Part 13 (1/2)
Chapter Twenty-Four.
At that same moment, Catherine Denholm watched with unbridled curiosity as the girl called Bess, now a serving maid at Appleton Manor, delivered into Matthew Grimshaw's hands at Denholm Hall a piece of folded parchment. He read it through, smiled to himself, and placed it on the desk in Randall Denholm's study. A coin changed hands, and Bess departed in great haste.
Hesitant, Catherine hovered in the doorway. She had almost decided to retreat when Matthew looked up and saw her.
”Catherine!” His delight was evident and he opened his arms. ”My dear cousin, come and let me have a good look at you. I vow you become more like your sister every year.”
”I am nothing like Jane,” Catherine murmured, but she obediently entered the room and endured her cousin's welcoming kiss.
”How old are you now, my dear?”
”Fourteen, cousin.”
”A woman grown. You'll be thinking of marriage soon, I warrant.”
”I've time yet,” she protested softly, but he did not seem to hear. As Matthew babbled on about Jane, Catherine stopped listening. It was a great waste of time, she felt, to pretend she was interested when she was not. Instead she let her cousin ramble on while she drifted toward the desk. When he was sufficiently distracted by the sound of his own voice, she took a closer look at the letter he'd been reading.
The last words inscribed were ”From my lodgings in Paris, this eleventh of November, your devoted husband, Robert Appleton, Knight.” Catherine would have recognized the Appleton crest even without the signature. She wondered what Sir Robert had written to Susanna, but resisted the temptation to read a personal message. Instead she plucked up the letter whole and secreted it in the placket in her skirt. Grimshaw never noticed.
Later she would decide if she could safely return her prize to Appleton Manor or if she would have to destroy it. Catherine did not understand why anyone would steal from their new neighbor, or think they could frighten her away with tricks, either. Her acquaintance with Susanna, brief though it was, had convinced Catherine that Sir Robert's wife was a strong-minded woman. To terrorize her would take far more than an eerie figure standing on the stairs and pretending to be a ghost.
Chapter Twenty-Five.
It was St. Catherine's Day, a full month after Mabel Hussey's return to Appleton Manor, before Susanna managed to make time for another trip into Manchester. It was not that the distance was so great. She simply had to look to the restoration of her husband's estate first.
Once again Susanna left Jennet behind and took Mark with her into town. Jennet was not pleased. She was beginning to have suspicions about Mark's sudden interest in visiting Manchester.
”Does she know that you met a young woman on your last visit?” Susanna asked as they neared the bridge across the river. She had no specific plan to further her inquiry by using Mark's acquaintance with Temperance Strelley, the girl who lived next door to the Inces, but she did not object to having him visit Temperance again, either.
”Nay, Lady Appleton. I'd not trouble Jennet with my private business.”
”You must have hinted at something. She is most put out with you of late.”
Mark only smiled with a smug, masculine superiority that made his mistress want to box his ears. Jennet deserved a few bad moments for the hard time she'd given Mark in the past, but he did not need to take such pleasure in taunting her. ”I'll not have needless cruelty in my household,” she warned before she let the matter drop.
”Shall I pay my visit to the Strelley house now or later, madam? It is market day. There's much to be bought for Appleton Manor.”
”Have you a list?”
Mark tapped his forehead. ”All in here, it is, madam. Safe for the nonce.”
”And the cost?”
”They will send you bills, if you wish it, madam, or you might trust me to make payment.”
Quickly calculating, Susanna delved into the leather pouch she wore at her waist. The purchases she knew of were many and varied, and would have to be made at a dozen different shops. Some, spices and cloth, she would purchase herself, but Mark would need sixpence apiece for the pigs. Fifty s.h.i.+llings for a hogshead of claret. Four s.h.i.+llings fourpence for a barrel of small beer. Oranges were three s.h.i.+llings tenpence for four hundred in Kent but might be far more dear in this remote place.
”What sell they in the shops near the spot where Oliver Ince has his butcher's stall?”
