Face Down Before Rebel Hooves Part 19

"The attempts on your life, madam," Jennet said thoughtfully, "all took place when Mistress Standbridge was nearby. Even the arrow could have been her. She arrived soon after the incident, in advance of Lady Westmorland."

"I noted this Marion during the journey from Liddesdale," Lady Glenelg said. "She rode next to Master Carnaby. She seemed the frail and helpless sort and Carnaby, for all his bulk and bl.u.s.ter, appeared to be devoted to her. Protective."

"Marion is less fragile than she looks," Lady Appleton said, "and capable of putting off her uncle when he wanted to marry her to a man of his choosing. I had the impression she pacified him by entering Lady Westmorland's service and had some hope of holding out until he died of old age, after which she would wed Carnaby. But murder Eleanor for him? That is difficult to accept. And how could she send orders to Augsburg? She was in the service of the countess of Westmorland then."

"She might have been visiting Topcliffe," Jennet argued. "She'd brought messages before. And do not forget Master Carnaby was and is her lover. She might have used her woman's wiles to get the earl of Northumberland's seal away from him."

Lady Glenelg smiled. "Cherchez l'homme," she murmured.

"Carnaby could have devised the plan to kill Eleanor," Lady Appleton suggested, "if he knew Eleanor's death would make Marion her uncle's heir. Greed is a fine motive for murder. He'll profit if she inherits and they wed." She glanced at Lady Glenelg, who was steadily working her way through the cheese. "Why did Sir Roger disinherit Lady Gillingham?"

"She did not say, only blamed Eleanor."

Lady Appleton looked thoughtful. She had long suspected that Master Carnaby might be behind the attempts on her life. She'd attributed to him another motive, one that had proved false, but now she had reason to reconsider what she knew of him. Jennet hated to give up her own pet theory, but even she had to admit that Guy Carnaby made a more logical suspect than his former sister-in-law.

"If you mean to accuse anyone here of Eleanor's murder and the attempts on you," Lady Glenelg declared, "you had best do so with dispatch. We cannot remain in the countess's company much longer. I will not take the risk that Gilbert could be accused of treason because of my presence at Ferniehurst, and I do not intend to return to England without you."

Lady Appleton sipped more ale and again made a face. "Well, then, we must do something to force the killer's hand. We must set a trap."

"For what person?" Jennet asked.

"We have three choices." Lady Appleton ticked them off on her fingers. "One: Sir Roger wanted Eleanor dead and paid some unknown person to do his bidding. Two: Guy Carnaby orchestrated a series of accidents in the hope of marrying Marion and getting his hands on whatever fortune she inherited, by default, from Sir Roger. Or three: Marion herself was behind these so-called accidents. I am inclined to prefer Master Carnaby as a suspect. If he did not act on his own, then he may well be the one Sir Roger employed. Just because the old man does not approve of him for a relative does not mean he'd not have made use of him. And Carnaby may have thought to win Sir Roger's favor, and Marion's hand, by doing his bidding."

Clearly, Lady Appleton liked this solution, and Jennet could find no fault in it. That did not stop her from worrying that her mistress might take one too many risks to prove her theory. "Madam," she ventured, "there is no need to place yourself in danger. Simply tell everyone that the real Eleanor Pendennis is dead."

"She has the right of it," Lady Glenelg agreed. "There is no reason now to hide your true ident.i.ty."

Lady Appleton continued to look thoughtful.

"What are you plotting?" Lady Glenelg inquired suspiciously. She spoke but a moment before Jennet could ask the same thing.

"'Tis true 'twould be safer now to be myself, and telling that truth may also produce the answers we need. Here is what I propose. I will go to Marion and tell her that Eleanor is dead. I will also warn her that she is in danger. I will point out that if Guy Carnaby killed Eleanor in order to secure Marion's inheritance, then there will be nothing to stop him from disposing of her once he has her money in hand."

"She will not believe you." Jennet had seen the way Mistress Standbridge looked at Guy Carnaby.

"No," Lady Appleton agreed, "but she will go to Carnaby. Confront him. And we will be close at hand to hear what he says."

"What if she was behind all the attempts herself?" Lady Glenelg objected. "Do you expect her to confess?"

"One or the other of them, I do think, will be surprised by my revelation into saying more than he . . . or she . . . intended."

"And if one or both of them decide killing you will solve all their problems?"

"That, Catherine, is where you and Jennet, and Fulke and Lionel, too, come into my plan."

Chapter 40.

Susanna was not as calm as she pretended to be. If her plan went awry, she could end up dead, never to see Nick or Rosamond again. But she had to try, had to make one last effort to achieve justice for Eleanor, and for Margaret Heron, and for the unknown driver of that wagon in Augsburg.

