‘I don’t know, unsavoury associates, maybe?’ mused Moss.
‘Other than us?’ sneered Langhorne. ‘No. And if you knew the first thing about Barton, you’d know he wasn’t the sort to cut and run.’
‘I don’t know him– that’s the problem. I’m only asking what others are thinking.’ Moss glanced over at Jacob. ‘I meant no offence.’
‘Was he a ladies’ man?’ asked Jacob.
Langhorne snorted. ‘No!’
‘I ask because I’ve heard cases where the locals will run off a visitor when they think he’s been too familiar with a girl from the vale.’
‘You mean like they did to Hazlitt?’ said Knotte.
That had been exactly what Jacob was thinking.
‘The writer?’ asked Langhorne, frowning. ‘When was this?’
‘When I was a boy, almost ten years ago,’ said Knotte, eyes brightening as his knowledge was called upon. He’d been saying how useless he felt when his services weren’t required in the search of the lake. ‘He was staying with Mr Coleridge– I think he was sketching the poets or something of the like. The local story is that he assaulted a girl– shamed her in public– and was driven out by her angry friends and relatives. Hazlitt said it was all a misunderstanding.’
Inside Jacob’s mind, he could hear Dora saying, ‘He would claim that, wouldn’t he?’
‘Wordsworth and Coleridge tried to dampen down the tale so the rumours didn’t follow him to London,’ continued Knotte, ‘but he’s no hero in these parts, I can tell you.’
‘Then I’ll say that you can put that theory away.’ Langhorne mopped up his fried egg with a crust of bread. ‘Barton is– was– God, it’s so difficult to talk about him when we don’t know what’s happened! In any case, he’s not interested in the ladies and never has been.’
Message received, thought Jacob. That left the possibility that one of these men might be closer to Barton than the others. Jealousy was a very good motive for Dora’s foul play theory. Disappointed love, that would not be socially recognised, would be another, if he ended his life by his own hand.
‘Well, I for one am not going to think he is dead until we know for certain,’ said Knotte, glaring at Langhorne.
The others muttered their agreement without a great deal of conviction.
* * *
It was only on the ride back to his cottage, his brothers trotting ahead side by side, him trailing behind, that Jacob returned to the idea that one of that circle might be a traitor to his country. Moss had seemed to barely have noticed the missing man, but that could be the misdirect of an experienced spy. Perhaps Moss had stolen the poem, thinking he might find something incriminating in Barton’s correspondence? Something had happened the night before to tip Barton off to Moss’s purpose in the area and either he killed himself, or staged his suicide, because he felt the hunt closing in? Avoiding a charge of treason during a time of war was ample motive for taking such a dramatic step. The penalty was still to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
That scenario made Barton the troublemaker, the one whose writings the government would fear.
Three things were clear. They needed to find out more about their vanished client, what if any connection there was to the Leyburn case, and where on earth the poem had got to.
ChapterFourteen
Loughrigg Tarn
‘Miss Fitz-Pennington?’
Blast! The viscount had tracked her down to the back garden where Dora had hoped to avoid him among the weeds.
‘My lord.’ Being on her knees, trowel in hand, gardening gloves on, she confined her welcome to a nod.
He parted the trailing ivy to expose her hideout. ‘What are you doing?’
She thought it obvious. ‘Clearing the weeds from the peas. What are you doing?’
He folded his arms and stood one boot on a stone fallen from a wall, the other on the path, unconscious pose of command. ‘I meant, what are you doing with my brother?’
There were several cheeky replies she could make but she confined herself to: ‘Nothing he doesn’t want, I assure you.’ She dug out a nettle and cast it aside.
‘Now be reasonable. You must see that he has prospects.’
