When Falcons Fall (6 page)

S
ebastian drove back toward the village through pastures scattered with wild scarlet poppies, past a sunlit field of ripe grain where a half dozen or more men moved in a line, their sickles rising and falling in rhythmic sweeps. Behind them came their women, backs bent as they tied the stalks into sheaves, while the youngest children ran across the stubble, laughing and shrieking as they chased rabbits and rats disturbed by the reaping.

It was a timeless scene, repeated every summer on down through the ages. And the attempt to reconcile this image of cooperation and tradition with the brutal reality of Emma Chance’s last desperate moments left Sebastian feeling oddly disconcerted.

In his experience, most murders were messy things, usually spur-of-the-moment and born of rage, fear, or greed. But Emma Chance’s murder hadn’t been messy. Sebastian didn’t know yet what had motivated it, or if her death had been carefully planned. He didn’t even know where she had actually died. But he did know that whoever took her life had deliberately chosen a method that would be easy to conceal even though it required her killer to hold her down for five long, agonizing minutes while he patiently, coldly watched her die. He’d then acted with stunning calculation to conceal his act by staging the body in such a way that her death should by rights have been deemed a suicide.

Taken all together, those actions suggested a killer with a degree of steady calm that was both rare and chilling. The fact that Emma Chance was a stranger to this small, quiet village only served to make her death all the more inexplicable.

Still lost in thought, Sebastian left the curricle in the stable yard with Tom and was headed toward the Blue Boar when he heard himself hailed by a gentlewoman’s carefully modulated voice.

“Lord Devlin? It is Lord Devlin, is it not?”

He looked around to find an elegant little whiskey drawn by a glossy bay pulling up beside him. The small carriage’s body and the spokes of its two wheels were painted bright yellow and, as if in careful coordination with her carriage, the slender, attractive gentlewoman seated on the single padded bench and handling the reins wore a blue-and-yellow-striped spencer and a yellow chip hat tied beneath her chin with a saucy blue satin bow. The only off note came from the shaggy, overgrown mutt seated beside her, its tongue lolling out happily, its curly brown fur shimmering in the late-afternoon sunshine.

“I do hope you’ll pardon my forwardness, my lord,” she said, smiling sweetly as she shifted both reins to her left hand so she could hold the right out to him. “I’m Lady Seaton, of Northcott Abbey.”

He knew who she was. An ethereal woman with fine, fair hair and pretty features, she’d been born Grace Middleton, the daughter of a prosperous Yorkshire baronet. Married at seventeen to Leopold, Lord Seaton, she’d managed to present her lord with a son and two daughters before he died, leaving her a widow before the age of twenty-five.

Seaton had been dead some fifteen years now, which meant his widow must be close to forty. But her carefully guarded complexion still glowed with the dewy softness of a new rose petal, and her form was as slender and supple as a young girl’s.

“How do you do?” said Sebastian, taking the tiny gloved hand she offered him. “Won’t you come in and meet my wife? Perhaps join us for a cup of tea?”

She gave him another of those radiant smiles and wrapped an arm around the shoulders of the dog at her side. “Why, thank you. And I truly wish I could. But I daren’t leave Barney out here alone to get into mischief. My daughter Georgina left him to his own devices a few weeks ago, and I’m afraid he stole a link of sausages from the butcher’s and then ‘christened’ some half dozen tombstones in the churchyard before the vicar managed to collar him. The truth is, his origins are shockingly plebeian, and he’s no notion of how to behave in polite society.”

Sebastian laughed. “I understand entirely.”

She gave the dog an affectionate shake. “My purpose in hailing you in such a shamefully vulgar fashion is because I would like to invite you and Lady Devlin to dinner at Northcott Abbey—shall we say, tomorrow evening?” She leaned forward. “Oh, do say you’ll be able to come.”

The truth was that Sebastian had his own reasons for wishing to visit Northcott Abbey and study a certain seventeenth-century painting hanging in its portrait gallery. He bowed and said, “We should be delighted.”

“Wonderful. I have some houseguests I believe you’ll find most interesting: Senator and Madame Lucien Bonaparte, the estranged brother of the Emperor Napoléon himself.”

“I’d heard he’s staying with you this summer.”

“Yes; I fear the noise from the repairs on his estate in Worcester was interfering with his poetical composition. He’s writing an epic about Charlemagne, you see.”

“Is he? I understand he’s already published a novel.”

