But Alice had not been a virgin.She had not been a virgin.
“I can see,” Sir Henry said, “that all of this is new to you, Kendrick. I am sorry. Truly sorry. I assumed when you told me Alice had told you all that she had told you the truth, even if she had withheld the most violent and incriminating part of it.”
“Your quarrel with Kersey,” Ashley said, “was occasioned by the fact that you both loved the same woman. ’Twas not because he knew you had debauched his sister.”
“Dear Lord God,” Barbara Verney said.
“No,” Sir Henry said quietly.
“Her attachment to her brother was so strong that she would kill him rather than lose him to another woman?” Major Cunningham asked. “Do you have any proof that she shot him, Verney? Or is this a wild guess?”
Yes, her attachment was that strong, Ashley thought with certainty.They had been lovers.Her eyes had been fiercely fanatical when she had told her husband of twenty-four hours that she still loved the other man, that she would always love him.Always.Yes, she had loved him enough to kill him. And to live in torment ever after.
“She was on the hill,” Sir Henry said. “I saw her fleeing downward when I stopped and looked back after hearing the shot. She denied having been there when I confronted her, and then admitted it. She claimed to have been coming to join the shoot—she did sometimes—and to have heard the lone shot and to have seen her brother down. She claimed to have been too filled with horror and panic to go close. She had run back to the house for help. But there was a firmness, an intrepidity about Alice that made that explanation ring not quite true. Besides, she did not send Binchley to look until hours later. Do I have proof that she killed Greg? No. Perhaps I have always been glad that I did not. I kept my mouth shut. Even Barbara has only guessed these things until this morning. She is now hearing for the first time, as you are, that I saw Alice.”
“Why might it have been suicide?” Major Cunningham asked. “Why might Kersey have killed himself on the morning of his wedding?”
Ashley’s elbows were on his knees, his face in his hands.
“His—love for Katherine was a sudden thing,” Sir Henry said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. “And he was an unhappy man. We had always been close friends. But there was a barrier there between us even before he took Katherine from me. There was something he was not willing to talk about. Something I could only guess at. ’Twas only later that I discovered Barbara had made the same guesses.”
“He was trying to make his life more... normal, then?” the major said.
“I believe so.” Sir Henry had gone to stand at the window, his back to the room.
“Henry has been puzzled and hurt by the extent of your hostility,” Miss Verney said quietly to Ashley. “’Tis clear now that there has been a huge misunderstanding. I think we should take our leave, Henry. Major? He looks in a state of near collapse.”
“I shall see to him, madam,” Major Cunningham said. “I am his friend.”
“Yes,” she said. “I can see that. Come, Henry.”
Ashley was aware of Sir Henry Verney’s stopping beside him on his way to the door. For a moment a hand rested on his shoulder.
“I am sorry,” Sir Henry said.
Ashley kept his head down, his face resting on his hands. His wife’s brother had also been her lover. She had killed him because he had been trying to break free of an incestuous relationship by taking a wife.
•••
“Henry,”his sister said as their carriage drove away from the house, “he did not know. That poor man!”
“There is one thing no one seemed to think about,” he said, “though I daresay Kendrick will think about it soon enough. The person who killed Greg cannot be the same person who shot at Lady Emily this morning—not if our suspicions are correct. So who did shoot at her? And why?”
“I thought all unpleasantness concerning Penshurst was at an end when Alice went away,” she said with a sigh. “Now it seems to be back again. But can there possibly be any connection? Whatwereyou doing all morning?”
His smile was rather crooked. “Are you wondering if I was on that hill?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she said briskly. “I am just curious.”
“I was riding for most of the time,” he said. “If you were to ask me exactly where I rode, I would be unable to answer. I do not remember. I went to see Katherine earlier. I often do, you know, before Eric rises and she has no time for me. I offered for her at last—I finally got up the courage. She refused me.”
“Oh, Henry,” she said, and she leaned across the space between their seats to lay a sympathetic hand on his arm. “But why? She has always been fond of you. I used to think she loved you. I have thought recently that she loves you again—if she ever stopped.”
“She said no.” He set his head back against the cushions. “She would offer no explanation. Just no.”
“I am so sorry,” she said.
But when the carriage reached the gates to the park, Sir Henry turned to rap on the front panel for his coachman to stop outside the Binchley cottage. Eric was, as usual, swinging on the gate. He was smiling and waving.
