Page 74 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
How could he go back when he didn’t know where he was or how he got there? Besides, why should he? He liked it here. He smiled at his father. “I would like to get to know you,” he said, and then, to his mother, “I missed you.”
“You can choose to stay,” his father said. “You need to know, though, that Margaret and Ned will grieve.”
“Listen,” said Mama, and she held up a hand.
Snowy heard birdsong, the lap of water against the supports of the bridge, the movement of grass and flowers in the wind, and then, beyond them all, as if a huge distance away, a voice. “Live, Hal. You promised to marry me. I need you. Don’t leave me.”
“Margaret! I have to go. But how?”
“Go with our blessing, my son,” said Papa. “Live long and well. We will be waiting.”
“Just breath, Hal,” his mother said. “Breath in. That’s it. Now out. And again. In. Out.” As she repeated the words, her voice faded, and the blackness returned.
He hurt. Everything was sore. His chest. His stomach. His throat. His head felt as if he’d been banging it into a brick wall. His eyelids were too heavy to lift.
Then he heard Margaret’s beloved voice again. “…stop the wedding?”
That was the impetus he needed. His eyes shot open, and he said, “No!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The smile ofthe reflection in the mirror spoke of both pride and glee, which was fair, for Snowden had been very clever.
“Did they think I would not expect watchers on my house?” he gloated. He’d known they must be there and had searched until he found them. A street sweeper who lingered overlong on a little used corner. A lamplighter still out after all the lamps were lit. A schoolboy loitering around a boring square of townhouses.
Snowden spotted more than a dozen suspicious people, and if some of them were innocently about their own business, some were in the employ of the false Snowden. Snowden was sure of it, and Richard thought so, too.
Snowden giggled. “I hope they were paid up front, for that interloper will not be able to pay them now that he is dead!”
He had left the house early yesterday morning, two days after he’d found out Lady Charmain’s wedding plans, and about the gathering today. He passed the watchers dressed as one of his own footmen, hurrying in that swift stiff walk that footmen perfected. He still had the keys to the rooms his ward Deffew had once lived in, and there he opened the large basket he carried.
When he left, he was someone else. An anonymous merchant, bearded and portly just prosperous enough to be out for the day in London, seeing the sights, his arms full of shopping.
Snowden had not played at theatricals for years, but he had always enjoyed it in his youth. “It was fun to be someone else,” he told Richard in the mirror.
His merchant alter ego took a room in a nice comfortable hotel, selected from those suitable for such a gentleman according to two criteria. The hotel had to be close to Lady Charmain’s townhouse. And it had to have an outside staircase that would allow his next character to leave the hotel without being seen and to return the same way.
“It was the best disguise yet,” he gloated. “No one suspected.” If they went looking for the old woman, anyone who noticed her would mention her bent shoulders, her straggly white hair, her wrinkled cheeks, her long nose, her shapeless brown gown, and large black shawl, some of which was now buried in a rubbish heap at the back of the hotel.
“Edmund is dead at last.” No. That was wrong.Henrywas dead. Deffew killed Edmund long ago, so that Richard could have Madeline, the way it was meant to be.
And he had won her, for a short time. All he had ever wanted was Madeline as his wife and the title to go with the estate he had cared for as steward.
Madeline was long dead, and Richard had been betrayed by the son she had given him. Winning the victory was dust and ashes, but it was still a victory. Edmund’s son would not have his title.
“He is dead. Bastard or true heir, he is gone.” He cackled, startling himself and the reflection, which jerked so that brandy slopped from its glass.
Hungerford-Fox’s whore had promised that White could not resist apple pie. The old lady he had become assured the maid this was a special delivery from the House of Blossoms. “I told her to take it directly to the groom and tell him it had been made with love.” He cackled.
Snowden had not been able to see the job done, more’s the pity, but he’d put so much of the poison in with the apple, a mere mouthful should kill White or whatever his name was. And if he ate the whole thing, he’d be dead ten times over.
If Lady Charmain did not share the pie, she could live. Snowden did not like killing women, and any child she might be carrying would be illegitimate, and therefore not a threat to his title. He didn’t need her land anymore, either. He was mining under her land without her knowledge and had dropped the canal project. Young Deffew had suggested looking at the improvements to railways, and that allowed him another route. The boy was also a traitor, but the idea was good.
To escape from the scene of the murder, he made the transformations in reverse, throwing away each costume as he abandoned it. He had returned to his townhouse dressed as himself. Let the watchers on the street see him. He had nothing to hide.
Richard in the mirror grinned at him, and he chuckled. “It wasn’t me. It was an old lady,” he said.
“This old lady,” said a voice from the door.
