Page 30 of The Case of the Curate

“He is the curate,” Kate said. “He’s just pretending not to be Lord Rupert, so we’re not to let on. As for springing him”—she regarded Grissy with some respect—“I never thought of it. I do need to talk to him. But maybe you’re right and we should just set him free. If we can get rid of the guard.”

“Who would surely know who you are and that you’re to blame. His Lordship wouldn’t like that, and as for Sir Gilbert—”

“Yes, well, Sir Gilbert isn’t here, but I suppose you are right. Freeing him would just cause different problems. In any case, I’m not sure he’d go. I don’t understand him anymore.”

The last sounded oddly plaintive to her own ears, which was foolish. She knew only too well how old friends grew apart as they grew up, because they changed somehow into different people. It saddened her, because she never felt she had changed.

After half an hour’s walking, the rain came on harder again, a massive deluge that seemed to dump entire oceans onto them. Grissy’s silence took on a reproachful quality that Kate ignored. Through the blinding torrent, she could just make out the magistrate’s house looming ahead, a deeper black against the misty dark sky. She could see no lights on.

Another quarter of an hour took them to the ancient gates, which, fortunately, no one had locked. Once through, Kate pulled Grissy onto the grassy verge so that their feet didn’t crunch the gravel in the short drive. At the end, she drew the maid on around the side of the house, shading the lantern with her wet cloak.

There, sure enough, toward the back of the house and down a couple of steps, was a small, narrow door, clearly designed to be insignificant. Kate halted, one hand warningly on Grissy’s arm. She peered into the darkness, listening hard, but could see no one and heard neither footsteps nor voices.

They crept closer and descended the steps, and Kate pressed her ear to the door to listen for the breathing of a guard on the other side. If he was asleep, would he hear her knock and let her in? Now that she was here, she couldn’t quite think how to persuade him that she should talk to his prisoner in the middle of the night, without the magistrate’s permission or presence.

In any case, she could hear nothing at all inside. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand to the door.

Grissy caught her by the wrist.

“Miss,” she breathed, and lifted the lantern to show Kate what she’d seen. A large key on a ring, hanging from a hook beside the door.

Seriously? Could it be that easy?

Kate reached up and took the ring off the hook. Very carefully, she fitted it to the lock and turned it. Grissy stared at her, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the shaky lantern light. Kate eased open the door and crept inside.

As she moved, she took the lantern from Grissy and, still shading it with her cloak, glanced hastily around. They were in a bare stone room with one small window high above the door. A wooden chair stood against that wall, but no guard sat in it. Against the wall to the left were the bars of a cell, the only one in the room. Beside it was another closed door that led, presumably, to the stairs up to the house that Kate had glimpsed this afternoon.

She let her cloak fall away from the lantern, while Grissy carefully closed the outer door behind them. Kate advanced on the bars to the cell. The lantern showed her two pallets in there, one on either side. One was bare. The other seemed to contain a pile of rumpled blankets.

But even as she looked, the pile moved suddenly, resolving into a man who sprang up in one fluid movement, blinking in the lantern light and staring at her.

“Kate?”

“Of course it’s me, you blithering idiot,” Kate said crossly. “You’ve caused us enough trouble and we can’t stay long, so start telling me the truth, Rupert. What the devil happened between you and Dinah Fenn?”

Rupert began to laugh.

*

Thanks to a stove at the far end of the room, which was still warm, the prison was not too cold. Grissy sat on the chair by the door, listening for sounds of any approach. Kate sat on the floor by the cell bars, and on the other side, Rupert lowered himself to sit close to her, his long legs bent at the knees on either side of his chin.

“Shouldn’t there be a guard?” she asked. “Where is he?”

“He’ll come back in the morning. I suppose there’s no point in his being here, since I can’t exactly leave.”

“They hang the key outside, and that’s probably the key to your cell right by Grissy’s head.”

“Evening, Grissy,” Rupert called cheerfully. “I thought it must be you.”

Grissy muttered something about no one else being that daft, though Kate noticed she still spared Rupert a quick smile.

“You could leave now,” she said to Rupert.

“No, I can’t.”

Kate sighed. “I knew you’d say that. But you should consider it. You could just vanish into the night and no one would ever find the mysterious curate.”

The old Rupert would at least have been tempted. But the man behind the bars didn’t even smile. “I want to keep my position here.”