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She would tell Lady Charlotte, Jenna decided-but not until after she'd called upon the Widow Owens and determined whether their conjecture about her accident had some validity or were as much a grief-stricken woman's delusion as that lady's accusations of her.
Whether by chance, or Lady Charlotte's design in the wake of their talk, the four of them took a single carriage home. Colonel Vernier walked her into the foyer, not releasing her arm until Manson took her cloak. Then, after gazing at her a long moment, he kissed just her fingertips.
Thoughtfully Jenna watched him depart. From his expression, she guessed he'd wanted to kiss more than her hand, but had not dared. Curious how she might have reacted to that, she was a bit sorry he'd refrained.
Nelthorpe would not have hesitated.
She sighed as she mounted the stairs to her room. Surely she didn't really prefer the behavior of a presumptuous rogue like Anthony Nelthorpe to that of a true gentleman like Colonel Madison Vernier.
Near noon the next day, Tony returned to Fairchild House. Knowing Jenna would not receive him, he demanded instead to speak with Sancha.
Though Manson shook his head over Nelthorpe's request, he did send for the maid. A few moments later, Sancha met him in the smallest of the downstairs parlors-a testament, Tony thought with grim humor, to how his worth had fallen in the eyes of the butler. Still, the pose of discarded swain, which was only too close to the truth, would serve them well as a cover for his snooping.
"I am happy, my lord, that you come. I feared you would not, now that my lady..."
"Has dismissed me?" he said bluntly. "I suppose she had cause, especially after-well, enough said.
Whether or not she receives me, we must still find out what happened that morning in the park. Were you able to discover the groom's direction?"
"He went to his sister's house, Minter Cottage on the Leatherhead Road near Woodcote. Southwest of the city."
Less than a day's ride. Good, he would head there tomorrow.
"Excellent work! I shall visit there directly." He paused at the door. "Thank you, Sancha. I hope your mistress appreciates you."
She looked back unsmiling, sympathy on her face. "I hope my lady appreciates you."
*CHAPTER NINETEEN*
In late afternoon the next day, Tony rode into the small village of Woodcote, praising his Maker that the former groom's sister had settled near a village off the main road and not in one down some farm track he would have had great difficulty finding in the fading dusk. From a small inn just ahead, a welcome blaze of light offered the tantalizing promise of a hot meal and a full tankard.
The modest hostelry didn't cater to the gentry traveling on the main road to Guildford, so in the nondescript dark clothes into which he'd changed for the journey, Tony looked little different from the clerks and merchants seated in the busy taproom. As an outsider, he would immediately become the focus of all eyes, so, wishing neither to attract undue attention nor excite suspicion by appearing to want to avoid it, he took a seat and waved to the landlord, who hurried over to serve him.
By the time he'd bespoken a chamber for the night and partaken of an excellent roast chicken, he'd confided to his friendly fellow-diners that Anthony Hunsdon, late of Wellington's forces, was traveling to his new position as estate agent for an Army toff under whom he'd served in Belgium. While en route, he'd promised to deliver a message to a comrade's sister who lived near Woodcote.
Accepting the offer from a clerk and a merchant to join them for a round of cards, as he proceeded to lose the first hand, Tony asked if either of them knew the whereabouts of Mrs. Staines of Minter Cottage. After a brief consultation, his opponents informed him that the former housekeeper lived with her unmarried daughter about a mile south of the village, just off the Leatherneck Road.
"Have you seen her brother about?" Tony asked casually. "I understand he was paying her a visit."
"So he was, and used to come in here to heft a pint right regular. Paid in good coin, too," the merchant said.
Working to keep his voice carefully even, Tony said, "You haven't seen him recently?"
The cardplayers exchanged a look that made Tony straighten in his chair. "Not recently," the clerk said at last. "Sorry if he be a friend of yourn, but we buried ol' Nick two weeks ago. Shot through the heart, he was."
As if a chill breeze had suddenly blown into the room, Tony felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle.
"Hunter's stray bullet, the magistrate decided," the merchant added, "though we didn't never find anyone what claimed to be shooting near there that day."
