The earl said, “I tend to think there never was a golden armlet, else where is it? If it was stolen, then why didn’t your grandfather or even your father write about it?”
There was no answer to that. North said, “Even the three male martinets don’t know a thing.”
“No matter,” the Duchess said. “I want to go there.” She said to her husband, “This reminds me of my searches at the abbey, Marcus. Remember, we neither of us believed in the Wyndham legacy and we were wrong. Just perhaps I’ll find something. Actually I want to find something very badly.”
“Treasure-hunting is now in her blood,” the earl said. “You should see her wearing that rope of pearls we found and nothing else, just the pearls—”
His wife’s very white hand slammed over his mouth.
33
THE DUCHESS HAD left Mount Hawke early to treasure-hunt, the gentlemen had ridden off to the tin mines, and thus Caroline rode into Goonbell. She wanted to see the chamber Coombe had stayed in before he’d disappeared.
Mrs. Freely was talking before she’d even taken Caroline’s cloak and gloves. She learned all about how Jeb Peckly, that miserable sodden drunk, had become nearly a decent husband, drinking very little now, and she hadn’t heard a thing about his beating his wife and daughters. Caroline smiled hugely at that. Mrs. Freely asked her questions about the Earl and Countess of Chase as she took her into her huge warm kitchen and gave her a mug of mulled wine, to ward off the piskey chill, she said, then patted Caroline’s hair, and said, “Lovely hair you have, my lady. Rich-looking, not just a boring single color, but a multitude of interesting shades, just like the trees that surround the inn. I’ve always been fond of those elms and oaks and maples, yes I have. At least until they lose all their leaves, which I hope you won’t ever do, in a manner of speaking.”
Eventually, Mrs. Freely led her upstairs, wishing aloud that she could meet the Earl and Countess of Chase. Caroline thought about the Duchess dealing with the gossiping Mrs. Freely and thought it couldn’t fail to be fascinating. She invited her to dinner.
“Now, my lady, no man has ever tried to tell me what to do,” she said as they neared Coombe’s chamber door.
“Huh?” Caroline said, at sea.
“No man who’s around to tell about it in any case,” Mrs. Freely added, nodding to herself. “There was one man who dared call me Meg and pat my bottom whenever I walked past him. I clouted him but good. Ah, here we are, poor Mr. Coombe’s room.” She opened the door. “I assure you there’s nothing more to find. His lordship searched most thoroughly. Everyone hereabouts believes Coombe was a madman, and they’re both relieved he’s gone and worried that they don’t know where he is. No one speaks of anything else, as you can expect.”
“Yes, one would expect that,” Caroline said.
It was actually a very nice room on the east side of the inn, on the second floor. There were four windows, all wide, all covered with lovely white lace curtains. The
furnishings were plain but not at all unpleasant. Caroline stood in the middle of the room, just looking around her. Mrs. Freely was quiet for the first time since Caroline had met her. Then she just nodded, turned, and said over her shoulder, “That one man, the one who called me Meg, he was a lovely lad, he was.” She nodded again and left Caroline alone.
“Did you kill my aunt, Coombe?” Caroline asked the still room. “Everyone is saying that you hate women, that the Nightingale legacy poisoned you. Everyone believes you killed the women because they rejected you or betrayed you. No one really knows. North doesn’t know what to believe, truth be told, nor do I. He’s wondered and wondered about that letter from Elizabeth Godolphin. He says he didn’t know you had a nickname and neither did Tregeagle or Polgrain, and such an odd nickname. Did she really call you her ‘King of Diamonds’? Did she never use your real name? Did other women call you that as well? Why was there only one letter? And only from her? North is very disturbed, Coombe. He says you aren’t stupid. He just doesn’t understand why you would leave this bloody knife here in your room if you were guilty. Ah, I wish I knew what happened.”
The chamber was utterly silent, not that she expected anything else. Caroline sighed, then turned to the armoire.
“Where did you go? If you escaped, why then would you leave all this evidence behind to be found?” Again, there was no answer, no sound at all.
She opened the armoire. It was empty now, North had taken everything. There were drawers below that smelled of cedar. They were also empty. She rose and closed the armoire doors. There was a small desk with a quill and ink on top, nothing else, and three narrow drawers. She opened each of them. They were empty. North had found the letter in one of the drawers. Certainly he’d searched all of them carefully.
She straightened from the desk and looked around the chamber. It was chilly, for there was no fire in the small fireplace. Mrs. Freely had no one staying in this room at the moment. In fact, Mrs. Freely had told her that no one had stayed in this room since Mr. Coombe had disappeared. Too many flapping jaws, she’d said to Caroline, everyone telling strangers about the bloody knife, and how the room was now haunted. “Your ladyship knows how we Cornish love our ghosts. If there isn’t a ghost for every cottage, for every inn, for every twisted tree, then you simply aren’t in Cornwall. Aye, you’re in Devon or Dorset, no imagination in any of those folk. They sit around and boast about their silly Devon cream, which doesn’t hold a candle to Cornish cream, let me tell you. Still, I do hate to lose money with this room empty.”
Caroline felt no strange lurking feelings standing in the middle of the room. Perhaps since she wasn’t Cornish she wasn’t able to scent the ghosts or feel them or perhaps even hear them. “Where did you go, Coombe?” she asked the silent room. “Didn’t you think Mrs. Freely would notice that you weren’t here? Didn’t you think she and North would search your room?”
She jumped. She heard a rustling, slapping sound, then drew a deep breath, realizing it was a tree branch lightly sliding against a window.
“Maybe I was a Cornish woman a long time ago,” she said. It helped to speak out loud. It made her feel less alone.
She felt depressed that she hadn’t discovered anything, but then again, she really hadn’t expected North to overlook anything. She was on the point of leaving when she noticed the beautifully carved wooden poles on the Hepplewhite bed that had once been much taller, supporting a canopy. Obviously someone had cut them off, for now the four poles ended in rather roughly carved pineapples. She walked slowly to the bed, her eyes on those carved pineapples. She lightly touched one of the poles at the foot of the bed. It didn’t move. She tugged at it. It still didn’t budge.
She went to the other one at the foot of the bed. It too didn’t move. It was the third one at the head of the bed that turned easily in her hand. Her heart speeded up. Slowly, she pulled the pineapple off the pole. There was a hole beneath, not solid wood. She reached her fingers into the cavity and touched paper. She managed to hook her fingers around the paper and pull it out. It was a single sheet and it had been folded into a square and then into a smaller square until now it was no larger than an inch square and very thick.
She stared at the folded paper in the palm of her hand. It was yellow and crisp with age. Very gently, she eased the paper from its stiff folds.
She didn’t know what she expected the folded paper to be. Perhaps a long-ago love letter written by one lover to another upon leaving early in the morning fog. She shook herself. She was being quite silly.
She carefully spread the paper out atop the bed counterpane. It wasn’t a love letter. It wasn’t an old tradesman’s bill or a simple list of household linens.
It was a letter threatening murder. It had been written in May 1726 by Viscount Chilton, North’s great-grandfather, to a man named Griffin. The black ink was spidery and difficult to read in many places, but the letter itself was straightforward enough. “‘Griffin,”’ she read. “‘You will keep away from my wife or I will thrust my sword through your black heart.”’ And it was signed D. Nightingale, Viscount Chilton.
D. was Donniger. Yes, it was certainly North’s great-grandfather. Donniger Nightingale, an odd name, one she hadn’t forgotten.