school friend in Bredenbridge, and he made frequent visits in the intervening months to see the girl that he called his goddess.
“You, Charlie, will join the army and be trained to use weapons properly. That, as far as the household is concerned, is why you will go to London. It has ever been your intention and only Matthew’s death delayed it.”
“What will happen to him?” Charlie interrupted in a truculent tone. “Why should he get off without punishment?”
Tom quelled the outburst with a glare. “Joshua will leave Linmore for a different destination, but the fewer people that know the true reason for your separation the better. If it were a simple case of the two of you brawling over some wanton farm wench, I would flog the pair of you and be done with it. But the minute Joshua was stupid enough to go to the hayloft, for whatever reason, and you in your anger picked up a knife, you did so with intent.” Tom Norbery let the words sink in before he continued. “Personally, I believe that you were both victims of the same misguided notion of a prank that went horribly wrong, and it could get worse if Ed Salter’s wound becomes infected. An inch higher, he might have lost his eye, but if the wound goes septic, he could lose his life.
“As a magistrate, I can tell you that if he dies, questions will have to be asked, but if you are not here you can’t be compelled to answer. In the first instance, the physician was more interested in repairing the wound than probing the cause…”
“What about Sophie?” Charlie asked, chalky faced.
“Your sister will accompany you to stay with my sister, Mrs Pontesbury. I will inform the headmistress of her school that we have decided that Sophie is going to London to prepare for her coming out in the small season of the autumn. I will leave it to Sophie to break the news to her particular friends.
“That will satisfy idle curiosity. I daresay that many pupils will envy her, as most of the girls, whose parents are in trade, don’t have access to such refinements. I will also make it known that Joshua will join you later, because it will be expected, but he will not.”
Charlie lapsed into silence, looking stunned. No doubt, thought Joshua, he had realised that there would be no more visits to his precious goddess in Bredenbridge.
He was astounded by the completeness of his father’s plans. Tom Norbery had obviously not wasted a moment since the scene in the stable-yard.
Whilst Joshua couldn’t deny having touched Sophie, he knew that she had molested him more than he her, and revelled in so doing. He cringed at the thought of his complicity. Why the hell, when he felt the prickly feeling between his shoulder-blades halfway across the hayloft floor, hadn’t he recognised it as a sign that she was near, when he’d always known before? Or gone out early to ride with his father, instead of turning over and going back to sleep? Better still, why hadn’t he stayed in bed all day and ignored any notes that purported to come from Millie?
If he had done that, Ed Salter would be safe, his friendship with Charlie intact and he wouldn’t now be awaiting banishment from home. How he wished that he could wake up from the nightmare and find that everything was normal again.
“Joshua…” His father’s blunt voice interrupted his reverie. “There are things that I wish to discuss with Charlie that don’t concern you. Take this note to Gilbert and stay in your room until you are told to leave.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, taking the folded sheet of paper that his father offered.
He made his way upstairs, wondering if Aunt Jane was still with Ed Salter. He wanted to see her to explain. If anyone could make things right, she could.
Gilbert read the note and left the room without a word. He returned minutes later carrying a portmanteau, which he proceeded to fill with clothes from the dressing room cupboards. Joshua watched him count out a number of shirts for the day and a similar quantity for night, then a pile of neck-cloths, underwear, handkerchiefs and several pairs of hose. A spare jacket, waistcoat and breeches followed in turn, before he closed the case and placed it by the door.
“Is that for me?” he said.
“Yes,” said the valet.
“Where am I going?”
“The note doesn’t say. Just to get a few essentials together, and then I’m to bring you something to eat up here.”
“Do you know what happened?” Joshua ventured to ask.
“No, and it doesn’t concern me,” said the man.
Martha’s family were loyal to the last.
“Do you know where Aunt Jane is? I’d like to see her.”
“Busy, I expect,” came the blunt reply that didn’t really tell him anything.
Not for the last seven years had he felt so bereft of friendship. People moved around him with kindly intent but it wasn’t the same, nor would it ever be again.
Joshua didn’t have to protest his innocence or admit guilt for his father had conducted his investigations before they went downstairs to the library. That took everything out of their hands, for it was obvious that the matter with Sophie, serious though it was, lacked the urgency of what followed.