Face Down Beneath The Eleanor Cross Part 12

"Sir Robert was an intelligence gatherer for the Crown," Eleanor said into the small silence that had fallen among those seated at the table on the dais.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"He told you that?" Walter sounded shocked.

She met his gaze and Susanna saw again the sparks she'd witnessed the previous evening. "Aye, and some few things about those he worked with, too."

"I thought he refused to reveal his destination when he was about to leave for Spain. Did you not tell me that you did not know if he would come back?"

"I did not mean to imply that he told me nothing, Sir Walter. Early in our acquaintance, when I confessed to him that his insistence on secrecy made me fear he was involved in something criminal, he rea.s.sured me by explaining that he often undertook secret missions at the queen's behest. He mentioned your name, Sir Walter, as one of his fellows."

Interesting, Susanna thought. Was it possible Walter's arrival at Appleton Manor had upset Eleanor more than the sudden appearance of her lover's widow? Had Eleanor's initial denial of any knowledge that Robert was alive been an attempt to protect herself? If she'd once suspected Robert of being involved in illegal activities, it was not so far-fetched to imagine she might fear so again. Had she worried that admitting she knew he was not dead would lead to her own arrest? For all Susanna knew, Eleanor had jumped to the conclusion that Walter was at Appleton Manor to accuse her of treason.

Matthew Grimshaw cleared his throat. "Whatever he was in life, Lady Appleton, if your husband was poisoned, it follows that you must be suspected of murdering him. You were an expert on poisonous herbs five years ago. No doubt you know even more ways to kill a man now."

"Matthew!"

"Be careful what you say, Eleanor. She is here to find a scapegoat. If she can convince the authorities that Sir Robert spent time at Appleton Manor, she will attempt to build a case against you. She will say that something he did while he was here prompted you to follow him to London and kill him."

"But I did not." Eleanor turned to Walter. "Is this true? Is that why you came here?"

"We are investigating everyone connected to Sir Robert."

Reaching for Grimshaw's hand, drawing on his presence for strength, Eleanor glared at both Walter and Susanna. "I did not go to London. I did not kill Robert. If you will not take my word for it, then ask my servants. They will swear I have not left this place in months."

"I can vouch for her, as well. I was a guest here at Appleton Manor during Yuletide." Grimshaw's att.i.tude was protective toward Eleanor, making Walter glower.

Susanna was a trifle surprised by Grimshaw's staunch support. In the past, she'd felt he lacked backbone. He'd always been easy to browbeat. A stronger man would never have put himself in a position to be manipulated by Robert. She had herself coerced him into drawing up certain legal doc.u.ments, even though he disapproved most heartily of their contents.

"Was he here throughout the holidays?" Walter directed his question at Eleanor, but she was not looking at him.

"Matthew, it is not necessary-"

"Hush, my dear." He patted her hand, then addressed Walter. "You need not take my word for it. Call in the servants. Ask them."

It was time to resume control of the situation, Susanna decided. She stood, drawing everyone's gaze to her, and gestured for Eleanor's manservant to come forward. Every word spoken at the table on the dais had been overheard by the others in the hall, not only those serving the food, but also Fulke and Jennet. And Bernard Bates, who sat with the two of them at the lower table, a constant reminder of what Susanna's fate would be if she did not succeed in finding Robert's killer.

"Leek, is it not?" Susanna had met him earlier in the day. She'd questioned him then, as she had all the other servants, about Eleanor's whereabouts during Yuletide, but she had not thought to ask about Grimshaw.

"Aye, madam." He looked terrified.

She smiled to rea.s.sure him. "All I want is the truth, Leek. Was Mistress Lowell at home throughout the holidays?"

"Oh, aye, Lady Appleton." The man stumbled all over his words in his eagerness to rea.s.sure her. "And Master Grimshaw did come to visit, just as he's said."

"On what days was he here?"

A frantic blinking answered her. "What days?"

"On what day or days was Master Grimshaw at Appleton Manor?"

"I do not remem- Oh! I do remember. 'Twas Twelfth Night. Yes, it was. Was it not, Master Grimshaw?"

