The Nightingale Legacy (41 page)

D.
was Donniger. Yes, it was certainly North’s great-grandfather. Donniger Nightingale, an odd name, one she hadn’t forgotten.

Who was Griffin? What was the letter doing stuffed down into one of the sawed-off, pineapple-carved bedposts?

She smoothed the paper over her hand and dashed downstairs to the taproom. She was breathing hard and Mrs. Freely said, “My goodness, child, whatever do you have there?”

“You’ll not believe it, Mrs. Freely. I found it hidden in one of the bedposts. Just look, it’s rather amazing, and this, I fancy, is the beginning of the Nightingale legacy of betrayal.”

Mrs. Freely ushered her into the kitchen and the two of them spread the paper on the kitchen table.

“Ah, Griffin,” Mrs. Freely said. “My granny told me about him.”

Caroline found herself again marveling at the tenacity of the Cornish memory. If she asked, doubtless Mrs. Freely could easily discover Griffin’s middle name. “Who was he?”

“A wild rogue, from what is still said around these parts, a handsome young man too, with scarce a worry on his shoulders, and too much money from his pa. He seduced more ladies than old Casanova himself. This letter makes it seem like he was the one who cuckolded his lordship’s great-grandfather. You know, if I remember aright, he didn’t stay around here, left, he did, and never came back to Cornwall. He probably went to London to seduce his way through those ladies of the
ton.
So he left her to face her husband and then she died. Interesting, isn’t it, but I don’t know why that old letter would be stuck down in a bedpost.”

“Where did the bed come from?”

“Ah,” Mrs. Freely said. “That I can find out, my lady. Just you sip on the tea and I’ll look through my ma’s journals. My ma recorded every purchase she ever made for this inn. Sure enough she’ll have written down where she got this bed.”

Caroline was both excited and depressed because it did seem true that North’s great-grandmother, that smiling happy young lady whose portrait now graced the huge white wall at the foot of the stairs, did indeed betray her husband. Caroline supposed she wished it wasn’t true.

When Mrs. Freely told her that the bed had belonged to the Griffin family, Caroline wasn’t surprised. It seemed the family had fallen onto hard times, what with all the sons gambling and wenching, and had left England to go to the Colonies, selling off their furnishings before they’d
left, way back in the 1780s. “Aye, my ma wrote in her housekeeping book that they went off to Boston to stay with their kin.”

Well, that was indeed one Nightingale wife who had betrayed her husband. Caroline was depressed. She’d started the whole thing.

She told North that night as they snuggled together, “I read all your great-grandfather’s part of the journal. He never wrote Griffin by name. Also, it appears he didn’t kill him, or if he did, he buried him deep because no one ever found his body. Then your great-grandmother died only a month or so after he left. It’s all so tragic.”

North was silent for a very long time. “You know, I think I’ll write a letter to the Griffins in the Colonies. You say Mrs. Freely heard they’d moved to Boston?”

She nodded against his shoulder, breathed in the scent of him, and was lost.

“My God,” North said some time later when he was able again to put two words together, “you surely give me glimpses of heaven, Caroline.”

“Don’t you ever forget that, North Nightingale,” she said. She nipped his chin, then sighed deeply. “I wish our King Mark legacy could be real, like the Wyndhams’ legacy. Just think, the Wyndhams found old books and strange clues and they managed to weave their way through it all and discovered it was real.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but it won’t ever be more than the meanderings of bruised male hearts.”

“What a nice way to speak of your male ancestors. I had really hoped that your great-grandmother hadn’t betrayed your great-grandfather. Now there doesn’t seem to be any doubt.”

“No, no doubt at all. But perhaps there were reasons. Who knows?”

* * *

Caroline just shut her eyes and clamped her mouth closed. “Now, Caroline, just relax. I won’t hurt you, but I do have to poke about just a little bit. North, please step back, unless you want to do the poking.”

North stepped back and watched Dr. Treath examine his wife. He didn’t lift her nightgown, merely slipped his hands beneath the covers and the gown. He pulled his hands free then and said to North, “Her belly is smooth and malleable but I need to examine her internally.”

Before North could even begin to sputter, Dr. Treath stood and said to his sister, “I need some hot water and soap. Yes, Bess, it’s important, and must be done.”

