She regarded him thoughtfully, half in amusement and half in exasperation. 'Mark, my dear, that's carrying good manners to absurd extremes! Do you think Lettice will care what the county believes? She'll want you beside her, and that in itself will silence most of the gossips!'
There was such desperate grief in his eyes now that she was suddenly appalled. 'Mark-,' she began, anxiety changing her voice, making it strained and wary.
'The first time I went, I was turned away-if I go again, and it happens a second time, what do you think will be made of that?'
Almost weak with relief, she said, 'She'd been given a sedative! Did you expect Dr. Warren to invite you to her bedroom, with no chaperone in the house? Betrothed or not, he wouldn't have countenanced that!' Rising from her chair, she came to kneel beside his, taking his hands in hers. 'My dear. Lettice probably has no idea what's been said. Who's going to tell her?'
'Rutledge for one.'
She bit her lip. 'Yes. Rutledge. The man's a menace, probing and digging.'
'He's no fool, Sally. And he won't leave until he's got what he wanted.'
'If only you and Charles hadn't quarreled so publicly that last night-'
'How were we to know that the servants were still about? Besides-' He stopped, then lifted her fingers, kissed the tips, and let them go. She didn't rise, but stayed there beside him, her hands dropping to her lap.
'I wish you would tell me what that was all about. How can I help you if I don't know?'
He rubbed his eyes, and they burned as if he hadn't slept for a week. They had felt that way in France, he remembered, when there was a push on, and the planes went up as long as the pilots could stay awake to man them. Until blind exhaustion sent you stumbling back to quarters and the nearest bed. 'It wasn't even a quarrel, come to that. We never got to the point of quarreling. He said something that took me completely off guard, and the next thing we knew, we were both murderously angry.'
Mark looked at her, his eyes bloodshot from the rubbing, his tiredness there for her to see. 'It died with Charles. At least pray God it did,' he added vehemently.
'But the timing-'
'Yes, I know, there's no getting around that, is there, Sally? And Rutledge will have me exactly where he wants me if he ever finds out the whole of it. Hickam was a bloody nuisance, but I could have dealt with him. As it is, Charles might still reach out from the grave and take me with him.'
She got to her feet and said with conviction, 'Then you must go to Lettice! Now, before everyone in Upper Streetham notices that you aren't there! Mark, don't you see? You're being very foolish!' Rutledge went to find Johnston before he left Mallows, but instead came face-to-face with Lettice as she slowly descended the main staircase. It was, he thought, the first time she'd left her room since Dr. Warren had taken her there, and she seemed abstracted, her body moving without the volition of her mind, which was turned inward toward private visions no one else could share. Whatever they were, she drew no comfort from them, for she looked tired, empty.
'I thought you had gone away,' she said, frowning as she saw him and recognized him. 'Well? Did you want some- thing-or someone?'
'I've just spoken to Royston. I wanted to let you know that the Inquest will be tomorrow-'
'I won't be there,' she said quickly, with an edge of panic. 'I won't attend!'
'I shan't expect you to attend. There will be-we must address certain formalities, and then I intend to ask for an adjournment,' he amended, to spare her. There was no need to go into more detail than that, since Royston had identified the body, not Lettice.
She turned to go back the way she'd come, and he stopped her. 'I went to see Catherine Tarrant.'
With her hand on the banister as if she gained strength from its support, she came down the rest of the stairs. 'And?' she asked when she was on eye level with him. It was almost as if she thought he might be tricking her.
'She told me about Linden.'
'And?' she repeated.
'And I understand the debt you referred to this morn- ing-your fiance's life for her lover's. But there's another aspect of the situation, one less pleasant. Could Miss Tar- rant have shot Colonel Harris in revenge for Linden's death? Brooding over what happened and convincing herself that he might have saved the German if he'd tried? Punishing him-and indirectly, you?'
Lettice Wood began to laugh, bitterly at first, and then in wild denial. 'Oh, God,' she said, 'that's too diabolical to contemplate!' The laughter turned to tremors that racked her body. 'No, I won't think about it! Go away, I don't want to talk to you anymore!'
Rutledge had seen soldiers close to the breaking point begin to shake after a battle, and he moved quickly to lead her to one of the ornate chairs standing against the wall. Once he got her seated, he gripped Lettice's shoulders firmly and said, 'Stop it! That's enough.' His voice was quiet, but pitched to reach her through the emotional frenzy.
She fought him, then collapsed in tears, and for a moment he knelt by her chair and simply held her, offering what comfort he could. She smelled of lilies of the valley, and her hair was soft against his face.
It was not professional, and Hamish was clamoring in the back of his head about the seduction of witches, but there was nothing else he could do.
When the worst was over, he went into the drawing room to ring for Mary Satterthwaite.
Waiting for his summons to be answered, he stood by the high back of the chair with one hand on Lettice's shoulder, knowing from experience that the warmth of human contact was often more important than words.
And thinking to himself that this rather blew to the four winds his earlier impression that Lettice Wood knew who had killed her guardian…
9
Dr. Warren had spent a harried morning in his surgery, and added to that had been a sleepless night attending to Hickam. He was tired, irritable, and behind in his schedule. As he started out on his rounds, he was grumbling about a retirement long overdue and the ingratitude of villagers who seemed to think he was on call twenty-four hours of the day.
He looked in on the new baby he had delivered and found it flourishing, but tongue-lashed the father when he discovered that the mother had spent her morning bent over a full tub of washing.
'I've told you Mercy had a hard birth,' Warren finished, 'and you'd have seen it for yourself if you hadn't been ten parts drunk that whole day. Now either you find someone from the village to lend a hand in the house or I'll find a good woman and bill you for her. If Mercy hemorrhages, she's as good as dead. And then where will you and that child be?'
He stumped back to his car and swore as he barked his knuckles trying to start it.
The next stop was briefer, to call on an elderly widow ill with shingles, and this time he left her a stronger powder to help with the pain from the long ropes of fluid-filled blisters that looped down her arm. It was all he could do, but the old, cataract-clouded eyes smiled up at him with a pathetic gratitude.
Finally he reached the cottage on the Haldane property where Agnes Farrell's daughter Meg lived. Agnes was tall, spare, and capable, the most levelheaded woman he'd ever met and-in his opinion-wasted as a housemaid when she'd have made such an excellent nurse. Meg had married well; her husband, Ted Pinter, would be head groom on the estate when his father retired, and the cottage was as pretty as she could make it. Warren had always looked forward to his visits here because Meg was as healthy as her mother and had gone through two pregnancies with no trouble at all, the last one four years ago. She was also a very respectable cook and never failed to send him away with a slice of cake or scones for his tea.
But the kitchen no longer smelled of baking, and the woman who met him at the door had lost the bloom of youth and health. Meg looked forty, and her mother twice that.
Lizzie was a pretty little thing, he thought, bending over the narrow crib to peer down at the pale little face staring blankly at the wall. But she wouldn't be for long if something didn't work soon. She was, as far as he could
