When Falcons Fall (17 page)

Hero reached to take the child from his arms. “But why kill an innocent young artist?”

He expelled a long breath. “Hopefully this Miss Jane Owens can help answer that question.” He cradled her cheek in one hand and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Promise me you’ll be careful?”

“That’s my line,” she said, and he laughed.

S
ebastian reached the village of Little Stretton late in the afternoon of a long, golden August day.

Lying some fourteen miles to the north of Ludlow on the main coach road that led to Shrewsbury, the village nestled at the base of a stretch of highlands known as the Long Mynd. Its cottages were a charming mix of half-timbered, red brick, and weathered gray stone, its gardens of hollyhocks and tumbling roses well tended, the breezes sweeping down from the hills above sweetly scented by the slopes’ tangle of gorse, bracken, and heather.

Miss Jane Owens lived in a somewhat dilapidated whitewashed cottage situated on the banks of the River Ashes Hollow. She answered the door herself, a small, slim woman in her forties with a no-nonsense starched white cap covering short, curly brown hair barely touched by gray. Her forehead was high, her mouth small, her gray eyes wide with surprise at finding a fashionably dressed lord standing on her porch and an elegant curricle with a well-bred pair of spirited chestnuts at her gate.

“Miss Owens?” he asked with a bow.

“Yes?” she answered pleasantly. But she was obviously good at reading people, because whatever she saw in his face caused her smile to falter. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there? What is it? Dear God, what has happened?”

“I think you’d best sit down before I tell you,” said Sebastian. He had come equipped with a letter of introduction penned by Lord Seaton. But it didn’t look as if he would need it.

She gripped the edge of the door, her lips pressed tight. “No, tell me now.”

“It’s Emma Chandler,” he said.

The horror and dread that leapt into her eyes told him just how much the younger woman meant to her. “Please say she’s all right.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and saw her brace herself for what was to follow. “I’m afraid she’s dead.”

“I’ve been an educator for more than twenty-five years,” said Jane Owens later, as they walked along the banks of the swiftly rushing river. “Every child is unique and distinctive, each in his or her own way. But I never had a student quite like Emma.”

“She was an extraordinarily talented artist,” said Sebastian.

“She was beyond extraordinary. I firmly believe she had the talent to be as famous as Lawrence or Reynolds, if that was what she wanted.”

“But it wasn’t?”

A faint smile touched the older woman’s lips. “No. She wanted to open a school—a school for girls like her.”

“You mean, chance children?”

Jane Owen cast him a thoughtful glance. “Have you known many such children?”

Sebastian stared across the narrow, rocky river, toward the barren slopes of the Long Mynd rising gently above them. Amongst those of his class, such children were most often handed over to foster families and forgotten—if they weren’t simply abandoned on the parish. Some were hidden away in schools, as Emma had been. But only a rare few were raised within the family, usually disguised as a “distant cousin,” their true identity carefully hidden even from the children themselves.

“Not really,” he said.

She nodded. “I’ve taught several over the years. They . . . they have problems it’s difficult for the rest of us to understand. Those of us who grow up within a family—” She gave a quick, dry laugh. “Even if it’s not one we particularly like—that family still helps us define who and what we are. It’s so much a part of us that we tend to take that aspect of our identity for granted.”

Sebastian remained silent, his gaze on the swirling waters beside them. He’d grown up thinking he knew his family, only to realize that it had been a lie, that half of his heritage was a question mark, a dark, mysterious unknown that alternately intrigued, tormented, and repelled him. It was as if a yawning hole had opened up inside him that he was both desperate and terrified to fill.

“But these children,” Jane Owens was saying, “the ones who are given away or secluded and kept a secret—they have no sense of who they are, of who and what they come from. They can only imagine . . . dream . . . wonder. It tends to make for troubled youngsters, full of sadness and anger. They can be quite difficult to deal with.”

“But not Emma?”

“Oh, no; if anything, Emma was the most secretive, rage-filled child I’ve ever met. She was fifteen when I first arrived at the academy. That’s an age at which all children are trying to establish who and what they are. Except, children such as Emma have nothing to work with beyond what they invent themselves. They’re adrift, essentially alone in the world. They feel terribly abandoned . . . confused . . . afraid. And angry. Very, very angry.”

“Yet you were able to get through to her.”

Jane Owens gazed down at the sun-sparkled waters beside them, her thoughts obviously troubled and far, far away. “I understood her. I think that’s what was important. Rowena LaMont believes such children should be humble and endlessly grateful. She could never understand that by trying to force Emma to deny and hide her true feelings, she was only making matters worse.”

