The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(51)
‘She must have been very much shocked,’ Jared observed as he studied the catch on the opening section of the window. ‘This looks secure enough.’
‘Indeed the lady was in a proper taking, sir. White as a sheet and she kept saying God forgive me – but I reckon that was because she hadn’t stopped him drinking, sir. Not that anyone could, I’d have said. A nasty drunk until he’d had so much he could hardly stand, then he mellowed. That’s what she told me when I tried to stop serving him the night before and he got in a right state about it. So the night of the Occurrence I gave him another bottle and, sure enough, after ten minutes or so of language that would curdle milk he calmed right down and just sat there moaning into his glass. Where is she? Why isn’t she here? Where is she when I need her?
‘I thought to myself, She’s gone off to her bed and I don’t say as how I blame her, you unpleasant sot. Then when I was properly sick of the sound of him he got to his feet and stumbled off. If I’d known the girl had opened the landing windows to cool the bedchambers down a bit I’d have kept an eye on him, helped him up to his room.’ He shrugged. ‘But I didn’t and Coroner said no-one who wasn’t drunk as a lord would have been in any danger, because the banister rail should have made it safe enough. He put no blame on us.’
‘Had Willoughby gone out while they were here? Did he ask directions to anywhere?’
‘He didn’t ask that I know of, sir. He went out on foot the day he fell, was gone about, oh, an hour or two? Anyway, he was in a foul mood when he got back. Of course, that might have been the weather, it was pouring with rain and he was soaked through and muddy to the knees,’ the landlord said as they walked back downstairs.
‘How had they arrived here?’ He could ask Guinevere of course, but Mr Grantham was handy. Jared wondered how much longer he was going to tolerate detailed questions from a complete stranger with no standing in the matter, but so far he seemed happy to talk about the local excitement. Presumably there wasn’t much drama day-to-day thereabouts.
‘One-horse gig, sir. The kind with a hood.’
So Willoughby had not gone far, otherwise he would surely have taken the gig, put the hood up and saved himself a soaking. There did not seem to be anything more to be gleaned from the helpful landlord. Jared finished his glass of ale and walked slowly back to his horse.
Francis Willoughby had come here with a purpose and, whatever that purpose had been, it had not been fulfilled. Willoughby had died first.
Jared swung into the saddle and set himself to scour the area an hour’s walk out from the inn. The landlord said Willoughby had been gone an hour or two. Assuming the man had done something, even if it were only to stare at his destination in frustration when he got there, then he would then have to walk back, so a five mile radius should encompass it, he calculated.
Jared had been gone a long time, Guin thought. By the time luncheon had been cleared away there was still no sign of him. She began to pace restlessly from room to room downstairs until Thomas suggested he harness the gig and take her for a drive.
‘It only seats one person beside the driver,’ she pointed out. ‘Mr Hunt does not want me to go outside the house without one of you men and Faith.’
‘That’ll be if’en you were walking, my lady,’ Thomas said. ‘Up in the gig, if we saw trouble coming, we could be off in a moment. I’d take my big stick as well – that’d deal with any footpad.’ He picked up a hefty cudgel from where it had been leaning against the hall wall and brandished it.
‘It looks lethal.’
‘Aye, it would be. A tap on the head from that and you’d not get up again,’ he said with a relish that made her shiver.
‘Even so, I did promise Mr Hunt, so I will call Faith and we will just take a turn around the garden.’
‘If you feel like that, my lady.’ He sounded on the verge of sulkiness. ‘I’m sure his lordship trusted me to look after you, ma’am.’
‘Mr Hunt trusts nobody, I think,’ Guin said lightly, trying to make a joke out of it. The last thing she wanted was a peevish footman about the place. ‘And I have no intention of proving him right by breaking my word. Ah, there you are, Faith. Come along, Thomas, and don’t forget your cudgel.’
They found Topshore the gardener muttering darkly at greenfly on his broad beans and he attached himself to their party, confident that the mistress of the house wanted nothing better than to debate the best cure for moss in the lawns and whether a new arbour was needed, given the state of the old one.
Guin confessed to total ignorance about moss and allowed herself to be talked into a new arbour and a dozen climbing roses from the best supplier in York. The stable yard clock was chiming half past three by the time a circuit of the garden had been accomplished, and there was still no sign of Jared.
‘I wonder what can be keeping – ah, I can hear the sound of hooves on the yard cobbles.’ Guin led her little party round to the yard, Topshore tagging along behind and holding a monologue on the value of well-rotted stable manure for roses. The lad was just leading away a bay mare and its rider stood brushing down his dusty breeches.
It was not Jared, Guin realised with a stab of disappointment tinged with worry. This was a young man, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, sandy, freckled and earnest. Then she saw there was a rapier at his side and recognised him. It was Jared’s manservant.