| |
In Which the Final Piece Falls into Place
“CARLISLE CASTLE UNDEFENDED,’ ” Julia read over his shoulder. “That much is obvious, and something about the West Indies, but what does the rest of it mean?”
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
The room boasted only one chair, so Julia settled herself on Pickett’s knee (his right, so as not to obstruct his left-handed writing), and offered suggestions as he copied the message again, leaving spaces between any readily identifiable words. Eventually the message read:
CARLISLE CASTLE UNDEFENDED 55TH FT REG IN WEST INDIES 34TH FT BOUND FOR PENINSULA TUES NEXT MAIN GATE INSWALL BATTERY IMMRT INSIDE GATE FACING WEST ELEVEN CANNON BUT SIX ON LOWER LEVEL MAY BE INOPERABLE ARMOURY ON FIRST FLOOR OF KEEP GUARDED BY FEWER THAN 50 MEN 22 FRENCH PRISONERS ON GROUND FLOOR GODSPEED AND EGB
“There you are, then,” Pickett said. “The castle is undefended, or soon will be, because the 55th foot regiment is in the West Indies and the 34th will be headed for the Peninsula next Tuesday.”
“What does ‘inswall’ mean?” Julia asked, frowning thoughtfully at the paper. “ ‘Inside wall’? No, that can’t be right. ‘Main gate inside wall’ makes no sense.”
“ ‘In south wall,’ perhaps?” Pickett suggested. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever visited Carlisle Castle, have you?”
She shook her head. “No, for it isn’t like Belvoir Castle, you know—it was never a home. I believe it was built during the Middle Ages to defend the northern border against marauding Scots—although that seems rather hard to believe today, doesn’t it?”
Pickett grinned at her. “I don’t know about that. I should think a few thousand Mr. Colquhouns pouring over the wall would be rather terrifying. One can be scary enough, if he’s in the right mood—or the wrong one, depending on your point of view.” He raked his fingers through his brown curls and added, suddenly sobering, “And what he’s going to say when I tell him the wife of his old friend is involved in a treasonous plot—”
“It was a man who pushed Ned Hawkins off the cliff,” Julia insisted. “And even if it was a woman dressed in a man’s clothing, it could never have been Mrs. Hetherington. She’s far too frail.”
“I agree with you there. But she has servants, you know, servants who could be bribed, or threatened, or who might even share her Irish sympathies. She picked up a French cook in Dublin, remember? It wouldn’t be the first time the Irish and the French have joined forces against the English. Or what of that fellow who cut up her meat at dinner? I should think that degree of dependency might well lead to a bond of affection well beyond what would usually exist between mistress and servant.”
“But are you quite certain it’s treason?” Julia’s voice rose on a note of desperation. Pickett could sympathize: he liked the woman, too. “Perhaps she only meant to express concern at being left unprotected in case of invasion by the French. The people along the southern coast live in a state of constant anxiety over that very thing—not that fear prevents them from availing themselves of the contraband tobacco and brandy that manages to cross the Channel, but still—”
“And so,” Pickett said skeptically, “being worried about a French invasion, she writes a letter in code, describing in detail the layout of the castle’s defenses, right down to the number and position of its cannon?”
Julia peered more closely at the paper he’d transcribed. “Where does it say that?”
“There.” He pointed with the feathered end of the quill. “ ‘Battery immediate right inside gate, facing west.’ Followed by the number of cannon, the location of the armory, and an estimate of the remaining troops. I don’t like it any more than you do, sweetheart, but any way you look at it, this is treason.”
“So what happens now?”
Pickett gestured toward the original missive with its faint brown underscoring. “This will have to be turned over to the magistrate—not Mr. Colquhoun, but whoever holds the position locally—along with the rock and the note that was tied to it. And then”—he slumped in his chair with a sigh—“I have to tell Mr. Hetherington that his wife will be hanged as a traitor.”
She put her arm around his shoulders and gave them a squeeze of silent sympathy. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Had to arrest someone’s wife, I mean.”
“I’ve had to arrest my own! Julia, have you never wondered how I happened to turn up on your doorstep at just the right moment that day? I had an arrest warrant in my hand. I’d come to your house prepared to execute it.”
“But you knew I was innocent!” she protested, taken aback by this revelation.
“Oh, I knew, all right,” he recalled bitterly, “but I had no proof. And although the evidence against you was purely circumstantial, I had no answer for it.”
She picked up the letter and traced the incriminating brown lines with the tip of her finger. “Might this not be circumstantial, too? Some sort of flaw in the paper that causes spotting, perhaps—”
“Spotting that just happen to spell out the details of a military installation? I’m sorry, sweetheart, but no. Nothing is that circumstantial. Still, I’m not so callous that I can stroll in and arrest a lady after sitting at her dinner table. I’ll put this to Mr. Hetherington tomorrow and see what he has to say about it.”
“Tomorrow?”
“He’s gone to Penrith today with the bag of letters,” Pickett reminded her. “I won’t let him come back home to discover that his wife has been taken up for treason. I spent three days in Kent investigating your first husband’s murder, you know.”
“Kent?” She blinked at the sudden non sequitur. “What were you doing there?”
He gave a humorless little laugh at the memory. “Grasping at straws. And although Mr. Colquhoun assured me he wouldn’t send anyone to arrest you in my absence, I couldn’t quite believe him. He knew that I—I admired you—and he didn’t approve. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I would return to London only to find you’d been clapped into Newgate, and me powerless to stop it. I won’t put another man through that, Julia, no matter what his wife may have done.”