“I don’t like this at all,” Caroline said to Dr. Treath.

“I wouldn’t either, my dear, but as I told Bess, it must be done. I do it on every one of my female patients who is with child. I’ll be careful not to hurt you, but I must examine you.”

Before he did that, he felt her breasts, and she tried to think of other things. His fingers were long and dry and she hated the way they felt on her flesh. When he eased two fingers inside her, he was careful and gentle, she’d give him that, but it was mortifying. His fingers were large and that hurt and he pushed, and with his other hand pressed down on her belly until finally she gasped with pain.

“Done,” Dr. Treath said, and eased his fingers out of her. “Well, my dear, it appears that you’re just fine, quite healthy, actually. We won’t have to do that again until you’re much farther along. Now, North, let’s go downstairs whilst Bess helps your wife get dressed.”

“That was awful,” Caroline said when the men had left the bedchamber.

Bess Treath was frowning as she assisted Caroline to
rise from the bed. “You’re not feeling nauseous, are you?”

“Oh no, just horribly embarrassed. I know it’s silly since he’s a doctor, but true nonetheless. Thank you for helping me, Miss Treath.”

“Yes, he is a doctor.” Bess Treath smiled down at Caroline, who was still very flushed in the face, and handed her her chemise and stockings.

The Duchess was depressed. She’d searched every single foot of that area Caroline had told her about, she said, and not a thing, not even a clue to be found anywhere. She then sighed, forked down a bite of blancmange, and said, “Of course, it’s been over a thousand years. Doubtless many feet have walked over that entire area and many eyes looked to see what they could find. If only your great-grandfather could have been more precise about that wretched armlet, North.”

“Sorry, Duchess, but believe me, that wretched armlet never existed, or if it did, it didn’t have a thing to do with King Mark.”

The earl patted his wife’s hand. “You tried, sweetheart.”

The large clock that sounded like it had swallowed a frog began chiming seven strokes.

Alice shivered. “How I hate the sound that clock makes. Has it always done that, my lord?”

“As long as I can remember. I was telling Caroline that if only the bloody thing would stop, I’d dump it in the kitchen midden.”

“I rather like the sound of it,” Owen said. “Rather like a king with a very bad cold.”

Caroline laughed and shook her head. “All of you are vastly romantic and far too imaginative. It just sounds to
me like it needs a good oiling.”

After a sumptuous dinner of carbonnade of beef, baked anchovy pie, roasted lamb with white beans, innumerable side dishes, and blancmange and macaroons for dessert, the earl and countess announced that they would be leaving for London on Wednesday.

Caroline was down in the mouth. She liked the Duchess and was finally at her ease with her and her outrageous husband, who said exactly what he wanted to say, teased his wife mercilessly, then kissed her hard, and was very amusing, not as amusing as North, but nonetheless, he did occasionally make her smile.

“Come, sweetheart,” North said to her later that night in their bedchamber, “and climb on my lap. I don’t like to see you depressed. That’s right, face me, ah, yes, the feel of you, how much I love the feel of you.” He kissed her then even as his hands were pulling up her dressing gown and nightgown, his fingers on her bare flesh, stroking her and caressing upward.

“Goodness, North,” she said into his mouth and promptly moaned when his warm fingers touched her. When they slipped inside her, she suddenly stiffened.

“Whatever is wrong?”

“That’s what Dr. Treath did. It was awful.”

“Well, I didn’t like it either, but if it had to be done, then so be it. Now, just relax. It’s me, not Dr. Treath, and I have scarce a thought about the babe, just its mother and making her scream with pleasure. That’s right, Caroline, you’re becoming softer. I like it. Kiss me some more.”

When he lifted her onto him, she sighed with the pleasure of it. When his fingers wove their magic, she screamed. North felt the wet of her tears against his neck when she was slack against him.

He froze. “What the hell is wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“Oh no, it’s just that I love you so very much, it’s sometimes too much, that’s all.”

“I see,” he said slowly, “nothing more than that. Good, that relieves my mind. Let’s go to bed, Caroline.”

He didn’t sleep for a very long time, but he didn’t let her away from him, holding her close the entire night. He knew he’d give anything to keep Caroline with him. He knew he’d give his life for her.

But it wasn’t North who saved Caroline’s life the following day. It was the Duchess.

