Rosalind’s leg lightly pressed against his and he peeked down. She was holding a green almond comfit in her hand. He was amazed at her ability to look utterly engrossed and yet be rummaging around in her reticule – how ingenious.
With a surreptitious hand, he snatched the comfit and peered around sheepishly, only to be met by a wink and nod from the Irish innkeeper in a side pew.
“What d’ya think of the sermon, Major?” O’Carroll asked as they stood outside in the pale sunshine, frost still glinting on the church spire.
“Very…loud.”
“Sure, he shakes the rafters, and everyone makes for the inn after. He’s very good for business. Will ya be joining us?” Lucas looked to Rosalind and Stone talking with the angelic-looking curate.
“No thank you, my friend. I think I need to do some investigating.”
“Ah, is that what she is now?” he replied, winking. Lucas glared his reproach, but O’Carroll just laughed and hobbled off in the direction of his smiling wife.
The curate turned soft blue eyes on him as he approached. Another one he couldn’t question harshly without feeling like the veriest villain. Still, the man shouldn’t mind if he wanted the murderer of his betrothed found.
“Good morning. How are you keeping?” Lucas started lightly.
“Best as can be expected. And the parish does keep me busy.”
“The vicar’s sermons certainly sound…demanding. Do you help write them?”
The curate looked at him oddly. “The vicar writes his own words, Major. I believe it comes from the heart. He has been a great help to me, having lost his own wife.”
“It must be difficult not to feel anger at losing Miss Risley?”
“It is still difficult, but the vicar is helping me tremendously with passages from the Good Book, and, as he says, one cannot be angry at the will of God. I’m sure as a soldier you had to learn the acceptance of loss.”
“Yes, indeed.” Lucas inclined his head. Perhaps the boy had a more mature head on his shoulders than he’d previously thought.
The curate disappeared to tidy the vestry, and Lucas swept his gaze around the churchyard. Here, all men were equal: blacksmiths rubbed shoulders with squires, sheltered misses with blatant widows. Did a murderer rub shoulders with the innocent?
Standing slightly apart were the Risleys, keeping their own company. They were holding hands beneath the rowan tree, rather an intimate display for a Sunday churchyard. Mrs Risley was eyeing a woman in a cherry-red pelisse, seemingly with disapproval. Mr Risley still looked weary.
He saw Ridges talking briefly with Rosalind’s maid but as soon as he approached, the man disappeared again. It was Sunday though, and most would not take kindly to being questioned on this day of rest. He agreed with the curate about acceptance of fate but that didn’t preclude justice.
The carriage rattled over the frozen earth as they turned onto the road back to the Hall, and Lucas listened with half an ear to the conversation between Stone and Rosalind. It seemed to involve the many things one could do with stag antlers.
“Did you enjoy the sermon, Major?” Mrs Mereworth enquired.
“I prefer slightly more sedate sermons, but all types are welcome.”
“Well, yes. I just wondered as you were a soldier. My brother was in the navy, you see, killed many years back, but one always remembers his last visit home. He confided he had lost faith, that such atrocities had left him without hope, that this earth was all there was.” Lucas saw Rosalind’s eyes widen – obviously, this familial information was news to her as well.
Lucas wasn’t quite sure what to say. He cleared his throat. “I can understand that. But I do believe that there is a higher power at work – and I do believe that good will prevail in this war. Personally, I did not lose hope and I have had experiences that make me believe there is…more.”
“Will you explain? Or is it too personal?” She asked with interest.
Lucas didn’t know where to begin, or even if he should. And yet, he counted all the people present as friends – despite intractable natures.
“When I was a child, I was sent to the nursery in punishment for a…minor infraction. I met a little girl there. She had a dreadful dream and told me that if I found myself in a fire, I had to go left. At the time, I promised I would, in order to soothe her. I had no idea that…”
Breathing deeply, he paused to gather his words. “I received these burns after being captured whilst on an assignment. I’d been held in a French chateau for a few weeks when other prisoners set fire to the place. It was the middle of the night, and four of us were locked in one of the upstairs rooms.”
There was no need to go into detail: the stench, the dark, the fear, the torture. “It was freezing cold – colder than today – but the winter had been dry, and the chateau was like tinder, fire spreading in the roof. We didn’t notice the smoke till it was curling up our throats, choking us. We crouched to the floor, to get below it, could barely see a damn thing, and crawled towards the door. Choking, we forced it open but now there was more smoke, thicker, and I could hear fire roaring in the roof. We felt our way across the floor till we came to the wall. The other men started right, obvious really as that was the way out: a door at the end led to the stairs. I…I very nearly went with them, but then, for some reason that I’ll never be able to account for, I remembered the little girl all those years ago and my promise…at the wall…left. Ridiculous that it came back to me then, really.”
All too vividly, he recalled his own hesitation.Don’t be stupid, Mainwaring, the other men had yelled through smoke-filled lungs,we came in this way.
Lucas tugged at his cravat, feeling for air. “We had no idea where the other way led but I called to them that we had to go left. They coughed in disbelief. I begged them, but…and I cannot blame them, they turned right.”
