The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(34)
‘Thomas did. I was below stairs at the time. The usual delivery boy came, handed them over, Thomas showed them to me and then took them up to your sitting room at my direction, my lady.’
‘Very well, thank you.’ Damnation, the usual boy. She had been hoping for a stranger, someone who might have intercepted the delivery, but now that hope had gone. ‘That will be all.’
When she was alone Guin sat down and penned a very careful note to Jared. In the most stilted terms she informed him about the doctor’s findings and who of the household had been summonsed to the inquest, explained about her inventory of poisons and the arrival of the box of sweets and signed it Guinevere, Countess of Northam, with all due formality.
Then she rang for Faith and set about assembling an outfit for the next day that combined the elegance due to her station – and to Augustus’s rank – with modesty and restraint.
‘Jewellery, my lady?’
‘Just the jet. No – let us remind them who I am, but subtly. The diamonds do you think? No, pearls, the earrings with the jet set in the centre and the single strand necklace.’ Somehow she had to project assurance and yet not arrogance, dignity but not coldness. And she felt so very lonely. So very, very lonely. Poor, dear, Augustus.
There was a tap at the door and Twite came in with a letter on a salver. ‘This has just been delivered by Mr Hunt’s man, my lady.’
The note was as formal as hers to him had been. Jared thanked her for the information about the household’s summonses, agreed that a poisons inventory was prudent and confirmed that he too had been told to attend at the White Horse.
I am your most respectful servant, J Hunt it was signed. Guin sighed.
Then, as she refolded the letter, a separate slip fluttered out. There were no words on it, simply a quick sketch of a rapier and, impaled upon it, an apple. An apple with a small bite taken out.
Oh, you wicked man. You wicked, wicked man. So, she had tempted the Adam in her Garden of Eden, had she? Then Guin shivered, hearing in her mind the rustle of scales, the whisper of a slither over leaves. Where was the serpent?
The inquest was as unpleasant as Guin had expected. Obviously repetition did not make them any easier. Escorted by almost half her household she had no trouble making her way through the gawping crowd who had gathered around the White Horse to stare and speculate. The inquest was being held in the room normally used for local working men’s gatherings such as the glee club and the pigeon fanciers and had the air of having received an urgent, and unfamiliar, scrubbing.
She was given a seat in the front row facing the table at which the Coroner and his clerk would sit, with the benches for the jury to her left opposite a chair for the witnesses. The jury, as was usual procedure, were with the Coroner inspecting the body. It had seemed a strange requirement, but it had been explained to her before the inquest on Francis that the purpose of an inquest was to establish legal identity as well as the cause of death and, if that was by human agency, to indicate who the jurors thought responsible. Viewing the body was, she supposed, a precaution against fraud.
Doctor Felbrigg would identify the body formally. It was easier to think of the body, not of Augustus. The room was hazy through her veil and she was glad of the air of unreality it gave. She asked Twite to sit on one side of her and Mrs Cutler on the other and the rest of the staff ranged themselves behind.
It all seemed to take a long time and when it was all over she was certain they would be no further forward. Someone had killed a dear elderly man with malice and deliberation. There was nothing she could do for Augustus now except bury him with dignity, treasure his memory and find out who killed him. Then see justice done. The way she felt about that person now, she would be happy to see that justice arrive at the point of Jared’s rapier.
Where was Jared? She did not dare turn around – besides anything else she would see the people jammed into the room behind her if she did that. Then there was the sound of more arrivals, of much shuffling and whispering and the confident, clear tones of the Duke of Calderbrook.
‘A chair for the Duchess, if you please. The front row? Excellent, thank you. And chairs for myself and Mr Hunt. So much obliged, sir.’
Whoever sir was, they scurried to oblige. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sweep of deep blue skirts and then long legs in biscuit-coloured pantaloons and Hessians passed down the central space between the two ranks of chairs, followed by an equally elegant pair in black.
When they had all settled the man nearest her leaned across the aisle. ‘Good morning, Lady Northam.’
Now, at last, she could turn. ‘Good morning, Your Grace. Your Grace,’ she exchanged a seated bow with Sophie. ‘Good morning, Mr Hunt.’
‘Ma’am.’ Jared looked utterly relaxed, as though attending inquests was a rather tiresome daily ritual for him, but the dark eyes were sharp and focused. After a polite, unsmiling, inclination of the head he turned to look forwards.
The smell of a large number of people, many sketchily washed and crowded into a hot chamber, began to make itself unpleasantly apparent. After ten minutes the jury came in, whispering together as they shuffled along the benches and got settled. One or two looked excited, several others were decidedly pale after what was probably their first close view of a dead body. The Coroner sat down, his clerk beside him, and rapped on the table with a gavel.
‘Silence! This inquest into the death of Augustus Quenten, Viscount Northam, is now convened by me, Edward Runcorn, Coroner for Westminster. The jury having been sworn in and Nicholas Williams appointed foreman they have viewed the body and have heard it identified by Doctor William Felbrigg as Augustus, Viscount Northam. I call Miles Tonkin, the first finder, to the stand.’