When Falcons Fall (19 page)

S
hortly after breakfast, Hero hired a pretty little gray mare from Martin McBroom’s stables and, accompanied at a respectful distance by a groom, rode out to the Moss family’s cottage on the far edge of Lord Seaton’s estate.

It was one of half a dozen such cottages in a row, all neatly whitewashed and newly thatched, each with its own croft and toft. The young Baron—or at any rate his sober, middle-aged steward—obviously took good care of the estate’s tenants.

She reined in before the open front door of one of the middle cottages, where a towheaded child of four or five who’d been playing in the dirt beside the step looked up at her in openmouthed awe. “Good morning,” said Hero with a smile, dismounting without her groom’s assistance. “Is your mother or father around?”

The child gaped at Hero a moment, then pushed to her feet and darted inside, screaming, “Mumma, Mumma! Come quick!”

A slim, pleasant-looking woman appeared in the doorway, her flaxen hair in striking contrast to her still smooth, sunlit skin, the child now balanced on one hip and sucking her thumb.

“Mrs. Moss?” asked Hero. If this was Sybil’s mother, she must be in at least her mid-forties by now, and she was still startlingly beautiful.

“Aye, milady,” said the woman, sinking into a deep curtsy.

Hero found herself hesitating as she looked into the woman’s faintly smiling but puzzled face.
How do you tell a mother you want to reopen the wounds of the past?
she thought. How do you gracefully bring up the death of one of her children? How do you ask her to confront, in daylight and before a stranger’s eyes, a pain normally kept tucked out of sight and revisited only in solitude during the darkest hours of the night?

“I need to talk to you about the death of your daughter Sybil,” Hero said bluntly, and watched the smile fade from the older woman’s soft blue eyes, leaving them stark and hurting.

“She was my firstborn,” said the woman who introduced herself as Anne Moss. They were seated beside the cottage’s cold hearth, a nearby casement window thrown open to the cool summer breeze. She held the little fair-haired girl in her lap and kept touching the child’s cheek, her arm, her leg, as if to reassure herself of this living child’s presence. “She was so pretty, my Sybil. As pretty as any angel in one of those Popish holy pictures.”

Hero wondered where the cottager’s wife had seen such an image but kept the thought to herself.

“Barely sixteen, she was. She’d always been such a good child. But you know what girls of that age are like—willful and feeling their oats.”

Hero found she could picture Sybil Moss quite clearly: a younger version of her mother, beautiful and nubile and joyously aware of her ability to turn heads and attract men. Lots of men. She would know she was desirable, know that her youth and beauty gave her a special kind of power—fleeting, perhaps, but rare and valuable.

“Is it true she was with child?” Hero asked, because she suspected the mother would not voluntarily betray her daughter’s condition.

A faint line of color appeared high along her cheekbones. “She was. But she didn’t kill herself over it. I don’t care what that high-and-mighty coroner from Ludlow said. She didn’t throw herself off the cliffs of the gorge because she was with child. She was happy about the baby.”

“Do you know who the father was?”

Anne Moss shook her head. “She wouldn’t say. It was something she hugged to herself, a secret. But it was a secret she was proud of; I’m sure of that. She weren’t ashamed of it.”

“How did your husband feel about it?”

Anne Moss hesitated, then lifted the little girl off her lap and said, “There now, Lizzy; run along and play.”

She watched the child dart out the door, and sighed. “To be frank, I don’t think John was surprised. She was so very pretty, our Sybil. He was hoping she’d take up with one of the more prosperous farmers hereabouts, someone who could give her a good life. But . . .”

“But?” prompted Hero when the woman lapsed into silence.

“I worried. She was so pretty—prettier than I ever was, and she knew it. Gave her grand ideas, I’m afraid.”

“Who do you think was the babe’s father?”

Anne Moss brought up one hand to rub her forehead. “I don’t know. But she let slip a thing or two, enough to make me think he was a gentleman. Someone she should’ve known better than to go lying with.”

“You mean, someone like Lord Seaton? Or perhaps the old Squire?”

Sybil Moss’s mother nodded, her lips pressed into a pained line. “I even wondered about Major Weston or maybe—God forgive me—the vicar himself. Man of God he might be, but it never stopped him from having an eye for the pretty ones.”

Was it a coincidence, Hero wondered, that Sybil Moss’s mother had named four of the seven men on Emma Chandler’s mysterious list? Somehow, she doubted it. “What about Samuel Atwater?”

The older woman’s face lightened with unexpected amusement. “Oh, no chance of that. Samuel Atwater’s never had eyes for anyone but Lady Seaton. He’d marry her tomorrow, if she’d agree to it.”

Hero remembered the steward’s quiet, intense focus on the pretty, petite dowager, and wondered why she hadn’t figured that out for herself. “Tell me what happened the day Sybil died.”

Anne Moss stared down at the cold ashes on the hearth beside them, her face drawn and suddenly much older looking, her fingers plucking at the cloth of her apron. “It was Midsummer’s Eve,” she said, as if that explained much, as indeed it did.

