Unmasking Sin, page 6
“Very well, my lady, as you see. Too well, in fact!” He laughed, rumbling and vibrating in way that was slightly alarming. “And your ladyship? I am surprised to see you still in town after the Season.”
“Country air would certainly be more salubrious at this time of year, which is one of the things that has prompted me to visit you. I wish to know where I stand in terms of money and property. And, in fact, where my son stands.”
Mr. Archibald’s smile grew a trifle fixed. “Did no one explain this to you at the time of Sir Theodore’s death?”
“I am aware that I have the use of Redpath Hall and the London house until my son comes of age. The monthly allowance from the estate is adequate. But I wish to know if my own money will be enough to buy a small property of my own.”
Mr. Archibald’s smile faded altogether. “No, in a word.”
Another gate blocked, hemming her into the Rawlstons’ prison. But she refused to be shut up quietly. “I would like to see that for myself. I took quite reasonable settlements with me to my first marriage to Lord Bowden. As I understood it, they came with me when I married Sir Theodore. What problem can there be?”
“The problem is, my lady, that your husbands—er… spent the vast majority of it.”
She stared at him. “But they should not have been able to!”
“No, they shouldn’t,” Mr. Archibald agreed. “But your father’s people, I’m afraid, were lax in their duties, and left the door open. It was small when you married Sir Theo, and by now, it brings you little more than pin money.”
“But…but there was property in there. A pleasant house in Berkshire with a small park…”
“Sold,” Mr. Archibald said apologetically. “I know because I handled the sale myself.”
“Then where is the money?”
There was no need for the solicitor to respond. She knew the answer. Theo had gamed it away. And if he had done that… “Where does my son stand? Is his inheritance protected?”
“Of course.” Mr. Archibald beamed. “By a whole host of people, including his great-uncles.”
“They, not I,” she said slowly, “have control of all Tom’s fortune?”
“That is how Sir Theodore willed it. It is, you’ll agree, normal for the males of the family to handle the finances.”
“And what a fine job they have made of it.”
Mr. Archibald shuffled the papers on his desk.
“Do you watch over the spending? Or is it all up to my husband’s family?”
“Of course I watch over it!” He tried a smile. “But there is no need. Mr. Rawlston is a gentleman of honor. Neither you nor your son want for anything, do you?”
Apart from honesty, independence, and a home in the country not occupied by people who hated her, kept her in the dark, and no doubt swindled her son.
*
Ludovic was received immediately at Redpath Hall by the Dowager Lady Cornish, Rebecca’s mother-in-law. So, she knew his name.
Shown into an elegantly furnished room, he beheld a regal, richly gowned lady who clearly did not let her standards of dress fall just because she was in the country rather than London. On the other hand, she wore unrelieved black ten months after her son’s death.
“Mr. Dunne?” she said, advancing toward him without offering her hand. Unlike her daughter-in-law, she did not hide her curiosity or, he suspected, any other emotion. She had never had to. “How can I help you?”
He bowed. “Your ladyship. As you may know, I have been instructed by your brothers, Mr. Rawlston and Mr. Constantine Rawlston, to re-examine the facts surrounding your son’s tragic death. My sincere condolences, first of all.”
“Thank you. What have you learned?”
“Very little. Your brothers expressed some suspicion about the younger Lady Cornish, but at the moment, there is nothing beyond rumor with which to accuse her. I was hoping you could tell me something about her relationship with her husband and her treatment of him during his illness?”
Lady Cornish sighed, although her eyes sparked into life. “Please, sit, Mr. Dunne. Where do I start? My son was an open, amiable man, sir, an easy victim, you might say, of an unscrupulous female.”
“And what exactly caused you to believe her to be unscrupulous?”
Lady Cornish looked affronted. “Her first husband died in mysterious circumstances. He had not been in his grave a year before she had her claws into my son. Even her own family cast her off. And from the moment I met her, it was quite clear she had Theodore wrapped around her little finger.”