Hunting accidents were not that uncommon-even fatal ones. But the suspicion driving him could only be heightened at discovering that the principal witness to the events surrounding Jenna's accident was now conveniently dead. Killed, it appeared, by a stray bullet-just as Jenna might have been at Richmond Hill, had he not thrown her to the ground.
Anxious as Tony was to learn more, there was no point alarming Mrs. Staines by appearing on her doorstep well after dark. But first thing tomorrow, he would pay a condolence call on the groom's sister.
Soon after breaking his fast the next morning, Tony rode south on the Leatherneck Road, soon coming upon a neat thatch-roofed cottage. After tethering his mount, Tony limped to the front door, anticipation speeding his heart.
An older woman in the dark gown of a housekeeper, her graying hair topped by a white lace cap, answered his knock. "Good morning, ma'am," he said, doffing his cap. "You are Mrs. Staines?"
After she nodded, her pale blue eyes watching him warily, he continued, "Anthony Hunsdon, ma'am.
So sorry to hear of your loss. My army mate's sister Maggy, cook at Fairchild House in London where your brother used to work, was concerned about him after the.. .trouble there. When she heard I was riding south to take up new employment, she asked if I would check about him on my way through. She'll be devastated to hear of his accident."
Was it only acute suspicion that made him think she flinched, her pale face growing paler still when he said he came from London?
"Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Hunsdon."
"A hunting accident, it seems? I don't wish to pry, but I'm sure Maggy would want to know as much about what happened to Nick as I can glean. She had a great... fondness for him," he added, shamelessly embroidering on his story.
"My Nick, he was quite a devil with the ladies," she began and then halted, a spasm of some strong emotion wiping the fondness from her face.
Grief? Or something else?
She certainly appeared nervous, though that might stem from being confronted on her doorstep by a strange man. Finally, after a long hesitation, she waved toward the interior of the cottage. "Would...would you like a glass of cider before you continue your journey?"
Tony tried to tamp down a thrill of exultation. After all, he'd learned exactly nothing yet that had not already been conveyed to him by the tavern patrons.
"That would be most kind, ma'am," he said, following her into the cottage.
"Maud," she called to a tall, thin girl tending the hearth, "pour up some cider for the gentleman and fetch some apples from the storehouse, please."
The girl dutifully brought him a brimming mug and plodded out. As soon as the door closed, Mrs.
Staines looked back at him, distress evident in her face.
"Be ye a Bow Street man?"
Surprise held him speechless for a moment. "No indeed! Why would you think so?"
"Well, you said there'd been some 'trouble' in London and my Nick, he never said nothing of trouble."
"How did he explain his presence here?"
"He told me his old master had died and the new one brung in his own man. Said he'd paid Nick off right handsome, so he meant to take some time to visit here before he looked for another situation. But..
.but he never looked for nothing, and he acted so strangelike, keeping to himself during the day, going down to drink every night at the Ox and Cock."
"Perhaps he was despondent at losing his position."
Twisting her apron in her hands, Mrs. Staines shook her head. "Mebbe. Then after he was shot-he didn't die right off, you know-he rambled in his head some. Kept saying as how he was sorry, that he wished he'd never listened to that lady, sweet as she seemed. At first I thought he meant the squire's wife here, who told him he ought to take that job in London. But after he died, when I was going through his things to find a clean shirt to bury him in, I found-" she lowered her voice to a whisper "-a great lot of money."
Tony's pulse jumped, but he kept his voice even. "His severance pay, don't you think?"
"Seemed far too much for that. How did he come to have such a sum? Sir, if you know that my brother committed some...crime, please tell me, and I'll turn the money over to the constable! I don't want no lord out of London coming down here, seizing my house and throwing my poor girl and me onto the street!"
A sweet lady. A great deal of money. Though his nerves hummed with excitement and alarm, Tony made himself concentrate on the harried face of the woman before him.
"Mrs. Staines, I'm sure you have nothing to fear. The Fairchilds are generous to their staff-" Garrett would have been, anyway "-so I'm certain the money you found represents wages honestly earned. As for his regrets about a lady, you should know that Maggy, whom your brother fancied, is about to marry.
