Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark (22 page)

“True. Where did Spottiswode reside?” she asked.

Darkefell didn’t know, but after some discussion, he said if she was really set on investigating further, he could find out. Just minutes later they were let into a dark, tiny room by his landlady. The slovenly but sober woman admitted she never thought Spottiswode, after drinking as much as he had in the last year, would rouse himself to do anything so vigorous as murder. And no, she said, in answer to Anne’s question, she had never seen the man with Cecilia Wainwright. Yes, she said to the marquess, his drinking had been markedly worse in the last year.

Her thick Yorkshire accent translated by Darkefell, the woman claimed that a year and a half ago Spottiswode, though a heavy drinker, had been stable enough to hold a job as a carrier for the seed merchant. What had spurred his rapid descent into abject dissolution—not her word, but Darkefell’s translation—she could not say, but in the last year he had lost his job, his horse, and most of his physical capabilities. So sodden with drink was he, that by sundown most days, he was incapacitated.

Anne advanced reluctantly into the room as the landlady rushed ahead to open the shade to allow in what light managed to filter down the alleyway upon which the room was situated. It smelled dreadful, not much better than the cell which was William Spottiswode’s new residence. A few ragged pieces of heavily soiled clothing littered the floor, but other than a chair, a broken bedstead, and a decrepit wardrobe with no doors, the rest of the decoration consisted of empty bottles. Bottles littered every surface and lay drunkenly about the floor like soldiers on leave, some smashed.

“This one has a label,” Anne said, holding one up to the stream of light, “but it has been torn off. There are remnants, though—the handwriting is rather good, what’s left. It looks like it’s in Italian.”

“You read Italian?” Darkefell asked.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Anne replied with a half-smile and a glance at him.

“Far too good a bottle for a man such as Spottiswode,” Darkefell said and passed the empty under his nose. “A decent red wine, certainly Italian, perhaps from Valpolicella.”

“Where would a man like he get a bottle of Italian wine?”

“From someone who didn’t know what he was giving up, I would say. Or he stole it.”

Anne shook her head. They looked around some more, but there was no clue as to the man’s doings in the past year, other than the volume of bottles. The landlady was just waiting for permission before she sold the bottles to pay up Spottiswode’s overdue rent.

They exited together, and Anne took in a deep breath of the fresh air then said, “Darkefell, I have a couple of errands to run. Be a good fellow, and find out for me where Madam Holderness’s dressmaking shop is?”

“I happen to know without going looking,” he said. When she looked askance at him, he said, “I do have a mother, you know, who uses Mrs. Holderness’s services when she cannot get to London or even Leeds.”

She wanted to get rid of him for a while so she could ask some questions, but he would not leave her side. All right, she thought—perhaps he had some answers. “Darkefell, from where did you get that ridiculous wolf costume? I cannot for the life of me picture you, by candlelight, sewing up a fur robe into a wolf costume and cleverly crafting the gloves into paws.”

“Ah, but I am very domestic, my lady,” he said with a wicked grin. “Actually,” he said, growing serious again, “you had some of it right last night. Jamey and one of the other grooms were using it to torment the young women of the household. I took it from him when I figured it out.”

“Where did
he
get it?”

“He said he made it. I didn’t believe him, but he wouldn’t say another word.” The marquess shrugged. “I couldn’t prove he didn’t. I decided, when Miss Allengate was murdered and I didn’t know who had done it, to use the costume to distract people while I investigated. The fear of attack by a werewolf would, I hoped, keep other young women indoors. Despite Cecilia Wainwright’s death, I have been otherwise successful.” He gave her an expressive look. “Although nothing, so far, has managed to keep you indoors at night.”

“But I do not believe in werewolves, my lord. Or perhaps my nighttime perambulations have to do with the salubrious Yorkshire climate. This means, of course, that James and his friend, and whomever they told, know you have been roaming as a werewolf.”

He looked thoughtful. “I didn’t tell them so, but they could know, yes. Are you implying that Jamey or his friend—though the other young fellow, Jamey’s confederate, is a groom who accompanied my steward on estate business to London a month or so ago and is still there—could be guilty and pinned the murder on me by leaving the tuft of fur in place?”

“Sounds ridiculously sophisticated for Jamey, doesn’t it?” Anne said.

“Yes; however, whom may he have told?”

“Hmm. Darkefell, I have two more tasks in this village. I don’t require your agreement and will not brook interference.”

