Susanna Appleton prayed for patience. ‘You cannot avoid speaking to her, Jennet.’
‘And why not?’ Jennet Jaffrey worried her lower lip with her teeth, a sure sign that she was upset.
That was only to be expected, given the way she felt about Rosamond, but after all this time, Susanna’s tolerance had worn thin. ‘This feud between you has to end.’
‘She—’
‘I do not want to hear it.’ Susanna held up one hand, palm out.
She was well aware of the complaints Jennet had against her son’s wife. They had begun to accumulate long before Rob and Rosamond married. She’d been against Susanna’s decision to foster her husband’s bastard daughter and had never approved of Rosamond’s high spirits or her tendency to lead the other children, Rob and his sisters among them, into trouble. As for the marriage itself, that never should have happened.
Rob Jaffrey’s father, Mark, was Lady Appleton’s steward. His mother, Jennet, had once been her tiring maid and now served as Leigh Abbey’s housekeeper. It was not unheard of for the gentry to marry beneath them, but both families had envisioned other futures for their children. Rob had already matriculated at Cambridge. Rosamond’s mother, Eleanor, had dreams of matching her with a nobleman’s son. That Rosamond appeared to have married Rob solely as a ploy to gain control of her inheritance had been the final straw where Jennet was concerned.
Susanna’s own feelings toward Rosamond had always been complex. Barren herself, she’d been deeply hurt by her first sight of this child who was, unmistakably, her husband’s get. Even as an infant, Rosamond had shared Sir Robert Appleton’s most prominent features, especially his deep brown eyes. In Rosamond, his wavy dark brown hair, his narrow face, and his high forehead combined to create a pretty creature who had never been above using her attractive appearance to get her own way. Susanna had long accepted responsibility for that character flaw. She’d spoiled the child.
Even that first day, when she had seen Rosamond in her mother’s arms and realized that Robert had betrayed his marriage vows, Susanna had not blamed the baby. Susanna had done her best for Robert’s illegitimate daughter after his death, taking an interest in her upbringing and welcoming the little girl into her own home when Rosamond’s mother, Eleanor, married Sir Walter Pendennis and went abroad with her new husband on a diplomatic mission for the queen. As Rosamond’s foster mother, Susanna had felt it her duty to make the child’s future secure. Morally, if not legally, she was her father’s heir. Susanna had made it so in law, as well, setting aside a small fortune to come to Rosamond when she reached the age of twenty-one, or when she wed, whichever came first.
That was what had led to her misalliance with Rob Jaffrey. To put an end to Eleanor’s constant pressure to marry some young sprig of the nobility, a sixteen-year-old Rosamond had talked Rob Jaffrey into a clandestine marriage. She had always been able to twist the boy around her little finger. She even persuaded him to sign away his rights, acquired the moment their vows were exchanged, to all the goods, chattels, and land she brought to the marriage. Rosamond had been furious when she learned she’d miscalculated. Only sixteen himself, Rob had not been of legal age to enter into any contract other than a matrimonial one. Rob’s father, not Rob himself, gained control of Rosamond’s fortune, and Mark Jaffrey was not inclined to be as generous as Susanna had been.
In the tempestuous weeks and months that followed, with threats of a legal battle on the horizon, the household at Leigh Abbey had been torn asunder. Rob had sided with his bride. Jennet, who had always been quick to criticize Rosamond, calling her prideful and a troublemaker, had suffered a seizure and taken to her bed. She had been gravely ill for weeks afterward and had been subject to dizzy spells ever since that episode.
Studying the other woman as they waited for Rosamond and Lina to join them in the small parlor near the ground floor hall, Susanna noted ominous signs. Jennet’s cheeks were flushed, her breath came a little too fast and her steps, when she moved from one side of the room to the other, were a trifle unsteady. Low of stature all her life, Jennet had never lost the weight she had gained with her first child. She’d increased in girth from year to year until she was nearly as round as she was tall. Along with the weight had come the tendency toward heightened color and a chronic shortness of breath.
‘Have you taken your tonic this morning?’ Susanna prepared it herself – a distillation of horehound, sage, mullein, and raspberry leaves. Imbibed daily, it strengthened the heart.
Sending her a mutinous look, Jennet shook her head.
‘Now, of all times, you must not skip a dose.’ Susanna had also advised her old friend to avoid nuts, milk, cheese, meat, and fruits, but she knew full well that Jennet ate what she pleased. As a countermeasure, Susanna was wont to surrepti-tiously mix a little feverfew into Jennet’s wine.
About to launch into a lecture on taking better care of herself, Susanna maintained her silence when she heard footsteps approaching. A moment later, Rosamond entered the small parlor. She had taken the time to change into more suitable clothing, garments she’d apparently brought with her in her saddlebags. Eyes bright, she opened her mouth to speak. She closed it again with an audible smack when she caught sight of Jennet.
Every trace of Rosamond’s animation vanished as if a shutter had swung closed. She stood stock still, hands clenched in front of her, staring with a blank expression at her husband’s mother.
Jennet took a step toward the younger woman, her eyes ablaze with years of pent-up animosity.
Susanna moved swiftly to step between them. ‘Enough! You will declare a truce here and now, if for no other reason than that you both care for Rob.’
For a time, Rosamond had also been estranged from her husband. They still lived apart, with Rob pursuing his studies at Cambridge and Rosamond established in Bermondsey, but Susanna had been assured that they were once again on friendly terms with one another. She dared hope that, before long, they would be fully reconciled. What choice did they have? There was no undoing a marriage, not in Elizabeth Tudor’s England. Once the matrimonial knot was tied, only death could sever it.
