Scoundrel of Dunborough (8 page)

Chapter Eight

T
wo days later, the early-morning sun was barely lighting the horizon as Celeste raised her head from the pillow of her arms. Sometime after midnight, she’d rested her forehead on the table in the kitchen and fallen asleep.

She’d spent most of the previous evening examining various bits of parchment she’d found in a wooden box in her old bedchamber. Letters, receipts, bills of lading, bills of sale, lists, figures and notations were now in various piles on the table. She’d also found a few pennies in the box beneath the papers. That was a pleasant surprise. She could use the money in the market.

As for the documents, they had been jumbled together without any apparent rhyme or reason, as if Audrey had simply thrown them into the box. Celeste had tried to make sense of them, sorting them into piles, and hoping that one might be a clue about the location of her father’s money.

She’d found nothing of any use in that regard. All her efforts seemed to show was that Audrey had indeed spent freely on credit, and with apparently no attempts to repay her debts.

Rubbing her neck, Celeste rotated her head, trying to work out a dull ache. Noticing a shaft of light across the flagstone floor, she went to the window and discovered a narrow gap between the shutters, which were held closed by a hook and eye. The wood must have shrunk over the years, leaving a space. She likely hadn’t noticed it before because she hadn’t been in the kitchen when the sun rose.

A thief could slip a knife through that gap and raise the hook and thus open the shutters.

Yet she’d never seen it before and Lizabet hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe the maidservant hadn’t seen it, either, because as the sun moved, that gap would be in shadow. Celeste doubted it would be any more visible outside, even if she had a candle lit. Nevertheless, it was troubling and made her more grateful for the guards. When she sold the house, she would tell the new owner to obtain a more secure fastener.

She heard a cat’s meow and went to the door. Joseph, as she’d decided to name the ginger cat because of his bright coat, was waiting outside. She let him in and closed the door, then began to gather up the papers and put them back into the box.

She would take them to her room and try to get a little more sleep before Lizabet arrived.

* * *

“Watch what you’re doing, you oaf!” Norbert cried as the wax dripped from the form onto the table beneath. “I can’t afford to have beeswax wasted!”

Lewis quickly scraped up the overflow and put it back into the small cauldron of melted wax that sat in a holder over a low flame on the worktable.

“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” his father demanded, swatting him on the back of the head. “You can’t put it back! It’s dirty. Now the whole lot’s ruined.” He grabbed the hot container, gasped and let it fall.

“Idiot!” he shouted, as if it was his son’s fault he’d burned himself, and raised his hand again.

Trying to avoid another blow, Lewis jumped up from his stool, knocking it over and into his father’s way, so that the older man nearly tripped.

Clutching his burning fingers, Norbert shouted, “Get out!”

Lewis didn’t hesitate to obey. He ran out of the workroom and into the alley, then slipped into the tavern. It was busy and crowded on market day, and nobody noticed him in a dark corner.

He sat and leaned his head back and closed his eyes. God, he was tired! It was no wonder he’d made that mistake in the shop. Nevertheless, he wasn’t about to tell his father he’d spent most of the past night up in the garret watching the D’Orleau house, wondering what Sister Augustine was doing and why there’d been a light in the kitchen.

At least she hadn’t been with Gerrard. Lewis was sure about that, or he would have seen him. He wished Gerrard would catch a chill and die. Or better yet, some lingering, wasting, disfiguring disease. It would serve that arrogant lout right. Unfortunately, the men who most deserved to be punished for their sins all too often weren’t. It had been Gerrard’s equally sinful friends who’d died. To be sure, they’d gone outside the law after Roland had sent them from Dunborough, but still, it wasn’t fair. Men like Gerrard never suffered enough.

“What’ll you have, Lewis? Buttermilk?”

He opened his eyes to find Matheus smirking at him.

“Nothing from you,” he retorted, getting to his feet.

He’d find another place to keep warm, such as the empty stable in the D’Orleau yard. That way, he’d be near Sister Augustine, too.

* * *

“Well, now, Sister, see something you like?” the butcher asked. His lips were smiling, but not his eyes. No doubt he was thinking of the five marks Audrey owed him, and wondering if and when he might be repaid.

Giving the big man in a bloody apron a pleasant smile to hide the shame she felt, Celeste reached into her cuff and pulled out her nearly empty purse. “I need a bit of meat for a stew, if you please.”

