'Because Braxton was the villain, not you. And because you are right. It was so very long ago, and it hardly matters now.'
She frowned in puzzlement. 'You said that he was not really called Edward Braxton?'
'He stole the name, just as he stole the silver and planned to steal your virtue and reputation.'
'Then you do not know who he truly was?'
'No. And I suppose we never will.'
Helena squeezed my hands the slightest bit. 'Thank you, Gabriel.'
'I will tell no one of your whereabouts if you do not wish me to. But please, write to Terrance and tell him that you are well. I will carry the letter back with me.'
She flinched. 'I am not certain I want to see him again. To return to that life. My life is here now.'
'I will leave you to decide whether you face him or not. But Terrance is a broken man. Hearing that you are alive and happy with Mrs. Edgerton will do much to ease him.'
Helena still had no wish to draw back the curtain from this enclosure she'd made for herself, but I saw her realize that Braxton's actions had hurt more than herself and Robert. 'Very well. I will write.'
There was nothing more to say. We returned to the house, Helena to her rooms. Grenville and I took tea with Mrs. Edgerton, Helena came down with the letter, and we departed.
In the inn that night, I told a truncated version of the tale to Grenville and a curious Marianne and bade them to keep silent about everything until I decided what to do. They agreed. Marianne voiced the opinion that Mr. Braxton had brought his death on himself, and good riddance. I could see that Grenville agreed with her.
We traveled back to Norfolk in easy stages, Grenville again spending most of it on the bed in his coach or riding his horse when he felt better.
Terrance greeted me more cheerfully upon my return. He'd spent every day at the Lacey house, directing the work and enjoying it.
His exuberant mood changed when I handed him the letter, penned in Helena's hand.
'You found her,' he said, staring at the folded paper. 'Where is she?'
'I promised her that she could tell you, if she chose.'
'Dear God, Lacey. This is the woman I was to have married. Tell me where the devil she is.'
I shook my head. 'I am sorry. Read the letter.'
Terrance gave me a dark look, but turned away, deftly breaking the seal and unfolding the letter with his one hand.
He went out through the back of the house to read in private, and I made my way on horseback, alone, to Robert Buckley's farm, south and east of the Lacey estate, the setting sun at my back.
Robert's farm was not large, but the fields were enclosed by neat green hedgerows, and he'd hired laborers to work it with him. His wife gave me a pot of homemade ale while I sat in her warm kitchen and waited for Robert to come in from the fields. She baked as I sipped, the homey, yeasty smells reminding me of the bake shop below my rooms in Covent Garden. I realized, sitting here, that I missed the place.
Robert trudged in as the sun was going down. He greeted me with a grin and a work-worn hand, and took the ale his wife handed him.
The two of us went outside, walking around the thatched cottage to look at the view. Green fields rippled away from us down a slight slope, the wide Norfolk sky streaked crimson and gold.
'Lovely,' I said.
'I am a lucky man, Captain.'
I took another sip of the meaty, dark ale. 'I came to tell you that I have been to Lincolnshire. I spoke to Helena Quinn there.'
Robert froze with his ale halfway to his mouth. His good-natured look deserted him. 'Miss Quinn.'
'Indeed.' I kept my voice down so his wife and the workers in the barn would not hear us. 'She told me that you killed Edward Braxton-or whoever he truly was. And I believe you killed the man called Bill Ferguson, a week ago, in Brigadier Easton's windmill.'
Robert stared at me, his dark eyes fixed. 'You can not know that.'
'You are correct-I am only guessing. What I believe is that you heard that Brigadier Easton had fled to the Continent, and that Mr. Denis's men had moved in and were tearing up the place. You had no idea what they were looking for, but it scarcely mattered. If they confined their search to the house, you had no need to worry, but if they started looking through the abandoned windmill… It was a good hiding place. Easton used it to hide things that did not belong to him. You used it to hide something else. Braxton's body?'
Robert nodded, his movements wooden. 'In the cellar. I chopped him up with an axe I found in your house, I carted him there, and I buried him under the cellar. No one used that windmill anymore.'
'And the windmill was far enough from Parson's Point and the places Braxton used to meet Miss Quinn that he would likely not be looked for there. No one bothered to search for him at all, as it turned out, but you could not anticipate that. Once he was hidden, it was easy enough for you to make it look as though he had absconded with the silver and the vicar's daughter, never to be heard from again. Family too ashamed to pursue it, matter closed. You shoved the silver up the chimney in my house-why did you not simply take it back to the church?'
'Couldn't,' Robert said. 'By the time I was… finished, Mrs. Landon had discovered that the silver had gone missing, and everyone was up in arms. I thought it best that it stayed hidden for a while. And then, as time passed, it did not seem worth the fuss. If it turned up, there would only be questions.'
'I think I understand. The Lacey house was a good hiding place for it-I commend you. My father kept no servants by that time, I was away at war, and the house was falling to ruin. I made no announcement that I was returning, and you had no idea that Denis's men would be hunting there as well. Still, even if someone found the silver, most people would believe that an incompetent thief had hidden it long ago and never returned for it. Which they did. Did Ferguson find Braxton's body? Or did you only fear he would?'
Robert looked miserable. 'I don't remember what I was thinking. By the time I reached the windmill, someone had done him over already. His face was all bloody, but he was on his feet, and so angry. When he saw me, he ran at me like a madman, murder in his eyes. I saw a thick stick on the floor. I caught it up and struck out. He went down, just like Braxton.'
Tears stood in his eyes, and fear. I could imagine the scene as vividly as I'd imagined the boy Robert killing Braxton-only this time, he'd struck out in terror. Ferguson had been a large and violent man.
Whether Robert had given Ferguson the killing blow accidentally, or whether he'd known exactly what he was doing, I could not know. I'd never know. Robert had killed to defend his own life and his past secrets.
'What about Lady Southwick?' I asked. I thought about the pistol ball going past Lady Southwick's nose, Donata's idea that two people had shot at the same time, Grenville's report of Rafe Godwin's utter bewilderment. 'Did you shoot at her? Perhaps because she helped Braxton in his scheme with Helena? Unwittingly on Lady Southwick's part, of course. But she might begin guessing what had happened after I came poking around, asking questions about Miss Quinn and Mr. Braxton.'
Robert looked blank. 'Someone shot at her ladyship?'
'With a pistol. She'd set up a shooting match, and she was nearly clipped.'
'I don't have a pistol,' Robert said. 'And I haven't been near Southwick in years.'
His puzzlement was genuine, and I believed him. Perhaps we had been seeing sinister things where none existed. Rafe Godwin was simply incompetent with a pistol.
Robert turned away from me. He looked at his beloved farm, made golden by the setting sun. We heard the sounds of the men in the barn, the cows as they were fed, Robert's wife humming in the kitchen, the high-pitched squeal of his little boy as he tried to talk to his mother. An idyllic place.
I asked, 'Where did you put Braxton's bones after you took them from the windmill?'
'Binham Priory,' Robert said. 'Under the rubble of the ruins. It is still consecrated ground.'
The villagers now used part of the ancient nave, the only thing spared by King Henry's men, as their parish church. I remembered the tranquility of the rest of the ruins, standing tall on the green, the sadness of a life stripped away and gone long ago.
'Mr. Denis believes that Ferguson was killed by one of his own men,' I said. 'And that man is also now dead.'
Robert said nothing. He only watched me, certain I'd come to strip away his life, this son of the man who'd