“Then it was a love match?”
Her ladyship curled her lip. “If you want to call it that. He was certainly besotted in the early weeks of their marriage. Of course, it did not last. Her attraction palled until by the time my grandson was born, he could barely stand the sight of her. He saw as little of her as possible, and that only to spend time with little Thomas.”
“And yet she nursed him when he fell ill?”
Lady Cornish nodded emphatically. “Odd, isn’t it? She pretended to be the devoted wife, but it’s my belief she made him ill in the first place and continued poisoning him until he died.”
“What makes you think so?” he asked curiously.
“It’s obvious,” she snapped. “No one else in the house was ill. She certainly wasn’t. And she was always dosing him with some tincture or other that only made him worse.”
“Do you have that tincture?” he asked.
“Of course, I don’t,” she replied, clearly affronted. “I threw it all away to save the rest of us!”
“A pity. There are ways of identifying what was in it.” The impatient spark in her eyes told him she knew that already. “I believe you threw away your best evidence.”
“Then you must find more,” she said irritably.
“Hmm. Did your daughter-in-law seem grief-stricken at her husband’s death?”
Her ladyship sneered openly. “She cried a few false tears and got on with her life. She took the boy, my only comfort, and went up to London for the Season, no doubt hunting her next victim. She keeps the child from me and from my brothers. I fear for his very life.”
“How dreadful. Have you witnessed her threatening the child? Neglecting him?”
“Oh, she always neglected him, swanning off here or there, dragging him about the country, while she enjoys herself on the fortune left her by my son.”
“He left her well provided for?”
“Of course.” She waved her hand around the elegant premises, encompassing the gardens and the land beyond the window. “All this. The London house, a generous allowance. But still, she is not satisfied.”
“I see. Well.” He rose to his feet. “Thank you for talking to me. You have been most helpful.”
She rang the little bell beside her. “I am glad to see you being so thorough, but please don’t take too long about the matter. We need my grandson away from that woman as soon as is humanly possible. Montgomery will show you out.”
He bowed and followed the forbidding-looking butler from the room.
“Have you been butler here long?” he asked as they crossed the hall.
“Ten years, sir.”
“Then you recall the first arrival of Sir Theodore’s bride?”
“Indeed, sir,” Montgomery said discouragingly.
Ludovic rarely let himself be discouraged, least of all by self-important servants. “Were they a happy couple, in your view?”
“It is not my place to say, sir.”
“Then you didn’t like the new Lady Cornish?”
“That is not my place either.”
“Did you ever see her behave badly? To Sir Theodore or their son?”
“You would have to ask her ladyship.”
“Meaning the elder Lady Cornish?”
“Of course.” The butler passed him his hat and some other flunky opened the front door.
Of course. The butler, and presumably all the staff, were loyal to the old guard. As Ludovic walked out into the fresh air with a feeling of relief from oppression, he could well understand why Rebecca had left here. Guilty or innocent, to make this her home, she would have to turn out her mother-in-law and all the servants and start again.
*
Returning home from her depressing meeting with Theo’s solicitor, Rebecca felt more trapped than ever. The Rawlstons were trying to drive her out, but she had nowhere to be driven to. If they could not see her hanged, she would be out in the streets or entirely under their thumbs.
And Mr. Archibald would be no help at all. It was quite possible he had been negligent in the eyes of the law, but she had no one to ask such questions of. She felt both furious and helpless, until, from the front hall, she heard Tom sobbing, and all else flew from her mind.
It was not the cry of a skinned knee or frustration at being deprived of what he wanted. It sounded like pain and utter misery, and Rebecca threw herself through the nursery door in fear.
Tom sat, barely, on Annie’s knee, refusing to be comforted as tears poured down his little red cheeks, and he rubbed his eyes in weary anger. Annie was trying, unsuccessfully, to wipe his nose.
At sight of Rebecca, he threw out his arms in supplication, and her heart almost broke.