And so it went. One by one, Susanna called the servants in. One by one, they confirmed what Eleanor had said and agreed that Grimshaw had visited Appleton Manor. With Grimshaw glaring at them, they were nervous about answering, but Susanna had seen this reaction before. Grimshaw might be easily cowed by his betters, but he had a tendency to bully servants and anyone else he considered his inferior. In the end, there could be no doubt. It was impossible for Eleanor to have been in London when Robert was murdered.

"Can you have any doubt now?" Grimshaw demanded when the groom of the stable had added his account to those of the others. "You have Eleanor's word. You have the servants' corroboration. And my presence confirms her presence here during the crucial period."

"Matthew," Eleanor objected. "There is no need to defend me so fiercely. I am innocent of poisoning Sir Robert."

Susanna sighed. She believed Eleanor. And because she did, her prospects looked that much more bleak. It did not rea.s.sure her to glance up and once again meet Bates's implacable gaze. Unless she made some progress in her investigation, he would soon be escorting her back to Newgate.

Early the next morning, Susanna and Jennet set out for Denholm Hall. Jennet rode apillion behind the ever-present Bernard Bates.

Catherine's childhood home had changed little since Susanna had last seen it, but its atmosphere was much improved, enlivened by the presence of the steward's merry wife and a half dozen children.

Mabel Hussey had seen more than fifty summers and begun to show her age. Her once fair hair was streaked with white. Her face had gone from being round and rosy-cheeked to fleshy, the bags beneath her eyes giving her the look of a sorrowful hound. Her hearty laugh remained unchanged. She greeted both of them like long-lost kin, embracing first Jennet, then Susanna.

Crushed to Mabel's ample bosom, Susanna felt truly welcome for the first time since coming north. Meaty hands seized her shoulders to hold her a little apart and look at her. "'Tis glad I am to see ye, madam," she declared.

"I am glad to see you, too, Mabel. And delighted to find you so near at hand."

"Who's he?" she demanded, giving Bates a considering look.

"He's come to inspect the dovecotes," Susanna told her. She'd already bribed him to go off with the steward so that she and Jennet might speak with Mabel in private.

A short time later, when they were seated around the kitchen worktable on high stools, cups of perry in hand and a plate of Mabel's famous gooseberry tarts in front of them, Susanna asked the cook why she'd left her post at Appleton Manor.

Mabel gave a snort. She never troubled to hide her feelings. Her answer was blunt and forthright. "She were up to no good with that John Secole."

"And you disapproved?" Susanna hid a smile with her cup. What she knew of Mabel's youthful adventures seemed to argue against the notion of prudery.

"There be a young girl child in that house."

"You were concerned for Rosamond?"

"I do remember me what Sir George got up to," she said in ominous tones. "And Secole did watch the girl. Stared at her sometimes, though to be fair 'twas not often he'd go near her."

Robert's father, Sir George, had developed a fondness for young women in his later years. Very young women. "Rosamond is a mere baby," Susanna pointed out.

"He were odd, this Secole." Mabel drained her cup and poured more perry into it from the jug.

"Odd how?"

"Skulked about. I never did get me a good look at his face, and that be the Lord's own truth."

"So he might have been disguised?" Unable to contain her excitement any longer, Jennet blurted out the question. "Could he have been someone you knew?"

"Could Secole have been Sir Robert?" Susanna saw no point in hiding their suspicions. Interrupted by the cook's frequent questions, she told Mabel the surface facts of Robert's three deaths and explained her present dilemma.

Unfortunately, Mabel had never gotten close enough to the mysterious Secole to have more than a vague impression of his appearance.

"He come in November," Mabel recalled.

Five months after Robert's death by drowning in the Solent, Susanna thought. "Was Master Grimshaw a regular visitor to Appleton Manor by then?"

"Aye. Took him but one look at Mistress Eleanor to be smitten."

"How did she react to him?"

"Encouraged him. 'Twould be a proper match."

"Encouraged how?"

"The way any sensible woman does," Mabel said. "Give a bit. Promise more. Hold back enough to make him offer what she wants."

"Did he stay at Appleton Manor overnight?"

