1: A Bereaved Daughter
CORLAND CASTLE: JUNE
It was worse than she could possibly have imagined… far, far worse. Tess had known something awful had happened, because of the screams. Mama never so much as raised her voice, yet she had screamed loudly enough to wake even the servants in their attic beds. Over and over again she had screamed, and when Tess had rushed to see what was happening, Walter had bundled her brusquely out of the room and sent her away. She and Olivia had dressed in silence, then huddled together in their bedroom, waiting to hear what had happened.
But this! It was incredible. Impossible to take in.
Grabbing her cloak, she tore down the back stairs, scattering maids with brushes and pails, then through the great hall and into the entrance hall where Wellum, used to her ways, raced to open the door for her. In her wake, her maid and footmanscrambled to follow her, Harold loping along and Betty, puffing, half running.
On the path to Birchall, the trees loomed overhead, casting chilling shade as she tore along. She must get to Tom! He would comfort her, even if he could not make the nightmare disappear.
In the village, women out shopping curtsied to her, and men bustling past intently on some scheme of their own stopped and doffed their hats with a respectful bow.
“Good mornin’ to ’e, Miss Nicholson,” the brave ones called out, smiling at her. “Fine day for a walk.”
They did not know yet. How would they react when they knew? Their faces would be filled with pity. Perhaps they would cry. She should cry herself, but she was still too shocked. It was too dreadful for tears.
Tom Shapman’s workshop was wedged awkwardly into a narrow gap between two larger buildings, a bakery and a private house. Tom’s door was closed, but Tess was not deterred by that. Lifting the latch, she opened it and walked straight in. At once, her nostrils were assailed by the scent of the different woods Tom used when he made furniture. Fully half of the workshop was taken up with racks of wood in a rainbow of colours waiting to be used, from large flat slabs to make the sides of wardrobes, to narrow strips to be turned for chair legs or ornamented as trimmings. On the workbench, a half-made travel box lay unattended, for Tom was not there.
Although the frontage was wide, the shop narrowed at the back to provide a small kitchen, and a storeroom for the latches and locks and bolts that Tom used when he fitted windows and doors. A narrow stair led up to a tiny bedroom. Perhaps she was so early that he was still abed?
“Tom?” Tess called. The only answer was silence.
“Fire’s gone out,” Betty said in disapproving tones, poking round the kitchen in a housewifely manner. Then, to Harold,“You can make yersel’ useful and get this fire lit. I’ll need hot water to clean they dishes.”
Tess prowled restlessly about. Where was he? Why did he not come?
Not very many minutes later, the door opened and Tom Shapman came in, a bag over one shoulder. Tess drank in the sight of him, for there was no denying he was a fine figure of a man, tall, muscular and very, very handsome when he smiled. He was not smiling now.
“Miss Tess? What are you doing here, so early in the day?” His accent was not so harsh as some of the local working men, and his voice was pleasantly mellow. Or at least, it usually was. There was a hard edge to it this morning.
“Where have you been? You let the fire go out.”
“Nowhere… just out.”
“Before breakfast? Whatever for?”
“My time’s my own, I believe,” he said huffily. “I can come and go as I please, can’t I? But what brings you here?”
“Something terrible has happened, Tom. My father is… dead.”
“Oh, no!” At once, his face was wreathed in sympathy. Dropping his bag, he came and took her hands, his work-roughened fingers grating against her softer skin. “He was no age — what, fifty or so?”
“Fifty-five.”
“But he always seemed to be in excellent health. What was it, an apoplexy? His heart?”
She shook her head, still reluctant to put words to so terrible a thing.
“An accident? A sudden fever?”
She shook her head again, and, perhaps recognising her distress, he fell silent.
“He was… oh, Tom, he wasmurdered!”
“Murdered!”
“Someone broke into the castle in the middle of the night and… and killed him while he lay sleeping in his bed. With an axe! And my mother discovered him!”
