“They will if I’m rich. But I have to admit I’m not sure about why he killed Papa. Perhaps it was someone else and Nicholas is wrong about it being the same person.” Avice leaned suddenly forwards again, one quivering finger to her lips. “Besides, there’s more. Sissy told me other things too. Did you guess – well I expect you didn’t. But she was doing it with Peter.”
“Doing what?” gulped Emeline.
“You know what I mean. Beds. Kissing. What men do with their wives, only she was barely thirteen the first time. That was a year and a half ago and Peter was nearly thirty when he died. I think that’s horrid. I mean, I did kiss that silly Edmund Harris when I was thirteen, but he didn’t even want me to.” Avice crouched lower as her sister stared back at her. “But that gives Adrian another reason for killing Peter. And I think it got worse. Maybe if I was Sissy’s brother, I would have killed Peter too.”
“Tell me. But keep your voice down,” urgently, “or Maman will hear.”
It was the next bedchamber where the baroness stepped out of her gown. The thick brocade was scooped up by Martha, who shook out the creases ready to hang on one of the garderobe pegs. The baroness sat on the bed, pulled up her shift and began to untie her garters, carefully rolling down her fine blue stockings. She pointed a bare toe, regarding a still neat foot. “I am not old, you know, Martha,” she said softly. “James should have had a different wife – perhaps a little older – more sedate. Docile!”
“My lady.” Martha pulled back the covers. Then she saw the small folded paper which had fallen as her mistress was unclothed. Martha bent and picked it up.
Her ladyship crawled quickly into bed. “My girls, on the other hand,” she informed the pillows, “are positively infantile. Clearly James carried a streak of ill balance and an inferior bloodline. I can no longer guess what either of my daughters might do next.”
Martha sat on the edge of the bed and began to unpin her baroness’s headdress. She paused a moment. Finally she said, “Speaking of young ladies, I had wondered, and thought of saying something, my lady. But perhaps it is better left unsaid.”
“Which one?” demanded the baroness.
Martha sat back with a handful of golden tipped hairpins. “Our young ladies are without blame and I speak no word against them, madam. There was something else, something I noticed this evening, which reminded me of the fire which devastated the castle after the Lady Emeline’s wedding, and which might have caused both her death and that of her husband.”
There was a sudden rustle of linen and feathers and the baroness sat up in alarm. “Tell me, Martha.”
Martha shook her head. “Just wondering, my lady, and thinking that perhaps we have not considered the possibility of another culprit. I happened to notice Mistress Sysabel playing with – a candle flame. An unusual game for an innocent young lady, I believe.”
The baroness again collapsed against the pillows. “The silly miss adored Peter. Why would she kill the boy?”
“They say she has a temper, my lady. And perhaps – just perhaps – there could have been a reason which she now wishes to hide.”
“The girl is too foolish to hide anything. And if you mean she was having an illicit affair, which no doubt that supercilious young man was wicked enough to encourage, then she has hidden nothing, for I already guessed some time ago. But all the more reason not to slaughter the lover.”
“But if he meant to cast her off once affianced to our young Mistress Emeline? Or worse, my lady, if the affair had results which needed the young gentleman’s immediate offer of marriage but which he denied?” The baroness paused, considering. Martha nodded and continued, “You may guess my meaning, my lady. Illicit affairs can often have consequences most terrible for the poor girl, but often quite easy for the gentleman to deny and to escape. Such a situation might leave the girl – let us say – both desperate and – infuriated.”
“Young ladies don’t commit murder, Martha,” declared the baroness. “And more importantly, Sysabel had neither motive nor opportunity to divest the world of my husband.” She looked around a moment, as if expecting something to leap from the shadows. Then she lowered her voice. “You have the list safe, Martha? Good. But there was a name I could not possibly be seen to add to that list.”
Martha held out the scrap of paper. “Shall I add it myself, my lady?” But the baroness shook her head.
“It needs no ink, and is no doubt quite nonsensical. But I have wondered, you know, just sometimes, why young Nicholas tries so hard to appear unnecessarily stupid, and such a terrible coward, when he is undoubtedly neither. Odd, don’t you think, Martha?”
Martha had lifted the little pewter candle holder, ready to snuff the last little light. “I had noted it, my lady,” she said quietly. And she blew out the flame.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nicholas rode south, crossing the Bridge moments before the gates were locked for the night. The sunny afternoon had turned to a mild evening and late shopping, the delights of the taverns, cock fights, markets and the Southwark Bear Pit, left folk hurrying home in both directions. Insignificant and unseen amongst the crowds, His mount, unlike the proud liard he usually rode, was a knock kneed but docile mare with a sweet nature, a shabby coat and a wispy tail trailing, bedraggled. The crowds elbowed, thickening as the gatekeeper began to rattle his keys. Nicholas leaned over and patted the horse’s warm neck. “Cheer up, Bessie,” he said softly. “We’ll soon be out in the countryside, and you can show these lumbering oxen your heels.”
A little behind him Harry muttered, “Leaving London, that’s the biggest mistake. ’Tis only fools what leaves the big city and takes off for them windy skies.”
“Least you can see what’s coming in them open places,” Rob pointed out from the back of an overweight and lumbering sumpter. “Which is more than can be said for them bloody Southwark alleys.”
David Witton had been keeping an eye on Wolt and the baggage but now rode up close to his master’s side, silently dismissing Robert and Henry Bambrigg to oblivion. His own remarks were heard only by Nicholas. “We’ll be remembered by nobody here, that’s for sure, my lord. A company of ill-dressed clods on horses fit for little more than the Shamble’s butchers, trudging out of town as dusk falls. But which hostelry do we choose to stay overnight, sir? The Southwark inns are a vile lot, but if we stop at one of the better houses then we’ll pay considerably more than could be expected of folk such as us, and will look out of place.”
“Too nice, are you David, to stay in a slum for a night?” Nicholas smiled. “I seem to remember us staying often enough in your tenement room when I had reason to keep out of sight. Is that so much better than the Southwark taverns?”
“But it was my own, my lord, and could be kept clean. In Southwark there’s more fleas than whores, and more whores than cutpurses.”
Wolt, shuffling behind them all, led the baggage horse but preferred the use of his own feet. His first very short acquaintanceship with the great city of London had not impressed, but at least he was pleasantly surprised by the Bridge. In Gloucestershire he had seen several bridges but they were small wooden planked affairs which swayed when crossed, but at least were so short they could be run over in half a breath. The bridge of London, however, was made of soaring stone and sat on nineteen mighty pillars. It did not sway, it carried great hosts of people and animals all at the same time, and was so rich with houses and shops that you could barely see past them to the river below. The river could, of course, be smelled, so one knew it was very much there. Now beneath the massive iron portcullis, below the spikes for traitors’ heads above the gate, the small party crossed the bridge into Southwark and immediately quickened pace.