“I think he’s caught a bit of a cold,” Annie said ruefully as Rebecca took him from her. “He suddenly went a bit wan in the park, so we brought him back, and now he seems to be very off-color.
In Rebecca’s embrace, his sobs died to hiccups. She stroked his hair and his cheeks, and her eyes flew back to Annie’s. “He’s fevered.”
“I know. But children often get like that and are right as rain in a few hours. We’ll give him something to bring the fever down and hope he sleeps it off.”
Rebecca nodded and sent her to the medicine chest in her sitting room in search of the camphor tonic while she talked soothing nonsense to Tom and helped make him comfortable for bed. He took his medicine in a drink of fruit juice, gulping it down. Rebecca bathed his forehead in cool water and sat with him until he fell asleep.
It was only a cold. But infants were delicate, vulnerable, and so many of them died so tragically young. If Tom were to die…
Annie gripped her shoulder. “He will be fine, my lady. It’s just a cold.”
*
Ludovic spent a comfortable couple of hours ensconced in the taproom of the village inn, enjoying a leisurely and nourishing late breakfast. Or early dinner. He listened to gossip, asked a few very indirect questions, and listened some more. The result was considerably more illuminating than his conversation with old Lady Cornish.
Sir Theodore had, by all accounts, been a likeable man but feckless. Against advice, he had cared badly for his land, sold off more than he should, and spent too long in the stews of London. He was a sad rake and a prolific gamer. The general feeling for his young wife had been sympathy. For the elder Lady Cornish, there was respect but no liking and certainly no sympathy. No one thought it right that the young lady had been driven from Redpath Hall. And no one so much as mentioned her being responsible for her husband’s death.
The innkeeper also directed him to Dr. Fanshawe’s house, where he found that gentleman gulping down tea before setting off on his rounds once more.
“What can I do for you, sir?” Dr. Fanshawe asked cheerfully. “I’m afraid it will have to be a quick cure, for I’m due at Guston Farm, and I’m already late.”
“Oh, I’m not ill, Doctor, and I won’t keep you long. My name is Ludovic Dunne. I’m a solicitor, and I’ve been instructed by the family of Sir Theodore Cornish to look into matters surrounding the gentleman’s death last year.”
“Putrid sore throat,” Dr. Fanshawe said regretfully. “There were several cases in the village at the time. Wait, didn’t you write to me about this already?”
“I did and was grateful for your prompt reply. However, my clients seem to think your diagnosis is…naïve.”
Fanshawe snorted. “They’d rather believe that poor young wife of his poisoned him because they don’t want to admit he caught the disease from Long Sally at the inn. She died, too, poor soul, along with her mother and three farm laborers.”
“I don’t suppose all of these patients drank young Lady Cornish’s tincture?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you know what was in it?”
“Yes, as it happens. Camphor, quinine, and lavender, all in mild amounts, with a trace of laudanum. I know because I gave it to her.”
“Did you, by God? Could she have added to it?”
“She could, but she didn’t.”
“How can you be so sure.”
He sighed. “Because I have the remains of the bottle.”
Ludovic stared at him. “Lady Cornish told me she had thrown it out for safety’s sake.”
“She told a servant to do it. Because I could see what she was about—let us call it the temporary madness of a grieving mother—I took it from the servant and tested it myself. The medicine was exactly the same as my own.”
“You would swear to that in an affidavit or in a court of law?”
“I would.”
Ludovic leaned forward and pushed a blank piece of paper in front of him. “Then please to do the former now.”
*
Tom seemed to perk up after his nap, but when Rebecca took him across to the garden in the square to play with the ball, he was somewhat listless and eventually just sat down. One of the friendly young lads who’d thrown the ball for him a few times sat down some distance away from Tom and asked Rebecca, “What’s wrong with him? Don’t he want to play no more?”
The boy seemed somehow more like a street urchin than the child of some coachman living in the mews, except for his decent clothes.