Rosamond drew in a deep breath and addressed Jennet. ‘I know I have not behaved well in the past, and I am most heartily sorry for it. I never meant to hurt you. I was thoughtless and selfish. A brat.’
‘And therein I bear some responsibility,’ Susanna interrupted. ‘I was never good at discipline.’
Eyes wide, Rosamond turned to her. ‘No, Mama, you must not blame yourself. I should have hated it, hated you, if you had been strict with me. No doubt I would have rebelled all the sooner. Mother’s machinations were what drove me to act so impulsively, not yours.’
‘Whatever happened in the past, it is the present that is important now. And the future.’ She leveled a stern look at Jennet. ‘Must I remind you that Rosamond will one day be the mother of your grandchildren?’
Rosamond winced. Jennet cast a speculative glance at her daughter-in-law’s midsection. ‘I see no sign that you are increasing. Are you certain you understand the duties of a wife?’
‘I even enjoy some of them,’ Rosamond shot back, ‘but if you ever expect to dandle my baby on your knees—’
‘Rob will have his degree soon,’ Susanna interrupted, ‘and then you two will be able to live as man and wife.’ It was not Rosamond keeping them apart, she assured herself, but only the rule at Cambridge that did not permit wives to share undergraduates’ lodgings. ‘Meanwhile, there is the matter of Godlina Walkenden to occupy us. I expected her to come down with you, Rosamond.’
‘I left her resting. It seemed to exhaust her to relate her tale. She would not even let me help her undress, but sprawled fully clothed on the bed and fell at once into a doze.’
‘It is no wonder she is still recovering. She showed remarkable fortitude in making her way to Leigh Abbey on her own. She was close to collapse by the time she arrived. Since then she has had to endure the strain of wondering if her sister will remember this place and send searchers here to look for her.’
‘I do not understand how you can be so certain she is innocent,’ Jennet grumbled. ‘As a girl, she did not always tell the truth. There was that matter in Derbyshire—’
‘Lina is the victim in this.’ Rosamond’s defense of her friend was immediate and fierce.
Quietly pleased, Susanna drew her aside. ‘Anyone can kill, given enough provocation, but I cannot see Lina stabbing Hugo Hackett to death.’
‘Lina did not seem to know where the knife came from or who it belonged to or even what kind of knife it was.’
‘It may well have been Hackett’s own blade. It is not surprising that Lina was too upset at the time to take note of details.’
‘She said she thought at once of me,’ Rosamond said with the hint of a smile.
‘You are in an excellent position to help her.’
‘I do not see how. No one has any reason to talk to me, let alone answer intrusive questions about Hugo Hackett’s death. I warrant you are better suited to make such inquiries than I am.’
Susanna shook her head. ‘I have not the excuse of long friendship for meddling in this matter. Moreover, if I were to go to London and approach Isolde Hackett, it would not be long before she guessed that I had seen Lina. I can be of more use if I stay here and keep Lina hidden. You, on the other hand, may with impunity go anywhere in the city and talk to people who knew Hugo Hackett, even his widow.’
Jennet, who had been listening to every word that passed between them, gave a disdainful sniff. ‘She cannot compel anyone to answer her. And if she gives as the reason for her interest that she was Lina’s childhood friend, it was at Leigh Abbey that they knew each other, the authorities will come here searching for the fugitive, you mark my words.’
‘I have been reliably informed,’ said Susanna, not without pride, ‘that our Rosamond is skilled in the art of disguise and also most adept at uncovering secrets. No less a person than Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s spy master, was moved to employ her of late on a mission of some delicacy.’
Rosamond’s look of astonishment had Susanna stifling an urge to laugh aloud.
‘No one was supposed to know anything about that!’
‘You forget, dearest girl, who drew you into the affair in the first place.’
Susanna had not been pleased to learn what danger Rosamond had been in, and Rob, too, but by the time her neighbor, friend, and occasional lover, Nick Baldwin, had shared the details, everyone was safe.
‘I will do all I can to help Lina,’ Rosamond said. ‘Never doubt that. But I am uncertain where to begin.’ Susanna could almost hear the wheels turn and the gears grind as Rosamond mulled over the problem.
‘I am confident you will be able to discover the murderer’s identity. As for beginning, you must talk to Lina again. Ask her what persons profit from the death of her sister’s husband. They are the individuals you must contrive to meet. Observe them closely and you should be able to whittle down your list of names. When only one remains, that will be your killer.’
Rosamond laughed. ‘Not my killer, I hope. I should like to survive the discovery.’
‘I feel certain you will be as cautious as you are diligent,’ Susanna said. ‘Now go you and rest for a few hours while you can. You have had a long and arduous journey yourself. We will speak of this more anon.’
Rosamond resisted at first, but a jaw-popping yawn gave the lie to her claim that she was not tired.
When Rosamond had gone from the small parlor, Susanna turned to Jennet. ‘If what Nick Baldwin has told me is true, Rosamond is not only clever and resourceful but also knows how to defend herself. And yet, I will worry about her. Someone who has killed once will not hesitate to kill again rather than be caught and punished.’
Jennet sent her a sour look. ‘Too late now to think of that. You have set her on her course. Tell her not to go on with it and she’ll do just the opposite.’
‘She had a rebellious, impulsive streak in her nature when she was younger, but surely she has outgrown that.’
Jennet sneered at that notion. ‘No doubt,’ she said, ‘that is why she donned male garments and rode through the night to arrive here the sooner.’