‘My family comes from this area. In fact now they are close neighbours of the Quentens. When I was growing up Cross Holme was simply a farm called, I think, Crossholes. They obviously attempted to gentrify it when they had to move. I suspect that my sister-in-law and Elizabeth Quenten are friends. I cannot imagine that Bella is part of the plot to attack you, Lady Northam, let alone murder your husband, but Mrs Quenten could well have engaged her sympathies, convinced her that you had killed Francis. Thomas would have reported my name to his mistress.’
‘But you changed it,’ Guin pointed out. ‘You told me you had.’
‘Not well enough, I think.’
‘She was looking for you in Whitby, wasn’t she? You were taken by surprise, but she was not. She was confirming a suspicion.’ Jared stayed stubbornly silent, but Guin kept thinking, working it out aloud. ‘When I sat down in the Quenten’s parlour the chair was warm. Someone had only just left it. If it had been your sister-in-law then she could have been observing us, looking at you. She thought she recognised you, but was not certain.’
‘So she followed us down to Whitby to make sure, face to face,’ Dover said.
‘So who is she?’ Theo asked. ‘Who are you, come to that?’
Chapter Twenty One
‘I am Jared Hunt and her identity is not relevant, Jared said flatly. ‘Bella has presented me with a dilemma and I suspect she will think she can put pressure on me that will divert me from my allegiance to Lady Northam.’
Stubborn man, Guin thought. Did he really believe he could keep his identity secret from her now she had so many clues? If it were not for the situation they found themselves in then she would have to respect his privacy, but not now that Theo was in danger too.
‘So what do we do now?’ Theo asked. ‘We’ve circumstantial evidence, we can show motives, but that is all.’
‘Find Thomas,’ Jared said grimly. ‘The fact that he has gone missing is damning.’
‘Unless the magistrate thinks I killed him too, to add verisimilitude to my story,’ Theo said gloomily.
‘We need to tell the staff here – the ones we inherited from the Quentens – that Thomas is dangerous,’ Guin said, getting to her feet. ‘What if he comes back here and they hide him under our noses out of misplaced loyalty?’
‘Yes, do that, then go to bed,’ Jared said, standing as she did. ‘You must be exhausted. We need to sleep on this.’
Guin found Cook and Mrs Mountjoy and Porrett all together taking tea in the housekeeper’s room.
‘Please, sit down and I will join you if I may.’ At Mrs Mountjoy’s flustered agreement she closed the door and sat down at the end of the table. ‘It is about Thomas Bainton. Have any of you seen him since we left this morning?’
All three heads shook and all three looked puzzled. They could be lying, of course, but she doubted that they were such good actors.
‘This may be hard to believe, but we fear that Thomas has been behind those attacks on me and probably Lord Northam’s death as well. We think his mind has been turned by my first husband’s death.’ She could hardly accuse the Quentens yet, not without proof. ‘He seems to blame me for it and Lord Northam for supporting me. You heard about the way our carriage was damaged so that there was almost a very nasty accident?’ Again, a trio of nods. The arrival of the four of them on horseback would be the talk of the servants’ hall. ‘There can be no doubt that Thomas damaged the axle and the brake. He is dangerous.’
‘He was always a wild young man and Mr Frank led him astray with his own carryings-on, if you’ll pardon me saying so, my lady, seeing you married him.’ When Guin made a vague gesture Cook pressed on. ‘He was a charmer, Mr Frank. He was just fifteen when the mistress married Mr Quenten and she brought him with her because their parents were dead some years past. His sister doted on him and Thomas would have walked through fire for him. Spoiled rotten, that lad.’
Mrs Mountjoy was looking uneasy. ‘It was a shock when we found out you’d been married to him, my lady. We didn’t like to talk about him, seeing how badly it ended, but perhaps we should have done, told you how Master Frank grew up here.’ She looked sharply at Guin. ‘Do you expect Thomas to come back?’
‘He needs friends now, shelter. He must realise we know he is behind these attacks. Would he think you would give him help?’
‘You were always too soft on him, Mrs T,’ Mrs Mountjoy said abruptly to the cook. ‘I never trusted him – not that I ever suspected any real harm or I’d have told your ladyship when you took him on. Just thought he was indulged because he’d been Master Frank’s friend and he led him astray. But he seemed to have sobered up. Oh Lord, if I’d said something perhaps his lordship would be alive now?’
Guin looked at Porrett who sat shaking his head despairingly. He looked near to tears. ‘I do not think so, Mrs Mountjoy,’ she said as soothingly as she could manage. ‘We had no suspicion what would happen. But you must not let him in if he comes and we must make sure all is secure at all times.’
‘Don’t you worry, my lady,’ Mrs Mountjoy said. ‘You’ve been a good mistress here and his lordship was a fine man. If that rapscallion shows his face around here I’ll take Mrs T’s carving knives to him.’
‘I’ll load the blunderbuss,’ Porrett said. ‘The one I keep in the silver safe in case of burglaries.’
‘Thank you, all of you. Mr Hunt is doing all he can to put a stop to this business.’ She stood up and Porrett hurried to open the door for her, shoulders back as though he was a soldier going on parade. Yes, she felt confident they would not take Thomas’s sid
e in this.
Guin made her way slowly up the servants’ stair to the ground floor. She could hear Jared and Theo talking as they made their rounds of the doors and windows at the far end of the house. No-one was in sight and she went into the study, took down the atlas from the shelf and opened it on the desk. Cross Holme house was not marked, presumably because it was still a humble farm when the area was surveyed, but she could find Crossholes Beck which narrowed the area down somewhat.
There would be farms scattered about, and they too would not be marked, but she doubted somehow that Jared was the son of a farmer. She circled round the area with the tip of her finger. No manor houses marked, no hamlets close by, only a house called Ravenscar marked by a little black square and labelled in tiny block capitals.
Ravenscar. How did she discover who lived there? Perhaps one of the road books that were in the carriage would tell her, but it was to late to go out and find one now. Frustrated, Guin replaced the book on the shelf next to the equally battered old copy of the Peerage and opened the hidden door to the staircase leading up to her bedchamber. Jared was right, they all needed to rest, to sleep on this.