crossroads but they left that. It was a pretty enough place, too, bigger than most. If you want to find them, go along the old Roman road, the one that goes to Moortown. There’s a house about half a mile down, set back behind some trees. That’s what they bought with their fortune.’
He thanked her and set off, leaving an extra coin for the information she’d given him. The place was easy enough to spot, the only building on the horizon, but first he paused to glance at their old house. Perhaps the woman had been right and it had been pretty enough once, but neglect had very quickly eroded its beauty. Now the garden was overgrown, an unkempt tangle, slates hung loose on the roof, windows and door gone, salvaged by the other villagers.
A few minutes later, as he rode down the driveway, he could see that the house the Gibtons had moved to was neither new nor especially grand. It looked like the home of a moderately prosperous squire. But it had pleasing, even proportions, and was built of ruddy brick with neatly mullioned windows. The grounds were carefully tended, and it was certainly several steps up from where they’d lived before. He glanced back over his shoulder. The cottage stood in the far distance, its outline faintly visible through a thin copse. How far they’d come, but what a small distance. How long before they had it pulled down, he wondered, and rewrote their history?
A breathless young serving girl dashed out to meet him, bobbing a quick curtsey even as her eyes took in his old clothes.
‘I’d like to speak to Lord Gibton,’ Nottingham announced. She ducked her head swiftly and ran back in the house. He tied the horse’s reins to a tree and waited.
He’d met people with titles before. At first he’d been nervous, unsure how to address them, how to act around them. Some had quickly put him at ease, pleasant fellows with easy, open manners. Most, however, took their superiority for granted, as if the world had been created solely for their ease.
Baron Gibton was going to be one of the latter, the Constable thought as the man came down the steps. He was a scrawny man, hardly any meat on his bones, with a deeply lined, careworn face under a glossy auburn peruke. He was dressed in a suit of deep burgundy velvet, the tails of his draped canary waistcoat hanging close to his knees, his stock and hose an unblemished white. In London he’d have fitted in perfectly; out here, surrounded by countryside, he just looked affected and ridiculous.
‘The girl says you want to see me,’ he said briskly, eyes appraising Nottingham’s appearance. ‘Who are you, anyway?’
‘I’m the Constable of Leeds, my Lord.’ Nottingham didn’t bow or look down deferentially at the ground. ‘I’m here about your daughter.’
Gibton stared for a few moments and then pursed his mouth, showing sharp teeth behind thin lips.
‘Come in. I don’t want everyone knowing my business.’
He turned quickly on his heel and strode inside.
The withdrawing room smelt heavily of wax polish. It was sparsely furnished with just a few pieces artfully placed, and looked strangely incomplete. The upholstered settle appeared recently purchased, its fabric still bright and unworn. A portrait of the baron and his wife, the paint barely dry, hung over the fireplace. Gibton sat down without offering any refreshment or comfort.
‘A Constable doesn’t come with good news,’ he said gravely.
‘No, your Lordship,’ he admitted. ‘Do you want your wife here?’
The man waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’ll tell her everything myself later. Is Sarah dead?’
‘I’m sorry, she is.’
Lord Gibton looked into the empty hearth, not showing any emotion, and the Constable was astonished and baffled by the man’s attitude. It wasn’t the way a father should act. If it had been Emily he’d have railed and needed to know every detail.
‘I believed she must be when her husband came here two days ago.’ His voice was low and even. ‘A girl like Sarah doesn’t simply vanish.’
‘She was found on Saturday,’ Nottingham began to explain. ‘We didn’t know who she was.’
Gibton waved away his words. ‘I don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘Not now.’ His hands rubbed over his knees, a gesture without thought, just something to do.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ the Constable agreed reluctantly, amazed at the man’s lack of interest. ‘There’s one thing I have to tell you, though.’
‘What’s that?’ Gibton didn’t even turn his head.
‘She’d been murdered.’
‘I’d surmised that much, Mister. . Nottingham, was that it?’ There was flintiness in his voice. ‘You’d hardly ride out here for a simple death.’
‘When she left to come here, her maid was with her. That’s what her husband said.’
‘Yes. Anne had been her maid for years. Sarah never went anywhere without her.’
‘No one’s seen the maid.’
Gibton looked up at him, engaged and curious for the first time. ‘Are you implying Anne might have had something to do with this?’
‘I’m not implying anything. I’m just trying to establish facts, my Lord.’
He considered that and nodded finally.
‘Where did Anne come from?’ Nottingham asked.
Gibton sighed. ‘She was a village girl, the same as the girl we have now. Tell me, did you stop in the village, Constable?’
‘Yes,’ Nottingham admitted. ‘I needed directions here.’
‘And what did they tell you? That we were above ourselves?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘My family used to own all this land. All of it. Then my sot of a great-grandfather gambled almost all of it away. There was a small amount left, enough to live but not in any kind of comfort or style. Still, my wife insisted that Sarah should have a maid. A girl needs that. None of them around here liked it. And they think even worse of us now we’ve inherited a little money.’
The Constable made no response. He didn’t like this man, apparently so unconcerned about the killing of his daughter but taken over and eaten through with money and position. He wanted to be away from here, out in the clean air. He’d done what he needed to do and broken the news. He’d be back, he knew that, but only once he knew what questions to ask. Quietly he took his leave of the baron and let the horse make its own slow way back into Leeds as he thought.
Everything felt wrong in the Gibtons’ house. He didn’t know what to make of it, but there was a darkness, a chill there that disturbed him.
Six
Sedgwick eased himself slowly down on the bed and sighed with exhaustion.
‘That feels better.’
Lizzie grinned at the pained look on his face and the way he stretched out his long legs.
‘I thought you’d said you’d been sitting down all day.’
‘Aye, on a bloody cart.’ He shifted position carefully. ‘My arse feels like someone’s spent the last few hours kicking it. I don’t suppose we have any ale, do we?’
‘Aye, I bought some today, fresh brewed from old Mrs Simpson.’
‘Would you be a love and pour me some?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘What did your last slave die of, then?’ she asked, but a smile played gently across her face as she moved towards his mug.
As she passed it over, he took her hand. ‘I do love you, you know,’ he told her.
‘You’d better,’ she answered, eyes twinkling. ‘That’s your baby I’m carrying inside me.’
He drank deep, almost emptying the mug, then asked, ‘So when. .?’
‘When’s it due, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Late February or early March, close as I can tell. But don’t you be telling anyone yet, John Sedgwick. There’s
