Midnight Quill Trio

Chapter 2-2

“I’ll run her out of the village!”

Edward looked down at the old man. How had someone this pinched and disapproving sired a son like Toby? “How?”

“I’m Justice of the Peace here.” Triumph gleamed in Strickland’s eyes. “I’ll see her prosecuted.” He sipped the sherry. His hand trembled as he held the glass, but his high color was fading and his breathing was steadier.

“On what charge, sir?”

Strickland shrugged. “Whatever I wish.”

Edward bit his tongue. I don’t think that’s how your authority is supposed to be used.

Strickland swallowed the last of the sherry.

“More, sir?”

Strickland shook his head.

Edward took the glass and placed it on the sideboard. When he turned back, he saw the old man struggle feebly to stand. “You should be abed, sir.”

Strickland sagged back into the armchair. “I won’t have that woman in the village one more day than is necessary!” His face twisted into an expression of frustration and pain—and then, to Edward’s dismay, tears filled the old man’s eyes. “If my son were still alive, he’d help me find her.”

Perhaps. And then Toby would have taken off to London with her. He’d had a way with the ladies.

The guilt that had ridden on Edward’s shoulders for the past five months seemed to grow heavier, pushing down on him until his knees almost buckled. He looked away. A gray sky and a skeletal oak tree were visible through the window.

The window blurred and tilted sideways as memory swamped him. For a second he wasn’t standing in a dark-paneled study; he was lying dazed on a muddy field in Belgium. Ned? Toby appeared above him, frantic. Ned! Get up! Get— Blood sprayed hot across his face.

The muscles in Edward’s belly, in his chest, in his throat, clenched at the memory. He smelled Toby’s blood in the study, tasted it on his tongue—

Edward blinked and shook his head. The window straightened and came back into focus. The smell of blood evaporated. He cleared his throat and looked down at Strickland.

The old man bowed his head. “Why did he have to die?” The words were quiet, barely audible—and heartbroken. A tear leaked down Strickland’s pale, wrinkled cheek.

Edward fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and silently held it out.

The old man wiped his eyes. “Why did he have to die?” he whispered again. “My only child.”

He died trying to save me. The guilt had its arms around him now, like a gnarled hag riding on his back, hugging so tightly he could scarcely breathe. Edward cleared his throat again. “I’ll find Chérie for you.”

Strickland blinked and raised his head, his eyes still bright with tears. “What?”

“I’ll find Chérie,” Edward said more loudly, trying to ignore the sinking sensation in his chest.

“You will?” Strickland stared up at him, his expression dumbfounded, and then he lowered the handkerchief.

“Yes. I give you my word of honor.”

“Mr. Kane . . .” A smile creased the old man’s face and for the merest fraction of a second Edward saw a likeness to Toby. Strickland reached out and clasped one of Edward’s hands with both of his. His fingers were cold, dry, shaking faintly. “Thank you, Mr. Kane. Thank you.”

The man’s tremulous gratitude was embarrassing. Edward cleared his throat again. “You’re welcome, sir.” He disengaged his hand and rang the bell, and stood back and watched the butler and Strickland’s manservant help the old man from the room.

In the gloomy silence of the empty study, his own words echoed in his ears: I’ll find Chérie.

Edward grimaced. i***t. Toby wouldn’t have wanted him to help Strickland in this—running a woman out of the village that was her home. Toby had had none of his father’s grim, narrow morality; if Toby had set out to find Chérie, it would have been to toast her health and her continued confessions—and charm his way into her bed.

Edward sighed, and walked across to the window. The view was desolate: heavy sky, dripping trees, sodden driveway.

But was Chérie a woman? For all anyone knew, the Confessions were written by a man.

Edward grunted a laugh. He turned away from the window. He’d given his word of honor to find Chérie, and he’d do just that: find the author of the Confessions and warn her—or him—to get out of Soddy Morton.

And then he’d get the hell out of here himself.

“Mr. Kane?”