The pagan origins of the rites of the summer solstice might be lost in the darkness of millennia past, but the date was still an important one in country villages. It was a time of drinking and dancing, when bonfires were lit along the fields so that their herb-scented smoke might drift across the crops to ward off evil sprits and ensure a successful harvest. Young girls decked themselves in garlands of golden calendula and marigolds and Saint-John’s-wort, symbols of the sun and the light and life it gave.

Yet there was a marked undercurrent of darkness to this homage to the power of the sun. For on Midsummer’s Eve, the boundaries between this world and the next were said to be thin and weak, and fairies roamed the land. Even as one celebrated the warmth and light of the sun, there was an acknowledgment that on this day, the sun reached its zenith. In the days to come, the hours of light would shorten as the year cycled inexorably toward autumn and the cold, dark death of winter.

“When did you last see her?” Hero asked quietly.

Anne Moss lifted her gaze to the window. “She must have slipped away sometime after the bonfires were lit. I didn’t even realize she’d gone until the fires had all died and she still hadn’t come home. And even then, I only thought she was . . .” Sybil’s mother brought up a hand to press her fingertips to her lips, the sinews in her throat corded with an old, festering guilt that was never going to go away. “God help me, I was so angry with her. I went to bed and lay there thinking about how I was going to give her what for when she got home.”

“But she never came home?”

Anne Moss shook her head. “I knew the next morning something was wrong—knew she wouldn’t worry me like that. My John and some of the other cottagers went looking for her. One of his lordship’s shepherds said he’d seen her over by the gorge, so they . . .” Anne had to pause and swallow before she could go on. “They found her lying on the rocks beside the river. Her neck was broke.”

“Where in the gorge, exactly? Do you know?”

Hero was afraid the woman might find the question strange, but she answered readily enough. “She was lying at the base of a rocky outcropping called Monk’s Head. They say that years ago, one of the young monks from the priory fell in love with a village girl. He tried to get out of his vows, but they wouldn’t let him. So the two of them—the monk and the girl—jumped to their deaths there. Don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a popular trysting spot for the young.”

“Could she simply have fallen?”

“I suppose it’s possible. But I doubt it. What was she doin’ there all by her lonesome, anyway?” Sybil’s mother turned her head to stare defiantly at Hero. “I think she was pushed. I think she went there to meet whoever planted that babe in her belly, and he pushed her.”

“Did you tell that to the coroner?”

“I tried. He didn’t want to hear it. Of course he didn’t want to hear it.” She fell silent, her thoughts lost in the past.

In the sudden hush, Hero became aware of the sounds of a child’s laughter and the barking of a dog. Then Sybil’s mother drew a deep, shaky breath and said, “The vicar was kind. He convinced the jury she was so overset by findin’ herself in the family way that she wasn’t in her right mind when she killed herself. Gave her a good Christian burial, he did, although we had to do it after dark, and she’s lyin’ on the very edge of the churchyard. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate what he done for us—truly, I do. But it weren’t true, what he said. She wasn’t out of her mind, and she didn’t jump off the cliffs of the gorge. I’ll believe that till the day I die myself.”

Hero found she had no difficulty imagining a scenario in which a pretty, naive young girl, oh so proud of the gentleman’s babe in her belly, might suddenly find her joy turned to despair when her wellborn seducer abruptly rejected her. But Hero wasn’t about to suggest that possibility to the grief-stricken mother before her.

She said instead, “Of all the men you named, who do you think killed your daughter?”

Anne Moss stared at her long and hard. “You truly want to know?”

“Yes.”

“I think it was Lord Seaton—his present lordship’s father.”

Hero was seated by the window and leafing thoughtfully through the portraits in Emma Chandler’s sketchbook when Archibald Rawlins knocked tentatively at the door of the private parlor.

“I got your message,” he said, standing awkwardly in the center of the room with his hat in his hands. “I asked both Nash and Dr. Higginbottom about the gloves. But neither could remember noticing if there was one or two.”

“So it was probably dropped somewhere along the way,” said Hero.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m afraid Nash isn’t as careful as he should be.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “You haven’t heard from his lordship?”

“Not yet, no.”

Archie nodded. “I was thinking about driving over to Ludlow on Monday. Crispin says Miss Chandler dealt with a firm of solicitors there. He couldn’t remember their names, but if I can find them, they might be able to tell us more about her.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” said Hero, giving him an encouraging smile. “Tell me, how well do you remember Lord Seaton’s father, Leopold?”

“I don’t really. I was maybe six or seven when he died.”

Hero knew a quickening of interest. “He died around ’ninety-seven or ’ninety-eight?”

“Something like that, yes. Why?”

“Sybil Moss died in July of 1797.”

“Did she? I couldn’t have told you exactly. I barely remember it.”

“When did Hannah Grant die?”

“Around then sometime.”

“Her father is the village blacksmith?”

“He is, yes. I could talk to him—ask him about it, if you like.”

“Is Hannah’s mother still alive?”

“She is, yes.”

“Then I’ll talk to her instead.”

A vague shadow passed over the young Squire’s features. “If you’d prefer. Only, you might want to do it when the smith isn’t around. He has a tendency to get a bit agitated whenever anyone mentions his daughter.”