"I am not Eleanor Pendennis," she announced as soon as Marion joined her in Catherine's chamber. Catherine and Jennet had gone ahead to implement the next part of the scheme. "My name is Susanna Appleton. I was sent to Topcliffe to discover what person was responsible for your cousin's death." She told the lie easily, surprising even herself.

Marion's face lost every trace of color. "Nell is . . . dead? When? Where?"

"She was killed-murdered-in Augsburg. It was meant to look like an accident, but it was not. A man in the employ in Haug and Company arranged it on orders sent by someone in England."

"I do not understand. How do you know this?" Marion sank down on the window seat, looking small and lost and helpless.

Susanna's heart went out to her. "I know you do not understand. That is why I felt I must warn you. The person who could most easily have arranged Eleanor's death and who most stood to profit by it is Guy Carnaby. I believe he has also tried to kill me."

"No!"

"Yes. Because of you, Marion. You are your uncle's sole remaining heir. When Sir Roger dies, all Guy has to do is wed you to claim your inheritance. And once he has it, he'll no longer need you. I have seen this desire to marry for gain before. Carnaby is not the first to plan to kill an unwanted spouse for profit." She'd encountered just such a situation a few years earlier, and in that case, too, the villain had been careful to counterfeit fondness for the intended victim, seducing that poor p.a.w.n- "No!" Marion sprang to her feet.

Susanna called after her as she rushed toward the door. "Did he warn you not to taste the turnip soup?"

Marion's wail of despair seemed answer enough.

Catherine had arranged with Sir Thomas Kerr that Carnaby should be writing letters for the countess in a tower chamber. This room could be reached in two ways, by a door at the top of a winding stair and by a privy entrance from the anteroom that adjoined it. As soon as Marion left her, Susanna met Catherine and Jennet. They waited until they heard Marion knock, then crept inside by the back way. They were shielded from the man at the desk and the woman beside him by a heavily curtained bed, but they could catch glimpses of what was going on through gaps in the hangings, and they could hear everything that pa.s.sed between the two of them.

"My cousin Nell is dead," Marion told her lover. Her voice still trembled but was stronger than it had been a few minutes earlier.

"What? How?"

"It appears she has been dead for some time. She was killed in an accident in Augsburg."

Anger, Susanna thought. That was what she heard. The injustice of her cousin's murder had overcome any trepidation Marion might feel at facing Eleanor's killer. She wanted answers. Susanna hoped she'd get them before Carnaby turned violent. If he'd been acting on Sir Roger's behalf, as Catherine had suggested, Susanna expected him to defend himself by saying so. If her own theory was correct, the outcome of this confrontation was less predictable.

Carnaby sounded confused. "But who has been calling herself Lady Pendennis?"

"Some woman named Appleton. She is not important."

"Not-"

"You must get rid of her, Guy, before she accuses you of murder."

Peering around the edge of the bed curtain, Susanna caught a glimpse of Carnaby's face. He looked thunderstruck.

"She knows Nell was murdered," Marion continued. "She thinks you arranged it."

"But you just said your cousin's death was an accident."

"It was meant to look like an accident. That fool Dartnall mishandled his a.s.signment."

Susanna's hand went to her throat. She exchanged a startled look with Catherine. She'd not mentioned Dartnall's name. There was only one way Marion could know it, if Marion had sent the order to kill her cousin. With sick certainty, Susanna realized she'd misjudged both parties in the drama playing out on the other side of the hangings.

Carnaby heaved himself out of his chair, catching his mistress by the shoulders. "Speak sensibly, woman."

"I did it for us, Guy. So Uncle Roger will make me his heir. So we can marry."

"What did you do?" He sounded as if he were strangling.

"Killed Nell."

"How can you have-?"

"I used the earl's seal to send an order to his man in Augsburg. What choice did I have? Eleanor would have returned to Westmorland and ingratiated herself with Uncle Roger."

Susanna winced at the irony of Marion's logic. Even if that had been Eleanor's intention, she'd ultimately have failed. Once Sir Roger had discovered she'd borne a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child, he'd have disowned her. If only Marion had realized Rosamond was not Walter's daughter, she'd have known she had no need to kill Eleanor.

None of the deaths had been necessary.

Carnaby's voice conveyed the same anguish Susanna felt. "You convinced Master Dartnall that the earl of Northumberland wanted your cousin dead?"

Marion's eyes gleamed with a wild light. "What else could I do? But I was clever about it. I used the information you'd given me about Sir Walter Pendennis. And I told him to make it look like an accident. He did what I wanted. She died. But then her husband covered it up and found this Appleton woman and sent her here in Nell's place." A burst of hysterical laughter escaped her. "She thinks you were responsible. For all the accidents. She warned me against you."

