Wings of Fire ir-2 Page 20

  Clearing the air. It had to be done.

  “And didn’t serve any purpose,” she reminded him.

  “On the contrary,” he said, risking a glance at her. “It served a variety of purposes.” The roads in this part of Cornwall weren’t metalled, just winding lanes for the most part, hardly wide enough for a horse and cart. Puddles from the rains hid deep washouts, while the mud itself was sometimes as slick as black ice. He knew he ought to concentrate on what he was doing. “Rachel, you told me you’d had a letter from Nicholas, before he died.”

  “Did I?” He gave her another swift glance, and saw that she was frowning. “I don’t remember saying that.”

  Or didn’t want to. He let it go for the moment.

  They were heading inland, away from the sea. The high hedgerows shut off the view, and the deep-cut roads tended to come suddenly out of a curve and into a crossroads, where a heavy dray or a small cart was often and unexpectedly in his way. He nearly missed the turning they were after, but soon found the gates to the Beaton house at the head of a pretty valley.

  It was one of those medieval monstrosities the Victorians had loved to build, with half-ruined towers, crenelations, and even a mock Gothic gatehouse. There was so much ivy climbing the walls that when the wind blew, the leaves ruffled and quaked as if the walls themselves were in imminent danger of collapse.

  “Gentle God!” Rutledge said, slowing the car to stare.

  “Yes, well, I’m told the family knew Disraeli, and admired his novels enormously. They couldn’t wait to tear down the old house and replace it with this. If you say one word, you’ll hurt their feelings! Jenny Beaton is a lovely person. She doesn’t deserve to be made unhappy.”

  “I’m incapable of comment,” Rutledge answered weakly.

  Mrs. Beaton was a lovely person. The house, built on the foundations of a much older structure, had its finer points, for one an exquisite fan ceiling in the great hall that served as a dining room. The craftsman who created it knew how to turn plaster into a work of art. The drawing room, with its coffered ceilings and stained-glass windows, looked as if it had escaped from a stage set. When asked his opinion of it, Rutledge answered, “it’s stunning!” Mrs. Beaton was satisfied. Rachel glared at him.

  Susannah was lying on a chair with a footstool, a white lacy shawl thrown over her lap, but she looked perfectly healthy to Rutledge.

  “I’m sorry to hear you’ve been ordered to rest. I hope it doesn’t mean complications of any kind,” he said, taking her hand in greeting.

  “No,” she said irritably, “just a fussy doctor and an equally fussy husband. I’m perishing from boredom!” She glanced wryly at Jenny Beaton.

  “She’s a terrible patient,” Jenny agreed, smiling warmly at her friend. She was dark and very pretty, with small hands and feet, and Harnish had noticed her before Rutledge had. “We’d toss her out on her ear, if she had anywhere else to go. Sad, isn’t it?”

  “Daniel’s in London, he’s running himself thin trying to be in two places at once. But the doctor refuses to let me travel just now,” Susannah added, “even by easy stages.” She cocked her head and looked at Rutledge. “They say you’re searching the moors for Richard.”

  “Susannah!” Jenny Beaton exclaimed. “Who told you that!”

  “I may be pregnant. I’m not deaf! Well, is it true?”

  “Yes, it’s true,” Rutledge told her.

  “Why on earth are you interested in a child who died over twenty years ago? Do bodies even last that long? I don’t see any point in it!”

  “I’m interested in what became of him.” He paused, then said, “If he’s still alive, he’s one of the heirs, isn’t he? Nicholas’ younger brother.”

  He heard Rachel gasp, across the small inlaid table from him, but he didn’t look up at her. It was Susannah’s response he was interested in.

  “If he’s alive, why hasn’t he turned up? Even a child of five knows who he is, where he came from. You’d think he’d have found a way home by now. Somehow.” Susannah was fidgeting with the fringe on her shawl, more from exasperation, he thought, than nervousness.

  “Yes, there’s always that possibility. But he hasn’t. I’m just being thorough, that’s all. Did you ever hear stories of what happened on the moor? As you were growing up?”