C
AROLINE AND THE
Duchess were riding close to the sea, high above on the narrow cliff road, before cutting inland to search about the series of hillocks and in the midst of the oak tree copse again. Ah, and there was that long stone fence with perhaps some crevices between the stones that held something, a clue perhaps, another armlet like the one North’s great-grandfather had claimed he’d found. At the moment, though, the wind whipped at their riding hats and they were discussing why Coombe would leave evidence behind that surely proved his guilt.

They pulled up their horses a moment to look over the Irish Sea. “It makes no sense,” Caroline said, tucking her hair up beneath her hat.

“And that relative of yours, Caroline, Bennett Penrose?” the Duchess said. “No chance at all that he was responsible, at least for your aunt’s death?”

“No,” Caroline said. “North looked into everything, probably even checked Bennett’s teeth. Unfortunately he just wasn’t here when Aunt Eleanor was killed. As for poor Nora Pelforth, Bennett had many witnesses to claim he was at Mrs. Freely’s inn in Goonbell until he had to be carried back to Scrilady Hall, so drunk he couldn’t even crawl.”

“A pity.”

“Yes indeed, the little worm. Did I tell you that North got a letter from Mr. Ffalkes and he sounds horribly pleased about having Bennett dropped on him, just like North
guessed he would. He is probably torturing Bennett, rubbing his hands together in glee the whole time. He also wrote that he’s giving the lackwit gambling lessons. They wager for chores, of all things. He said Bennett might even have an arm muscle by the end of next week.”

“From what you’ve told me about both gentlemen, they deserve each other.”

“At the very least. I must admit that I do feel just a dollop of pity for Mrs. Tailstrop—rather, Mrs. Ffalkes now. I imagine she has to protect that ratty little pug of hers from her husband’s hands. Owen said his father hated Lucy.”

The Duchess laughed, threw back her head, closing her eyes a moment, and Caroline knew she felt the beauty of the crisp autumn wind to her very bones.

“I’ve never been to Cornwall before. It is so very different from any other place I’ve ever seen. It’s wild and fierce and magnificent. And the smell of the sea, with you all the time, and you can fancy you hear the waves no matter where you are. I used to live near Dover, but it isn’t the same thing at all. There’s a pull to it, isn’t there?”

“I think it’s magic.”

“All right, enough rhapsodizing. Now, who else is there who could have killed the women? You know, the question Marcus and I should have kept asking ourselves when I kept getting hurt: Who would gain the most if I died?”

“Marcus would.”

The Duchess laughed, then looked surprised that she had actually laughed about that time at Chase Park. “Let’s not tell him that, all right? I can see him completely go over the edge. He’s very possessive, you know.”

Caroline grinned and click-clicked Reggie forward. “I had guessed that.”

“Just as is North.”

“North? No, not really. He just feels great responsibility for me and—”

“Bosh.”

“What?”

“I said bosh. He is tail over tip in love with you. Don’t be a fool, Caroline, you can’t begin to imagine how he looks at you. You come into a room, you giggle, you just sit there and drink tea, you even yawn, and he looks utterly hungry and at the same time, content. He is a very happy man.”

Caroline didn’t say a thing, but she was wondering if the Duchess could possibly be right. The trick would be to catch him looking at her lovingly.

“Now, I’ve gotten us off track. Back to Coombe. Everyone believes he’s mad, clearly and completely mad, that the women rejected him and he killed them, that he perhaps even believed that they betrayed him, that he wanted to perhaps avenge all the Nightingale men by killing women he saw as faithless. But your aunt, Caroline? Didn’t you tell me that she and Dr. Treath were in love? How could she possibly fit into any madness of Coombe’s?”

“She couldn’t.”

“And where did Coombe go? I know everyone local is saying that he went off to kill himself, and left the knife so everyone would know—a sort of expiation—but still—”

Regina stumbled forward onto her knees, sending Caroline flying over her head to fall in a huddle on the ground beyond.

The Duchess leaped off her mare’s back, tripped flat on her face, pulled herself up, and ran to Caroline’s side. She was unconscious, lying on her back, her royal-blue velvet riding hat smashed, the feather broken in half. Her riding skirt was askew, showing her white petticoats and white stockings and her soft black leather riding boots.