Sebastian studied the older woman’s intent profile. And he found himself wondering why she had left the academy, and how she had come to be here, in her rose-covered cottage on the banks of the River Ashes Hollow.

“Do you know why Emma went to Ayleswick?” he asked.

“Not for certain, no. But I can guess. She was trying to discover who her parents were. When she was younger—when I first met her—Emma always insisted she didn’t want to know. She said that if they were ashamed of her—if they didn’t want to have anything to do with her—then she didn’t want to know who they were or have anything to do with them.” Again, that sad smile touched her lips. “She used tell the most marvelous stories to the younger children at the school, all about stolen heiresses and lost princesses and children who were switched at birth. I often thought that was the real reason she didn’t want to know the truth—that she preferred her own world of fantasy, where anything was possible. She realized that once she learned the truth, she’d need to give up imagining and accept what might be a very unpalatable reality.”

“So what changed her mind?”

“Maturity, I suppose. Plus, there were so many questions she wanted answered. She wanted to know simple things—like why she had gray eyes, or where her artistic talents came from. But I think there was more to it than that. I think she was desperate to know if her mother ever loved her—if she regretted giving her up. She wanted to know where she belonged, even if the family that should have welcomed her didn’t want her.”

“And she thought she belonged in Ayleswick?”

The older woman looked stricken. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“You never knew her family’s name?”

“No. But Rowena LaMont might. She always dealt with a firm of solicitors in Ludlow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she learned the truth years ago.”

“The Ludlow solicitors also handled Emma’s inheritance?”

A frown line appeared between her brows. “How did you know about that?”

“Lord Seaton told me.”

“Ah.”

“You knew he was in love with her?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Was Emma Chandler in love with him?”

Jane Owens paused beside an old stone bridge that spanned the river. “I believe she was, yes. But . . .”

“But?” prompted Sebastian.

“She was . . . strange with him. I think she was afraid of being hurt.”

“Understandable, given his youth and the marked disparity in their ranks.”

“Yes. But I do believe he was sincere in his feelings for her.”

“Did he ask her to marry him?”

“He did ask her, yes.”

Sebastian thought about the anguished young man he’d first encountered on the church porch. So Seaton had asked Emma Chandler to marry him, yet somehow never managed to work up the courage to tell his mother he’d fallen in love. “And?”

“She told him he needed to give her time to think. I suspect it’s a part of what made her finally decide she wanted to know the truth about who she was. It was as if she couldn’t accept his offer until she knew.”

“She knew the name of the Ludlow solicitors?”

“She did, yes—from when she’d dealt with them over the inheritance. So she went there first.”

“When was this?”

“A month or so ago.”

Sebastian frowned. “Not a fortnight ago?”

“Oh, no, it’s been at least a month or more. I warned her they’d never tell her what she wanted to know, but somehow she managed to get it out of them. I fear she may have bribed one of the clerks.”

“Enterprising.”

“Oh, yes. Emma was an extraordinarily enterprising young woman. Once she determined she wanted to do something, she wasn’t one to let either her fears or societal expectations hold her back.”

“But she didn’t tell you what she’d discovered?”

Miss Owens pressed her templed hands against the lower part of her face. “No. Whatever it was obviously disturbed her. She was gone several days, and when she came back, she was very quiet and thoughtful. And then she left again.”

“When was this?”

“That she left again? A fortnight ago.”

“Did she tell you where she was going that time?”

“No. Although I gather it must have been Ayleswick?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian. Although she had stopped at Ludlow again on the way. She’d registered at the Feathers Inn as Mrs. Emma Chance and then set about assembling a wardrobe appropriate for a woman claiming to have been widowed some six months.

Miss Owens rested her outstretched palms on the top of one of the low stone walls edging the bridge and leaned into her arms. The air smelled of clean running water and blooming heather and sun-warmed earth, and she was silent for a moment, her gaze on the rippling waters flowing beneath them.

Then she looked over at him. “I don’t understand. Why would someone kill her? How could anyone do that? She was so full of life, so passionate, so brilliant and strong. She had her entire life ahead of her—so many dreams and plans, so much to give. And someone took it all away.”

Sebastian found it hard to meet the woman’s pain-filled gaze. “Is there nothing you can tell me—nothing at all—that might help make some sense of what happened to her?”

“No. I can’t think of anything.”

“Would you mind if I looked at her room?”

The request seemed to take her aback. Then she blew a harsh breath out through her nostrils and nodded. “No. I can see it must be done.”

“I would like your assistance.”

She nodded again and pushed away from the bridge.