Edward looked up from his perusal of Chérie’s confession. Miss Chapple stood in the doorway to the study, dressed in a gray gown that was even drabber than the one she’d worn last night. “Griggs says that my uncle has had a turn.”

“Yes.” He stood and thrust the damp pages of the confession into his pocket. “He had a little difficulty breathing. But don’t worry, Miss Chapple. I’m sure he’ll be fine once he’s rested.”

Her gaze focused on the letters on the desk, amid their little puddle of water. A faint frown furrowed her brow. “What are those?”

“Soddy Morton’s mail. The bridge washed away last night.”

She stepped into the room. “Mail to Soddy Morton, or from?”

“From,” Edward said.

“Oh!” She advanced towards the desk with quick steps. “I sent a letter . . .”

“Then by all means, take it.” He gestured at the pile. “You’ll have to rewrite it, I’m afraid.”

Miss Chapple began to go through the waterlogged letters, peeling them apart.

“I understand the innkeeper is your postmaster?”

She nodded.

“Then I shall return these to him.” And ask him about the letter to the London publisher. A spark of hope flickered in his breast. Chérie might take no more than an hour to find. He could be on his way back to London by noon. “What’s his name?”

“Potts,” Miss Chapple said. “Is this all of them?” She had reached the bottom of the pile. The final letter was little more than ink-smeared pulp.

Edward shrugged. “I believe so.”

Miss Chapple frowned. She began to go through the letters again.

“Your letter’s missing?”

“Missing? Oh, no! It’s just . . . I thought there would have been more mail than this.”

“Uh . . . no,” Edward said, aware of the confession in his pocket. “That’s all of them.” Except one.

Miss Chapple extracted a letter from the pile. She didn’t look pleased. The furrow between her eyebrows was deeper. “Here’s mine.” She held it up. The letter had lost its wafer. The page hung open, limp and dripping, the ink smeared in long, illegible trails. “Thank you,” she said, and left the study, still frowning.

Mattie sat hunched over the little mahogany escritoire in her bedchamber, her lower lip caught between her teeth, writing as fast as she could. The quill scratched busily over the paper. Taking me by the hand he led me outside and coaxed me into the brook. We sported in the water for some time, until Lord S.’s passion was manifestly aroused again.

Two more pages, and then the final sentence: And on that note, dear readers, I shall end this latest confession from my pen.

Chérie.

Mattie blew out a breath. Done. She laid down the quill and flexed her cramped fingers. Now all that remained was a letter to Anne, in which to hide the confession. And this time, she’d seal it with wax. Lots of wax.

Mattie frowned while she gathered the pages together and folded them. What had happened to the confession she’d sent yesterday?

The thought of someone finding it—or worse, of Uncle Arthur discovering her secret—was enough to make her heart clench in her chest. The roof over her head, the clothes she wore, the food she ate, were all at Uncle Arthur’s generosity. A cold generosity, perhaps, without the gift of love to leaven it, but generosity nonetheless; to repay him with distress of any kind would be unspeakable.

“He will never know,” Mattie told herself firmly as she sealed the letter with a large dollop of wax. The missing confession was lost in the creek. Washed away, and long since disintegrated. She had nothing to worry about. In a month’s time she’d have enough money to leave Creed Hall without causing Uncle Arthur any distress at all.

Strickland kept no riding horses in the stables, and taking the curricle into Soddy Morton wasn’t an option unless Edward wished to detour sixteen miles via Gripton, which he didn’t. He debated riding one of his carriage horses, then decided to walk. Carriage horses made poor riding mounts.

His boots were heavy with mud by the time he reached the village, but the exercise had eased the ache in his thigh. He wasn’t limping as he strode down the High Street, past cottages built of the same dark gray limestone as Creed Hall, a smoke-stained forge, and a whipping block and stocks across from the market cross.

Soddy Morton wasn’t large. It boasted only one inn, a plaster and timber building with low eaves and a slate roof. Edward used the boot scraper at the door and went inside.

