The scoundrels deadly de.., p.12
The Scoundrel’s Deadly Deed, page 12
What did it matter now? “My father was a brutal drunk.” Those words had never crossed his lips before but he had no difficulty saying them now that they could hurt no one. “I spent that summer standing between him and my mother, as my brother had done before me. To be fair, my mother was not an easy woman. She raged and stormed at him, as if she wanted us to see the brute he was. I couldn’t get away fast enough. I hadn’t realized how much Harry had protected me. I asked her to leave with me. I’d just taken a position in Birmingham and could have put her up. She refused.”
He’d been devastated when she’d refused. In his youthful self-importance, he’d wanted to rescue her.
There was no relief in revealing the past. There could be no taking back his lost childhood.
They both glanced toward Kate and the children. They’d gone inside the pub.
Images from the past rose, unbidden, and Damien shuddered, recalling his father’s rages. Had he taken them out on other women besides his mother? Women who might not fight back?
An adult now, with an adult’s knowledge, he followed that thought to the next level. He’d never considered what happened behind the closed doors of his parents’ bedchamber. If his mother refused the brute. . . ? The horror rocked him. Kate? Sweet, defenseless Kate? She couldn’t have been more than eighteen that summer.
Tears ran down Brydie’s cheeks. She must have followed his thoughts. There could only be one conclusion. “I never knew. I was so young and utterly dense.”
“You weren’t even fifteen. You were the light of my life, of everyone’s life. No one would want to visit ugliness on you, not even your sister.” Damien brushed a kiss against her bonnet, put a hand at her back, and pushed her toward the inn. “Go, do what you do so naturally. I must see to the burial.”
Mind spinning in revulsion as events of that summer built in his mind’s eye, Damien walked up the hill to the cemetery with the curate and Rafe. Terwilliger had apparently disappeared with the women. He had to bury his mother. . . who had to have known everything about Kate, sooner or later.
Had she stayed, when he’d asked her to leave, to protect the girls? Of course she had. Part of his burden lifted. His mother had been fierce in her protection of her sons. She’d be equally fierce in defending the girls she’d treated like daughters.
How soon after Kate married had his parents run away? He’d never known the exact date. If his mother had known. . . She must have forced the old bastard to leave so he couldn’t ever hurt Kate again. . . or touch Brydie.
Thoughts spinning, Damien followed the curate around the circular drive of the enormous stone manor to the stairs in the bell tower. Apparently, the medieval priory had a crypt that the conquering earls had used for storing prisoners and bodies. The underground tomb mow was little more than dirt and stone and a coal furnace for the manor’s gas lamps.
In the light of his new realization, Damien touched his mother’s forehead in the casket, fought back a tear that he’d never really understood her, then helped the others nail the lid.
That final action left him hollow. The conversation with Brydie had emptied Pandora’s box, exposed the darkness he’d held inside for so long. The horror was out in the light of day. He had to face it. May she rest now in peace.
While he lived in the hell of grief and anger her death had returned.
Captain Huntley and his large cousins helped Damien and Rafe haul the coffin out of the crypt. To Damien’s surprise, Tom Butler waited at the top of the stairs and joined them in carrying the coffin to the waiting cart. They nodded at each other but didn’t speak.
Upton kept the graveside service simple, acknowledging Butler as the deceased’s loving spouse and gesturing for him to throw the first dirt. Damien didn’t mind. He hoped his mother had been happy in her last years or at least happier than in her earlier marriage.
He wanted to ask what had become of his father, but Damien really didn’t care as long as he was harming no one else. Perhaps they’d arranged to have him locked up for assault. His mother had threatened it often enough, but there had been no law to call on.
Before he could even form a question, Butler walked off after the service, leaving Damien to pay the gravediggers and the curate. He’d have to go into town soon to replenish his cash. He had never intended to stay this long. . . or to bury anyone. Perhaps someone at the manor would take his bank notes. He couldn’t expect the poor innkeeper to have coins.