The butcher nodded and bundled a few pieces of the cheapest cut in a cabbage leaf, handing it over to her after she gave him the price he asked for. “So you’re not leaving for a bit, eh, Sister?”

“Not until the house is sold and all of Audrey’s debts are paid,” she assured him before she left his shop, not lingering in case she saw a skeptical expression on his face.

She went past the well and the women gathered there. She smiled at them, too, and they nodded a greeting in return. Despite their apparent friendliness, she was sure she would be the subject of their conversation when they began talking again. Being the sister of a murdered woman would be more than enough to kindle a lot of gossip and speculation.

It would be worse if she wasn’t garbed in the habit of a nun. She didn’t regret taking it, and she suspected the mother superior probably considered the loss of a habit a small price to pay for being rid of a troublesome novice whom no amount of punishment would render completely obedient.

“Alms, good Sister, alms!”

Celeste halted abruptly. She hadn’t noticed the old woman sitting on the ground inside the entrance to an alley. If she had, she’d more than likely have thought it was a bundle of rags, not a person. The woman was small in stature and her face barely visible beneath the cloth wrapped around her head.

A filthy, bony hand appeared. “Alms?” the beggar repeated in a weak, quavering voice.

Celeste took out her leather drawstring purse. She hadn’t much money left, but she would give something to the poor soul to buy a bit of bread.

She fished out a ha’penny and, bending down, put it in the outstretched palm.

“Bless you, Sister, bless you!” the old woman murmured, drawing her hand back.

Celeste got a good look at the old woman’s filthy face and nearly dropped her purse. “Eua?”

Clutching the coin, Gerrard’s old nurse scuttled back against the wall like a crab. “No, no, I ain’t!”

“You are!” Celeste cried, moving toward the woman who had been like a mother to Gerrard. “What happened? How have you come to this?”

“Go ’way!” she cried. “You ain’t seen me!”

Celeste reached down to take Eua’s arm and help her to her feet. The stench was nearly overpowering. Even so, she couldn’t leave her there like that.

With unexpected strength Eua tried to push her away. “Don’t tell nobody you seen me! Don’t tell
him
!”

Celeste didn’t have to ask who she meant. “You must let me get you some food.”

And a bath. And clean clothes.

“No, no, let me go!” Eua cried frantically, hobbling into the street just as Gerrard and his men rode through the market.

“Look out there!” Gerrard cried, reining in abruptly.

As his horse neighed in protest and the rest of the patrol behind him brought their mounts to a halt, Eua screeched and fell to her knees. She threw her hands over her head and started to sob, her whole body shaking.

Celeste knelt beside the distraught old woman, trying to see if she was hurt or ill or simply frightened.

“Don’t tell him who I am!” Eua wailed, writhing as if someone had set her on fire.

“S’blood!” Gerrard cried in disbelief as he dismounted. “Eua?”

The old woman covered her face and twisted away. “No, no, I ain’t, I ain’t!”

Gerrard didn’t move. “Get up, Eua.”

“No, no!”

“You must. You shouldn’t have come back here.”

“Why shouldn’t she be here?” Celeste asked, appalled by his harsh tone. “This is her home.”

“She has forfeited that right.”

Celeste regarded him with bafflement. “What has she done that you should say that? This woman was like a mother to you.”

“This woman enabled the former steward of Dunborough to steal from the estate while he blamed me for the loss.”

That gave Celeste a moment’s pause. Stealing was a very serious offense. But the woman was still in dire need, whatever she had done. “Even so, for mercy’s sake—”

“Verdan!” Gerrard called out.

A soldier rode forward.

“Take charge of the patrol.”

“Aye!” Verdan raised his hand and led the group of mounted men past them.

With more gentleness than she expected, and no hint that he found Eua repulsive, Gerrard reached down to help the sobbing old woman to her feet.

“For mercy’s sake and Sister Augustine’s, you can stay one night in the castle,” he said to the trembling Eua, “but then you must be on your way.”

“Gerrard, surely—” Celeste started to protest.

The look he gave her silenced her, at least on that one point. But she had something else to say to him and might never have another chance. “Thank you for the guards, Gerrard, and Lizabet, too. I feel safer for their presence.”

