Face Down In The Marrow-Bone Pie Part 17

"She will not leave. You know that, Jennet."

Yes, she did know how stubborn her mistress was, but she also knew Lady Appleton would not insist that any of her retainers stay on if they really wanted to leave. And if they all wanted to go, then she would have no choice but to go with them, or at the least move into Manchester. She would be out of danger then, wouldn't she? Why, it was a service Jennet was performing, to insist upon leaving Appleton Manor.

"If you do not care what happens to me, Mark, then think of your own safety. It might as easily have been you injured in that attack as Mabel."

"Do you care so much, then, Jennet?"

"Do not mock me." She cared too much, which was just the trouble. Since he'd been visiting that wench in Manchester, he had not so much as tried to kiss her.

As if he'd read her mind, Mark sent a smugly superior, very masculine smile in her direction. Jennet had seen the like on Sir Robert's face when he thought he was winning an argument with Lady Appleton. "I think you want to go so that I'll be removed from the . . . temptations of Manchester."

"You do manage to visit there often enough. Even in bad weather."

"I'll not venture out as often when winter truly sets in. I have been told it is impossible to find even the path from Appleton to Denholm when there is wind and blowing snow."

"What a cheerful thought! And ample reason in itself to head south while we yet may." Jennet clenched her hands into fists at her sides. She hated to feel so helpless. Frustration ate at her, pushing her into words she'd never meant to say. "I will make it worth your while to take me safely away."

Mark froze in the act of slicing bread. "Are you that desperate?" he muttered, more to himself than to her.

After months of tormenting him, allowing kisses and caresses but never permitting him to possess her completely, though she'd often wanted to let their lovemaking go further, Jennet had in one moment lost her advantage. She'd been letting him think she saved herself for marriage and that she did not want to marry so soon, but he could not mistake her offer. It did not involve even the most informal of marriage vows. Blushing furiously, she waited for Mark's decision.

It would not be so bad, she told herself. If he would take her back to Leigh Abbey, it would be worth the price. And Mark was an honorable man. He'd marry her if there were any unwanted consequences from their coupling.

Prepared for victory, Jennet could not at first believe that what she saw in his eyes was regret. He meant to refuse her, to reject her.

Before he could do so aloud, she turned away, hiding the tears that sprang into her eyes. It was the girl in Manchester. She was sure of it. Mark had given his heart to another.

"I will manage on my own," she whispered brokenly.

"Jennet-"

He caught her arm, but she jerked away from him. Angry now, as well as hurt, she struck out the only way she knew how. "I am sure my offer will interest some other man. I have but to get to Manchester to find one."

Suddenly his anger matched hers. "You'll be hard pressed to get that far in this weather."

She went to the door. Two inches of snow already lay on the ground and it was still falling fast and furious. Dismayed, she returned to the kitchen.

"A small sample of what the next months will bring," Mark said with insufferable smugness. "Accept it, Jennet. We'll neither of us be going to Manchester, nor even as far as Gorebury."

"It will stop snowing. Then will I go."

But Mark shook his head. "Even if this snow does not continue long, another storm will follow. 'Tis certain we'll be kept close in each other's company for days, even weeks, perhaps for months to come. Why do you think Lady Appleton laid in so many provisions?"

Jennet wanted to run, but if she did there would be no one to prepare Lady Appleton's breakfast. Scowling fiercely, she brushed past Mark and went toward the hearth. She might have to remain in his company, but she did not have to be civil to him. Indeed, she did not even have to acknowledge his existence. Determined that he should never know how much he had hurt her by his callous rejection, she reached for a heavy iron pot.

"If I had as much knowledge as some do," she muttered loudly enough for him to hear, "I'm thinking I'd be making a marrow-bone pie."

Chapter Thirty-Six.

Catherine Denholm stared out at the fury of the snowstorm, the second of the winter so far. She was torn between grat.i.tude and dismay. She was glad no one from Denholm could travel on such a day, but sorry indeed that she had to be stuck here, with only her parents and the servants for company.

