Winterset (15 page)

Reed followed, and when Anna was seated, he bent down to take her hand. Anna’s fingers curled around his tightly as she realized how much she did not want him to leave.

He smiled into her eyes, giving her hand a squeeze. “Let Kyria cosset you for a while. I will return as soon as I can. Try to put it out of your mind.”

Reed left, and Anna did as he suggested, letting Kyria and Miss Farrington fuss over her, arranging pillows around her on the couch so that she was comfortable and plying her with tea. Alex and Con retreated to their room. The boys would, Kyria explained to Anna and Rosemary, handle what had happened to them as they did everything—together.

Kyria thought Anna should lie down, but Anna did not think she could sleep, and, frankly, she was reluctant to close her eyes, for she knew that the image of the dead boy would come flooding back. Miss Farrington read aloud from
The Moonstone,
but Anna found it difficult to concentrate on the story. She kept waiting for the sound of Reed’s return.

The constable and Dr. Felton arrived, and Anna, more familiar with the area than Kyria, directed them to where Reed and Rafe waited for them. After they left, Rosemary once more gamely took up reading. She was, Anna thought, really a sweet girl. She could see why Kit was drawn to her.
If only things were different…

Time crawled on, and tea had long been served before the men came back to the house. They had little new to say. The doctor had confirmed that the wounds were very similar to those on Estelle Akins’ body, and the constable had recognized the victim as Frank Johnson, whose father’s farm lay not far from the footbridge where they had found the boy’s body. The constable had seen him, in fact, in the tavern only the evening before. He had apparently been walking home from the tavern when the killer had struck.

When tea was over, Reed drove Anna back to Holcomb Manor in the trap she had driven over in, his own horse tied to the back. They sat side by side, the trap small enough that his arm pressed against hers, and Anna found it comforting to have him next to her, large and solid. They said little, for which Anna felt grateful. She was still too shocked by the events of the day to talk much. It was soothing to feel the fading glow of the summer sun on her skin, to have her cheek brushed by a stray breeze, to soak in the familiar beauty of the land and the slowly setting sun.

When they reached the Manor, Reed walked her to the door, and she found herself slipping her hand into the crook of his arm as if it were the most natural thing to do. He covered her hand with his own for a moment.

“Will you be all right? Is your brother here?” He looked down into her face, his own brow knotted in concern.

Anna nodded, smiling at him reassuringly. “Yes, I shall be fine. I imagine Kit is here, and, if not, there is a whole houseful of servants. I will be perfectly all right.”

They stood for a moment, looking at each other, and Anna thought that he was going to lean down and kiss her, and she was not sure what she would do. She was so tired and heartsore, and it seemed too great an effort to erect her customary barrier between them. But just then the door was opened by one of the Holcomb footmen, and the moment was gone.

Reed bowed over her hand and went back down the steps to his horse, and Anna went inside. She found Kit in his study, going over some papers, and he looked up at her entrance with a smile.

“Ah, thank heavens. I hope you have come to save me from an accounting of the farm rents.”

“No. I—” Tears sprang into Anna’s eyes, surprising her almost as much as her brother.

“Anna! What is it?” Kit rose and moved around the side of his desk to her.

“Someone else has been killed,” she told him tersely.

“What!” Kit took hold of her arms. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I—I found him.”

He stared at her, stunned, as she described to him how she and the twins had stumbled upon the body just beyond the footbridge, leaving out the feeling of cold pain and terror that had swept her just before they saw the body. She had never told even Kit about her visions.

“My God,” he said weakly when she had finished, his hands dropping from her arms. “What is happening here?”

“He was marked as Estelle was,” Anna went on. “Dr. Felton said so, and I saw it. It was horrible—as if some large animal had torn at him. His throat—” She stopped and swallowed, unable to describe what she had seen.

Kit turned and looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “What are you saying?”

“I cannot help but wonder…”

“No!” Kit told her sternly. “I know what you are thinking, but it isn’t true. It’s impossible. How can you even wonder? He would never—”

“Are you so sure?” Anna asked, her eyes searching her brother’s face. “I am not.”

“It cannot be,” Kit reiterated, but his eyes fell from her face. He stood for a moment, staring down at the carpet as if it held some secret. “All right,” he said finally. “We will go up there tomorrow. Will that help you?”

“Yes,” Anna replied. “I think we have to.”

They set out the next morning not long after breakfast, walking through their garden and along the path that wound back into the woods. Anna avoided the path that led to the spot where she had experienced the chilling pain the other day as they walked deeper into the trees. The land began to rise as they approached Craydon Tor. On the far side of the tor, the land dropped in a sheer cliff face down to the ground below, offering a clear view of the countryside for miles. On that side it was a towering edifice, looming over everything else.