  “No, it wasn’t the sort of thing discussed around children, and by the time I was old enough to be curious about Richard, or Anne, or even my father, Rosamund always managed to change the subject. I remember my father, but of course not the early years, before he married Rosamund.”

  “He was brought up a Catholic, I’m told. What about you? And Stephen. Or Cormac?”

  “We’re all Anglican. Well, I suppose Cormac was born a Catholic, but he never practiced, as far as I know. What difference does it make?”

  “Does he have close ties in Ireland? Has he ever talked about the rebellions and the uprisings? Michael Collins? The black and tans?”

  “He’s not interested in politics. Never was, as far as I know. Cormac is typical of the City-he’s very good at what he does, he enjoys making money, and he behaves himself. Reputation is money, he says.”

  “He’s an attractive man. Wealthy. Socially acceptable. Why hasn’t he married? In his position a hostess is almost indispensable.”

  “Yes, I know, I’ve acted for him often enough. So has Rachel.” She shot a sidelong glance at Rachel. “I always wondered-growing up, watching them together-if there might be something between Cormac and Olivia. The tension between the two of them and the way they very carefully avoided each other. She never married. I thought perhaps he was the reason, I wondered if she was ashamed of her bad leg, and wouldn’t marry him. But wanted to, very badly.”

  “You know that’s all in your imagination,” Rachel said, suddenly restless. She shifted so that her face was out of the light coming through the stained glass in vivid shades of port wine and honey, dappling the walls and the floor and her shoulder. “They never seemed to have much in common, and I was around them for years before you were born.”

  “Which tells me,” Susannah said, “that they had a lot in common! Didn’t you find Cormac attractive? All my school friends were desperately in love with him! Everyone wanted to come down to the Hall for weekends.”

  Jenny Beaton laughed. “I was fondest of Stephen. I had such a crush on him when I was twelve. Do you remember that?”

  “Cormac’s very attractive,” Rachel answered defensively. “But I never really thought of him in that way-”

  “Nicholas didn’t like him, and so you didn’t!” Susannah retorted.

  “Why didn’t Nicholas like him?” Rutledge asked before Rachel could answer. Jenny was watching them, her face inquisitive, but he kept his eyes on Susannah and Rachel.

  “Nicholas was the oldest son. Until Cormac’s father married Rosamund,” Susannah said. “It put his nose out of joint, I think. This newcomer lording it over him. Except that Cor-mac didn’t lord it over anyone.”

  “That’s not true! Nicholas was never jealous. It was something else, something I never did really understand until I asked Rosamund about it once, and she said that Cormac’s father replaced Nicholas’ father, and sons often found that hard to swallow.” She turned quickly, her eyes flying to Rut-ledge’s face. “I’d forgotten that conversation,” she said, surprised. “I don’t know why it suddenly came to mind. What happened last night must have jarred my memory-”

  “What do you mean, what happened?” Susannah broke in, sitting up straight, her face sharp with curiosity. “What are you talking about!”

  But Rutledge knew what Rachel was thinking, that he had stirred up the past, like a stick spun in muddy water, churning up what lay at the bottom, wanted or not.

  “Family relationships,” Rutledge answered for her. “We were discussing them. After dinner.”

  Disappointed Susannah lay back against her cushions again. “Well, Nicholas never took any resentment out on Stephen or me,” she said. “And we
were the children of that marriage! Why blame Cormac? It certainly wasn’t his doing that Mother chose to marry his father. It probably changed his life far more than Nicholas’, when you stop and think about it.”

  From the mutinous expression on her face, Rutledge could tell that Rachel strongly disagreed. But remembering Susannah’s health, she held back the defense that seemed to be burning on the tip of her tongue.

  “But I was fond of Nicholas myself,” Susannah went on complacently. “He had more patience with us than most boys his age. When Father died, I remember sitting on his knee, terribly frightened about putting Father into that huge, cold vault in the church. I kept telling everyone that he’d want to be out in the light, where he could hear the horses running and the sea coming in and children playing. And Nicholas said, That’s why he died out on the strand, so he could be free. What we’re putting in the vault tomorrow is only a token, a place where Rosamund can put flowers.’ Then he took us on a pirate’s hunt, looking for Father’s gold crucifix to put in the coffin. But we never found it. I don’t know whether he did later, or not.”