“I don’t think he’s very well today,” Rebecca said, going up and feeling his hot little forehead. He had been running about, but she feared the fever was coming back. “I think I’ll have to take him back into the house.”
The urchin grinned. “See you later, little Tommy.”
Tom smiled back wanly and took Rebecca’s hand to go home without complaint. That alone was worrying.
“Mark, you’d better fetch Dr. Wardlaw,” she told the footman as soon as she was inside. “Come upstairs, Tom, and we’ll have a drink and read some stories.”
Chapter Seven
Leaving Redpath, Ludovic was in time to catch the stagecoach to Maidstone, although since he had not booked a ticket in advance, he was relegated to an outside seat. In this weather, he hardly minded, and if, by the time they reached Maidstone in the early evening, he was somewhat stiff, he quickly walked it off as he found his way to the pleasant street where resided one Joshua Morgan.
The door was open promptly by a neat, middle-aged gentleman who bore all the hallmarks of a gentleman’s gentleman.
“Mr. Joshua Morgan?” Ludovic inquired politely.
The valet bowed. “At your service, sir.”
“My name is Dunne. I wrote to you last week on the subject of your late employer, Lord Bowden.”
The smile faded.
“Since I was in Kent, I thought I would call in person and see if you can help me.”
“No point,” Morgan said bluntly. “And, frankly, none of your business.”
“You are none of my business,” Ludovic agreed, “but I’m afraid Lord Bowden has become my business, and I must press you to answer a few questions about him.”
Morgan sighed, but his habit of answering gentlemanly authority appeared to be ingrained. He stood aside and allowed Ludovic to enter before closing the door and leading Ludovic into a pleasant parlor, which caught the evening sun.
“What a charming house,” Ludovic remarked. “Have you retired, Mr. Morgan?”
“Yes, I believe I have. I was lucky enough to come into an inheritance from my uncle—a merchant of the East India Company—so when his lordship died, it turned out I didn’t need to look for a new position. I settled here, and grow vegetables and roses. Not an exciting life, but a peaceful one. Cup of tea, sir? Or I can offer you a glass of sherry.”
“Sherry would be lovely,” Ludovic said, hoping it was true, and waited politely until the retired valet presented him with a glass.
“What do you want to know about his lordship?” Morgan asked, waving him to an armchair while he took the other.
“I believe he died in Italy?”
“In Naples, sir. Nasty place, hot and smelly in the summer months.”
“How did he die?”
“A fever of some kind. Caught it from his bride, fittingly enough.”
Ludovic set down his glass. “His bride was ill, too?”
“Not surprising. He dragged her through places a lady has no business being, even after she was clearly sickening for something. Then, while she’s in bed, wrestling with nasty fever, he comes down with it, too. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, sir, but at the time, Simmie and I thought it served the selfish old bastard right. Pardon my French.”
“Granted,” Ludovic said at once. “Simmie—would that by her lady’s maid, Iris Simpkins?”
“That’s her. Decent woman, loved her mistress. Hope she’s still with her.”
“I believe she is. So… Lord Bowden was a difficult man?”
“Difficult and worse. I don’t know what her parents were thinking of, for his reputation was always appalling, and rightly so. Added to which, he was over sixty, and she barely seventeen. And she nearly died in Naples from his malicious stubbornness.” He paused, biting his lip, and then added unconvincingly, “Not that it’s my place to criticize his lordship.”
Ludovic tasted his sherry. It wasn’t bad at all. “I thought when you didn’t reply to my inquiry, that you would refuse to criticize him.”
Morgan stared unseeingly into his glass, then knocked back the contents in two swallows. “No. I just don’t like thinking of him, to be frank. His bride was not the only dependent he bullied. The only time I stood up to him was when he tried to travel on to Sicily while she was ill. He wanted to take her ladyship, though she was clearly sick. So I told him if he went, it would be without either her, me, or Simmie.” He shrugged. “No one would have taken us anyway for fear of catching what her ladyship had.”