The curate stopped at the manor to visit with his betrothed and family. The wedding was on Sunday, only a few days away. Damien hoped nothing else happened to put a damper on this happy time. He returned to the inn in Rafe’s company. The funeral banquet was another bill he needed to pay. Perhaps Rafe would accept a bank note, if it was a generous one.
Damien accepted the wary condolences of women he did not know but who had known his mother these last years. Kate kissed his cheek and took the children out to her pony cart, their hands full of goodies from the table Rafe had laid out. Damien watched Arthur and saw himself and his brother in the boy’s stride, the lift of his chin. His gut churned.
With apologies, excuses, and a promise to return quickly, Damien dashed upstairs to remove his outer garments and rein in a tempest of fury and grief. He flung open his bedchamber door, expecting Jacques to be there.
Instead, the room had been ransacked, the mattress turned over, his clothes cast to the floor. His gaze traveled up to the areas where he’d concealed a few of his father’s documents. Thieves seldom looked up. The books were undisturbed. He checked to verify the copies, along with his keys and purse, were still in his pockets.
The library should be locked. Tossing his top hat and overcoat on the bed, Damien rushed out to check the library.
A hard object crashed into the back of his skull and the lights went dark.
Nineteen
Brydie
Listening to strangers speak of a woman she thought she’d known—a respectable lady who had once dressed in the finest fashion a small village could provide—Brydie felt adrift. Damien’s story had yanked her anchor out of still water and set her sailing on a turbulent tide.
All these years. . . She didn’t think she could even look at Kate. Brydie had resented Damien for so long. . . It was as if the puzzle picture she’d put together had been ripped apart, shaken up, and was now missing pieces of a completely different image.
So, she didn’t notice at first that Damien didn’t return. He’d provided a feast for the mourners. Presumably, he meant to talk to these women who had known his mother in her last years. So where was he?
And then, realizing the people in this room could very well know who had killed his mother, might even be the one who’d pulled the trigger, her insides knotted, and she went in search of Rafe. He’d retreated to the kitchen.
“Damien went upstairs and never returned.” She tried to say this calmly, but her next question bordered on the hysterical. “Could you check on him?”
Without questioning, Rafe slammed down his kitchen knife and left for the backstairs. Stirring a pot over the fire, Verity stared at Brydie as if she’d lost her head, which perhaps, she had. Damien was a grown man who could take care of himself, not one of the students who must be monitored constantly.
Brydie gestured toward the pub. “All those people in there are from the camp where Mrs. Sutter was killed.”
The schoolteacher wrinkled her brow. “Until I moved here, I never thought about such things. I just thought people died, accidents happened. To live believing people one knows can deliberately harm you. . . takes some adjustment.” She sent an anxious glance to where Rafe had departed.
Verity had been as protected as Brydie from the world’s cruelty. But Brydie’s days of innocence were over. Instead of rejoining the mourners, she followed Rafe up the stairs. “Rafe?” she called, traveling the meandering halls.
“Fetch Meera,” he hollered. “Better, find one of the boys to fetch her and Hunt and anyone else willing to—”
Brydie arrived in the upstairs hall before he finished. Terror turned her insides to ice as she saw him outside Damien’s room.
The look of fear on her face apparently caused Rafe to rein in his angry shouts. “He must have walked in on a thief. He’ll be all right, but I have to find out who was up here.”
She wanted to run down the hall, see that Damien truly was fine, but she had no right. Instead, she sprinted down the front stairs to the lobby, found one of the stable lads sneaking food from the pub, and sent him racing up the hill to the manor for the physician and help.
Then, picturing Damien beaten and in pain, she set her jaw, and returned to the mourners. Someone had to be held accountable. She counted heads first, but most of these women had no way to return to their tents without the carriage and cart that had brought them here. They were all present.
The men were the ones with horses—and none of them were present.