”South side of Conduit Place,” Mark mused. A moment's thought and he had the answer. ”On the north side they sell grain, crockery, wooden vessels and fruit.”
”Good. Inquire there about the oranges and at the same time observe the butcher's boy, one d.i.c.kon by name. Strike up an acquaintance with him if you can, but be careful that Oliver Ince does not recognize you as my man.” She handed over a sum of money and instructed Mark to meet her in two hours' time at the shop of a draper.
”The fish market is near Smithy Door, which is hard by the man's house. What if Ince is there instead?”
”Why, the better to question his employees. I mean, as you know, to go and speak with his wife while you seek out the lad. If Ince is there, 'twill make no matter.”
She said the words with confidence, but in her heart Susanna hoped to find Edith Ince alone. There was still a chance, however slight, that Oliver was behind the death of the steward. He'd hated the man enough to kill him and it seemed suspicious to her that he'd taken in the scullion from Appleton and not troubled to mention that fact to her on her last visit.
No one, Susanna had long since realized, was very forthcoming. They were all hiding things from her. In order to get to the truth, she could very well end up uncovering every one of their small secrets. Matters would be much simpler if people only told the truth, but she supposed that was too much to expect. She was, after all, a stranger among them.
Oliver Ince was not at home. Edith smiled a welcome, inviting Lady Appleton in with an openness that was almost enough to make her seem innocent of any crime. Her expression was equally guileless when Susanna asked after d.i.c.kon.
”Oh, aye. Oliver did take him in. A good man, my Oliver.” Responding to a cry from the cradle, she lifted the younger child out and began to nurse.
”'Tis strange no one mentioned to me that he'd once worked at Appleton Manor.”
Edith blinked at her in surprise above the downy head of her small daughter. ”But, Lady Appleton, you did not ask.”
”Master Grimshaw knew I was looking for him,” she said after a moment, silently acknowledging the rightness of Edith's point.
A disdainful sound told her what Edith Ince thought of him.
Susanna frowned. She had not asked the Inces about d.i.c.kon, but she had demanded information from the lawyer, and Grimshaw had first insisted he could not even remember the boy's name. When pressed, he'd recalled it but hinted the lad might have gone to family in Preston, which was some distance from Manchester. Had Grimshaw deliberately lied to her? Had he known d.i.c.kon was in Manchester all along, just as he'd known where to find Mabel Hussey?
”Did you know what became of the man, too? Adam Bone?”
”He were taken on as swineherd,” Edith replied promptly. If she was trying to hide something, it was not that.
”I would speak with both of them,” Susanna told her, ”to learn all I can of what happened at Appleton Manor.” Belatedly, it occurred to her that Adam Bone and the boy d.i.c.kon and Mabel, too, must have known where Edith was. How, then, did the rumor that she was Appleton's ghost get started?
The answer troubled her, for it had been Euphemia Denholm who had let her jump to that erroneous conclusion. To protect her late daughter's reputation? Perhaps. But something did not fit. The more Susanna learned about these people, the more confusing matters seemed.
”Oliver keeps the lad busy.” There was the first sign of hesitation now in Edith's words. ”We've naught to hide, and yet he will be angry, I fear, if young d.i.c.kon be distracted from his work. And he does not know anything. He'd have told me if he did.”
”I'd still like to speak with him myself, if your husband will allow it.”
Edith was silent for a long moment. The older child, awakened from a nap, wandered into the room, and for the first time Susanna looked carefully at him. It had been scarce two years since Oliver and Edith married. This was either a very big boy for his age, or she'd been breeding ere they wed. Through narrowed eyes she regarded the child more closely still, looking for any resemblance to the Appletons.
As if she followed her visitor's thoughts, Edith hastily divested herself of the baby, returning her to the cradle, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up her son. ”He's Ince's get, and make no mistake about that. Sir George never touched me.”
”Now, Edith, it is common knowledge that Sir George had his codpiece all undone when he was found dead.”