The Nightingale Legacy (39 page)

“No, probably not enough appreciation expressed for her fine housekeeping, how neat and clean she keeps everything, how nicely the plates sparkle on the dinner table. Speaking as a man, Caroline, we don’t tend to notice the nicer things done for us. We’re just oblivious, I guess.”

“You mean when I wear a gown that is particularly fetching, you don’t notice because of this obliviousness of yours?”

“No, a man is never oblivious of a woman’s efforts to please him. Trust me. If you were to pull that gown of yours down just an inch, I would immediately go
en pointe
like the best of my hounds.”

She laughed, hugged him tightly. He kissed her throat and said, “What about Alice?”

Caroline was silent for a moment. She wasn’t feeling all that well and hadn’t been for over a week now. When she’d first felt upset to her stomach, she’d thought of the oxtail soup and paled, but the ill feeling had gone away. Now a wave of nausea swept through her and she closed her eyes.

“Caroline?”

“Oh, Alice. I don’t know, North. I’m a bit worried about her and I know Dr. Treath is as well. She’s so very thin and small. I would just as soon keep her here until after her babe is born. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Then I think Miss Mary Patricia and Evelyn should remain as well. We don’t want Alice to be lonely. Why don’t you speak to Evelyn and Miss Mary Patricia and see what they think of your idea. Isn’t Alice’s babe due to arrive in a month or so?”

“I think so. That’s a good idea, North. Ah, don’t forget Owen. He’s here more often than he’s at Scrilady Hall.”

“You don’t think it’s simply because of Polgrain’s fine cooking?”

She smiled up at him. “No, I think he’s smitten with Alice. I think Owen is growing up, and I also think he’s growing up very well.”

North pulled her against him, stroking his big hands up and down her back. He kissed her throat, lifted her heavy hair, and massaged her neck and shoulders. He said, his breath warm and soft against her ear, “When were you going to tell me about the baby, Caroline?”

She became utterly still beneath his hands. “Whose baby?”

“My baby. Our baby.”

“Oh dear.”

“It’s the likely result of the activity you and I both enjoy to a rather immoderate extent.”

“Oh dear, are you certain?”

He laughed. “No, I’m not absolutely certain, but you haven’t felt well, indeed, yesterday at about three o’clock in the afternoon, your face turned quite green. When was your last monthly flow?”

She ducked her face into his shoulder. “A long time ago.”

“Can you be a bit more precise?”

She shook her head. “So much has happened that I really didn’t pay all that close attention. Well, perhaps it was about a month and a half ago.”

“Yes, that’s about right. Ah, well, there it is, then.”

“I’m going to have a baby, truly?”

“Truly, I think.”

“Are you pleased, North?”

“How is your belly feeling right now?”

“Fine.”

He picked her up in his arms and swung her about, dancing the infamous waltz around the bedchamber.

Tregeagle heard their laughter from the corridor down in the west wing of Mount Hawke. He frowned even as he knocked on the master’s bedchamber door to tell them that Flash Savory was here to see his lordship.

“Caroline,” North said, “do you hear me? Now, why didn’t you ask to speak to Dr. Treath when he was here?”

She shrugged but didn’t meet his eyes.

He stared down at her, then suddenly hooted with laughter. “My God, you’re embarrassed. My Caroline is embarrassed of a doctor.”

She gave him one of her brilliant smiles. “That’s the second time you’ve called me your Caroline.”

“No,
my
Caroline. Now, why don’t I ask Dr. Treath to come back and see you?”

“Not yet, North, please. I’m just not ready. You’re the only man who’s ever, well, you know very well what I mean.”

“He’s a doctor, Caroline. He helped both Miss Mary Patricia and Evelyn. Do you think he cared that they were both lovely young women?”

“No, probably not, but it doesn’t matter. Give me a bit longer, North.”

“Good grief, Caroline, he’s nearly old enough to be your father. Surely you wouldn’t mind him examining you if Bess Treath were with you?”

“Just give me a bit longer, to adjust myself to all this.
It’s very strange, North.” She hugged her arms around herself, thinking that he’d called her his Caroline. No, she thought grinning,“
my
Caroline.”

She didn’t think she’d ever been happier in her life.

She felt that way until the following afternoon.

