When Falcons Fall (22 page)

“How did she react when you showed her Lady Emily’s letter?”

“At first, she was excited to read it. But by the time she finished, she was pale and shaking. If anything, she seemed more devastated than when she’d returned from Pleasant Park—although I could never understand why.”

“She didn’t tell you she was in love with a young man from Ayleswick?”

He read the dawning comprehension and horror in her eyes. “Dear God, no. What was his name?”

“Crispin, Lord Seaton—the son of one of the men who may have raped her mother.”

Monday, 9 August

E
arly the next morning, before he left the village of Kirby, Sebastian visited the small fifteenth-century church with its flying buttresses and fan vaulting and soaring stained-glass windows.

Even in death, the grand inhabitants of Pleasant Park refused to mingle with the common folk of the village. Rather than be buried in the churchyard, generations of Turnstalls lay in a private crypt beneath their own chapel in the north transept. An ornate jewel of Italian marble, delicate tracery, and masterfully carved, life-sized effigies, the chapel was crowded with memorials to past generations of Turnstalls, some extraordinarily ornate and pretentious, others less so.

Emma’s mother had warranted only a small brass plaque inscribed,
LADY EMILY TURNST
ALL, MAY 1775–AUGUST 1792
.

Pausing before it, Sebastian ran his fingertips along the engraved letters and felt the tragedy of the young woman’s death hollow him out inside.
How many women?
he wondered. As one century followed the next, on down through the ages, how many women had seen their lives shattered by an unintended pregnancy that ran afoul of their society’s cruel, unforgiving conventions?

He wondered if Emma Chandler had come here to the church before she left the village. From Sarah Hanson she would have heard the answer to two of the questions that had haunted her since childhood: She would have learned the name of the woman who had given her life and she would know that her mother had both loved her and wanted desperately to keep her.

Yet the discovery would have been bittersweet, for the mother she had sought was long dead, never to be seen or touched. Standing here, reading her mother’s stark memorial, she would have felt the awful finality of it, the inescapable sadness of realizing she would never know her mother’s smile, never breathe in the scent of her skin or hear the sound of her laughter. Never hear her say,
I love you.

And he wondered, had anyone ever said those words to Emma before Crispin Seaton? Probably not since she’d been dragged away from the happy farm of the couple who had given her their last name. What would it have done to her to read her mother’s letter and realize that she might lose Crispin too? There were seven men mentioned in Emily’s letter. The odds were slim that her mother’s rapist would turn out to be the father of the man Emma loved. Yet the chance was there.

She could have decided to ignore what she’d learned, turned her back on the past, and embraced the future she surely wanted. Instead, she’d been driven to learn the truth. Disregarding her society’s conventions, she’d disguised herself as a widow on a sketching expedition and gone to Ayleswick.

Had Emma somehow discovered the information she sought? Sebastian wondered. Was that why she had died? Had her reappearance in her father’s life threatened the guilty man so much that he had killed her? Killed his own daughter?

It was possible. Horrifying, but definitely possible.

S
hortly after breakfast, Hero left Simon with Claire and took the shady path that rambled through stands of old-growth oak and beech, to the water meadows.

It had rained during the night. But now the air was clear and fresh with the new day, the sunlight filtering down through the leafy branches overhead golden and warm. Wrapping her arms around her bent knees, Hero sat on the moss-covered log where Emma’s body had been found and stared out at the slow-moving river. Devlin was right; there was nothing particularly picturesque or unusual about this stretch of the Teme. So why had Emma Chandler’s killer chosen this spot to stage her suicide?

Why?

A hawk circled overhead, riding an updraft, and Hero tipped back her head, watching it. The silence and isolation of the place settled heavily upon her. She could hear nothing but the sigh of a faint breeze through the treetops and the whine of unseen insects. Then a boy called to his dog somewhere on the opposite bank, and the moment was broken.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, as if the dead woman’s spirit still lingered there, haunting this place. “What, and why?”

Why would someone kill an unknown young woman? Lust was the obvious answer, except the girl hadn’t been violated and there were no signs that she had been killed trying to resist a sexual assault. Which suggested that either the killer knew exactly who she was and why she had come to this small, out-of-the-way village, or . . .

Or her identity was meaningless and she’d died simply because she’d somehow seen or learned something her killer didn’t want known.

Hero was contemplating this last possibility when she became aware of a strange sensation creeping over her, tense and unsettling.

She was being watched.

Holding herself very still, she glanced around the water meadow, her gaze raking the reeds down by the river and the tangled undergrowth of the stand of alders and willows that pressed in close. She was not a fanciful woman, but she profoundly regretted not bringing her pistol with her. She was searching about for a stout stick when a vague rustling drew her attention to a nearby patch of blackberries.

“Hullo,” she said, recognizing the short, squat man barely visible through the brambles. “It’s Reuben, isn’t it? Reuben Dickie?”

“Aye, ma’am.” He stepped reluctantly from behind the blackberries, obviously discomfited to have been seen. And she wondered how often he did this—watched people quietly, without their knowing.