She did not like being confined. She'd have enjoyed paying more visits to the invalid mistress of Appleton Manor after the first. She'd grown very fond of Lady Appleton in the short time she'd spent with her. Knowing her had also increased Catherine's awareness that those at Denholm Hall were . . . different.

She longed to escape, to live a normal life, but for the nonce her parents had complete control of her-of her person and her dowry and her disposition in marriage. If she ran away from home, she would have nothing.

A shadow caught Catherine's attention and she narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the shape. Slowly it resolved itself into a man on horseback, head bent as he struggled forward against the wind. Catherine quickly uncurled from her perch on the window seat and called for her cloak. The poor man would be frozen, and hospitality was one thing country folk did without stinting, even here at Denholm Hall.

She reached the stables just as he was dismounting. A groom had already taken charge of his mount and the man himself was brushing off an encrustation of snow. He turned at the small sound she made at the door and the light from the stable's lantern shone full on his face.

Catherine bit back a gasp. She knew who he was, though he'd already left Lancashire by the time she was born. She knew his features as well as she knew her own, the narrow face and high forehead, the dark brown hair and the bottomless brown eyes. At a glance, she took in the broad shoulders and well-formed legs that qualified him as one of the most handsome of the queen's courtiers, but it was his bearing that provided the final proof.

With startling abruptness, the one piece that had been missing from the puzzle of her life fell into place.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. He was waiting for her to speak and she knew she must greet him properly. This was no time to shirk her duty.

"Good day to you, Sir Robert," Catherine said. "Welcome to Denholm Hall."

Chapter Thirty-Seven.

Sir Robert arrived at Appleton a day late, forced to shelter at Denholm overnight because of the intensity of the storm. He found his wife in the kitchen, tasting the contents of an iron pot.

"Have you no cook to do that?" he demanded irritably.

"She is at present nursing a broken head. 'Tis delightful to see you, too, my dear. Did you have a good journey?"

"I had a wretched trip, as you well can imagine. I was told you were nigh unto death."

"My accident was weeks ago and I am fully recovered now. I hope it does not disappoint you to find me so well." She gave whatever was in the pot another stir with a long wooden spoon, replaced the lid, and turned at last to face him.

New lines had been inscribed in her face by the pain she had borne, but Robert hardened his heart. She did not deserve sympathy. She had disobeyed him.

"What prompted Grimshaw's last letter?" he demanded.

"What, indeed? 'Tis plain Grimshaw wants your presence here. Have you any idea why?"

"He wanted me here months ago to settle the matter of hiring a new steward."

Susanna frowned. She began adding herbs to a second huge cook pot, from which a tantalizing odor emerged, drifting toward him and making his mouth water. "I have taken care of that. Mark shall have the post. With your approval, that is."

"Do whatever you like." His temper fraying rapidly, he glared at his wife.

"Robert, come and sit down." When she left the hearth he noticed that she used a stout stick to steady her steps.

"How bad is it?" He sat as she'd directed, pulling a stool up to the kitchen worktable.

"Tolerable. I was never in mortal danger, no matter what Grimshaw may have told you, but this cold weather increases the stiffness. I presume you got my letter, as well as the lawyer's?"

"Aye. I did. And that came no closer to presenting me with the true situation here than did his."

With a rather grim smile, Susanna eased onto one end of a long bench. Robert reached for the pitcher at the center of the table and poured himself a cup of what he hoped would be ale. He grimaced at the taste of pears and set the drink aside as Susanna told him all that had happened since her arrival at Appleton Manor.

"At first I did think someone wanted me gone and the house empty," she concluded, "but I have begun to believe now that I have been used to lure you here."

"Why? And why would anyone pretend to be a ghost?"

"I know not why. I may know who. Catherine is the most likely possibility."

"Catherine Denholm? A girl of fourteen? Why would she haunt us?"

