“So was I.”
She gave him a long, considering look. He got the feeling that he was being weighed and judged on some invisible scale. He sensed that he had passed the test when she lowered the uneaten portion of toast and sat back in her chair.
“While I appreciate and admire your open-mindedness,” she said, “I can state quite honestly that I did not lose my post because of an indiscreet liaison. My problems stemmed from that unconventional upbringing I mentioned.”
“I see.”
“You may as well know that you have just been hired by a woman who has spent her entire professional career concealing her past from her own employers.”
“This is becoming more interesting by the moment, Miss Glade.”
“I regret to say that I had very little choice,” she continued, her voice unnaturally even in tone. “There are very few professions open to women as it is. Those who possess pasts such as mine have an even narrower range of opportunities.”
“Believe it or not, I do comprehend the predicament.”
“I used a fictitious name to secure my post at the girls’ school. I called myself Irene Colby. The ruse worked well enough in the past. But not this time. Somehow the truth emerged and the instant it did, I was, of course, dismissed immediately.”
It was an unhappy story, but he could not resist a smile. “You have used false names to obtain employment on several occasions? How very inventive of you, Miss Glade. I admire your resourcefulness. What of the rest of your family? Are they as unusual as you?”
“I can no longer claim any close relations, sir. My parents both died a decade ago when I was sixteen. There are some cousins on my father’s side, I believe, but I have never met them. They do not consider me a legitimate member of the family.”
“Why not?”
“Very likely because I am not legitimate,” she said lightly.
Too lightly, he thought. “That unconventional upbringing again?”
“Mmm. Yes.” She tilted her head slightly to one side to study him. “You are not going to let this matter drop, are you?”
“I did tell you that I like answers,” he said.
She hesitated, as though pondering something of vital importance, and then appeared to come to a decision.
“My parents were notorious freethinkers, Mr. Wells. They did not believe in marriage, very likely because both of them were already unhappily wed to other people when they met. They viewed the institution of marriage as a cage, one that was particularly cruel and unfairly confining to women.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do.” She gave him a steely smile, challenging him to brush off her past. “My father was William Gilmore Glade. My mother was Sybil Marlowe.”
The names chimed distantly in his head. It took a few seconds, but finally the old scandal surfaced.
“Not the Marlowe and Glade who established the Crystal Springs Community?” he asked, intrigued in spite of himself.
“I see you have heard of it.”
“A decade ago everyone had heard of Marlowe, Glade and the Crystal Springs Community.”
Her mouth tightened at the corners. “When it disbanded there were several articles in the sensation press and a number of penny dreadfuls purporting to provide the so-called shocking details of the scandalous activities that were rumored to have gone on inside the Community.”
“I recall some of the pieces.”
“Most of the reports were utter rubbish.”
“Naturally.” He brushed that aside with a slight movement of his fingers. “The press is not known for accuracy. It thrives on scandal and rumor, not facts.” He paused, frowning slightly. “Why did the Community disband?”
“It fell apart almost immediately after the news of my parents’ death in a dreadful snowstorm in America,” she said quietly. “They were the Community’s founders and leaders. Without them, the others were unable to sustain their purpose and direction.”
“What were your parents doing in America?”
“They sailed there with the intention of establishing a sister community.” She picked up her teacup. “They believed that America would prove more hospitable ground for their freethinking philosophy.”
“My condolences on the loss of your parents at such a young age,” he added. “It must have been very difficult for you.”
“Yes.”
The single word was clipped and neutral. Her expression was cool and veiled. But he could feel the tension simmering inside her. She was waiting for him to mock or condemn.
“I am not well acquainted with the philosophy of the Crystal Springs Community,” he said, choosing his words with great care. “But I believe your parents advocated what some would call an extremely liberal view of the relationship between the sexes.”
“Thanks to the press, that is all anyone remembers about the Community,” she said, suddenly fierce. “But my parents held many other advanced views as well. They believed that women should be educated to the same standards as men, for example. And that females ought to be admitted to colleges, universities and professions on an equal basis with males.”
“I see.”
“It was my mother’s dream to attend medical school.” Concordia’s self-control returned quickly, masking the brief flash of pain and anger. “When she was refused admission, her parents forced her into a loveless marriage.”
“And your father?”
“He was a brilliant man, a philosopher and a scientist who was passionate about modern ideas of all types. He also found himself in an unhappy marriage. He met my mother at a lecture on the rights of women.” Her smile was oddly wistful. “They always claimed that it was a case of love at first sight.”
“Your tone implies that you do not believe in that phenomenon.”
“On the contrary. My parents were proof that it does exist. But in their case it demanded a very heavy price. They destroyed two marriages and created a great scandal in order to achieve their own happiness.”
“And they saddled you with the burden of illegitimacy.”
She uttered a soft, mirthless laugh. “That is the least of it. The most difficult problems I face arise from the assumptions that others make when they discover that I was raised in the Community.”