On this side, it was a gradual rise, thick with trees and bushes, climbing, then leveling out a little, then climbing again. Because of the thick woods, it was not a particularly popular place to walk, and even those who did climb the tor stuck to the marked path.

Kit and Anna, however, veered off the path, going deeper into the forest, winding around trees and stones. After a time, they reached a line of stones that seemed to curve in a large circle, disappearing at either end into the underbrush. Stepping over the stones, they continued, grasping at branches of trees and saplings to help them up the steeper parts. They went around an outcropping of rock and came upon a narrow path. It led them up toward the side of the tor, and though the ground there was still a slope that was easily enough traversed, ahead of them the hill became a sheer rock face.

There, against the rock, was nestled a small, dark hut, barely distinguishable from the trees and bushes around it. A man sat on a stool in front of the small house, whittling away at a piece of wood in his hand. There was a small fire built in front of him, and over the fire hung an iron pot. A semicircle of rocks, much like the ones they had already passed, ran in front of the hut and around to the cliff face on either side of the house.

Almost unnoticed at first, another man lay rolled up in a blanket beneath one of the trees, a wooden marker stuck into the ground at his feet, another at his head. A twig cracked under Kit’s feet as they approached, and the sleeping man sat straight up, staring at them wildly.

“It’s all right, sir.” The other man, too, had looked up and seen them, and he stood up and walked toward Anna and Kit. “Master Kit, Miss Anna. It’s good to see you.”

“Hello, Arthur,” Kit replied to the man walking toward them. He and Anna stepped over the line of stones and walked closer, their steps slow, their demeanor calm.

The man who had been sleeping rose to his feet, glancing back at Arthur Bradbury, then again at Kit and Anna. He was a man of medium height, dressed in a simple cotton shirt and serge jacket and trousers, and his feet were bare. His hair, a brown color mixed with gray, was bushy and long, hanging below his shoulders. The lower half of his face was covered with an equally long beard, much more streaked with white than the hair on his head. His face was smudged, a dark streak across his brow and one more on each of his cheeks above his beard. His eyes were light-colored, and they did not stay on Kit and Anna, but kept flickering from them to the ground beside him, then back to them.

He raised one hand toward them, palm out, as if to stop them, and they came to a halt. On his upraised hand, the fingernails were bizarrely long, curving down at the ends, so that they resembled claws. The fingernails on his other hand were the same, though one had been broken off shorter than the others. His feet, if one looked down, had nails that grew out from his toes at a much greater length than normal.

“I know you,” he said finally.

“Yes, you do,” Kit said.

He nodded slowly. “Hello.”

“Hello, Uncle Charles,” Anna and Kit replied.

T
heir uncle nodded again, a short, decisive nod, then did it twice more. “How are you? Are you well?” he asked, his polished voice at odds with his rough clothes and bizarre appearance.

“We are,” Kit replied. He and Anna carefully did not move any closer to their uncle. Uncle Charles disliked anyone standing too close to him. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Charles de Winter replied. “I am looking out for her. I am careful. You know that.”

“Yes, we do,” Anna agreed. “You are always very careful.”

His gaze skittered to her, then away again. Anna was accustomed to it. Her uncle did not like to look anyone in the eye, either. “One has to be,” he said firmly. “She has spies everywhere. They are always trying to find me.” He gave them a quick, crafty smile. “I have outfoxed her, though.”

He gestured toward the stones encircling the hut, then patted one of the slats of wood that stood where he had lain. Things that looked like letters in some foreign tongue—Arabic, perhaps, or something like it—decorated the marker, running in a row downward. Anna knew that the other wooden slat was decorated on the far side with similar figures. What they said, she had no idea. All she knew was that her uncle insisted on sleeping between the two markers, feeling that they kept him safe.

She and Kit, like nearly everyone else who lived in the area, had thought that her mother’s brother had sailed to Barbados ten years earlier. It had not been until three years ago that her father had finally taken her aside and told her the truth. Her uncle was mad.

Anna could remember clearly the day her father had told her. It had been the day all her dreams had died.

Arthur had reached them by now, and he swept off his cap, bobbing his head first toward Kit, then to Anna. “We’re that pleased to see you, aren’t we, my lord?”

“Yes, General. But I—” Charles cast a worried glance at the ground where he had been sleeping. “It is time for my rest.” He looked back at his niece and nephew, then over at a point a little to the right of them. “It is important. You know I have to stand guard at night. That is when they are most likely to come.”

Kit nodded. “We know, Uncle Charles. Don’t worry. Go ahead and sleep. We’ll just talk to Arthur for a while.”

Their uncle looked a little doubtful as he glanced at his servant, but Arthur nodded reassuringly, saying, “I’ll keep watch, my lord. Master Kit and Miss Anna will help me look.”

