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“Yes, of course I was. But I have no idea how I can help you.” Gracefully she dismounted, without asking his help and before he could give it. She held the reins loosely, all but leaving the horse to follow her of itself. “I know nothing about it, except what Mr. Taunton has told me, which was simply that poor Prudence had met with a sudden and fearful death.” She looked at him with soft innocent eyes.
“She was murdered,” he replied, his words violent, his voice gentle.
“Oh.” She paled visibly, but whether it was the news or his manner of delivering it, he could not tell. “How dreadful! I am sorry. I didn’t realize …” She looked at him with puckered brows. “Mr. Taunton said that hospitals were not good places at all, but he did not say more than that. I had no idea they were so dangerous. Illness, of course I understand. One expects it. But not murder.”
“The place of it may have been coincidental, Miss Cuthbertson. People are murdered in houses also; we do not say that houses are therefore dangerous places.”
An orange-and-black butterfly flew erratically between them and disappeared.
“I don’t understand….” And her expression made it quite obvious that she did not.
“Did you know Miss Barrymore well?”
She began to walk very slowly back toward the farm buildings. There was room on the hard track for him to walk beside her, the horse trailing behind, head low.
“I used to,” she replied thoughtfully. “When we were much younger, growing up. Since she went to the Crimea I don’t think any of us would say we knew her anymore. She changed, you see.” She looked around at him to make sure he understood.
“I imagine it is an experience which would change anyone,” he agreed. “How could one see the devastation and the suffering without being altered by it?”
“I suppose not,” she agreed, glancing behind her to make sure the horse was still following obediently. “But it made her very different. She was always … if I say headstrong, please do not think I wish to speak ill of her, it is simply that she had such fierce desires and intentions.” She paused for a moment, ordering her thoughts. “Her dreams were different from other people’s. But after she came home from Scutari she was …” She frowned, searching for the word. “Harder—harder inside.” Then she glanced up at Monk with a brilliant smile. “I’m sorry. Does that sound very unkind? I did not mean to be.”
Monk looked at the warm brown eyes and the delicate cheeks and thought that was exactly what she meant to be, but the last thing she wished anyone to think of her. He felt part of himself respond to her and he hated his own gullibility. She reminded him of Hermione, and God knew how many other women in the past, whose total femininity had appealed to him and deluded him. Why had he been such a fool? He despised fools.
There was a large part of him which was skeptical, even cynical. If Mrs. Barrymore were right, then this charming woman with her soft eyes and smiling mouth had wanted Geoffrey Taunton for herself for a long time, and must have bitterly resented his devotion to Prudence. How old had Prudence been? Callandra had said something about late twenties. Geoffrey Taunton was certainly that and more. Was Nanette Cuthbertson contemporary, or only a little younger? If so, then she was old for marriage, time was running out for her. She would soon be considered an old maid, if not already, and definitely old for bearing her first child. Might she feel more than jealousy, a sense of desperation, panic as the years passed and still Geoffrey Taunton waited for Prudence and she refused him for her career?
“Did you not,” he said noncommittally. “I daresay it is true, and I am asking for truth, hard or not. A polite lie will serve no good now; in fact, it will obscure facts we need to know.” His voice had been cold, but she saw justification in it. She kept the horse close behind her with a heavy pressure on the reins.
“Thank you, Mr. Monk, you set my mind at rest. It is unpleasant to speak ill of people, even slightly.”
“I find many people enjoy it,” he said with a slow smile. “In fact, it is one of their greatest pleasures, particularly if they can feel superior at the time.”
She was taken aback. It was not the sort of thing one acknowledged. “Er—do you think so?”
He had nearly spoiled his own case. “Some people,” he said, knocking the head off a long stalk of wheat that had grown across the path. “But I regret I have to ask you to tell me something more of Prudence Barrymore, even if it is distasteful to you, because I do not know who else to ask, who will be frank. Eulogies are no help to me.”
This time she kept her eyes straight ahead. They were almost to the farm gate and he opened it for her, waited while the horse followed her through, then went through himself and closed it carefully. An elderly man in a faded smock and trousers tied around the ankles with string smiled shyly, then took the animal. Nanette thanked him and led Monk across the yard toward the kitchen garden, and he opened the door of the farmhouse. It was not into the kitchen as he had expected, but a side entrance to a wide hallway.
“May I offer you some refreshment, Mr. Monk?” Nanette said with a smile. She was of more than average height and slender, a tiny waist and slight bosom. She moved with skill to maneuver the skirts of her riding habit so they seemed part of her and not an encumbrance, as they were to some women.
“Thank you,” he accepted. He did not know if he could learn anything useful from her, but he might not have another opportunity. He should use this one.
She laid her hat and crop on the hall table, then rang for a maid, requested tea, and conducted him to a pretty sitting room full of flowered chintz. They made trivial conversation till the tea was brought and they were alone again and could remain uninterrupted.
“You wish to know about poor Prudence,” she said immediately, passing him his cup.
“If you please.” He accepted it.
She met his eyes. “Please understand that I am speaking so frankly only because I am aware that kindness is of no use in finding out who killed her, poor soul.”
“I have asked you to be frank, Miss Cuthbertson,” he encouraged her.
She settled back in her chair and began to speak, her gaze unflinching.
“I have known Prudence since we were both girls. She always had a curiosity much greater than most people’s, and a dedication to learn all she could. Her mother, who is a dear creature, most sensible, tried to dissuade her, but to no avail. Have you met her sister, Faith?”
“No.”
“A very nice person,” she said with approval. “She married and went to live in York. But Prudence was always her father’s favorite, and I regret the necessity to say so, but I think he indulged her when it might have been in her greater interest to have exercised a little more discipline.” She shrugged, looking at Monk with a smile. “Anyway, the result was that when we here in England began to learn a little of how serious the war in the Crimea had become, Prudence decided to go out there and nurse our soldiers, and nothing on earth would deter her.”
