Page 31 of The Case of the Curate

Kate scowled. “Then, since you won’t let me tell Lord Winster, the only solution is to find out who did kill Dinah. Because otherwise, they’ll let you hang, Rupert.”

Not that she would let that happen. Winster would be informed long before such an event, but she needed to say something to shock Rupert out of his fatalistic righteousness.

He eyed her uneasily. “You shouldn’t get involved, Kate. There’s a killer in that house. Or somewhere close by.”

“I do think the house is most likely,” she said, frowning. “I had a look this afternoon around the outside wall of the courtyard garden, and it would be a difficult climb. I couldn’t do it.”

“Could I?” Rupert asked with interest.

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “But surely no one from outside would have climbed over there on the off chance of Dinah’s appearing in that precise location? Unless she disturbed a burglar who’d just climbed over? Or she’d made another assignation with someone else. Or told them about the one with you, in which case, he’d have known you were in the orangery and would likely have seen his murdering her.”

“Only I didn’t, did I?” Rupert spoke lightly, but she heard the edge of bleakness. And guilt.

“For what it’s worth, I believe it happened by the bushes and the biggest plain tree, quite in shadow. She didn’t cry out, so the killer must have silenced her somehow, possibly with a hand over her mouth, so I doubt you would have seen much, even if you’d been staring at the precise spot with your ears flapping. From the sedate way she was lying, she must have been lowered gently to the ground before the killer escaped. Dr. Paxton said her death would have been quick, and I think the murderer was both being silent and stealthy.” She caught his suddenly bleak gaze. “But was there a reason you didn’t look out there? Go out there?”

“Only that I expected her to come from inside the house, not through the garden. And I suppose I was thinking.”

“About her?” Kate asked, trying not to care.

“No. I’d already decided the best thing to do about her—providing she agreed, of course.”

“Then what on earth was distracting you?”

His lips quirked. “Oh, this and that.”

Hardly satisfactory. “You’re not helping,” she said severely. “So what was your grand plan for Dinah?”

“Marry her to Jack Irwin the coachman. He has a cottage by the carriage house, and she might still have picked up odd bits of work from the house—sewing, that sort of thing—so that she could have worked around the baby.”

Kate was impressed. “Ha! So that was why Lewis and Jack Irwin were quarreling!”

“Who is Lewis?”

“One of the footmen at the court. He was besotted with Dinah, but I don’t think he knew she was with child, so I doubt he was the father.”

“He wasn’t,” Rupert said distractedly.

Kate sat up. “Was Jack the coachman?”

“No. But he wanted a wife and he had noticed Dinah.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Kate murmured. “Was he willing to take on another man’s child?”

“He said so. I believed him.”

“Who was the real father?”

Rupert’s lips stretched. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Then how do you expect me to find out who killed her?”

“I don’t.”

“Then who else is going to get you out of this mess?” she demanded. “You’re not. Your father’s not. Who else does that leave? God?”

To her annoyance, he actually seemed to consider the last suggestion. “I doubt it. If God actually troubles himself with such trivialities—which I’m not sure I believe—it would be as a test of my worthiness. I’m not doing too well, am I?”

“No,” she said baldly. “And I think you underestimate Chadbon’s will, which is all based on the political and the greater good, not that of a promiscuous maid or a quixotic curate!”