“Why were you watching me?” she asked with a smile. She hoped the smile didn’t come off looking as tight and forced as it felt.

He touched his forelock and bobbed his head. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it, ma’am.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Sometimes.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. She realized that his other hand gripped a small book, elegantly bound in blue leather. But he was holding it awkwardly against his leg, as if anxious to hide it from her view.

“You have a book, I see,” she said, still smiling.

“What? Oh, aye, ma’am.” His small eyes slid away.

“Where did you get it?”

“Found it, I did.”

“Oh? Where?”

“I dunno. Just found it.”

“When?”

“When? Few days ago, I reckon.”

“It looks like a lovely book. May I see it?” She held out her hand, and though he hesitated, she kept her hand out and gave him a stern look.

He stumbled forward and surrendered the book.

Somehow she knew, even before she saw it, what she would find engraved in gold lettering on the spine.

Hamlet. William Shakespeare.

She opened the book to the last page with hands that were not quite steady. Where the final words of the play should have been was now only a gaping hole. The last sentence had been neatly sliced away by a knife.

“Where did you say you found it?” Hero asked again, flipping to the inside front cover.

“I dunno. Always finding things, I am. Things other folks throw away.”

“You think someone threw this away? It’s a lovely book.”

“Well, they must’ve, else how would I have found it?”

“Only you don’t remember where?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Was it around here?”

“Oh, no, ma’am.”

“How can you be certain, if you don’t—”

Hero broke off, her attention arrested by the owner’s name written in a small, cramped script on the flyleaf.

The Reverend Benedict Ainsley Underwood.

“I had no idea it was missing,” said the Reverend, staring down at the small, leather-bound volume in his hands. “You say Reuben claims to have found it?”

“You think he might not be telling the truth?” asked Hero.

They were seated in the Reverend’s book-lined study overlooking the churchyard. An ornate ormolu clock on the mantel ticked loudly in the sudden silence. The Reverend cleared his throat. “Let’s just say that Reuben sometimes invents his own truths.”

“He also claims not to remember precisely where he found it.”

“Yes, well, that doesn’t surprise me. There’s nothing wrong with Reuben’s memory. But if he thinks he might be in trouble, he is not above playing up his mental deficiencies for sympathy.”

“Why would he think he might be in trouble?”

The vicar exhaled a long, pained breath. “Some years ago, when he was younger, Reuben . . . Let’s just say he had a habit of roaming at night and peeking into people’s windows, especially cottages with pretty young girls. The old Squire, he told Reuben he was going to put him in the stocks if he was caught doing anything like that again—forbade him ever to be out after dark, in fact. But I’m afraid he does still go out at night, probably far more than anyone realizes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he found the book on one of his illicit midnight sojourns and that’s why he won’t admit to remembering anything.”

Hero thought about the night she and Devlin had seen Reuben on the village green, and the way his brother, Jeb, had come out to coax him back inside.

The vicar ran his fingertips along the small book’s spine. “It’s disconcerting—frightening, even—to think that poor young woman’s killer could actually have been
here
, in my house . . . stealing my books. . . .”

“When do you think the book was taken?”

“I’ve no idea. It’s been several years since I last read
Hamlet
. It could have been gone for some time without my knowing it.” He rose to inspect a shelf that Hero saw contained a row of several dozen small, similarly bound volumes. They must have been tightly packed in before, because the space left by the missing play was not obvious.

“Have any others been taken?” she asked.

He stooped to inspect the titles. “Doesn’t look like it, no.” He straightened and cast a bewildered look at the towering, crowded cases around them. “Although I can’t with any honesty say nothing has been taken from any of the other shelves.”

“You have an impressive collection,” said Hero.

The Reverend smiled with obvious pride. “Thank you.”

“Do you remember who might have been in here last Sunday or Monday?”

“You mean around the time that unfortunate woman was killed?” He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. One day does tend to blend into the next.”

“Could you perhaps recall the names of those who might have been here in the last several weeks?”

He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Perhaps. But . . . I really don’t think I ought to be providing such information to anyone. We may not be Papists, but we are still bound by the sanctity of the confessional.”

She shifted her gaze to the window and the expanse of worn, leaning headstones that stretched beyond it. “I’m told Sybil Moss is buried in your churchyard.”

“Sybil?” Underwood’s face went slack with puzzlement. “She is, yes. Why do you ask?”

“I’d like to see her grave.”

H
ero stood beside the low, lichen-covered wall separating the churchyard from the rocky hillside above. The weathered gray stone at her feet was small and unmarked, with a freshly picked bunch of lavender resting against it.

She pressed the fingers of one hand against her lips as she felt an oppressive sadness wash over her. She could think of no greater sorrow for a mother than to bury her child. The very air here seemed heavy with despair, as if Anne Moss’s grief clung to this place, keeping her dead child company even when she was elsewhere.

The angry caw of a blackbird cut through the silence. Hero looked up to see a tall, lean gentleman in doeskin breeches and an exquisitely tailored coat working his way toward her through the scattered tombs. There was dust on his fashionable beaver hat and traces of mud on his black top boots, and she waited until he came right up to her before saying, “How many miles have you driven in the last several days?”