“Yes. All right. But I’m not sure they’ll know what to look for.”

“I’ll tell ’em. Don’t you worry yourself, sir. We’ll keep a good lookout, and it’s daytime, after all.”

“Yes. You’re right, of course. And I have my protection.” Charles de Winter showed them the backs of his hands, where more of the unreadable figures were drawn in charcoal. “I changed them, you see. Much better than the old ones. Gabriel told me.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Anna nodded and smiled. It was the easiest course to take with her uncle.

They walked with Arthur back up to the front of the hut, and Arthur dragged out two straight-backed chairs from inside for Anna and Kit to sit in.

“How is he doing?” Kit asked Arthur, nodding toward his uncle, who was now wrapping himself carefully in his blanket and lying down between the markers.

“He has his good days and his bad days,” Arthur said noncommittally. He had looked after Lord de Winter from the time Charles was a child, separated from him only when Charles had gone off to school. Many another young man would not have taken Arthur on as his valet when he returned from Oxford, for he was rougher in manner and speech than most valets, but Charles had wanted no other manservant. Arthur, for his part, was intensely loyal to Charles. Anna knew that only a deep affection could have made anyone willing to take on the sort of life he had in order to care for her uncle.

“How has he been the last two or three days?” Anna asked.

Arthur looked at her, faintly surprised. “Same as ever, miss.” He nodded toward where Charles lay. “He’s been fairly quiet, just drawing them designs on his hands. He’s happy, thinks they’ll keep him safer.”

“At night—does he stay here?” Kit asked.

Arthur drew back, studying them, a frown starting. “Why are you asking all these questions? What’s the matter?”

“We just want to make sure that Uncle Charles hasn’t gone anywhere the last few nights. That he has been here.”

“’Course he’s been here. Where else would he go? He spends most nights right here outside the hut or up in one of the trees, keeping watch to make sure the ‘Queen’s assassins’ don’t somehow make it past the rocks.”

“Doesn’t he patrol sometimes?” Anna pursued. “Roam the whole area?”

“Sometimes,” Arthur agreed somewhat reluctantly. “But I haven’t heard him say anything about it lately.”

“But you are asleep during the night. So you wouldn’t know for sure whether or not he left this area?” Anna asked.

Arthur slowly shook his head. “No, miss. I’m not absolutely sure. Why does it matter?”

“There’s been some trouble.”

“Someone’s found out about Lord de Winter?” Arthur asked, worried.

“No. Nothing like that. Some people have been killed.”

“Killed!” Arthur stared at her. “What are you saying, miss?”

“The manner in which they were killed was very odd. There were marks on them that looked as if an animal had clawed them,” Anna explained.

For a moment Arthur’s face was blank; then understanding dawned on him. “Oh! His nails. But, miss, he would never hurt anyone. He couldn’t. Why, no matter how upset he gets about things, he’s never made the least effort to hurt me. He’s gentle. You know that. He’s just…confused, like, and scared.”

“But, Arthur, what if—what if he thought those people were the Queen’s spies or her assassins? What if he thought they were going to hurt him? Can you swear that he would not kill them to keep them from harming him—and you?”

Arthur looked troubled. “Well…no, miss, I might not could swear to it. But he’s been peaceful the last few days. I told you. He thinks this angel told him to draw these other marks on his hands, and he feels safer.”

Anna bit her lip. She wished Arthur’s answer had been more reassuring. Of course he would not think Charles had done anything so terrible; he was devoted to the man. Nor did she really think that her uncle was capable of murder. Still, there was a niggling little worry in the back of her brain. She wasn’t sure exactly what Uncle Charles might do when he was in the grip of one of his delusions.

“Keep a careful eye on him, won’t you?” Kit said to the servant.

“I always do that, sir,” Arthur told him somewhat reproachfully.

“I know you do. You are excellent with him. But we need to make especially sure that he doesn’t go out anywhere, that no one sees him.”

“Nobody comes this way, sir. Most people don’t like the woods, and you can’t get to the top of the tor this way, anyway. The time or two anybody’s shown up, trying to climb the tor, they haven’t seen him, and I’ve sent them on their way. He always hides if he hears voices. You know how he is.” He nodded at them gravely. “Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of him. Nobody’s going to find out about him—and nobody’s going to be hurt, not by him.”

“Do you feel better about it now?” Kit asked a few minutes later as he and Anna made their way back down from their uncle’s hideaway.

“Yes, I suppose.” Anna agreed. “I mean, he says Uncle Charles has been calmer. Surely he would not be calm if he had killed someone, even if he thought they were spies or assassins.”

“Arthur would have noticed if he had been acting strangely. He is devoted to him, but I don’t think he would cover up something like that for him.”