He eyed her. “I
could
carry you away bodily,” he said, “and no one in the village would stop me.” His dark eyes were intent, at odds with the brilliance of the day.

“Why do you say things to try to imply that you’re a dangerous fellow?”

“Why do you insist on thinking I’m not?”

She ignored his tone and the way it sent a chill down her back. “I’m going to Madam Holderness’s shop to find out the truth of Bess Parker’s trouble,” she said, not relating what she had heard of Lily Jenkins and her willingness to “fool” someone as simple as Fanny Allengate was rumored to be, “and then I’m going to visit Mr. Richard Allengate. I feel we have not begun to look into Fanny Allengate’s death, and I’m curious.”

“Then I’ll be going with you, my lady. I’ll not have you wandering the streets of Hornethwaite, upsetting the locals, without at least observing.”

She sighed heavily. He was a nuisance, but from experience, she knew there was no point in arguing with him.

The sad history of Fanny Allengate was among the things neither the marquess nor the magistrate had thought to consider, since the connection with Cecilia Wainwright’s death, the only tragedy of interest at that moment, was seemingly nonexistent. But Anne could not get over the idea that the deaths of Tilly Landers, Fanny Allengate, and Cecilia Wainwright were connected. So she and Darkefell paid a visit to Richard Allengate’s home—with his permission and using his key—and examined Fanny’s journal, the source of much information regarding her last days.

Darkefell confessed that he had heard the gist of the entries from Richard himself when the fellow accused him of dallying with Fanny, and maintained that they were pure flights of fancy on the girl’s part. The journal—a birthday gift from Richard, who had it made for her—was a blank book bound in kid leather, her full name engraved on the cover in gold. Anne, sitting in Fanny’s girlish bedchamber, skimmed while Darkefell paced; there were sketches, poems, and entries, some dated, some not. At first they were vague and sweet, the story of a young girl falling in love for the very first time
after
a disastrous engagement to Mr. Jenkins, a connection that she deeply felt was a mistake. She related her emotions in pretty phrases and tender sentiments, and there was no hint at first of anything beyond admiration for a certain gentleman, and trembling hope. She never said a name but said she “saw her love from afar,” and they exchanged few words.

Then there was a change. The last few entries, though in the same neat copperplate handwriting, were specific and graphic; she named the marquess, said what they did together, and Anne was intrigued—and a little shocked—by the language employed. Mr. Allengate returned home from his law office briefly while Anne and the marquess were still there. He was discomfited by his sister’s words, but equally so by the marquess’s denials, confused by whom or what to believe.

From Richard she gained a picture of the young lady that did not fit with the unseemly descriptions of her rapturous reaction to the marquess’s attentions in the last few journal entries. Nowhere else in the seven months of journal entries, that Anne could see after the quick scan, did she employ such colorful and uncouth expressions.

It was puzzling. One thing drew her attention, though; it appeared to Anne that one or a couple of pages may have been cut out of the journal. What was on those missing pages? It was impossible to judge if there were days, weeks, or months missing.

Together and with Allengate’s permission, Anne and the marquess looked over the solicitor’s modest home. He was a neat gentleman of regular habits: work every weekday and Saturday morning, church attendance on Sundays, whist Monday evenings with three other gentlemen, and a weekly courtesy visit to an elderly aunt every Saturday afternoon, taken up in place of Fanny’s faithful visits after that young woman’s untimely death. Nothing in the house gave them any clues to solve the mystery.

“What do you make of Miss Allengate’s journals?” Anne said with a frown as they strolled together up the high street.

“I’m appalled,” the marquess said grimly, “that she lied so viciously about her imaginary meetings with me.”

“Really, Darkefell, can you see nothing beyond that?” Anne said, impatient with his lack of astuteness.

He stiffly replied that if he was being dull, then she ought to enlighten him, so she did as they strolled and had the satisfaction of having him agree with her conclusions. Anne was convinced that someone—she had a suspicion who, but no proof—ripped out some entries and wrote in the last few.

“I wish we could confront those I suspect with our deductions,” Anne said wistfully.

“Why don’t we?” Darkefell asked, his eyes glittering. “I would give much to confront certain people with our surmises. Let’s do it tonight. We’ll have a gathering and force someone’s hand.”

“You, my lord, have the soul of a gamester.”

“Agreed. And you, my lady, have the devious mind of a solicitor. We make a fine pair, representing both ends of the moral spectrum. Then it’s agreed. No one will refuse an invitation from me—they have too much to lose.”

