She gave a sharp, disbelieving laugh. But there was a fragility, a bleakness about her that touched his heart. “So saith his lordship, son and heir to the great Earl of Hendon.”
Rather than answer her, Sebastian said, “Jamie told me once that his father was either an English lord, a Welsh cavalryman, or a simple stable hand. Could the English lord he suspected have been Lord Seaton?”
“Not his lordship, no. But he was some sort of relative of the Seatons. They both were—the English lord and the captain both.”
“And the stable hand? Who was he?”
“Just some good-looking lad m’mother fancied.”
“From Northcott Abbey?”
She tipped her head to one side, her gaze on his face. And he knew she both sensed and understood the quiet desperation that drove his questions. “No, from Maplethorpe Hall.”
He thought for a moment she meant to say something more—that she knew more.
Then she turned and entered the cottage, closing the door behind her.
Chapter 43
Sebastian was headed back toward the Blue Boar when he noticed Reuben Dickie sitting on the pump house step, his head bowed over his carving.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said Sebastian, walking over to him.
Reuben froze, his eyes darting this way and that, as if he were thinking of bolting. “Mumma said you was. It’s ’cause of the book, ain’t it? But I already told the lady, I don’t remember where I found it.”
“Do you remember when you found it?”
Reuben shook his head slowly back and forth. “It’s been a while.”
“Was it by the river? Or somewhere else?”
“I dunno.”
“Did you find anything with it?”
Reuben’s nostrils flared on a suddenly indrawn breath. “What would I find with it?”
“A satchel. Or a sketchbook, perhaps.”
“No. Oh, no.”
The man was an appallingly bad liar.
Sebastian said, “You won’t get into trouble for it, you know. In fact, you’d be a hero, for finding something we’ve all been looking for.”
Reuben dug the toe of one clog into the dirt. “You’re trying to trick me, aren’t you? You think I’m stupid. Well, I’m not stupid.”
Sebastian tried a different tack. “I hear you like to go out at night.”
“I ain’t supposed to go out at night.”
“But you do sometimes, don’t you?”
Reuben shook his head again, harder and faster this time. “Things happen at night. Things people don’t want you to see.”
“Oh? Such as?”
Reuben quit shaking his head as a sly smile crept over his features. “You don’t know, do you? You think I’m so stupid, but there’s lots of things I knows that you don’t.”
Sebastian leaned against one of the pump house’s worn columns and crossed his arms at his chest. “If I wanted to find out about those things, where would you suggest I look?”
Reuben’s tongue crept out to lick his lips. “Depends what things you want to know about.”
Sebastian simply stared at Reuben expectantly, and after a moment his silence goaded the other man into saying, “Ain’t nothin’ there now, but if you’d looked in Maplethorpe Hall’s old carriage house a few days ago, ye might’ve seen somethin’.”
“How many days ago?”
“Oh, maybe around the time that pretty young widow was kilt,” Reuben said airily, and went back to his whittling.
Sebastian watched the man’s short, incredibly deft fingers peel away curls of wood to reveal what he now realized was a badger.
“Saw her, too, you know,” said Reuben abruptly.
“You mean, the night before she was killed?”
Reuben sucked his lower lip between his small, oddly spaced teeth as he focused on his carving. “I ain’t allowed out at night, remember? But she was up real early that mornin’.”
“You saw Emma Chandler on Monday morning?”
Reuben kept his attention focused on his carving. “Mm-hmm.”
“Did she have her sketchbook with her?”
“What’s a sketchbook?”
“The notebook she drew pictures in.” Was it significant, Sebastian wondered, that Reuben hadn’t asked, What’s a sketchbook? when Sebastian first inquired after it?
“Reckon she did,” said Reuben.
“Where did you see her, Reuben? And don’t pretend you don’t remember, because I won’t believe you.”
Sebastian said it with just enough menace in his voice that Reuben’s hands went slack, the knife tumbling from his grasp as his mouth formed a startled “O.”
“The old pack bridge, down past Maplethorpe,” he said in a rush, scrambling after his knife. “She was paintin’ a picture of it in that notebook of hers. What’d you call it?”
“A sketchbook. Did you speak with her?”
“Jist to say she was up awful early.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she hadn’t been able to sleep, so she figured she may as well come paint the sunrise.”
“At the pack bridge?”
Reuben nodded vigorously. “Said it was real pretty, she did.”