She opened her parasol, tilted it against the strengthening sun, and walked on.
It was her intention to follow the coach road out to the gibbet that stood on the eastern fringe of the village. But as she neared the entrance to the sunken drive that led to the Squire’s ancient manor house, three young lads came pelting down a lavender-edged cottage path toward her. They were shouting and laughing and pushing one another, and were so engrossed in their play that they nearly careened into her.
“Oye,” shouted a man who appeared in the open cottage doorway behind them. “Mind where you’re going there, lads! And apologize to her ladyship.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, milady,” chirped the three boys in unison before tearing off again up the road.
“If you’ll allow me to apologize as well, my lady,” said the man. He walked toward her, his head shaking as his gaze followed the three lads. He had one of those boyish Irish faces that are both ageless and charmingly engaging. But from the deep laugh lines beside his light gray eyes, she guessed he was probably somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. He was not, obviously, an ordinary cottager. His worn clothes were those of a gentleman, his speech and manner cultured, his accent only vaguely hinting at a Dublin lilt.
“Are they yours?” she asked with a smile.
“Oh, no, my lady. Those three young tearabouts belong to Jude Lowe, keeper of the Ship. I’m nothing more than the humble village schoolmaster.” He wasn’t wearing a hat, so he couldn’t sweep it off with a flourish. But he still managed to sketch an elegant bow. “Daray Flanagan, at your service.”
She looked at him with renewed interest. “Ah, you’re the one who was speaking to the miller’s wife last Monday evening, right before she saw Emma Chance.”
“I am indeed, my lady. And what a charming young gentlewoman she was. Such a pity, what happened to her.”
“You spoke with her?”
“Not then, no. I came across her earlier, though, when she was painting a watercolor of the high street.”
“When was this?”
“Must’ve been Friday or Saturday, I suppose. She had quite the talent, she did.”
Hero studied his mobile, expressive face. “What do you think happened to her?”
“Me? I wouldn’t be knowing, my lady. I’ve only been here a couple of years myself.” The smile lines beside his eyes deepened, as if with pain. “I’d have said it was a peaceful, friendly place, this. Which just goes to show, now, doesn’t it?”
“How do you come to be here?”
“Pure serendipity. I was passing through the village the day they were burying the old schoolmaster. Stopped at the Ship for a bite to eat and heard everyone talking about how they’d be needing to find someone to take the dead man’s place. So I stayed.”
It was an artless tale that glossed over much the teller chose not to dwell on, including where he’d been coming from, where he’d been going, and why he’d been content to take up such a lowly position. Some of his pupils might pay for lessons with shillings, but most doubtless paid in kind—and only when they could.
“Serendipity, indeed,” said Hero.
Flanagan nodded. “My predecessor had been here forty years. The old Squire’d brought him in. Gave him—and me—this cottage rent free.”
Hero had been thinking of Archie Rawlins’s father as a drunken boor who foolishly set his horse at a wall he couldn’t clear. Now she found she had to readjust that image. It wasn’t unknown for landlords to take an interest in educating the children of their tenants and cottagers, but it was uncommon. Most saw the education of the masses either as unnecessary or as a misguided, dangerous folly.
Hero started to walk on, then paused to say, “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the gibbet out near the crossroads, would you?”
Flanagan’s gaze flickered up the gently curving road, empty now in the morning sunlight. “I’ve heard it was set up for some poor fellow hanged for treason back in the early nineties. They say he was rotting up there for three months before somebody cut him down in the middle of the night and buried him who knows where. But I couldn’t tell you the details. Folks around here don’t like to talk about it much.”
“It’s been standing twenty years?”
“So I hear. Someone tried to burn it once. But the major, he had the fire put out. Even has old Silas Madden coat it with tar regularly, to help preserve it. Tends that gibbet with as much care as his wife tends her gardens, he does.”
“I wonder why,” said Hero.
But that was a question the Irishman was unable to answer.
Hero had just passed the last straggling cottage when she became aware of an elegant curricle coming toward her at a fast clip, its driver a down-the-road-looking man in a linen driving coat.
He drew up smartly beside her. “May I offer you a lift, my lady?”
Hero twirled her parasol. “You’re not going in my direction.”
“I can fix that,” said Devlin.