Coombe had disappeared. He’d left Mount Hawke the day North had dismissed him. He accepted the sizable pension paid to him by Mr. Brogan, moved to Goonbell into Mrs. Freely’s inn there, and brooded about, always silent, never speaking to anyone, North was told, never telling why he’d left Mount Hawke after more years than most of the locals could even remember. Then, he’d simply disappeared.

Mrs. Freely came to Mount Hawke to speak to North privately. North simply told Caroline that Mrs. Freely hadn’t seen Coombe for two days. She’d gone to his room and found he’d left. No, he hadn’t owed her any money, indeed, he’d paid her enough to hold the room for him for another month.

North went back to Goonbell with Mrs. Freely. When he finally returned to Mount Hawke, there was quite an audience awaiting him. All the female staff, Tregeagle, Polgrain, and, of course, Timmy the maid, and all the ladies, pregnant and otherwise, looking at him, waiting for the worst, only he knew they couldn’t begin to imagine the worst that he had to tell them.

He stared at all of them, then said simply, “It’s difficult, believe me, but it seems that Coombe might have been the man who murdered all the women. I’m sorry, Caroline.”

“No,” Mrs. Mayhew said, her voice surprisingly strident. “Mr. Coombe was in many ways a very strange man, sometimes downright nasty, but I can’t believe he would have killed the women. I even liked him sometimes, not
often, mind you, but two times I can remember. How many women were there?”

“Three women in as many years,” said Polgrain. “All of them stabbed, as you know. My lord, she’s right. Mr. Coombe wasn’t a violent man.” Then he shut his mouth, realizing what he’d said, for he too had wondered about the oxtail soup.

North shook his head and said, “It appears that he simply left, but he didn’t take everything with him. There were papers, some odd clothes, a pair of slippers.” He drew a deep breath. “Amongst the papers we found a letter from Elizabeth Godolphin to Coombe—one supposes it was to Coombe; she was the woman who was killed some three years ago. It was of an amorous nature. Also, there was a knife wrapped in a shirt stuffed in the back of the armoire. There was dried blood on it. All three women were stabbed.”

Caroline heard the words dinning in her mind, and for the first time in her entire life, she fainted. She heard North calling her name before the blackness closed over her.

M
ARCUS
W
YNDHAM, THE
Earl of Chase, said to North, “I can’t believe I let you come back to Cornwall and the first thing you do is get married and start laughing and jesting about like a man born to it. Why, you’ve given up your gloomy brooding entirely. It shocks the senses, North. What am I to think?”

North grinned, an engaging grin that held no melancholy, no gothic overtones at all. “What can I tell you, Marcus? I met Caroline and it seems that the damnable black cloud that always floated over my head wafted away, leaving only the sun. She smiles at me and I’m warm to my toes.”

“Odd,” the earl said, gazing over at his wife. “I’ve known the Duchess since we were children and I’ve never changed a bit. She’s done nothing to improve my spirit or my character. Perhaps both were perfect to begin with, whereas you were too dour a fellow, North.”

The countess said to Caroline, a slight smile playing around her mouth, “My lord counts himself a philosopher wit. It occasionally leads to quite unpleasant physical discomfort for him.”

Caroline laughed. “Could you please be more specific?”

“No, not as yet,” the Duchess said, but gave Caroline a small salute with her teacup. The earl looked as if he would demand to know the bit of specificity, but the Duchess continued quickly, “Ah, but you’re having problems here, aren’t you?” She set down her teacup, a particularly
graceful gesture that made Caroline feel intense envy for a moment. The Duchess was, she thought, the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen. As for the earl, he and North looked like they’d been friends for years, at ease with each other, mocking each other with that familiar insulting humor that gentlemen seemed to enjoy so very much. They were both large men, athletic, confident, and to Caroline’s fond eye, North was by far the more magnificent specimen. As for the earl, the Duchess did seem to find him satisfactory.

“Yes,” North said. “Caroline fainted four days ago and scared all the sin out of me. I told her if she ever did it again I would strangle her.”

“I agreed with him,” Caroline said. “It was humiliating to be such a weak ninny.”

“Why did you faint?” the Duchess asked.

“Ah, well you may ask,” North said. He paused, as if uncertain, then said slowly, “We are having our share of problems, but there’s something more important. Caroline is going to have a baby.”