His eyes lit up in a way that made her blush, and his lips curved in a grin that wasn’t mocking or insolent. It was as if time had not wrought so very great a change, and he was again the Gerrard she’d admired so long ago.

Until he muttered a quiet curse, for Eua was sidling down the alley away from them. He darted after her and once more gently gripped her arm. “Come along, Eua, and be a good woman, as I was your good boy once. You can have something to eat and a warm bed for the night.”

She made no further protest.

“Good day, Sister,” Gerrard said with great politeness before they started toward the castle.

“Good day, Gerrard,” she murmured as she watched him lead the old woman and his snow-white horse away.

Leaving her to wonder what else had changed while she was far from home.

* * *

“Oh, that’s lovely, that is!” Lizabet said when Celeste returned with the meat for the stew. “Ben must like you.”

Celeste doubted that very much, yet didn’t say so. “Have you ever heard tell of a servant called Eua at the castle?” she asked while Lizabet fetched a bowl and some flour.

Lizabet started to cut the meat into smaller pieces. “She was here when Lady Mavis come, but not for long.”

“Lady Mavis sent her away?”

“Aye. She didn’t have much choice, really. Eua was disrespectful and made it no secret that she thought Gerrard ought to have Dunborough, not Roland, no matter who was born first or what their father wanted. We was all glad to see the back of Eua. What a tongue that woman had!

“And then it turns out she was helping Dalfrid—he was the steward—to steal. Gerrard found her in York with Dalfrid and his mistress and realized what she’d done.”

“So he brought her back here to face justice?”

“Lord love you, no,” Lizabet said as she put some fat into one of the pots and swung it over the fire. When it began to sizzle, she dropped the flour-coated meat into it. “He let her stay in York with the mistress.”

“I met her in the village today. She’s in a wretched state, starving and in rags.”

Lizabet didn’t look particularly sympathetic. “Why she’d come back here, I don’t know. Maybe Dalfrid’s leman got tired of her nasty tongue, too.”

“I thought she might have come back to seek help from Gerrard. She was always good to him and he was generous to her.”

“Until that Dalfrid made out it was Gerrard costing the estate, when it was him stealing, and Eua knew it. Dalfrid paid her to keep quiet.”

No wonder Gerrard had been so stiff and cold toward Eua. How it must have hurt him to find out the woman he loved like a mother was willing to betray him for money. Yet he had offered Eua food and shelter. “He’s letting her stay the night in the castle.”

Stirring the beef, Lizabet didn’t appear surprised. “All the beggars that come to the village can stay a night in the castle stables, but only one, and they get a loaf of bread to take with them when they go.”

Sir Blane or Broderick would never have done that. “Sir Roland has a generous nature.”

“Oh, that isn’t his doing,” Lizabet said, adding water to the pot. “It’s Gerrard’s. Some say he’s trying to atone for all the sins he’s committed.”

Joseph came out of the shadows in the corner and pushed his head against Celeste’s leg. She picked up the cat and stroked his back and listened to his purring.

If Gerrard was trying to atone, she thought, he was starting well.

She hoped she would be successful at atonement when her time came, for it surely must.

* * *

As the patrol continued on its way, Verdan addressed his brother. “Told you Sister Augustine was something, didn’t I? Did you hear how she spoke to Gerrard?”

“Aye,” Arnhelm replied. He mused for a moment, his hips swaying with his horse’s ambling walk. “She don’t seem much like a nun.”

“Too pretty, aye.”

“Not just that. I thought nuns were supposed to be meek and mild.”

“Aye, there’s that.”

“Reckon Gerrard’ll be glad when she’s gone. No man likes to be dressed down by a woman, and in the market, too.”

Arnhelm grinned. “You mind the time Ma chased you all around the green when you’d stepped on the sheets she’d laid out on the verge to dry?”

“If Gerrard feels half as shamed as I did that day,” Verdan said with certainty, “he’ll be having a celebration when she’s gone.”

* * *

Florian, the cook, looked decidedly less than pleased to have Eua back in his kitchen. No doubt he would have been just as unhappy about it even if she didn’t smell and likely harbor fleas. Peg glanced at the former servant with a combination of disgust and dismay, and Tom the spit boy stared as if she were a witch come to gobble him up for dinner.