"If I knew, I'd not be asking you." The stubborn look in Susanna's eyes was one he knew well. "'Tis obvious that if someone means you harm, then it must be someone you know. And it is equally obvious that you know more than you're telling me, else you'd not have objected so strenuously when I first proposed coming here. Go back over your past, Robert, I beg of you. Consider everything. Review in particular your relationship with your father."

"You ask too much of me."

"Why did you leave here fifteen years ago? Why was there no marriage between you and Jane Denholm?"

Because I told my father I preferred to become a priest.

For a moment Robert feared he'd spoken aloud, but Susanna's expression did not change. He'd confined the memory to his own mind and there it would have to stay. He could not trust anyone, not even his sworn helpmate, to keep such a dangerous secret.

"Well?" Susanna's impatience jerked him back to the present.

"I left home to enter service in a n.o.ble household," he answered.

"No other reason?"

"What other reason could there have been?"

"Jane-"

"Jane had naught to do with anything! I was destined for a career at court, a career which is in greater jeopardy with every day I linger here. I must return as soon as possible."

"Was there a precontract?"

"Trying to get rid of me?" If he'd been legally betrothed to Jane, a commitment that was in fact a form of marriage, both his union with Susanna and Jane's with his father would be invalid.

"Was there?"

"No. Matters never progressed that far. And to be truthful, I did not care for Jane nor she for me."

"What has liking to do with marriage?" Susanna reached for his neglected cup and took a sip of the perry, then pushed it back across the table toward him. "It would be easier to discover the ident.i.ty of our murderer with your cooperation, Robert."

"You have no proof of any murder. Only speculation."

"Let me speculate, then, upon the murder of your father by pushing him down the stairs and the murder of John Bexwith by poison and the rumored haunting devised to drive everyone away."

"I thought you said the haunting was to lure me here?"

"Would that not be the result with any landholder who cared about his profits? When I arrived in your stead, a newly embodied ghost was used to entice me into a trap. The fall that injured me might as easily have killed me, but I do not believe that was the intent."

"And did your ghost also strike Mabel down?"

"'Twas the person behind the ghost, I do think."

"Why?"

"I do not know. Possibly our villain was here to do more mischief, but was discovered before he could accomplish his purpose."

Robert had learned never to discount anything his clever wife said, no matter how outrageous, but he had his doubts about her logic in this case. "You say you think it is Catherine who plays at being a ghost, but another who did murder?"

Her expression earnest, Susanna leaned closer to him, "Aye, It does seem reasonable to me that Catherine is obeying her father's orders. There is no doubt that Randall Denholm knows his herbs and so has easy access to poison. And I told you about the strange expression I saw in his eyes upon our first meeting."

Robert considered the account she'd just given him, her usual thorough, efficient a.n.a.lysis of the situation. "You said you thought, at the time, that his animosity was directed at his wife."

"That was my impression. But what sense does that make? What if it was resentment toward me for arriving in your place?"

Robert hesitated. "You have heard of my father's . . . amorous nature?"

Frowning, Susanna nodded.

"I came upon him once when I was a young boy, with Mistress Denholm. Something in their manner made it seem they were . . . more than just neighbors."

Shock made her eyes widen. "Euphemia Denholm was your father's mistress?"

"She was not always as she is now."

"But he married her daughter."

"Years later. And I cannot be sure he had the mother first." Amus.e.m.e.nt tinged his words. "If he did, he'd have claimed he was just aping his betters. He was wont to repeat that old rumor that King Henry married Anne Boleyn after first having known both her mother and her sister."

"Papist lies."

"Mayhap, but my father believed it. And if you are looking for a motive for Randall Denholm, why there it is. No man can abide being cuckolded."

"Why wait so long for revenge?"

Just like Susanna to take the other side the moment he began to see the logic of her original argument. "I do but try to prove your case, my dear. Randall Denholm may have been carrying a grudge for years, though I cannot say I sensed any animosity toward me last night."