The second item of interest was discovered at the shop of Mrs. Holderness, the seamstress. Anne warned the marquess to enter the shop with her but not to interfere, no matter what the seamstress said.

“I would not dream of interfering in any of your plans, Lady Anne.”

The shop was near the top of the high street, a superior address with a superior shop owner. Mrs. Holderness was an older woman, spare and bony, with blue veins close to the surface on her neck and hands. She had a way of holding her head high, which meant she must quite literally look down her prominent nose at anyone with whom she spoke, but whether it was hauteur or bad vision was not clear.

She welcomed the marquess, who introduced Anne as they had agreed, using her full name and antecedents. Lady Anne Addison of Kent, daughter of the Earl of Harecross, and good friend of the new Lady John Bestwick, he said. Anne lounged around the showroom with a bored expression, lifting pieces of fabric and dropping them with a sniff of disgust.

Mrs. Holderness became more and more agitated. “May I help you with anything at all, my lady?” she said in painfully strangled accents, badly copied from upper-crust clients, as she clasped her bony hands together and followed Anne about the shop.

“Oh, no, I doubt if I would buy anything
here,
” Anne said, careful to place the stress on the most insulting word. “Although one of my favorite bonnets was sadly mashed on the way to Darkefell Castle, and I
could
have it sent down to be repaired. Do you have anyone skilled in millinery?”

“I would account it my honor to take care of your bonnet myself, my lady—we have some very fine ostrich plumes just now, and some lovely green and pink grosgrain.”

“Perhaps,” Anne said with a great show of reluctance. “My friend told me you have a rather good helper by the name of… what was it?” she said, turning slightly toward the marquess, who though appealed to, stayed silent. “A Mrs. Parker, I believe?”

A noise like that made by a strangled chicken emanated from the shop owner, and she said that was impossible. Anne insisted it would be Mrs. Parker or no one, to dress her bonnet.

“Mrs. Parker had, unfortunately, to be let go,” Mrs. Holderness admitted at last, giving a sketchy and highly suspect relation of the circumstances of Bess Parker’s arrest. When closely questioned by Anne, Mrs. Holderness admitted that Mrs. Parker claimed not to know how the fabric got in her home.

Anne fixed her with a gimlet stare. As a girl of eighteen, she had been bullied by her mother and many a seamstress into unbecoming dresses by the score. Her Season had been one long, mortifying sequence of spring green, frothy confections, mauve monstrosities, and pink, plumed headdresses. Her court dress aside—one must be presented to the queen in a full gown of excessive size—no woman needed to wear a skirt so full she couldn’t enter a door, or stays so tightly laced she couldn’t breathe. The excesses of fashion were for the vain or the frivolous. A woman must have utter confidence when dealing with seamstresses, she learned, for the tribe seemed to delight in foisting on their clientele ugly but expensive frills and furbelows, especially on plain women.

“Do you mean,” she said, horror dripping in her tone, “that you accused the woman
before
you knew the entire story and without taking her denials—those of a competent and loyal worker—into account?”

Mrs. Holderness hesitated, but one long look at Anne’s perfectly tailored serge caraco over a figured gown and stomacher and the expensive froth of mechlin trim, and she made a desperate attempt to justify her behavior. “What choice did I have, my lady?” she whined, wringing her hands in a gesture oddly reminiscent of Bess Parker in her cell. “I was threatened with embargo by Mrs. Lily Jenkins, and she is capable of enforcing such a thing. I would have no customers inside a week if I did not do as she wished.”

The marquess made a smothered sound of fury, but Anne shot him a halting look and said, “How can such a young lady have so much power?”

The shopkeeper’s expression was dark. “She makes it her life to… to know things… anything. Everything. About people.” She edged forward, speaking to Anne in a hushed, confidential tone. “She’s a… a
harpy!
A horrid young woman! And she’ll not stand any interference in her and her husband’s relationship, even so far as destroying the reputation of any woman who so much as catches his attention.”

“And you helped her!” Anne said, not concealing her disgust.

“I did nothing, my lady, truly! ’Twas Mrs. Jenkins who did everything.”

“I would advise,” Anne said, with the same gimlet stare still fixed on the seamstress, “that you revisit the circumstances surrounding Mrs. Parker’s arrest. Theft is a hanging offense, madam, as I am sure you are aware, and if Mrs. Parker suffered that fate, I would not want to have to say that I knew a murderess.
You,
to make my point perfectly clear. That would be more harmful to your reputation than any embargo, I think.”