“These assumptions concern your personal behavior?”
“Precisely, Mr. Wells.” She set the cup down on the saucer with enough force to make the fine china clang loudly. “When people discover that I am the offspring of William Gilmore Glade and Sybil Marlowe, they conclude that I practice a similar modern philosophy concerning the relationship between the sexes.”
“I can see why you go to some lengths to conceal your past from potential employers.”
“There are very few people who are willing to hire a teacher who was raised with such modern notions. As I said, when my past was exposed at my previous post at the girls’ school, I was dismissed instantly.”
He gave that some thought. “You were perfect for Alexander Larkin’s purposes, weren’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You were desperate for a position and you possessed no family connections. If you had disappeared after Larkin was finished with you, no one would have asked any questions.”
She shuddered. “A chilling thought.”
“I wonder if Miss Bartlett fit the same requirements.”
“What do you—? Oh, I see. It does appear that way, does it not? She vanished from the castle, and as far as I know, no one came to inquire after her.” Concordia hesitated. “Then again, no one would have mentioned any such inquiries to me. I was just the teacher, after all. For the most part I was ignored.”
He nodded slowly, a familiar sense of awareness uncurling inside him. This was the sensation he always experienced when he knew himself to be closing in on the answers he sought.
“Something tells me that you are the key to this affair, Concordia,” he said softly. “I think that, when it came to you, Larkin
made his fatal blunder, the one that may well bring him down.”
“What do you mean?”
“He underestimated the teacher.”
10
The innkeeper’s wife did not like the man who was questioning her husband so closely. It was not merely because the stranger had made his disdain of their modest establishment evident when he walked through the door a short time ago. She had been in this career a very long time. Wealthy, arrogant gentlemen who treated her neat, respectable, well-kept inn as though it were a hovel were a fact of life. At worst, they got drunk, tried to accost the serving girl and sometimes soiled the sheets. This one was different, though. She doubted that this elegant man would be the sort to commit any of those small, annoying crimes. Very neat and proper, he was. He had come all the way from London on the train the day before, spent the night in the village near Aldwick Castle, toured the ruins this morning and then hired a carriage to go about making inquiries.
Yet in spite of all that dashing around the neighborhood there was not so much as a speck of dust on his fine coat. His shirt collar was clean and crisply ironed.
Over-nice by half, she decided. The type who traveled with his own sheets and towels because he did not trust the cleanliness of inns such as the one she and her husband operated.
She sat in the office, pretending to busy herself with the accounts while Ned spoke with the man. But the door was open. She could see the front desk out of the corner of her eye and hear everything that was discussed.
“Four young ladies and their teacher put up here for the night?” The man from London tossed some coins onto the counter. “They left early yesterday morning?”
Ned did not touch the coins. “Something was said about wanting to be at the station in time to take the morning train to London.”
“Did they remark on the fire at the castle?” the stranger asked sharply.
“No, sir. The old castle is a fair ride from here. We didn’t get the news of the blaze until after the ladies had left for the station yesterday.” Ned shook his head somberly. “Heard the place was burned right down to the ground and that one man died in the flames.”
“Yes, that is true.” The stranger’s words were edged with impatience, as though the loss of the man was more of a nuisance than a tragedy. “The cause of his death is somewhat uncertain, however.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Never mind, it’s none of your affair. Is there anything else you can tell me about the young ladies and their teacher?”
“No, sir. Like I said, they arrived very late and left quite early.”
The gentleman’s jaw flexed. “Wonder what they did with the damned horses?” he said, speaking more to himself than to Ned.
“I can tell ye that, sir,” Ned said. “Left ’em at the livery stable next door to the train station.”
The man flung a few more coins onto the counter. “How did the teacher pay for the rooms that she and the girls used? Did she have money?”
“Don’t know about the state of her finances, sir.” Ned raised one shoulder in an elaborate shrug. “She wasn’t the one who paid the bill.”
The expression on the face of the gentleman did not change by so much as the flicker of an eyelash, but the innkeeper’s wife suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“Who paid for the rooms?” the man from London asked in a deadly soft voice.
“Why, the man the teacher hired to protect them while they were on the road,” Ned said, stunningly calm.
The stranger’s hand tightened abruptly around the gold-headed handle of his walking stick. He studied Ned with eyes as cold as those of a fish. “She hired a bodyguard?”
“Very sensible, I thought. She and her students were obliged to travel at night, after all.”
“What was the name of the guard?”
“Smith, I think.” Ned opened the register and ran a finger down the page. “Yes, here it is. Mr. Smith. Gave him room number five. The teacher and her girls used three and four.”
“Let me see that.” The man whipped the register around with a short, brusque movement and studied the name on the page. “The handwriting looks the same as that of the teacher’s.”
“She signed the register for all of them—the girls, herself and Smith.”
