“Not without your permission, Lady Alice, but I must do so eventually. I shall ask the same question I ask everyone, to which I receive the same answer — no one can think of a single reason why anyone should want to murder Mr Nicholson. But perhaps you can, Lady Alice?”
“No, indeed. Arthur was a good man. He had no enemies, no vices, no secret life beyond the castle. It is a complete mystery to me.”
“Did he ever talk to you about his life before he came here? His family, for instance? His ordination? His friends?”
But she shook her head decisively. “Never. He always said that when he married me, the old life was gone, and he had beenreborn… that was the exact word he used. Nothing before that meant anything to him. His sisters wrote to him often at first, but gradually the letters dwindled. None of his family ever came here and he never went south again. In fact, he hardly left the castle, except for an occasional night in York or Pickering.”
“He belonged to a political society in Pickering, I understand.”
“Yes. That was my father’s influence. They were the greatest of friends, always, despite the difference in ages. Arthur was never close to my brother Charles, even though they are the same age. But Charles is not the man our father was. Papa loved company and good conversation and cards. He and Arthur used to sit up for hours after the rest of the household had gone to bed, playing piquet, drinking brandy and talking about this and that — masculine interests. Politics, I suppose. Poor Arthur was greatly grieved when Papa died.”
Michael dutifully wrote it all down, but all his instincts rebelled at such a glowing portrait of the dead man. No one, it seemed, had a bad word to say against Mr Arthur Nicholson, and to his wife, he was a positive saint. And yet, buried deep in his past was a dreadful secret — that he had never been ordained, and by allowing the earl’s family to believe that he was, he had thrown them into the most appalling situation. Not such a saint at all, then. Michael decided it was time to push his widow a little harder.
“It surprises me a little, Lady Alice,” he said smoothly, “that such a happy marriage as yours did not produce more children.”
“Yet you have none yourself, after several years of marriage, Captain Edgerton,” she said coldly. “Does that make yours anunhappy marriage?”
Nowthatwas more like it! A prickly response at last. Interesting, too, that she knew anything of his own marriage, when she had been sequestered in her room for weeks. “Notat all, my lady. We have never been blessed, as sometimes happens.”
“Blessed… yes.” Her face changed, a shadow passing across it. “A child is a great blessing indeed. Captain Edgerton, the precise state of affairs between man and wife is customarily a private matter, but in this case it bears on the question of why I came across my husband’s body in the middle of the night. I shall therefore explain the circumstances to you. When we first married, I assumed… we both assumed that I would conceive immediately. Nothing happened. For month after month, and year after year, nothing happened, while Caroline… Lady Rennington… produced healthy babies in the wink of an eye. We were subjected to a great deal of advice. Herbs to aid conception, hot baths, cold baths, long walks, long rests, spicy food, bland food. I tried everything. But then… a miracle. A child was conceived… we hardly dared to hope, and I was dreadfully ill the whole time. When she wanted to be born after only seven months, we prepared ourselves for a terrible loss. But the miracle held, for she was bornalive!She was so tiny, and frail — we were terrified to hold her. But she lived long enough to be baptised, she began to grow, to thrive… and she lives still, our little Tess. But it had been so difficult for me, and Arthur felt it would be best not to tempt providence. He did not want to lose me, he said, and so we decided… to be chaste.”
Michael nodded, the pen flying across the paper. “So you slept in separate rooms?”
“Not at first. Arthur was a man of honour, so it did not seem to be necessary. But…” She sighed. “So many nights he stayed up with Papa playing piquet and then he would come to bed full of brandy and… well, sometimes he forgot our agreement. So after that, I had a bed made up in my sitting room each night. If he would be likely to reach his bed late and well refreshed with brandy, I would retire to my own room. I told everyone that Isuffered from headaches, but I do not want to tell even so small a lie to you. But I never slept well alone. Often I would wake in the small hours alone and desperate to be near him. Can you understand that, Captain?”
“Very easily, ma’am. It is why my wife chooses to travel about with me, despite the privations, rather than staying comfortably at home. One of the reasons anyway.”
“One of the reasons? But perhaps I should not enquire.”
He laughed. “Nothing private, I assure you. My work has its risks, you see, and Mrs Edgerton would rather be on hand if I am to be shot or fall off a roof — or a drainpipe! But loneliness is a powerful driver, too, for both of us. We are never quite at ease when we are apart.”
“Precisely so! I am not at ease sleeping apart from my husband, so if I wake in the night in my little bed in the sitting room, why then I creep through to the bedroom and if he is there and fast asleep, I climb into bed beside him. Then we have the great joy of waking together. These separations are…weresuch a trial to us both. We looked forward eagerly to the day, surely not far off now, when it would not be necessary.”
“And so that morning you woke in your sitting room, you went through to the bedroom and—?”
Her breathing grew ragged again. “I knew at once something was wrong. I cannot tell you how or why, I just knew. So I went round to Arthur’s side of the bed but my foot touched… something. I did not know what, only that it should not be there. Everything in the rooms I use is kept the same, always, with nothing out of place that might trip me. It means I can walk about confidently. But now there was something on the floor. I picked it up… it was wooden, like a pole, but heavy… the axe, I know now. I realised then that something terrible had occurred. I listened for Arthur’s breathing, but there was nothing… no sound at all. I leaned over him to hear… perhaps he was justdeeply asleep… the covers were torn and there was sticky stuff… his blood. I… I cannot remember much else. I screamed, people came… I cannot remember. Charles was there… he took charge. It was… it still is a nightmare. How could my life change so abruptly, sohorribly.Who would do such a thing? And why with an axe? It seems… unnecessarily primitive. You will find this man, will you not, Captain Edgerton?”
“I will do my very best, Lady Alice.”
But as he wrote it all down, his overriding thought was that while it was perfectly plausible, it was also very glib. Certainly it could have happened exactly as she said, but equally, she could have planned the entire business, and she seemed entirely too calm for a new widow who loved her husband as much as she claimed.
***
Michael lost no time in summoning Tess Nicholson to the old nursery. She was a slight, dark creature, not a conventional beauty but with a strange ethereal prettiness of her own. She eyed Michael and Sandy warily. Luce was there too, as chaperon, sitting quietly in a corner with some needlework, but Tess ignored her, even though they had dined at the same table several times.
“Miss Nicholson, you will be aware that I am talking to everyone at Corland Castle to try to find out precisely what happened the night your father died, and who might have killed him.”
“What happened is easy,” she said. “Someone broke in, found an axe and went to Papa’s room, then crept out again. A castle full of people and not a single person saw or heard anything, until Mama started screaming. And he could come back at any time.”
“Perhaps,” Michael said neutrally. “Can you think of anyone who might want your father dead?”
“No, no one at all. He got on well with everyone.”
The sainted chaplain again. “Did he get on well with you?”
A slight air of puzzlement. “Yes, of course.”
“Did he have plans for your marriage?”
