Page 32 of The Tart's Final Noel
“I’ve taken her and the orphans up to the manor.They are setting up beds near the schoolroom with the tutor and the manor’s heirs.It’s safe, but Verity insists on staying with them.She still has nightmares, and this...”Rafe’s usually open face mirrored his anger and concern.“I want this...brute...caught.”
And there was the reason for Rafe’s fury—fear for his family.
Brydie had little experience in pure evil.She sought logic.Children harmed no one.Willa might have had knowledge someone wanted hidden but children...“Surely, Willa’s killer will be long gone.He killed Willa and—if I accept this wild theory—believes he’s poisoned the children and maybe the nanny.He’d escape as fast as he could.The village is suspicious of strangers.Lingering would be foolhardy.”
“Cooper is a stranger,” Damien corrected.“Parsons, Willa’s neighbor, just arrived.Jasper at the hardware.Even Cratchit, the assistant at Paul’s woodshop, is new.We’ve been bringing in any number of strangers now that the manor is open.And even the manor has guests from London visiting for the holidays.For all we know, Fletch or any of the men who visited Willa could have stolen her letters or tried to poison her family.”
Brydie had been comforting herself with believing the killer gone.Damien shattered her illusion.“Butwhy, if he found what he wanted?”And even as she said it, she knew the answer.
“Any of them could have heard about the crashed cart and Verity finding the children,” Damien said softly, forcing her to understand.
Brydie shut her eyes and shook her head.“It makes no sense.If Willa’s killer lingers, it means he didn’t find what he was after.But why, by all that is holy, would anyone want to kill two orphans, their nanny, and a recluse who probably never set eyes on them?”
“Two murders and an attempted two more just don’t happen in one night without reason,” Paul said gently.“And Willa wasn’t exactly a recluse.She received and sent letters, entertained gentlemen who brought news of the outside world.Since it appears she may have known themotherof those two children?—”
“Then Willa may have known their father.”Brydie thought that solved part of the mystery, until she followed the thought further.“But he died years ago, if the children are out of blacks.I can understand a brother or greedy relation wanting to claim his estate, but why wait until now?Why not right after Mr.Turner died?And whykillchildren if they’re born on the wrong side of the blanket?The heir has nothing to lose.”
“We have no way of knowing until we learn who their family is.”Damien pointed at the stack of paper she held.“We’ll question Cooper some more.You need to sift through all that, see if you can find family names you recognize, other people we might question.”
“I’ve already written our vicar for church records of marriages for a Margery Bartlett and a man named Turner at the approximate time of those letters, but if the marriage took place in Bath, as these letters indicate...”Paul sighed.“We need to write more letters.”
Brydie frowned in dissatisfaction.“Perhaps what we ought to be doing is inventing new names for the orphans and telling everyone they’re Verity’s cousins.Do you really want to find who they are if their family is trying to kill them?”
That shut them up.
THURSDAY
December 21, 1815
Seventeen
Minerva
Glancingat the parishioners huddled inside their coats in the chilly chapel, Minerva decided Willa’s funeral had a respectable showing.She didn’t need to know how many of the men sitting beside their wives mourned Willa’s loss as more than their baker.
Cooper, still looking haggard, at least managed to attend this funeral, if not the one he’d been sent to attend.Damien and Rafe had questioned him last night.He’d confirmed that his mother had written of the death of his cousin Margery Bartlett Turner and asked him to represent the family.He claimed ignorance of nannies or children or even the estate.The funeral had been over by the time he arrived in Stratford at noon.The gravediggers knew nothing.So he’d simply gone on to Willa’s.Since the sun set early at this time of year, he’d arrived well after dark, expecting her to let him know if there was more to be done.
The killer must have arrived first.
As a baker, Willa quite likely retired when darkness fell, if she wasn’t entertaining...clients.
Cooper hadn’t seen the buggy, knew nothing of his cousin’s children, and had been out of the country at the time of Margery’s marriage.Minerva thought she and Brydie might dig a little deeper, but it would be good to have answers to their letters first.She continued studying the congregation.
The women who relied on Willa’s baked goods lined a few of the benches.Brydie and Damien were there, along with Major Fletcher and Rafe.Patience and her husband attended, because Patience always brought flowers and sat in on her brother’s services, and Henri drove the cart that would carry the coffin to the cemetery.
The poor, unnamed nanny would be buried, unmourned, in a pauper’s grave at the same time.The manor couldn’t keep a body in the crypt until someone identified it.
Minerva had hoped some of the single men who had knocked on Willa’s back door might put in an appearance at the chapel so they might question them, but that was a little too much to ask.At least Fletch had the manners to pay his respects.
Paul spoke of Willa’s contributions to the community and her life without close family and sermonized a bit about community being family, but he kept it short.Minerva’s perceptive husband would note any strangers at the cemetery, as would Rafe.
As the men trudged up the manor hill from the chapel to tend to the business of burying the dead in the former priory’s graveyard, Minerva and Brydie detoured to the manor.
Instead of letting them slip up the servants’ stairs for the attic schoolroom, the tall, barrel-chested butler marched them to the main marble stairway.Minerva had lived here for months and knew her way around.She wasn’t arguing with Quincy about propriety.He and his staff were the guardians who kept the inhabitants safe.
A trio of laughing male guests emerged from the former ballroom as they passed.Wearing country tweeds and leather breeches worth more than most villagers earned in a year, they paid no attention to Brydie and Minerva in their unadorned church attire.Minerva preferred anonymity.Brydie charged up the stairs without even noticing.
They found Verity in the new schoolroom with Mr.Birdwhistle, the manor’s handsome tutor.A former attic storeroom, the space wouldn’t be opened for a schoolroom until after the first of the year.It didn’t yet have much in the way of desks, but chairs and benches had been acquired.Lovely windows overlooking the drive below would let in air once the weather warmed.A teacher’s desk had been positioned with a large chalkboard on the wall behind it—far better than the pub where Verity had been teaching.Books filled the shelves.The one advantage Gravesyde had was books, lots of them.