They made their way carefully down a slope, not speaking until they reached more level ground. When they did, Anna said with a sigh, “It makes me so sad to see him like that. Do you remember him when we were young? How he always had that bowl of sweets in his study, and he would give us one?”

Kit smiled faintly. “Yes, I remember. It is sad.” After a moment, he added, “What frightens me is—what if it strikes me later, as it did him?”

“I know. It’s a terrifying thought. I think about it, too.”

Their uncle’s madness had not come upon him until after he was grown, and at first, his “spells” had come upon him only now and then. During his “good days,” he had seemed normal. Gradually the spells had become more frequent and his behavior had grown more bizarre, until it was difficult to hide from the servants. His insistence on living outdoors had been the final oddity, impossible to explain, and it was then that Anna’s father had hit upon the plan to hide Lord de Winter’s madness from the rest of the world.

It was impossible not to look for signs of incipient madness in herself and in Kit, to examine every little oddity for an indication of something worse. Beneath everything that she did, running like a thread through the everyday fabric of her life, was the knowledge that one day her uncle’s fate might be hers or Kit’s, as well.

When they reached Holcomb Manor, they were surprised to see Kyria McIntyre’s carriage sitting in front of their house. Kyria and her friend Rosemary were in the front drawing room, sipping at the cups of tea that their butler had hastened to provide.

“Kyria!” Anna exclaimed as she and Kit strode into the room. “What a delightful surprise.”

“You will think me utterly rude, I’m afraid, to insist upon waiting for you, but your butler said you had already been gone some time on your walk, and I did so hope to catch you.”

“Of course I don’t think you are rude,” Anna assured her. “I am glad that you waited. May I offer you anything more than tea?”

“Oh, no,” Kyria said with a chuckle. “Your butler has already offered us most of the contents of your pantry, I think, but we had a late breakfast.”

As Kyria and Anna talked, Kit had taken the opportunity to speak to Rosemary Farrington, and now he extended to her an offer to show her the Holcomb gardens. Blushing a little, Miss Farrington did not hesitate to agree, and the two of them slipped out the door. Kyria looked after them for a moment.

“I think,” she said, turning to Anna with a smile, “that there is a certain fondness between your brother and Miss Farrington.”

“Miss Farrington is a very pleasant young woman,” Anna replied noncommittally.

“Unfortunately, I am afraid that I am going to throw a spanner in the works.”

Anna looked at Kyria questioningly.

“We came over here today to tell you that we are leaving for London as soon as we can get ourselves packed and ready—probably by tomorrow afternoon.”

Anna’s heart sank as she thought of Reed no longer being there. She knew it was the best thing, of course, for both of them, but that did not make the future seem any less empty. However, she kept her expression schooled to a mild disappointment as she said, “I—I am sorry to hear that.”

“Normally I would not be such a coward,” Kyria went on. “But I have to think of baby Emily and the twins, not to mention my guest. It—well, it just seems too dangerous for us to remain here with them, now that there is this person killing at random….”

“Yes, of course. You cannot expose the children or Miss Farrington to danger,” Anna agreed. “I perfectly understand. Still, I will be sorry to see you go.”

“Thank you. I will miss you, too. The twins, of course, are most loath to leave. They have been trying to convince us that they should stay and help find the murderer. But I can see that their pleas are lacking their usual spirit. I think that finding that body yesterday has affected them more than they would like to admit.”

“I am sure it has. I am so sorry they were with me.”

“You could have had no idea,” Kyria reassured her. “I am very glad you were with them and they did not stumble upon it by themselves.” She leaned forward, impulsively reaching over to take Anna’s hand. “I do hope that this will not be the end of our friendship. I would like it very much if you and your brother would come visit us in London. We could do all sorts of things. It is the height of the Season, and I would love to show you around. Please say you will come and stay with us. I shall have my mother write you an invitation. She would love to meet you. And Broughton House is huge, far too large for our family. You would not have to worry about being squeezed in with all of us.”

Anna flushed a little with pleasure. She liked Kyria, and she could not help but wish that things had been different, that she and Kyria could have become fast friends. But, of course, they could not. She could not go for a visit to the ducal mansion, living in the same house as Reed. It would be an impossible situation. No, no matter how empty the upcoming days would seem, it would be far better for Reed and Kyria and all the rest of them to leave. In the long run, it would be far easier on her heart.

“I am sorry,” she said, real regret in her voice. “But I am afraid that Kit and I do not often visit the City. We are simple country folk.”

“What nonsense. That is the sort of thing Rafe says—usually when he is trying to put something over on someone.”

Anna laughed. “No, I promise you, I am not trying to ‘put anything over’ on you. But the summer is a very busy time here. Kit has to keep track of everything for both estates, and I could not leave him to do it all by himself.”