Mandy

“I would like to speak with her,” the duke returned dryly. “Do you object?” His brow was up, his eyes coldly surveyed her.

She went to the bellrope and asked the butler to fetch her maid. She returned to the room and although the duke remained standing, she sat and her face was chalk white.

A frightened young and terribly thin young woman in a dark uniform and a white full apron arrived to bob a curtsey. He smiled kindly at her and said, “What is your name, child?”

“Sophy, Yer Grace,” she said scarcely able to meet his eyes.

“Sophy, I have a few questions. Please don’t be afraid, and do your best to answer them as truthfully as you may. I shall make certain you do not suffer in any way by speaking with me honestly. Are we clear?”

“Aye, Yer Grace,” she bobbed another curtsey.

“How did you happen upon the page torn out of Miss Celia’s diary?”

“I didn’t happen on it exactly,” said the maid. “Always thought it was an odd thing ye see…”

“Explain, Sophy.”

“Found it in m’room I did…on m’bed, all crumpled up.”

“Before or after Miss Celia’s untimely demise,” the duke asked gravely, thinking this already a different story than what Agatha Brinley had given him.

Her dark eyes snapped to his face and then to the floor before she said quietly, “Before, yer Grace. I went to find her, I did, so I could give it to her…not knowing how it got to m’room and all, but she wasn’t in the house and cook said she saw her go out about six o’clock.”

“Elly Bonner was her maid, did you know her well?”

“Jest to pass the time of day, sir. ‘Twas me that brought her to Miss Celia’s notice when Miss Celia said it wasn’t convenient to be sharing a maid with her stepmother. So, aye, I helped Elly get the job…but we weren’t confiding close, if ye know what I mean.”

“Do you know of any family she might have gone to and if so, where they might be?”

“Once she said she had a beau and how they were planning to marry and live like quality…seeing as he was soon coming into money.”

“Did she mention where this suitor of hers resided? Or how he meant to come into money?”

“No, Yer Grace. But I’ve always had a notion it wasn’t pound dealing that was his ken, not from what little I gleaned from her.”

“Did you ever see him with her…perhaps waiting for her outside the kitchen or near the grounds of Sherborne Halls?”

“Bless me, no!” She shook her head, “Always thought it was strange the way she would take off in the middle of the night. She did you know, though Miss Celia never suspicioned it. And once when I went into the village, she asked if she could come with me, she did, and then no sooner did we get there, but off she went without so much as a by your leave. I was jest about ready to leave town without her when she shows up, she does. Don’t take to driving the cart when the sun be ready to set, so I told her.” Sophy tilted her head a bit and suggested, “Thought she ran in to meet him, and must have been planned from their last meeting as never heard tell of no one bringing her any messages and such.”

“Thank you, Sophy, you have been most helpful.”

She started to leave, cast a hasty glance at her employer, Mrs. Brinley and said on a hushed note, “I feel it m’duty to tell ye, Yer Grace that I don’t think Lord Sherborne had anything to do with this. No I don’t. It wasn’t like that between him and Miss Celia. He liked her all right and made puppy eyes at her, but she never even glanced at him till just recently.” She shrugged. “But there ye be, no one listens to someone like me.”

“I do, Sophy. I listen to you and take great stock in everything you have told me,” the duke assured her and turned hard eyes on Agatha Brinley. He had noticed her expression while her maid had answered his questions and he had taken care to stand between her and the maid so that Sophy would not be intimidated by the woman. Again he wondered once more what the dour Agatha Brinley stood to gain if Ned was convicted of such a heinous crime.

* * *

“Hang me, Mandy. I’m stalled and near to going mad!” Ned stomped as he testily spoke. He dropped down onto his linen covered straw bed and released a long heavy sigh. “We’ve been here longer than I want to think about, and no closer to finding Elly Bonner than we were when I was being held in the courthouse cell and damn these tallow candles give off a fiendish odor in these closed quarters.”

“Confound it, Ned, it isn’t as though we have the favor of free movement to aid us,” snapped his sister. “Look, we can’t go at one another. We are both despondent and irritable, and lud, but these candles do have a vile scent. I never noticed before.”

“That is because we had the luxury of wax candles at home,” he said with a grimace. “Why did you get tallow…? ‘Tis made from animal fat, you know.”

“I grabbed whatever I could find without anyone knowing…that’s why, you heathen ungrateful brat.”

He laughed, “I’ll give you ungrateful. Aye, must sound that way, but heathen?” He eyed her archly and sighed sadly, “I don’t mean to croak at you, sis…but we are in a tangle and I don’t see a way out.”

Chauncey lowered his head and entered the arched doorway to their dimly lit underground chamber. He broke into a smile and held out one hand showing two ripe peaches, to the twins—the third he put to his mouth and took a large bite out of.