“Goodness,” the Duchess said, “that’s wonderful. You’re entitled to faint at least once when you’re pregnant, Caroline. Congratulations to both of you. Marcus is ever endeavoring to bring me up to the mark again, so to speak. And no, North, don’t feel guilty about speaking of the child in front of me.” She continued to Caroline, “I had a miscarriage a while ago, but I’m fine now. As I said, Marcus is a man of determination.”

“I try my damnedest,” Marcus said, interrupting his wife, rubbing his hand distractedly through his hair—an act, Caroline thought, an excellent act—“yes, I try daily to impregnate her, except when we’re traveling, of course. The Duchess adores the huge carriage; it makes her positively lecherous with the way it sways and jostles about, and she won’t leave me alone. After our first day of travel, I am
forced to ride outside the carriage to regain my strength and my balance. It’s odd though, I find that I scarce even think about a babe when I’m loving her, she—”

“That’s quite enough, Marcus,” the Duchess said, all smooth and serene and composed as a matron of six decades. “You’re embarrassing me. I know you enjoy doing it and you do it very well, as I’ve told you many times, but you will hold back your wit or it will go badly for you later when I have you alone.”

Caroline giggled—she couldn’t help it—for the huge dark man who was the Earl of Chase was grinning at his wife like a gambler with a marked card and a winning hand. He was even rubbing those hands of his vigorously together. He said to Caroline, “I know you can’t imagine her doing anything except sitting there with a delicate teacup in her dainty white hands. Yes, you look at her and see this calm creature who scarce ever hoists her voice above her hemline, who raises an eyebrow just the veriest bit and has all the servants scurrying about madly to make her happy, and yet she screamed at me, threw a Spanish saddle at me, knocked me unconscious with a bridle, beat me with her riding boot, and—”

“Marcus,” the Duchess said, not so quietly this time, not so calmly or serenely, “you will hold your tongue, at least until I get to know Caroline better. You are certainly giving her a very strange opinion of me.”

North shook his head and set down his brandy snifter. “Caroline, my dear, you will become used to Marcus soon enough. As for the Duchess, I have found her as good a friend as Marcus, though not as outrageous, which, naturally, is proper, since she is a lady and not a half-wit randy goat.”

“Must I accept all three?” Marcus said, and punched North’s shoulder.

“All right, if it pleases you, just leave the randy.”

“What do you think, Duchess?” the earl said to his wife.

“Goat isn’t quite the animal I would have selected, but it isn’t bad. It tells me that North knows you quite well.”

Caroline said, “Well, I think North is a god. Since Marcus is his best friend, then we must elevate him above a goat. How about to a panther?”

“Rather he’s the devil,” the earl said, “and I’d have to become his familiar, according to your logic, Caroline.”

“A man who’s devilish sounds rather romantic,” the Duchess said. “What is this, Caroline? No devil here. You believe North is a god?”

Caroline smiled up at her husband, every shred of feeling she had for him clear in her eyes. “He is the very best of men and I am the luckiest woman alive to have found him in that out-of-the-way inn in Dorchester.”

“That is properly nauseating,” the earl said. “I would rather hear more about the trouble you two are having than be an unwilling witness to this romantic drivel.”

“He’s right,” North said. “Now, Caroline, I have told Marcus just a bit of our problems.”

“You told him about my aunt and Coombe?”

North nodded. “I owe him my life, Caroline, thus I can trust him. Also, he has a fine mind—as devious as the Devil’s or the Devil’s familiar’s—and perhaps he can see something we haven’t. As for the Duchess, her mind is as sharp as a razor’s edge.”

Caroline nodded slowly. North saw the haunted look in her eyes and pulled her against him. He kissed her hair. “We will get through this,” he said. “We will.”

Caroline had a cold and she felt miserable. Her throat hurt, she was sweating like a stoat one minute and shivering the next, and every bone in her body pulled and ached. North
poured one of Polgrain’s remedies down her throat and then ordered her to rest. The Duchess was allowed to visit her as long as she kept her distance.

“I’m sorry you’re ill, Caroline. I suppose it’s the violent shift of weather, at least that’s what Marcus told me. He said if I got ill he would beat me. I told him I would beat him as well if he came down with even one sneeze, and he just grinned at me in that wonderfully obnoxious way of his and told me he was never ill. He was too superior, you see. He’s a sweetheart, my husband.”