“Don’t worry,” said Hero. “I’ll be careful.”

L
ater that afternoon, as a thick white band of clouds settled low over the village, Hero walked up the high street to the blacksmith’s shop and the slate-roofed, sandstone cottage that stood beside it. Remembering Archie Rawlins’s warning, she carried with her a large, unusually heavy reticule.

She could see Miles Grant still at his forge, the fire glowing red-hot as he worked the massive bellows, his sweat-gleamed face bent to his task. In the yard of the nearby cottage, his wife was taking down clothes from a line strung between a lean-to shed and a mulberry tree, her arms moving methodically as she unpinned and rolled her wash to stow it in the basket at her feet.

If Mary Grant had ever been as pretty as her long-dead daughter, Hannah, all traces of those days were gone. The passage of hard years had etched deep lines in her face, sagged her cheeks, and tugged down the corners of her mouth and eyes, so that she looked as if she were melting—as if life were dissolving her a little more every day.

“Good evening,” said Hero with a friendly smile.

The woman looked around and froze, and Hero saw the nasty bruise riding high on her left cheek, so purple it was almost black.

“God above,” whispered the blacksmith’s wife as she cast a wary glance toward her husband’s forge. “I know why you’re here, milady, but please—oh, please—just go away.”

Hero watched the nerves in the older woman’s face twitch with her distress. “I’m sorry, but I need to know about Hannah.”

Mary Grant’s pinched eyes widened with alarm at the sound of her daughter’s name. “Miles, he don’t like me talkin’ about her,” said the dead girl’s mother. “Won’t even let me mention her name in his hearing, he won’t. Says she shamed us.”

Hero was careful to keep her voice as bland as her expression. “You think she killed herself?”

Mary Grant jerked one of her husband’s shirts off the line, sending its pins flying. “It’s what they said at the inquest, ain’t it?”

“When exactly did she die?”

A painful spasm crumpled the mother’s face. “The twenty-fourth of January, 1798.”

“Do you know if she was seeing anyone in particular at the time?”

The smith’s wife paused, the shirt clutched forgotten in her arms, a faint, faraway light kindling in her eyes. “She was so pretty, all the lads in the village were in love with her—and more’n a few who weren’t lads, if you take my meaning? Even his lordship’s father fancied her, he did. I know because I saw him smiling at her once or twice. He always had an eye for a pretty face, he did. I told her not to make too much of it, that his lordship never meant well by any girl he smiled at. I think she listened to me. She weren’t one for being foolish.”

Hero studied the older woman’s tightly held, intense face and suspected she spoke as much to convince herself as to persuade Hero.

“So who was she in love with?” asked Hero.

“I didn’t ever know. I mean—” She broke off, her head jerking toward the blacksmith’s shop as Hero became aware of a beefy man in a leather apron descending on them, his powerful arms crossed at his chest, his broad, heavily jowled face dripping sweat, the cords in his neck rigid with his fury.

“I’m sorry,” said the smith’s wife in a rush, bundling up the shirt in her hands and thrusting it into her basket. “I can’t talk no more. Truly I can’t.” She seized the basket and disappeared into the cottage, leaving half the clothes still hanging on the line.

“What ye doin’, comin’ round here?” shouted Miles Grant, his voice booming out as his long stride closed the distance between then. “Comin’ round here, makin’ trouble? I’ll teach ye to go pokin’ yer fancy nose where it don’t belong.” He uncurled his arms, his knotted fists coming up as he descended upon her. “I’ll show you.”

Hero calmly withdrew the small, brass-mounted flintlock pistol from her reticule and thumbed back the hammer. “Come any closer and I will kill you. Without hesitation or compunction.”

He drew up abruptly, eyes widening with surprise as much as anything else. She knew from the twitching of his heavy straight brows that the definition of the word “compunction” eluded him. But he understood the meaning of a loaded flintlock leveled unflinchingly at his chest.

“Ye wouldn’t shoot me,” he said, although his voice lacked conviction.

“Believe me, I would more than welcome an excuse to put an abrupt end to your miserable, brutish existence.”

He obviously believed her because he took a wary step back, his hands dangling loosely at his sides, his face dark and swollen with the impotence of his fury.

She wiggled the muzzle of her pistol. “Now turn around and go back to whatever you were doing.”

“Ye can’t order about a man in his own house!”

Rather than keep the pistol leveled on his chest, Hero readjusted her aim so that the muzzle now pointed at his crotch. “Let me assure you that I am an excellent shot. Now, turn around and go away. You are boring me.”

He didn’t turn around. But he did back away from her, one step at a time, his dark, angry gaze fixed on her face. She waited until he’d backed all the way to his forge before she calmly walked away, the pistol still in her hand.

She doubted he would actually have been so foolish as to harm her, although she had no intention of taking any chances. More likely he had intended to use his size and his aggressive maleness to intimidate and frighten her. But she also had no doubt that he was dangerous, and this day’s events had both humiliated and enraged him. She had challenged his comfortable belief that as a man he was superior to any female, no matter how wellborn.

And if he came at her again, it wouldn’t be directly or out in the open where anyone could see.