Page 78 of The Case of the Curate

“He did,” Bancroft said with a sigh. “There was a maid a few years ago, dismissed because of young Gerald’s philandering. We spirited her away, Mrs. Thornfield and I, because the girl was with child. She was given money for a fresh start in the north. Another girl lost her position in London, so I heard, but I was not involved. Gerald was married shortly after that. He is not a bad man either. Just…ill-disciplined, entitled, thoughtless.”

“Why?” Rupert asked. He’d been pretty ill-disciplined himself, though bothering his mother’s maids had never been one of his vices. No matter how pretty they were, it had always seemed vaguely distasteful. A willing girl was a joyous thing. One who was afraid to say no was quite another.

“Why was he so thoughtless and selfish? I suspect because his father—both his parents, in fact—were too busy with their important lives to educate him.”

Rupert said bluntly, “Are you sure it was the son and not Lord Chadbon, who seduced the maids?”

The vicar blinked. “Fairly sure. Such things never happened when His Lordship was young, nor after young Chadbon was married and moved away. What has this to do with Dinah Fenn’s death?”

“I’m not sure. Sir, did you see the dismissed maids actually leave?”

Bancroft’s jaw dropped. “The first girl, yes,” he said faintly. “She stayed here overnight in our care before we put her on the stagecoach to York. The woman who met her there took her in as her widowed niece and wrote to me for a couple of years after. Both mother and child were doing well, the last I heard. She was taking in sewing to make a little money. But Grande, surely you don’t think there is some connection between these cases and Dinah’s death?”

“Just the covering up. Tell me about the butler, Kemp. Exactly how devoted is he?”

“I believe the Chadbon family is his life. He lost the chance of marriage and his own family in his youth and thereafter seemed to live through his master. He is strict but basically kind.”

“Is he…balanced, do you think, in his devotion?”

Bancroft looked startled again. “Absolutely sane, I would say.”

“Do you know of anyone who isn’t? Anywhere in our parish?” Rupert already knew Bancroft would deny it, and he did.

“Not many people are mad enough to kill without reason,” he added gently.

Rupert doubted there was no reason, though it might well not be one he or Bancroft would recognize. It had to be a strong reason, too.

Politics.

Everyone at Chadbon Court was at the mercy of politics. Political ambition, political discretion, political maneuvering. Even the servants were ruled by it, though they might not be aware of the fact.

Who would benefit politically from Dinah’s death? Surely no one. A mere maid, an unwed mother-to-be. Her death in such a way threatened Chadbon more than it benefited him. Even his efforts to cover it up were risky.

Dear God. Was she a pawn, a throwaway piece in someone’s efforts to discredit Chadbon?

Who would do such a thing? Who were his political enemies?

Sir Colin Nye, the Tory they were wooing to support this bill. Was he there under pretense of listening? Just to damage Chadbon and his bill beyond repair?

Though the bill wasn’t his—it was the idea of Kate’s husband, Ambrose, apparently. Chadbon was giving it his clear support. And if it passed, it would be a considerable victory that might well benefit the Whigs at the next election and provide Chadbon with a prominent position in government.

Who would resent that most? Otteridge, probably, who had been prominent in the party for so long…

And both Nye and Otteridge had been out of sight when Dinah was killed. Otteridge was close by when Kate was shot at.

Mere speculation, Rupe, he told himself severely. Besides, who the devil would take a life, commit murder, just to discredit a political enemy, or to remove an obstacle to preferment? Only someone unhinged.

Which returned him again to the madman theory.

But it was such a very narrow, closed-in life they all led—or so it seemed to Rupert. Chadbon and his desperate efforts to deal secretly with Dinah’s murder were proof of that. What if one of his guests was both more and less than they seemed? A public face and a private one must come naturally to such people.

Otteridge, Nye, the young and ambitious Newman with the wandering eyes.

Still, something niggled at him. Some vague, distant memory of his father’s conversation years ago… Had Sir Colin Nye not been one of Winster’s clients in the Commons? And there was something to do with Nye’s wife dying…or perhaps his betrothed?

All Chadbon’s guests had lives he knew nothing about. Perhaps Kate knew more. He just hoped she wasn’t asking prying questions of the wrong person—at least when Rupert wasn’t there to protect her.

“I’ve been invited to dinner at Chadbon Court again tonight,” Rupert remarked. “Still making up the male numbers.”