  Hamish was already pointing out that it meant nothing, but Rutledge felt the coldness in his bones.

  Suddenly tired and out of spirits, Susannah added, “I don’t want to think about death and unhappiness. What you’re doing in Borcombe is a waste of time. It distresses Daniel, and that always disturbs me. Richard is dead, and so is everyone else, and I don’t see why Scotland Yard should care a ha’penny about any of us. Stephen’s gone, and you can’t bring him back, however hard you try. Nobody murdered him, he just fell! And as far as I know, that’s still not a crime, is it? So just go away and let us get on with life!”

  Jenny Beaton was about to interject a change of subject, but Rutledge was faster.

  “Did your brother take Olivia’s papers from the house? Those she left him regarding her writing?”

  “Stephen took hardly anything. I feel so guilty now about how we all behaved over that. Like-like dustmen quarreling over the bins! You were as bad as the rest of us, Rachel!” she ended accusingly, her face flushing with emotion.

  Rachel was on the point of denying it, then closed her mouth firmly.

  Mrs. Beaton hastily overrode her anyway, extending an invitation to stay for luncheon, but Rutledge thanked her and claimed pressing business back in Borcombe. He and Rachel left soon afterward.

  “A fine diplomat you are!” she accused him, back on the main road. “She’s supposed to have rest, tranquillity!”

  “She seemed perfectly capable of looking after herself. Susannah is a lot stronger than you give her credit for.”

  “You aren’t a doctor-”

  “No, and neither are you! Now tell me about Cormac and Nicholas.”

  “Tell you what? I thought I’d made that plain at the Bea-tons. They never found common ground. They were envious of each other, Nicholas because Cormac was older, Cormac because Nicholas was Rosamund’s son and he wasn’t. What’s wrong between you and Cormac? Why do you bristle at each other? Explain that, and you’ll see why Cormac and Nicholas didn’t get along.”

  Rutledge knew why he and Cormac bristled. They were at opposite ends of the pole. Cormac wanted the family skeletons packed away where they couldn’t rattle, and he, Rutledge, was in the process of digging them out and displaying them on the village green. Antagonists. Two men used to having their own way-and each finding the other blocking it.

  He found himself wondering suddenly if it was Cormac’s City reputation that he was protecting so ardently-or a woman he’d wanted to love but couldn’t.

  Hamish said, out of the blue, “The heart doesna’ care what she is, if he wants her badly enough. But the head doesna’ rest easy on the pillow when she’s a killer.”

  Which was true.

  He, Rutledge, still wanted Jean, though he knew-he had seen for himself-that she couldn’t bear to have him come near her…

  They were nearly back to the village when Rutledge pulled into a farmer’s muddy lane and switched off the engine.

  Turning to Rachel, he said, “You told me about a letter last night. Whether you want to remember telling me or not, it’s up to you. But it will save all of us a great deal of time and fuss if you simply finish what you started.”

  “What will you do, if I don’t? Make me walk back to Borcombe from here?” she retorted.

  “You know I wouldn’t do that. Rachel for God’s sake, you may well be concealing evidence.”

  “No, I’m not!” she said fiercely, turning in her seat to face him. “The letter was to me! Not to the police or an inquest full of prying eyes. I don’t know how you managed to make me speak of it. If I’d been myself, if you hadn’t tricked me, I never would have!”

  “You told me, the day you sent for Scotland Yard,” he said tiredly, ignoring Hamish’s accusations and objections. “You made your decision then. And there’s nothing you can do now to take it back again.”

  “I won’t let you have my letter!”

  “Then tell me what it says.”

  There was an angry silence between them. And then, in a voice that was so different he didn’t realize at first what she was doing, she began to repeat the words from memory.

