Page 63 of The Case of the Curate

“That we know of,” Rupert reminded her. “And there’s no evidence that Carver or Elizabeth were anywhere near Chadbon Court at the time.”

“Ah! If they were about, perhaps Remington or Dr. Paxton would have seen them. I need to talk to them, don’t I? As well as Kemp…”

A rare frown was tugging at Rupert’s brow, his eyes steady on hers. “I don’t like this. You’re putting yourself in danger by asking all these questions.”

“I’m very discreet,” she assured him.

“Not to the killer. He will know, Kate. And more than anyone, he can’t afford the truth to come out.”

His seriousness unbalanced her. A shiver of fear even rippled down her spine.

Then she shook her head. “I’m quite safe. It may not be fair, but I’m not a maidservant who can be killed and bundled back to her family with no fuss and no news of it getting out. Whether servant, guest, or neighbor, the culprit must know that.”

Maybe it was the gloom and the shadows cast by the candle, but suddenly he didn’t look like her old friend at all. There was a terrible awareness in his eyes, and something very like shame.

“You’ve no idea what people are capable of,” he whispered.

He reached suddenly through the bars and seized her hand. Gasping, she tried to pull away, but he held on, an intense and dangerous stranger.

“Stop, Kate. Stop now. I’ve changed my mind. Write to my father.”

*

Salter stopped listening after a while.

He’d no idea who the gentry mort was, and although he was a trifle cheesed off that she hadn’t freed them when she so easily could have, he gathered that Mr. Grande was fond of her and didn’t want her getting into more trouble on his account. Well, the quality had their own codes of honor, and he knew from Brussels that the chaplain, regarded as an angel of mercy by so many, was actually some high-up lordling. In which case, it was probably useless to try to persuade him.

Salter didn’t mind much. He’d been in the situation before. At worst, he’d get put in the stocks for a day. Which might give him a black eye or two, but rotten vegetables—even turnips—were nothing compared to what the French threw at you, so he was quite prepared to take his punishment.

Truth be told, he was more worried about his nibs. Who the devil locked a parson up, let alone one like Grande? At any rate, Salter was aware he wasn’t at his best right now, being more than a trifle bosky.

He’d retreated to his bed mostly to give his nibs some privacy with the gentry mort. But the devil was in it that as soon as his head touched the hard pallet, even dragged into the whirling pits of drunkenness as he was, everything else in him seemed to sharpen.

The girl, whom his nibs called Kate, did not talk like a lover. Neither did he. In fact, they seemed to be talking about murder, and Salter didn’t like that at all.

Was it possible the chaplain now needed him?

No wonder he’d asked Salter about what he’d seen from that garden wall. The other trouble was, Salter had lied.

He couldn’t actually remember what he’d seen, or what he’d done. Not after throwing himself at that high wall and almost ripping his remaining arm out of its socket to haul himself up. He remembered the unlit glass room and the shadow behind the tree next to the wall, and then the air seeming to rush into his ears. After that, it was all a blank until he woke up in the disused barn half a mile away from the big house.

He suspected from his bruises that he’d fallen from the wall, though on which side of it was anyone’s guess. Since it was so important to his nibs, Salter stopped listening to the chatter and tried desperately to remember what he’d seen.

Was the shadow the girl who’d died? Or her killer? Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed a girl’s face and figure onto the shadow. But she looked too much like the alewife at the local inn. He tried to see it as a man instead and couldn’t. In fact, no matter how he tried, he didn’t seem to have seen enough to recall the person at all.

“Salter didn’t do it,” his nibs said.

What if I did?

The words smacked into him from nowhere, appalling, shocking, and not even unbelievable. He’d killed a lot of people. He’d sacked towns in wartime. He wished he couldn’t remember Badajoz… Was it really possible Mr. Grande had been banged up for something Salter had done when boozy?

Surely not. He had no reason and he certainly couldn’t remember doing it.

Then again, he couldn’t remember not doing it. From the effort of hauling himself up to the wall to his wakening with a thick, aching head in the barn, he remembered nothing at all. He had no idea how he’d got from one place to the other.

Jesus, now he’d never sleep…

But he did. Even knowing that waking up would be worse.