“As you wish. I’ll come too. We do not want anyone else knowing where you’re going, just in case someone reports things back to the duke.” Owen shifted uncomfortably at the idea. “How about tomorrow morning? First thing?”
“Very well.”
“Good, now, get back to your position, Jessie. Before Mrs Jarvis corners me again to ask where you are.”
Jessie nodded and stood to her feet, hurrying out of the room. As Owen watched her go, he sat forward, resting his head in his hands. He had to pray at some point, one of the strangers they spoke to would be able to provide something more than just hearsay and suspicion.
***
“Tommie? What is it? What’s wrong?” Owen asked.
“I scarcely know how to put it into words.” Tommie shook his head as he stared out of the kitchen door towards the garden.
Owen looked around the kitchen, finding the space in carnage. Some of the cooks were hurrying to tidy up food spilled across the floor. Flour had been knocked over too, covering the flagstones in white powder. Mrs Jarvis was sitting down nearby, fanning a hand at her face, clearly trying to calm an erratic heartbeat with a maid beside her to comfort her.
“Tommie? What is it?” Owen asked again, doing his best to climb over the flour and the dough splattered on the flagstones. It did little use, the flour ended up on the soles of his shoes regardless.
“He came in through this door.” Tommie pointed to the door.
“Who? Who did?”
“He called himself Lord Haroldson. Why would he come in through this door?” Tommie asked again. “Why not the front door?”
Owen stepped out of the door, craning his neck to try and see through the garden, but he couldn’t catch sight of the man.
“What did he want?”
“To see the Duke of Somerset. I told him he wasn’t home, at which point he flew into a rage.” Tommie cast an errant hand over the kitchen. “That’s my chicken done for.” He pointed to where an uncooked chicken was turned upside down on the flagstones, with the stuffing and breadcrumbs that had once been inside the chicken now sprinkled across the floor.
“Some rage,” Owen muttered in surprise, looking around the room. “Why did he do this?”
“I don’t know.” Tommie stepped forward to join Owen at the door. “He began to throw things around, demanding to see the duke at once. It was like watching a madman! Possessed by some sort of evil demon. Then he left, just like that.”
Owen frowned, stepping further out the door and into the kitchen garden, stepping over herbs that were just beginning to grow again now the frosts had thawed.
“Thank God he didn’t go to the front door,” Owen whispered to himself. He didn’t like the sound of a man so enraged meeting Diana. “Why come to the back door?” Owen turned around again, looking back at Tommie before an idea occurred to him. “He didn’t want to be seen by the lady of the house. It was a secret meeting, wasn’t it?”
Tommie nodded slowly, clearly following Owen’s train of thought.
“Think, Tommie, was there anything else the man said, anything at all.” Owen stepped towards his friend, pleading for more information.
“Erm,” Tommie paused, wiping his floured hands on the apron around his hips as he thought. “He talked of money.”
“What about money?”
“That was it!” Tommie clicked his fingers, evidently remembering at last. “He said he’d come to discuss payment. When I explained the duke wasn’t here, in his rage, he demanded he had to be here, he had to be paid. Those were the terms of their deal.”
“A deal?” Owen turned his head down the garden. “How did he arrive? In a carriage?”
“I didn’t hear a carriage. He may have been on a horse.”
“Then we might still have time.” Owen pushed past Tommie back into the kitchen, calling for the stable boy as quickly as he could. The boy appeared shortly after, from where he had been trying to help with the clean-up in the kitchens. “Prepare the phaeton carriage, the small one, set it with two horses.”
“Now, Mr Arnold?”
“Now!” Owen barked the order as he ran through the kitchen, heading swiftly up the servants’ staircase towards the main part of the house.
It didn’t take long to find Diana. She was in her favourite place in the house, bent over the writing desk and scribbling something down with a quill in her hand.
