Page 68 of Evidence of Evil
It was only as they crossed the bridle path and got a closer view that he realized where they were.
“This is Sarah Phelps’s farm. That must be her barn.”
Mrs. Phelps did not take kindly to people on her property, so they approached with some caution. Constance touched his arm, a welcome contact that brought relief as well as foolish pleasure. He followed her gaze and saw Mrs. Phelps in the distance. A deep, racking cough reached Solomon, though it didn’t seem to slow the woman down. Her back to them, she appeared to be digging up vegetables near her cottage. Behind a dry stone wall near her, a few goats and sheep were grazing a patch of scrubby land. At the other side, a cow raised her head and regarded Solomon and Constance with interest.
The barn was enclosed on all sides, although the half-open door at the side was hidden from Mrs. Phelps’s view. Solomon slipped around the barn and inside, Constance at his heels.
The barn was surprisingly neat. A penned area for animals in the winter, stacks of hay and winter feed against the walls. Boxes of layered apples, some vegetables, and drying herbs hung up. Solomon moved toward the latter, while Constance went toward the haystacks.
Rosemary, sage, feverfew—nothing dangerous like foxglove or monkshood.
“Solomon.”
He turned toward Constance’s voice and found her gazing between two large haystacks. On a thick pile of clean straw was piled two folded blankets and two pillows. And poking out between the pillows, the thin sleeve of a nightgown.
*
It was thefirst day since the death of his daughter that Colonel Niall had ridden around his land. He knew John had kept his eye on things, but that wasn’t really good enough. The land needed its lord.
As he let his horse walk the last of the way back to the house, he realized he felt almost…good. He had been so anxious for so long, so worried what Frances would say or do next that he had been living on his nerves for years. He still cringed at the many narrow escapes, at the shameful, illegitimate birth of his grandson among strangers.
In retrospect, India had been the best of times. She had behaved better there, subdued by the trials of birth and loss—and, he had hoped, brought back to the sense of duty and propriety he had tried so hard and so fruitlessly to instill.
Coming home had been the mistake. He had thought they were safe with Maule remarried. Frances had told him Maule was not the father of her child, though she had refused to say who was. Even when he lost his temper and whipped her, she had kept silent on that score. In fact, she laughed, which had fed his deeper fear that she was truly mad.
Now he wondered if mad was better than bad. Certainly, she had seemed determined to bring shame after shame upon them all.
He dismounted and gave his horse over to the care of the groom, uttering a grunt of acknowledgment.
He realized with surprise that he was moving easily as he strode almost jauntily toward the house. Whatwasthis feeling? This surge of energy, of well-being? He entered the house, nodding to old Worcester, who loyally kept so many family secrets, and felt whatever it was intensify. It was…
As recognition dawned, he stopped with one foot on the first step. The feeling was theabsence of Frances. It was relief.
*
“How utterly bizarre,”Solomon said. “I would not have thought Frances the type to enjoy such rustic trysting among the old smell of animals. Besides, it makes no sense. Surely Sarah would have noticed. Why would she keep silent?”
“Blackmail, I suppose.” Constance frowned and reached out to touch the drooping sleeve of the nightgown. “Only… I don’t think this belongs to Frances. It’s too old, too rough.”
His breath caught. “It’sSarah’s? She sleeps here? Why?”
Constance shrugged. “With sick animals, perhaps? Everything’s neatly folded and prepared. I doubt she does it every night. Damnation, Solomon, I thought we had actuallyfoundsomething at last.”
“Well, let’s go beforeshefindsus. I’ve never cared for old women’s curses.”
He meant it as a throwaway remark, but her eyes suddenly sharpened. “Who dared curse you, Solomon Grey?”
“A mad old woman in Jamaica. She cursed my brother David and me when we were children, for dragging down her clean washing twice in as many days, even though we hadn’t meant it.” And for years he had been afraid that her curse had come true. He still wasn’t sure it hadn’t, for he and David had been separated only months later, and the loneliness still corroded his heart, never mind whatever it did to David.
“Old women’s curses are just temper tantrums,” Constance said firmly. “They mean nothing and influence nothing.”
They stepped out into the daylight, which, along with Constance’s words, felt like relief. It wasn’t, of course. Theymystery of Frances’s death remained. As did the loss of his brother.
*
Constance wasn’t surewhat to make of Solomon’s mood. There had been a moment—several moments—in the ditch when his gaze had seemed to melt her bones. Breathing had been unaccountably difficult. The laughter had helped, releasing the tension, and then he had been back to aloofness, and now this vulnerability over the past and his lost twin brother. She suspected it never really left him. But the self-blame she would not allow, not if she could help it.
“It’s probably about the right time to catch Dr. Murray at the inn,” he said as they turned onto the familiar road that led past The Willows to the village. “If you think Laing’s patience might have run out.”