E
mma Chandler’s chamber was one of two that lay at the top of the cottage’s steep oaken staircase. With whitewashed walls and dormer windows set into a sloping ceiling, it was a pleasant room, the view from the windows looking out across the tumbling river toward the Long Mynd. The furniture was sturdy and plain. But Emma had covered the walls with her own exquisite art. In addition to simple sketches, there were also watercolors and oils, with brooding views of the Long Mynd hanging beside thought-provoking, character-filled faces of the very old.

“She purchased a few items after she came into her inheritance,” said Miss Owens as Sebastian let his gaze drift around the room. “A silver brush and comb set, some new clothes, a trunk—and lots of art supplies, of course. But she was mainly focused on finding a house, something large enough that we could turn into a school. She wanted to stay in the area. It’s a good location for a school, halfway between Ludlow and Shrewsbury.”

“How much did she inherit? Do you know?”

“Ten thousand pounds.”

Sebastian turned to look at her in surprise. He’d been imagining a legacy of several hundred pounds, perhaps, at most. Ten thousand pounds was a substantial sum. “Who does she leave it to?”

Miss Owens gave him a blank look. “I’ve no idea. Why? Surely you don’t think her inheritance could be the reason she was killed?”

“It seems unlikely. But I don’t think we can discount it entirely.” He went to scan the titles of a row of books on a shelf mounted on the wall near the window. The volumes were simply bound but well-worn, and he noted works by Blake and Donne, Coleridge and Shakespeare. There was a copy of
Hamlet
, but when he took it down and turned to the last page, he found the last line intact.

“What are we looking for?” asked Jane Owens, watching him.

Sebastian slipped the book back in place. “Anything that might explain what happened to her.”

She nodded and went to open the top drawer of the small chest beside the bed.

They worked their way quietly around the room. It didn’t take long, for Emma Chandler’s possessions had been few, her habits neat and tidy. It wasn’t until he noticed a pencil sketch of Crispin Seaton tacked up near the window that something occurred to him.

“Did Lord Seaton ever write to Emma?” he asked.

Jane Owens glanced up from her search. “He did, yes. She received a letter from Windermere not long before she left.”

“Have you come across it?”

She shook her head. “No, I haven’t. You think that’s significant?”

“I don’t know.”

Jane Owens was searching a small cupboard built into the wall beside the fireplace when Sebastian noticed a strange charcoal drawing affixed to the inside of the cupboard door. A young girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen stood before a building engulfed by a raging fire, her dark hair loose and flying across her face as the fierce air currents driven by the flames whipped the hem of her dress around her. In her arms she held another child she’d obviously rescued from the fire. A child whose face, he suddenly realized, was identical to her own.

“Emma did that years ago,” said Miss Owens, following his gaze as she straightened. “I think she told me once that she was twelve.”

“It’s amazingly good.”

Jane Owens nodded. “You wouldn’t recognize it, but the burning house is Miss LaMont’s Academy.”

They stood in silence for a moment, studying the troubling and yet powerfully uplifting image.

“She’s rescuing herself,” Sebastian said after a moment.

“Yes. That was Emma.”

Jane Owens closed the cupboard door and leaned back against it. They had discovered nothing.

He said, “Do you know the name of the firm of solicitors in Ludlow?”

“No; I’m sorry. Rowena LaMont could tell you.” She hesitated, then pulled a face and added, “Although if you desire her cooperation, it might be best not to mention our meeting.”

“She didn’t approve of Emma’s decision to join you once she came of age?”

“Miss Lamont and I did not part under the most amiable of circumstances.”

Sebastian studied the schoolteacher’s pinched, tightly held face. “It was over Emma, was it?”

She hesitated, and he thought she meant to deny it. But then she nodded. “Fortunately, a cousin who’d died six months before had left me this cottage and some land I rent to a local farmer. So I had someplace to go. The worst part was leaving Emma.”

“When was this?”

“Two years ago. She asked if she could come to me when she turned twenty-one, and of course I said yes.”

“Did she know then about the inheritance?”

“She knew she would come into something, but she had no idea of the amount.”

“And Miss LaMont never said anything that might suggest who her family are?”

She frowned with thought. “I know Miss LaMont was extraordinarily impressed by them, whoever they are. Unfortunately, it somehow never translated into kindness to Emma. In fact, it was as if Rowena LaMont was determined to punish the child for the parents’ transgression. But she was always extraordinarily tight-lipped about their identity.”

Jane Owens was silent a moment. Then her eyes widened as if with a sudden thought. “Dear God. If that’s why Emma was in Ayleswick, could
they
have killed her? Her own family?”

Her gaze met Sebastian’s. He knew from the hopeful look in her eyes that she wanted him to tell her she was wrong.

Only, he couldn’t.