"What more have you done?" Carnaby shook her until she flopped like a straw poppet in his big hands. "Tell me."

She slapped at him. "I damaged her billet strap to make the girth on her saddle slip. What else could I do? She talked of going to visit Uncle Roger. She'd have told him we were lovers. He'd have cast me out."

"She nearly fell into the river near Brancepeth." Carnaby set Marion back on her feet but he did not relax his grip on her arms.

"Yes. Worse luck, someone came to her rescue."

Carnaby released his mistress to rake trembling hands over his face. "You poisoned the soup."

"I bribed that scullion to do it, a halfwit stupid enough to afterward eat of it himself."

Susanna had thought she could not feel more repulsed. She'd been wrong. Marion sounded pleased by the boy's death.

"You might have killed everyone."

"Only Lady Northumberland's women." In a peevish voice she added, "It is harder to kill someone than I'd imagined."

"You shot an arrow at her and missed."

Marion folded her arms beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and glared at him. "With you to help me, we'll do it right the next time."

"This is madness."

"What I did, I did it for us." Marion jabbed him in his ma.s.sive chest with one delicate finger. "You are as much to blame as I and if you do not help me finish it now, you are the one who will be blamed. The woman pretending to be my cousin is convinced you are guilty."

Carnaby sank into his chair. "Did you kill Margaret Heron, too?"

"Margaret?" Marion sounded surprised.

"Has life come to mean so little to you that you cannot remember the names of your victims?" He looked away from her in disgust and his eyes met Susanna's. The torment she saw there convinced her of Carnaby's innocence.

"Oh. Margaret." Marion's tone was dismissive. "That really was an accident. No doubt she was riding too fast, bent on abandoning the countess. I am sure it happened just as you surmised. Her horse stumbled and she fell off. It was her own fault that she broke her neck."

Susanna stepped out of hiding. "I have wronged you, Master Carnaby." She called for Fulke and Lionel, who had been stationed on the other side of the outer door.

"You!" Marion flew at Susanna, fists flailing.

Carnaby caught her, holding her with less effort than he'd have needed to restrain an irritated lap dog. He had no trouble restricting her movements, but he could not stop her words. Tears streaming down her face, she railed at Susanna. "You can prove nothing against me. I will say you lie. You are a spy! A heretic! No one will believe you!"

"They will believe me," Carnaby said.

Several hours later, the three of them stood before Lady Northumberland. Earlier, she had been told of her husband's capture. She listened, her expression vacant, to two versions of events that had little to do with the rebellion. Although it clearly broke his heart to do so, Carnaby was true to his word. He refused to support Marion's claims. Instead he repeated everything she had confessed to him.

"So you are Lady Appleton, not Lady Pendennis," the countess of Northumberland said after a lengthy silence. "The name Appleton is not unknown in the North."

"It is common in most places, my lady." Susanna did not like the way the countess looked. She'd had one too many shocks and showed it. "It derives from apple tun, an old word for 'orchard.'"

"Where is your family seat?" A barely discernible flicker of interest put life back into the countess's eyes.

"My late husband came from Lancashire, madam. My family's land is in Kent."

"Is the child you bade me send for real?"

"Yes, madam. Eleanor Pendennis's daughter by my late husband. I am her foster mother and love her as dearly as if she were mine own."

Lady Northumberland leaned forward. "So, you are a widow. Have you wealth?"

"A modest estate."

The countess squared her shoulders and sat up straighter. "I need money," she said baldly, "to ransom the earl. You have, I think, denied me Sir Roger's resources."

Susanna was not so certain of that, but she did not argue the point. She knew what Lady Northumberland wanted. "I will contribute what I can." She did not like the thought of either the earl or his countess in the hands of the queen's men.

"I believe you mean that."

"As much as I must abhor civil war, I understand why you felt driven to restore the Percies to their former glory in the North. Exile is punishment enough for your rebellion against our rightful queen." She moved a step closer. "You will not be allowed to return to England. I will send funds sufficient to let you live in comfort on the Continent, but not enough to allow you to launch an invasion."

"Yes, I will have to go abroad," the countess agreed, "but do not be so certain of the rest. We have powerful supporters in the Low Countries."

"The duke of Alba?" Susanna asked.

Lady Northumberland ignored the jibe and shifted her attention to Guy Carnaby. "Joan and Cecily have promised to accompany me into exile. Will you come with us?"

"My place has always been at your side, my lady." Carnaby avoided looking at Marion.

"Take me with you, madam," she pleaded. "I have been loyal to the cause. My cousin Nell was a threat. It was necessary that she die."