She stopped in the kitchen to warn Verity to keep an eye on anyone taking the back stairs. She wished Kate hadn’t already left. She needed more eyes. While Rafe guarded Damien, Brydie roved through the pub, murmuring pleasantries, talking about the food, asking after husbands and others who had known the deceased, taking mental notes of replies. She even watched to see how often people left for the privy.
“I saw Mr. Terwilliger in the church.” Trusting the older lady to some extent, Brydie spoke to Mrs. Hatter as she passed around trays in the pub. “Did he return to the inn with you? I was delayed and didn’t have a chance to speak with him.”
“He and Tom were about.” Mrs. Hatter wrinkled her already wrinkled brow. “Saw them talking with Zeb before services. I reckon only Mr. Terwilliger dared show his face in chapel though. Zeb preached against it, but Terwilliger isn’t one of us. He and Meg. . . They’d have words. He didn’t much like being told what to do, but he listened.”
So, the men had been in town. Any one of them could have sneaked into the inn while everyone attended the service. “I don’t suppose they stayed? Do we need to take them a little of our repast?”
Mrs. Hatter snorted. “Not much of it left now. Irene is carrying half of it in her apron. She and a few of the others will see them fed. Meg’s son is a good man for providing. It should have been the other way around. Where is he anyway? They’re waiting to thank him.”
“He is ill, I fear. We’ve sent for a physician. I know he wished to speak with the people who knew his mother these last years. I know!” A thought overtook her and she didn’t hesitate. Setting down her tray, Brydie climbed onto one of the benches to attract attention.
The talk gradually died and everyone waited expectantly.
“Mr. Sutter has been taken ill.” Still in a state of panic, Brydie fumbled for just the right words. “He wished so much to speak with you and offer his gratitude for looking after his mother. Would it be possible if each of you shared a memory or two I could write down?”
“A memory book,” Mrs. Hatter said, catching on quickly. “You could stand at the counter in the lobby. Sgt. Russell keeps paper and ink there. Each of us can go to you when we think of summat to say.”
And Brydie could watch the front stairs, the front door, and the pub entrance all at the same time. Excellent.
From her position on the bench, Brydie gestured toward the lobby. “Come along, then, Mrs. Hatter. Let’s have your memories.” She jumped down and led the way to the lobby, hoping and praying they would listen. They owed Damien this much, and maybe, just maybe, she could learn something valuable.
While the women paraded through, hesitantly offering up remembrances of gifts and encouragement, nursing illnesses and injuries, a few laughing reminders of how Meg Sutter Butler had stood up to the men, Brydie wrote as fast as she could, while still keeping an eye on the doors.
Meera must have gone up the backstairs. She could hear her voice floating down. Men gathered out front. Horses rode in and out. Hard to start a search party without knowing who one was searching for. Perhaps Damien had told them.
With the food gone in the pub, the women carried the party into the lobby, where they laughed as they recalled moments from these past years. This was as it should be, Brydie decided, like an Irish wake without the whiskey. She wished Damien were here to hear it, but he’d be a trifle overwhelmed by all the women, and they’d be intimidated by his presence.
Unfortunately, nothing they told her indicated why anyone might have shot at Zeb or pushed the earl into a river—or why anyone would harm Damien. They gossiped about the times Meg—not Johnson or Butler—had separated warring men, as she once had fought her own husband? She’d always been a forceful woman.
Brydie had the odd notion that it was Johnson or Butler creating the feuds, while establishing their authority. No one mentioned Terwilliger. Mrs. Hatter had said the financial man wasn’t part of the camp.
When the carriage and cart rolled into the yard, the mourners finally filtered out. A few hugged the women who had elected to stay behind. Apparently, some of the men had followed the vehicles, and they lingered to eat the leftovers the women carried. Zeb’s followers were not well fed.
“The meat pasties went over well,” sour-faced Miss Butler said from behind Brydie. “It was generous of Mr. Sutter to provide such a feast.”
“I think Rafe may have gone a little overboard.” Brydie gathered the papers she had scribbled. “He is eager to open the inn and pub. It would be lovely if your camp could find a place here. There is more than enough opportunity for everyone now that the manor is open again.”