With that, and not a single glance at Darkefell, she swept from the shop.

He followed, and once outside, storm clouds darkening the sky over their head, he swept her an elegant bow. “Never, my lady, have I seen such a complete rout! She was flanked, outmaneuvered, and defeated on the field of dishonor.”

She paused on the walk and glanced up at the storefront. “I would like nothing better now than to confront Mrs. Jenkins with her culpability, but it’s far more important that she attend our little surprise soiree tonight, and if I tell her what I think of her, she won’t.”

“You’re wise to leave it for the moment. Let me deliver the invitation to Benjamin Jenkins, for no matter if his wife hears what you have done to Mrs. Holderness, she still will not go against her husband, and he’ll accept any invitation from me.”

“Is it wise to invite them?” Anne asked.

“Regardless of our other suspicions, I wish to see her confronted with your work today, and for her to know she’s uncovered as a jealous, troublesome wench,” he said grimly.

At Anne’s request, they stopped at a modest cottage on a back street in Hornethwaite, the home of Ellen Henderson’s widowed mother. Mrs. Henderson, a careworn woman of about fifty, with a couple of grandchildren clinging to her skirts, told her, with wide and frightened eyes, that Ellen had not visited them at all the day before. She hadn’t expected her, the woman said, as a young girl had other things to do on her half day off than visit with her poor old mum, so she had thought nothing. Of course, Anne’s visit and questions now had her worried. Anne did her best to reassure the woman that her daughter would be fine.

After a few more stops, they began the journey back to Ivy Lodge. Some of what had gone on lately between Darkefell estate and the village finally made sense, but as Anne said, “If our suspicions are correct, much of this has nothing to do with Cecilia Wainwright’s murder.”

“I think you’ve hit on some truths, my lady,” the marquess said, “and some mischief or worse done, but it doesn’t surprise me that there is no connection. I’ve never felt the matters were intertwined.”

“Hmm,” Anne murmured. “We still have a few questions I would like answered for sure.”

“And you will have what you desire before the night is done,” he answered. “It will all be out in the open before long, I hope.”

She glanced over at the marquess, whose mouth was set in a grim line at what they had conjectured. He was an admirable companion when he kept his mouth shut in the right places, but then, he would likely say the same thing about her.

At least now they had some suspicion, as shocking to both of them as it was. The next twenty-four hours would tell the tale.

The clouds were thickening as they approached Darkefell estate along the hard-packed road. A distant rumble of thunder and light patter of rain warned of a deluge to come, so the marquess smartened his team’s pace. Just for a moment, Anne wondered if this was what it would be like to be mistress of this estate and to be wed to the man beside her, this amiable silence and the preceding hours of working together effectively. She glanced over at him and was surprised that the thought unnerved but did not disgust her. He was surprisingly agreeable when he chose to be.

Of course, her good sense chose that moment to assert its dominion over her imagination;
when he chose to be
was the phrase that must be heeded. He could not command her. She was free, independent. As his wife, a woman would be at his command, and he struck her as having an iron will. He would not be conformable to feminine impulses, she thought, nor would he be even the slightest bit bendable. Once the courtship was over and the ring thrust upon the appropriate digit, the ball would be over. That saved her from anything like regret that such a union never would be.

He would never want to marry someone like her anyway. She was willful, stubborn, a “devil woman” as he called her in his angry moments. She was plain and proud and nosy. Brisk. Contrary. She sighed. If anything, this trip to Yorkshire had shown her that kisses, even those visited upon her by the same man, could have various effects upon her; they could make her swoonish, wary, angry, and on occasion she experienced a new sensation she could name only “lusty,” for want of any more accurate term. This was an uncomfortable sensation for a determined spinster.

His kisses were likely not going to trouble her further, anyway. Darkefell, she had always suspected, kissed her to confuse her, and now that she knew his secrets, especially that he was the dreaded werewolf, there was no need. That thought came with a pang. She rather liked the unexpected nature of his kisses. How like life to teach her a new enjoyment just as it was to be taken away from her. She glanced sideways, and her mouth twisted in a smile as she noticed that part of his thick eyebrows had been burnt to frazzled crisps from her incineration of his werewolf costume the night before.

“I hesitate to ask, but of what are you thinking as you glance toward me so frequently, my lady?”