"A time or two, but there were no harm in it. I were there to make it respectable." Mabel grinned, showing all her big yellow teeth.

"Did the two men ever meet?" Susanna asked. "Secole and Grimshaw?"

Mabel shook her head. "I do not think so. Mistress Eleanor took care that they should not. But, then, I left while Secole still lived at Appleton Manor. Could be they met afterward."

"When did Secole leave?"

"He were gone by the last midsummer."

Some seven months past, Susanna calculated. Plenty of time to journey to London... or just about anywhere else.

"That Lettice, one of the new maids, told the steward's wife that Secole went to sea."

"Was he a mariner then? Or a s.h.i.+p's captain?" It was difficult to imagine mistaking Robert for a lowly sailor, but seemed even less likely that Eleanor would take a real one into her bed.

"What of Matthew Grimshaw?" she asked when it appeared Mabel could not tell them any more about Secole. "When did he resume his courts.h.i.+p of Eleanor?"

"Why, as soon as Secole were gone," Mabel said. She chuckled. "So soon after that there were talk he'd paid to have Secole pressed into service on a s.h.i.+p bound for the Indies. He may never have met the man, but I wager he knew about him and were not pleased to have him living at Appleton Manor with Mistress Eleanor."

Susanna rode back to Appleton Manor in thoughtful silence. When she learned Grimshaw had gone back to Manchester, she decided it was time to have a talk with Eleanor. A short time later, the two women met in the upstairs chamber Eleanor had a.s.signed to Susanna.

"Have you been happy here, Eleanor?" Susanna gestured for her to take the room's single chair.

"Why, yes, Lady Appleton. Most happy." She did not sit. She looked fl.u.s.tered, but she had already been agitated before Susanna asked to speak with her. Not surprising, after the discussion at last night's supper table.

"You treat this house as if it were your own," Susanna observed.

Eleanor did not reply, but Susanna sensed no guilt in her.

"Tell me about Master Secole."

One hand, straying to her throat, betrayed Eleanor's sudden alarm, but although she might have been startled by Susanna's knowledge, she was quick to regain control of herself. "That gentleman visited me here some time ago."

"And who is he?"

"A friend. An old friend." Eleanor did not meet Susanna's eyes. "John Secole is the youngest son of a gentleman of Westmorland. As children we were neighbors."

"How did he know you were in Lancas.h.i.+re?"

"A chance meeting in Manchester."

"And you invited him to stay here with you?"

"Good country folk keep open house," she reminded Susanna in a prim voice.

"Not for seven months."

"I took pity on an old friend, Lady Appleton. He was down on his luck."

"And where is this old friend now?"

"Halfway to Muscovy to earn his fortune, or so I suppose."

Muscovy? Susanna had not expected that answer but was pleased by it. Master Baldwin, her neighbor in Kent, had many contacts within the Muscovy Company. If Eleanor was telling the truth, Baldwin could verify it.

Silence lengthened between them, a deliberate ploy on Susanna's part. Eleanor fidgeted, went still, then at last burst into nervous speech. "I do not wish to cause Master Secole any trouble. I took him in without your permission, Lady Appleton, and I am sorry for it, but that was not his fault."

"And you sent old servants away. Mabel is under the impression she chose to leave, but I suspect she was subtly encouraged to do so. Why, Eleanor?"

"I... I do not know what you mean."

"Your actions make perfect sense, if John Secole was really Robert Appleton."

Color swept into her face. "I... no."

"No?"

Eleanor advanced across the chamber until she stood face to face with Susanna and only an arm's length apart. "Lady Appleton," she said, "I learned several hard lessons from your husband, the first of which was to trust no one. The second was to depend only on myself. If you mean to expel me and Rosamond from this place, then say so. I will accept Matthew's offer of marriage and move to Manchester."

"I'd not wish that fate on anyone."

"You have no right to judge me."

"I do have an interest in your daughter's future."

"Do you want her? Take her! I know well enough that I am not cut out for motherhood. I have no patience for the task."

"I suspect I would have had much the same reaction to a child," Susanna admitted. "I am told the first few years are pa.s.sing difficult, although I must confess I find Rosamond most interesting."