“But that’s the way of it, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. “We must have the lords and ladies to pay our way. Zeb and Tom are trying to change that.”
Worried about Damien, terrified of lurking evil, Brydie lost her patience. “You do understand that they are preaching a different form of bigotry? All lords and ladies aren’t alike any more than all the people in your camp are alike. Are there no selfish, mean people in your group?”
A lean woman of pale complexion and straw-like hair, Butler’s half-blind sister was of indeterminate age but older than Brydie. She startled at the accusation. “There are mean people everywhere. What does that have to do with lords and ladies hoarding wealth, spending on fripperies, while the rest of us starve?”
“Mrs. Sutter wore nice clothes and lived in a caravan while the rest of you wear rags and live in tents. Did that make her evil?”
“Of course not. She was one of us. She had money when she came to us and she gave freely to the cause. She did not live in a castle and wear silks and eat pheasant.” Miss Butler seemed more puzzled than angry.
Tired now, Brydie shook her head. “Wycliffe Manor was a cobweb-ridden, haunted shell when Captain Huntley, half blind and badly injured, sailed from America and settled here. His wife was an impoverished spinster trying to raise her nephew after losing all her family. They might be the descendants of earls, but they have done nothing but work day and night to bring the manor—and Gravesyde—to life. They didn’t complain and blame others for their misfortunes. Yes, they were handed a roof over their heads. That is not the same as silk and lace and pheasant. Gravesyde is full of roofs to be had, should one wish to work and earn them. And everyone at the manor will be happy to help you, as they are helping Sgt. Russell and his wife.”
She left Miss Butler to work that out for herself. She couldn’t tolerate doing nothing. She had to see how Damien fared. She ran up with her sheaf of written memories.
Instead of finding an invalid with physicians hovering, she found the dratted man in the library, looking hale and hearty, presiding over a council of war. Or an army. Looking only slightly pale, with that tell-tale tick of fury over his angular cheekbone, Damien glanced up with narrowed eyes at her entrance.
In fury, she flung the papers on top of all the others scattered across the table. “You could have at least come down and waved everyone off.”
She stomped out, fuming. She would never marry. She would take over the empty shoemaker’s shop and. . .
She would make shoes for Lynly while she could.
Gathering up her cloak, waving farewell to Verity, she marched home, seething.
Twenty
Damien
After Brydie’s furious departure, Damien let his pounding head drop onto his folded arms.
“You should be in bed,” Rafe said.
“What set her off?” Unsympathetically, Hunt reached for the papers she’d flung and popped in his monocle to sort them.
Damien didn’t even try to lift his spinning head until the nausea settled. He’d just buried his long-lost mother and learned Arthur might be his half-brother. Someone hated him enough to nearly kill him, trash his room, and empty his pockets in search of. . . what? He owned nothing but the land. He had good reason to turn his back on Gravesyde and never, ever return.
No one answered Hunt’s question.
Rafe studied a few of the papers Hunt handed him. “Testimonials. Brydie collected memories from your mother’s friends.”
Damien heard the papers rustle and assumed Rafe was passing them around. Miniature evil blacksmiths used his skull for an anvil and writing blurred before his eyes. The apothecary’s medicine wasn’t working. Nothing would. Cyclones whirled his thoughts like autumn leaves. Hell, no, entire trees slammed around.
“Looks like all isn’t milk and honey in the Land of Zeb,” Walker, Hunt’s steward, commented, perusing one of the pages.
“Are the women trying to tell us something?” Hunt shoved one of the reminiscences under Damien’s nose.
He tried to look at it cross-eyed from his resting position. Unable to manage actual thought, he simply asked, “Why was Brydie angry?”
“Disappointed you weren’t dead?” Rafe asked facetiously. “She about tore my face off trying to see you when we thought you’d booked it. Then she summons Meera and half the manor, rounds up all the mourners and interrogates them, probably hunting your thief. She’s a one-woman army.”