“He has, yes—
La tribu indienne
.” She pulled a wry face. “Although I must confess I’ve yet to read it.”

“Has he allowed you to see his epic?”

“No. But he spends every morning at the Roman temple by the lake working on it. He’s very dedicated.”

“I look forward to meeting him.”

Her smile flashed wide. “Excellent!” Then she assumed a more somber expression and said, “I would also like to thank you for agreeing to help our young Squire deal with that unfortunate woman’s death.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“I did, yes. She came to tea at Northcott just last Saturday. She was such a lovely young woman, neither painfully shy nor too forward. I suggested she might be interested in visiting the priory ruins, and she said she was eager to do so.” Lady Seaton hesitated. “Was it truly a murder, do you think?”

“I’m afraid so.”

A quiver of what looked very much like fear convulsed her delicate features, then was gone, carefully hidden away. “How absolutely ghastly. I keep thinking . . . I mean, if I’d known when I saw her at the ruins yesterday, could I perhaps have said something—done something—to prevent it?”

“You saw her?”

“I did, yes. I was taking Barney for a walk and came upon her by chance. She was sketching the west wall of the old priory church. It’s quite beautiful, you know.”

“What time was this?” he asked, more sharply than he’d intended.

“Around two, I suppose. Perhaps a tad later.”

“Did you speak with her?”

“I did, yes. I complimented her work. She truly was an exceptionally talented artist. She thanked me for suggesting she visit the ruins and said something about how lovely they were.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, let’s see. . . . We discussed some of the other picturesque sites in the area. I asked if she’d visited Northcott Gorge yet, and she said she’d arranged to have a guide take her there in a day or two. And then she said something about hoping it wouldn’t come on to rain again, because she wanted to sketch the river at sunset.”

Sebastian found his interest quickening. “You’re saying she was planning to go down to the river that very evening?”

Lady Seaton gave an exaggerated grimace. “I
think
she meant later that evening. But I wouldn’t swear to it.” She paused, her gaze steady and intent, her head tilted slightly to one side as if she were puzzling out a problem that troubled her. “You’re quite certain the young woman didn’t take her own life?”

Sebastian was beginning to realize just how intense was the village’s need to believe that Emma Chance had killed herself. A comfortable verdict of suicide would mean no need to be afraid; no need for anyone to cast suspicious glances at their neighbors.

No need to confront the unpleasant truth that evil dwelt amongst them.

“She was smothered,” he said, perhaps more abruptly than he should have.

Lady Seaton pressed the fingers of one gloved hand to her mouth, her eyes going wide in a way that made him regret his harshness. “Oh, no. It’s too horrible to even think about.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded, her lips flattened into a painfully straight line. Then she gathered the reins and shrugged off her unpleasant thoughts with the ease of a hostess changing an uncomfortable conversation topic over dessert. “We keep country hours, so I fear dinner may be earlier than what you’re accustomed to: a most unfashionable six o’clock.”

“We’ll be there,” he said with a bow as he stepped back.

She drove off smartly up the street, the incorrigible mongrel at her side giving a happy woof as he lifted his muzzle to the breeze.

Sebastian stood for a moment, the sun warm on his face as he watched her nod pleasantly to Reuben Dickie by the pump house.

She had the careless charm and unthinking confidence of a woman born into wealth and privilege; a woman who had never known want or uncertainty and who had probably never questioned or even reflected on the brutal realities of the society of which she was a part. She showed the world a cheerful, complacent face, and so successful was her assumption of equanimity and goodwill that Sebastian could not have said with any certainty what true sentiments lay behind her pretty smile.

But he had a strong suspicion that she was neither as naive nor as uncalculating as she was at pains to appear.

A
n hour later, Sebastian stood at the edge of the water meadows and watched as the dozen or so men organized by Archie Rawlins spread out along the banks of the Teme. The air was still hot despite the approach of evening and alive with the throbbing buzz of insects; the late-afternoon sun filtering down through the leafy canopy of willows and alders lining the river glinted off the slow-moving water in quick, bright flashes.

The men ranged from farmers and cottagers to stable hands and day laborers. Yet all wore the same vaguely disbelieving expression as they splashed through the shallows and beat thickets of gorse and stands of tall reeds. They were looking for Emma Chance’s sketchbook and the canvas satchel in which she had carried it. But so far they weren’t having any luck, and it was obvious that many of them were more than half-inclined to believe they were on a fool’s errand, that the beautiful widow had killed herself, after all.