“Too many,” said Devlin, and swept her into his arms.

It was a raw kiss, full of want and need, and probably totally inappropriate for a churchyard. And she knew then that whatever he’d discovered had left him troubled and unsettled.

He let his hands slide down her arms, his forehead resting against hers for a moment before he released her.

He nodded to the small, plain marker beside her. “Whose grave is this?”

“Sybil Moss’s.”

“So she wasn’t buried at the crossroads after all.”

“No. The vicar managed to convince the jury she wasn’t in her right mind.” Hero paused. “The other girl, Hannah, wasn’t as lucky.”

She was aware of him studying her face and wondered what he saw there. “You still think the deaths of those two young women are linked to what happened to Emma?”

“Yes. Although I can’t understand how.”

He reached out to take her hand in his. “I think I may have an idea.”

They sat beneath a gnarled old yew on a bench looking out over the churchyard’s undulating turf and ancient, timeworn gravestones. He told her what he had learned about the woman called Emma Chandler and the tragic young earl’s daughter who had given her birth.

“That poor girl,” said Hero when he had finished.

“Which one? Lady Emily or her daughter?”

“Both, actually. I never cared for Lady Heyworth. But I hadn’t realized quite how despicable she actually is.”

“‘To coddle the fruits of sin is to condone the act that created them,’” quoted Devlin.

“She said that?”

“No; that was Miss Rowena LaMont.”

“Lovely.”

She understood now why what he’d discovered about Emma Chandler had affected him so profoundly. Like Devlin, Emma had been desperate to learn the truth about her birth and had come to this seemingly quiet, picturesque village on a quest to discover the identity of the unknown man who had fathered her.

“Is that why Emma crossed Squire Rawlins’s name off her list?” said Hero. “Because she was actually looking for Archie’s father and she realized the man was dead?”

“Except she didn’t cross off Lord Seaton’s name even though she knew before she came here that he’s dead too. She crossed off Atwater, although he’s still very much alive. And she drew Archie’s portrait, remember?”

Hero thought about the way she herself had scrutinized the paintings in the Long Gallery at Northcott Abbey, searching for some elusive trace of resemblance between Sebastian and those centuries of long-dead Seatons. “Emma was an artist, accustomed to analyzing her subjects’ facial features. Perhaps that’s why she drew Archie—because she was looking for a likeness between him and herself, and she eliminated him when she didn’t find it.”

“It’s possible. Or perhaps she crossed him off her list when she discovered the old Squire was as fair as his son.”

“Was he?”

“I don’t know. But Atwater is sandy haired.”

Hero lifted her gaze to the ruins of the old medieval watchtower on the hilltop above them. “Sybil’s mother doesn’t believe her daughter killed herself—she says the girl was proud of the baby she was carrying. Although of course that could have changed very quickly if the baby’s father rejected her, which is quite likely if he was a gentleman.”

“Was he?”

“Her mother thought so.”

“What about the other girl?”

“Hannah Grant? If she was with child, her mother didn’t know about it. But they never did a postmortem, so she might have been.” Hero stared out over the scattered gravestones, more sparse on this, the north side of the church. The north was traditionally considered unlucky, so people didn’t like to be buried there. “You think the same man could have killed all three young women? Sybil and Hannah because they were carrying his child, and Emma because she was his child?”

Devlin squinted against the westering sun. “If he did, then our list of possible suspects has just been reduced to two: the Reverend Underwood and Major Weston.”

She looked at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

“Atwater is fair-haired; Seaton and Rawlins are dead; and I can’t see anyone else in the village caring how many chance children he begets—or being educated enough to come up with an appropriate Shakespearean quote. Thanks to the old schoolmaster Archie’s father brought in, a fair number of the villagers are literate. But I doubt any of them are devotees of Elizabethan plays.”

Hero said, “Not only is Atwater fair, but according to Anne Moss, he’s been desperately in love with Lady Seaton ever since he came here as steward. And when I think about the way he looked at her at dinner, I believe it.”

“Which brings us back to Weston and Underwood.”

She told him then about the discovery of the vicar’s copy of
Hamlet
. “Underwood claims someone must have taken the book from his library.”

“You believe him?”

“I don’t know. Sybil’s mother told me the vicar has always had an eye for pretty girls. Which is interesting because the vicar himself used the exact same phrase—pretty girls—when we were talking about Reuben Dickie. Seems Reuben has a nasty habit of peeking though the windows of cottages with attractive young women. He’s not supposed to go out after dark, but as we know, he does.”

“Interesting. Have you told Archie?”

She shook her head. “He’s gone off to Ludlow in search of Emma Chandler’s solicitors.”

The bell in the church tower began to peal, slowly counting out the hour as Devlin rose to his feet. “I think I need to have a little chat with Reuben Dickie. He knows damned well where he found that book.”

Hero rose with him. “What I don’t understand is, why would he lie?”

“I suspect the answer to that depends on where he actually found it.”