  “My Dear,

  “The time has come for you to move away from thepast. Myself Peter. We’ve both cared for you, in our differentways. But I’m not the man you think I am – I never was. You must believe that! And Peter is gone. You’vegrieved for him, and you may grieve for me, but neitherof us could have given you the happiness you want. Morethan anything else, you must remember that we were onlypale shadows of what life ought to bring to you, the manwho will give you love and children and long years of joy.

  “I have loved you too dearly to walk away in silenceand leave you alone with an empty heart. I have beenguilty of many things, but I have never taken your affection for granted. Whatever may be said about me, I have neverlied to you. Don’t ever let them tell you otherwise!

  “Yours,

  Nicholas.”

  There was a stillness in the car after she’d finished. He made himself look down at his hands, resting on the wheel, and not at her.

  “I didn’t know, when I got it, that he was going to die. I thought-I thought he was worried for me, Peter’s death, my-my own feelings towards him, my hopelessness about that. I did know-for some time-that Olivia was having trouble again, with the paralysis. I suppose I’d told myself that in a few years-five, perhaps-she might-something might happen. The doctors had never held out much hope of-of a long life for her! And if he was free-if I were free-if he wanted to come to me, he could. That for Olivia’s sake, all these years he’d lied to himself-lied to me-lied to her. About how he really cared for me. I told myself he’d let me marry Peter because he thought it was for the best. I told myself that he couldn’t leave Olivia alone in that house, with no one but the servants to look after her. That he’d stay with her-and I respected him for that!-until the end. That-Oh, damn, damn, damn! I told myself what I wanted to hear. But he didn’t want to go on living, did he? Or he would have!”

  There were no tears on her cheeks when he finally looked at her, only a great sadness in her face that touched him deeply.

  “And for weeks afterward I asked myself, What hold did she have over him? What was it that was stronger than anything he could have felt for me? Why couldn’t she let him live? What was it that Olivia knew and I didn’t?”

  This time there was a fierce anger in her voice, a need that was so ferocious, so passionately real, that she had been driven to act. To send for the Yard.

  17

  Rutledge didn’t know what to say, how to answer her.

  Instead he got out and started the car again, and drove silently back to the village. In front of the cottage, as he pulled up the brake, he said, “You weren’t prepared for murder, were you?”

  “No-I thought-I don’t know what I thought.” Her voice was still husky. “But I had to know why-And there wasn’t anyone
else I could speak to. Most certainly not Peter’s brother in Whitehall! I told myself that Scotland Yard would be objective and quick, and I’d at least know why Nicholas died. That’s all I wanted to hear. And now, now you’ve dragged in Richard-and Anne-and Rosamund- and I’m so frightened I can’t sleep. I don’t want to know any more. I’d rather believe that Nicholas didn’t love me than discover something awful about him that I couldn’t bear to live with!”

  “Will you come back to the Hall with me? I want to show you something.”

  “No, I won’t be tricked again.”

  “This isn’t a trick. Let me show you some things I found. Some things I’m not sure I understand. But very… worrying. And the reasons why I’m still here. You may be able to explain them away. It would be better for all of us, if you could.”

  She shook her head, then raised it and looked hard at him. “If I do, will you go away? Back to London and let it be?” “That depends,” he said, “on the truth.”

  They drove to the Hall, taking the long way around and leaving the car in front of the steps while he led her out to the headland to see the burned stretch of land. The rain had made the grass grow again, and the patch was nearly covered now. But she could still make it out. Barely.

  Frowning, she said, “Are you telling me that Stephen burned Olivia’s papers here? But why?”

  He took an envelope from his pocket and shook the small objects it contained into the palm of his hand. A bit of ribbon, the silver edge of something, the length of leather.

  She touched them gently. “My first thought would be love letters, seeing that ribbon. Was it blue, do you think? A woman would choose blue. Olivia liked green, but not that pale shade. It isn’t the sort of ribbon you see on a woman’s clothing, is it? Or the hair. But a nightgown? Or a very young child’s gown? Love letters would be more likely. Olivia’s, I’d say.” She smiled wryly at him to hide the hurt. “I can’t imagine Nicholas being sentimental enough to keep all my letters bound in ribbon!”