“I suppose the killer could have thrown her things in the river,” said Rawlins, batting at a fly hovering around his face.

“Yes,” said Sebastian, his gaze on the darkly swirling waters in the center of the river.

He’d assumed that Emma Chance had been killed elsewhere and her body brought here, to the river, by her killer. But Lady Seaton’s information suggested that she might have been killed on her way to the river. And that meant that her sketchbook and anything else she’d carried might be here too.

“I’ve been asking around the village,” said the young justice of the peace, “trying to find people who saw her yesterday evening.”

“And?”

“So far the last person known to have seen her was Alice Gibbs, the miller’s wife. Says she saw Mrs. Chance climb back over the stile from the priory and turn toward the village.”

“When was this?”

“Just after five. She remembers the time because she’d just been talking to Daray Flanagan—that’s the village schoolmaster—about her oldest boy.”

Sebastian watched thoughtfully as one of the men poking at the brush beneath a beech tree suddenly jumped back, startled by the whirl of a flushed partridge; the man’s companions all laughed.

He said, “What time does the sun set these days?”

“About half past nine.” Rawlins drew a quick breath as he caught the implications of Sebastian’s question, for the old mill lay on the same stream that ran past the priory. “I hadn’t thought about that; five o’clock is a long time before sunset. Surely she couldn’t have been on her way here that early? Unless perhaps she wanted to give herself time to find the best angle—perhaps even sketch out the basics of the scene before the sun started going down? I don’t really know how artists work.”

“I suppose it’s possible.” Sebastian studied the rolling, daisy-strewn green pasture on the opposite bank. The river made a slow, lazy bend here. The view was pleasant and peaceful, but he wouldn’t have thought it in any way remarkable or striking. “Would you say this is a particularly scenic stretch of the river?”

“It’s all right, I suppose. Although I must say there are places I’d think would be more appealing to an artist.”

“Such as?”

“Well, there’s the old brick pack bridge down past Maplethorpe Hall, for one. Folks are always saying how pretty it is.”

“Might not hurt to ask the men to search down there too. Just because she said she was planning to sketch the river doesn’t necessarily mean she was coming to this part of it.”

Rawlins turned to look at him. “You think she could have been killed at the bridge and her body brought up here? But . . . why? Why bring her up the river to the water meadows? Why not simply leave her there?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. But I think it’s worth a look.”

Rawlins nodded, his hands propped on his hips as he chewed his lower lip. “I stopped by Dr. Higginbottom’s. He says you figured out Emma Chance was smothered.” The young justice of the peace squinted up at the hard blue sky, a gleam of amusement lighting his eyes. “Can’t say he’s happy about it—you being the one to figure it out, I mean.”

“Had he finished the autopsy?”

“Not yet, although I warned him I’ve contacted the coroner in Ludlow, and he says he wants to hold the inquest on Friday.” Inquests were supposed to be held within forty-eight hours of an unexpected death, but that was sometimes difficult in the more sparsely inhabited country parishes. Rawlins swiped at another fly. “Higginbottom showed me that paper he found in her hand—
The rest is silence
. Seems odd, doesn’t it? I mean, I assume that whoever put it in her hand wanted us to see it as some sort of suicide note. So why not pick something more to the point?”

“You don’t recognize it?”

“Should I?”

“Only if you’re fond of Shakespeare.”

Rawlins gave a quick, unaffected laugh. “Well, that explains it, then. Never cared much for him myself—although my mother was always reading him when she was alive. It’s from one of his plays, I take it?”

“It’s the last line of
Hamlet
.”

“Ah. Wasn’t he that ‘To be or not to be’ fellow?”

“He was.”

Rawlins watched one of the cottagers wade out into the river, the water rippling and lapping around his thighs. “The thing I don’t get is, if the murderer wanted us to think she’d killed herself, why didn’t he leave whatever book he cut that out of right there beside her?”

“Perhaps the book would have incriminated him in some way.”

“I suppose.”

The cottager who’d waded out into the river shook his head and surged back toward the bank. The men were coming together now in groups of three and four. The search had been futile.

Sebastian said, “As it is, in his attempt to be clever, the killer left us a valuable clue.”

Rawlins swung his head to look at him. “He did? What?”

A breeze kicked up, shifting the feathery branches of the willows and bringing Sebastian the scent of damp earth and fish as they turned away from the river. “We now know that not only is our killer literate; he’s also literary.”