Her gaze softened as she looked down at him. “I hadn’t thought—I had always assumed you were merely being thorough and not jumping to conclusions in Frederick’s murder. I never realized you had taken it so personally.”
He gave her a rather rueful smile. “Why should you? I mean, look at you, and look at me.”
“I’d rather look at us,” she said, stroking his disheveled curls with loving fingers.
“There wasn’t any ‘us’ at the time. I had no reason to think there ever would be.” He looked down at the papers littering the table and sighed. “There won’t be any happy ending here, though. That much is certain.”
She slid off his knee with some reluctance. “I suppose I’d better let you get dressed, then. If you plan to see Mr. Hetherington tomorrow, I daresay you’ll want to find the magistrate this afternoon and have him issue an arrest warrant.”
“Not just yet,” Pickett said thoughtfully. “I want to hear what Mr. Hetherington has to say first.”
“But won’t that give him time to, I don’t know, spirit her away before you come back to arrest her? Take her to Ireland, perhaps, or even to France?”
“Perhaps.”
Her eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. “In fact, you hope he will.”
He neither confirmed nor denied this charge, and she bethought herself of a similar conversation that had taken place only a few days earlier, in the guest chamber that had originally been assigned to them.
“I asked you what you would have done if you’d discovered I had killed Frederick after all,” she said slowly. “You said you thought the case would never have been solved. That’s what you’re doing for Mr. Hetherington, isn’t it? But won’t that make you an accessory after the fact?”
“Very likely. But at least I’ll be able to live with my conscience.” His lips twisted in a travesty of a smile. “I never knew my morals were so elastic. It looks like I’m my father’s son, after all.”
* * *
THERE WAS LITTLE ELSE that could be done that day except for behaving like the honeymooning couple they were supposed to be, although Julia suspected her husband’s mind was elsewhere. They wandered arm in arm through the village, peering into store windows and stopping once to purchase an utterly useless china plate bearing in its center a painted representation of the lake and the surrounding fells.
“What do you intend to do with it?” Pickett asked upon being informed that he was to have the honor of carrying his wife’s newest acquisition.
Julia shrugged. “I suppose I shall present it to Lizzie as a wedding gift. I shouldn’t think Mr. Hartsong would much care for a reminder of his visit to Banfell, do you? Unless, of course, you were to offer it to him as an olive branch of sorts.”
“That would only work if I was sorry—which I’m not,” said Pickett, hardening his heart. “But I’m not so sure about Lizzie. Why would she need a painted plate, when she can see the real thing just by looking out her window?”
“Oh dear, I suppose you’re right. I only thought we should behave like tourists while we have the chance.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “I daresay we will be headed back to London very soon.”
He nodded. “The day after tomorrow, I expect.”
After their return to the inn, they procured another basket from Mrs. Hawkins, this time taking the path to the lake for their picnic rather than stopping at the place where Julia had seen Ned Hawkins pushed to his death. But in spite of the change of scenery, Pickett remained distant and withdrawn, his thoughts clearly on the confrontation that lay ahead of him. Julia wished for some way to relieve him of his burden, at least for a while, but although he was unfailingly polite—attentive, even—she could not seem to reach him. It was not until much later that night, long after they had retired to their room, that the opportunity presented itself.
When she had turned her back on Society by marrying beneath her class, Julia had gained in return a passionate, if inexperienced, young lover. There was no trace of passion, however, in the slightly mint-scented embrace that awakened her in the middle of the night. It was a plea for comfort, pure and simple. And she answered it in the only way she could.
* * *
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Pickett arose and dressed, then kissed Julia lingeringly before setting out on foot for the Hetherington estate.
“Are you sure you won’t eat breakfast first?” asked Julia.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t eat if I tried.”
“We’ll both have something after you return,” she promised him, forcing a smile. “Little Pickett will no doubt be demanding it by that time.”
“You needn’t wait on me,” he said. “I may feel even less like eating by the time I come back.”
He kissed her again, and she fought the urge to cling to him, knowing it was for the best that he could put the unpleasant business behind him as soon as possible. And so she smiled encouragingly at him and bade him goodbye, then dressed for the day in a walking dress of Pomona green kerseymere (noting with mixed emotions that it fit a bit more snugly through the bosom than it had previously done) and descended the stairs to partake of a light breakfast.
She returned to her room to await Pickett’s return, wondering if he had reached the Hetherington manor house yet—and if so, what reception he had found there once the object of his visit had become clear. The letters were stacked neatly on one corner of the writing table, awaiting delivery to the magistrate that afternoon. Julia picked up the top one and scanned the innocuous-looking black scrawl with the faint brown lines beneath. Her brow puckered thoughtfully. Something was odd about it, something quite aside from the hidden message revealed by the candle’s heat . . .
Suddenly she knew. How had they missed it? It was obvious, so very obvious . . . As she stared at the sheet of foolscap in her hand, the bold black lines seemed to take on a life of their own, writhing across the page like a serpent. There aren’t any serpents in Ireland, are there? she thought irrelevantly. St. Patrick had driven them into the sea, where they had all drowned . . . all but one, which had crossed the Irish Sea to England and taken up residence in the Lake District . . . The paper slipped from her hand and fluttered to the floor as she fought the inky black serpents who curled themselves into spots that danced at the corners of her vision.
It had been so obvious, and yet they had missed it, both of them, and now he was walking into danger all unawares.
“Not now, little one,” she murmured to the baby, banishing the black spots through sheer force of will. “Not now. First we have to try and save your papa.”