The innkeeper was in the taproom, a stout man with the ruddy complexion of a drinker. He was leaning on the counter, a tankard of ale in his fist, conversing with his sole customer—a blacksmith, by his leather apron and burn-flecked forearms.

Both men turned to look at Edward when he entered. He saw shock flicker across the innkeeper’s face—the widening of his eyes, the startled blink—as the man took in the scars.

“Mr. Potts? My name is Kane. I’m staying at Creed Hall.”

The innkeeper put down his tankard and straightened. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I understand you’re Soddy Morton’s postmaster.” Edward laid the soggy bundle of letters on the counter. “This is this morning’s mail. It was retrieved from the creek on Sir Arthur Strickland’s property.”

The innkeeper lost his smile. He reached for the letters and swiftly counted them. “One’s missing,” he said, lifting his head.

Edward blinked. There were two letters missing—the one Miss Chapple had taken, and the confession from Chérie, now resting snugly in his breast pocket. “One?”

The innkeeper nodded. “Fifteen letters, there was.” He counted them again. “Now there’s only fourteen.” He scowled at Edward, as if the scars on his face branded him for a criminal.

“Miss Chapple has taken a letter.”

The man grunted. His scowl faded slightly.

“Are you certain there were fifteen?”

“Aye,” the innkeeper said. “Wrote it in the ledger, I did. Fifteen.”

Edward touched his breast pocket, feeling the thick wedge of damp paper. It didn’t make sense, unless . . .

He examined the letters lying on the counter. Nine were unsealed. Had Chérie’s confession been concealed inside one of them?

Edward extracted the damp confession from his pocket. It was folded to show only the address. “Do you recognize this?” he said, laying it on the counter. “It was, er . . . also found on Sir Arthur’s property.”

The innkeeper’s gaze fastened on the stumps of Edward’s missing fingers.

“The address, as you see, is in London.”

The innkeeper stopped staring at Edward’s hand. He peered at the address. “Lunnon?” He shook his head. “Only two letters to Lunnon yesterday. That weren’t one of ’em.”

“Are you certain?”

“I allus write in the corner, see?” The innkeeper pointed at the letters Edward had returned.

Edward frowned and reexamined Chérie’s letter. The man was correct; there was nothing to show whether the postage had been paid or not. How did I miss that? “Do you perhaps recognize the handwriting?”

The innkeeper shook his head. “All smeared like that? Could be anyone’s.”

Edward uttered a silent curse. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. “Do you think it could have been inside one of those?” He indicated the wet letters lying on the counter.

The innkeeper shrugged. “No way of knowing.”

“Except asking the senders.”

The innkeeper returned his stare, his expression stolid.

“I appreciate that you’re a busy man, Mr. Potts. I would be happy to undertake that task for you.”

The innkeeper’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You would?”

No. But I’ve given my word of honor, fool that I am. “I have time on my hands.”

The innkeeper’s gaze went to Edward’s butchered fingers again.

Edward repressed the urge to hide his hands in his pockets. Instead, he held them where the innkeeper could see them clearly. “Waterloo.”

“You fought at Waterloo?” A note of respect crept into the man’s voice.

No, I lay all day in the mud, while men died around me. “Yes,” Edward forced himself to say. “Royal Horse Guards.”

“Mr. Tobias’s regiment.” The innkeeper said, straightening. Halfway down the counter, the blacksmith turned his head and stared at Edward.

“Yes.”

“We were right sorry to hear about Mr. Tobias. He were very well liked in these parts, he were.”

“Liked to have a good laugh, Mr. Tobias did,” the blacksmith said, raising his tankard in a toast. “God rest his soul.”

“Yes,” Edward said. “He did like to laugh.” He looked down at the letters, feeling the weight of guilt on his shoulders. “I’ll just make a note of the senders, Mr. Potts. If I may?”

He waited while the man fetched paper and ink and a quill, and then quickly jotted down the names of the people who’d sent the opened letters. The writing was smudged beyond legibility in two cases, but the innkeeper was certain of the names. “Mr. Humphries, the curate,” he said. “And Widow Weeks. She writes to her daughter every week.”