“Describe Smith.”
Ned shrugged again. “Nothing remarkable about him. Medium height, I’d say. Rather ordinary-looking, to tell you the truth.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Lizzie, can you recall anything about the man who accompanied the teacher and her girls the other night?”
She forced herself to turn slowly, as though the question had distracted her from more important work.
“I believe that he had brown hair,” she said politely.
“Is that all you can recall?” the stranger demanded angrily.
“I’m afraid so, sir. Like Ned here said, there was nothing in particular to remark about him.”
“Where in blazes would she find a hired guard around here?” the gentleman asked.
They both looked at him, politely blank-faced, and said nothing.
“I’m wasting my time,” he muttered.
Without another word he turned on his heel, walked out of the inn and got into the waiting carriage.
Ned scooped up the coins on the counter and walked into the office. He put a comforting hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. Together they watched the vehicle roll out of the yard and turn in the direction of the village and the train station.
“Mr. Smith was right when he said that someone would likely come around making inquiries about the teacher,” Ned said.
She shivered. “Thank goodness Smith did not ask us to lie in exchange for the money he gave you. I don’t think it would have been easy to fool that man.”
Smith’s request yesterday morning had been simple and quite straightforward. He had put ten pounds on the counter and spoken very politely to Ned. “There will be questions asked. Feel free to say that the teacher hired me to see her and the girls safely onto the London train. But I would take it as a great favor if you could keep your description of me as vague as possible.”
“In a manner of speaking we did lie,” Ned said. “We told the man from London that there was nothing remarkable about Mr. Smith.”
“Well, there wasn’t,” she said. “At least not in regard to his features or his height.”
“There was something about him, though . . .” Ned let the sentence fade away, unfinished.
There was no need for words, she thought. They had both been in the innkeeping profession long enough to have become sound judges of human nature. There had, indeed, been something about Mr. Smith, something remarkably dangerous. But the teacher had seemed to trust him and that had been good enough for her. Because there had been something about the teacher, too.
Lizzie had seen the sort of fierceness and determination in the woman that one saw in females throughout the animal kingdom when their young were threatened.
She reached up to cover Ned’s fingers with her own. “Never mind, the business is finished, at least as far as we’re concerned, and we’ve nothing to complain of. We’ve turned a nice profit.”
“True enough.”
“What is it that still troubles you?”
Ned exhaled deeply. “I’m damned curious about why Mr. Smith didn’t ask us to lie outright. Given the amount of money he put on the counter yesterday morning, I expected him to instruct us to say nothing at all about him or his companions.”
“Instead, he merely asked us to keep any description of him to a minimum. It does seem peculiar, doesn’t it? Ten pounds is a lot of money for such a simple request.”
“Got a hunch,” Ned said slowly, “that Smith wanted to be certain that the gentleman from London was told that the teacher and her students had a bodyguard.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps because he wanted to warn him off.” Ned rubbed the back of his neck. “But there is another possibility.”
“What?”
“Smith may have wished to distract the elegant man.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you saw a hungry tiger closing in on a flock of helpless lambs, one way to turn him aside from the kill would be to drag the scent of more interesting prey beneath his nose.”
She tightened her hand abruptly around his. “Must you use the word kill ?”
“Figure of speech, my dear,” he said quickly, soothingly.
“I wish I could believe that.” She sighed. “I hope we do not see either one of those men again.”
11
The blue and sea green gowns are perfect for Edwina and Theodora,” Concordia announced. She looked at the girls and Mrs. Oates. “Don’t you agree?”
There was an affirmative murmur of approval.
“Lovely,” Mrs. Oates said, studying Edwina and Theodora with warm admiration. “The dresses go ever so nicely with their pretty blond hair.”
Edwina and Theodora held the gowns up in front of themselves and examined their images in the mirror. Their faces were aglow with delight. Behind them Hannah and Phoebe were waiting to take their turns in front of the looking glass.
It was five o’clock in the afternoon. Most of the assortment of gowns that had been ordered yesterday morning had yet to arrive from the dressmaker’s, but enough had shown up a short time ago to provide everyone with a much needed change of clothes.
In addition, Mrs. Oates had made the trip to one of the large department stores on Oxford Street and returned with a variety of ready-made essentials such as shoes, hats, gloves and lingerie.
Dante and Beatrice, who had already become the girls’ constant companions, had been temporarily banished into the hall to avoid any unfortunate canine-related accidents to the pretty clothes. Virtually everyone in the room was bubbling with excitement. Phoebe was the sole exception. She stood defiantly to the side, dressed in the inexpensive boy’s trousers and shirt that had comprised her disguise after the return from London.
“You were right when you specified the yellow and brown material for Hannah,” Mrs. Oates said, looking quite satisfied with the gown Hannah was trying on in front of the mirror. “The color goes very well with her eyes.”