'I will send Matthias with you, and you will ride in Grenville's carriage. You will be much safer in London, in any case.'
Her mouth formed a bitter line. 'Back to the cage.'
'Marianne,' I said warningly.
Grenville had listened to this exchange with a weary expression. He released Marianne's hand. 'Stay there to be safe for now. When it is over, go where you want. I no longer care.'
Marianne stilled. Grenville closed his eyes. Marianne stared at him, looking stricken.
I thought them fools, both of them.
Marianne at last acquiesced to my request. I saw her and Matthias to the stables where Grenville’s coachman had bunked. I knew the coachman would let absolutely no one near Grenville's horses and coach, so I did not fear too much that the vehicle would have been sabotaged.
Indeed, the coachman checked the axles and braces and the harness carefully before he even let Marianne into the carriage. I handed her in and told Matthias to not let her out of his sight. The coach rolled away toward the Hungerford road and the highway to London, leaving Grenville and Bartholomew and I stranded at the Sudbury School.
I did little for the next two days. Marianne sent me a message that she had arrived in London and was carrying out my instructions. She also added, very like her, that she expected large compensation for approaching the people I'd asked her to contact. Matthias wrote also, asking to return to be near Grenville. I knew that Grenville's other servants would watch her well, and I consented. The lad was worried.
Well he should be. Grenville relapsed into a stupor, and then a fever took him. Bartholomew and I took turns bathing his face, changing his bandage, trying to force broth into his mouth. But he could not eat and could barely drink. Bartholomew and I watched him worriedly.
At last I put a few drops of laudanum in his water and made him drink it. When he tasted the bitter sweetness of laudanum, even in his languor, he tried to spit it out. I forced him to swallow. Let him curse me when he got better.
The school went on as usual but remained quiet. No more pranks or murders marred the routine. Ramsay, it seemed, had taken my words to heart, at least for now.
I knew Ramsay had not burned Fletcher's books, however. He denied that with the sincerity of a thief who is certain of the one thing he has not stolen. I suspected the murderer had done it, trying to destroy the evidence of the fraud. But Fletcher, even in death, had thwarted him.
Bartholomew had at last discovered who'd owned the knife that had stabbed Grenville. The maid who cleaned the tutor's rooms said that Simon Fletcher had complained of missing his knife a day or so before he died. Most helpful, I thought. The knife that I had found in Fletcher’s room had no doubt been used by the murderer to cut the twine that strangled Fletcher.
Sir Montague Harris at last succeeded in getting Sebastian released. He sent a message to me, and I left Grenville in Bartholomew's care and traveled to the village.
Sebastian was much subdued. When the constable let him out of his cell, his bravado had left him, and his eyes were haunted.
'Thank you, Captain,' he said as we walked toward the school together. 'I was afraid I would die inside that place.'
'Thank Sir Montague,' I said. 'His persuasion far outweighed mine.'
I rather believed that Sir Montague's knowledge of the magistrate's guilty secret had much to do with Sebastian's release, but I kept such thoughts to myself.
Sebastian shook his head. 'You did this for me.' He looked about again at the rolling land and the common where sheep wandered freely. 'I never want to be inside again, I think.'
'A visit to your family might be in order.'
He stopped. We had reached the canal bridge. Below it, the water rippled serenely, stretching to the horizon in either direction. Beyond the canal, the peaked roofs of the Sudbury School showed through the trees.
'I want to see Miss Rutledge,' he said.
I gave him a severe look. 'It might be better, might it not, to simply go?'
'I want to speak with her. I want to tell her good-bye.'
'Then you are returning to your family?'
His dark eyes showed resignation. 'Yes. My uncle is right. I do not belong among your people. I will never be one of you. When things go wrong, their eyes turn first to me, the Romany.' He paused and let his gaze rise to the horizon. 'Megan… she is a good wife.'
He pronounced it like a sentence of doom.
'A wife who can share your heart,' I suggested.
He did not believe me. He had decided he must do his duty, nothing more. I hoped that Megan would make him realize that his duty could also be his greatest pleasure.
'I will see what I can arrange,' I promised.
In the end I had to recruit Bartholomew's help. He met clandestinely with the maid, Bridgett, who communicated with her mistress. I felt vaguely like a character in a Sheridan farce, in which servants handed round love notes and lovers hid behind screens.
I planned to accompany Belinda Rutledge to her meeting with Sebastian. Sebastian had grown much subdued during his imprisonment, but I did not trust him to not turn around and make a dramatic gesture, such as running off with her.
In the meantime, Grenville grew no better. He sweated and threw off his covers, and not even the laudanum could keep him quiet. I feared him tearing the wound further and bleeding inside. I also feared that he'd die of the fever, which increased. The wound, when we took off the bandage, was yellow and oozed pus and blood. I kept washing it, not knowing if it did any good, but wanting to see it clean.
Sir Montague Harris returned to London. He had business there, he told me. I explained to him what I meant to do. He did not like it, but he agreed that the killer might get away with his crimes otherwise.
When I met with Belinda a day later to arrange her meeting with Sebastian, Rutledge caught me talking to her in his study.
Rutledge was supposed to have been visiting with Timson's father all afternoon. Timson's cache of cheroots and business selling them to his fellow students had been found out, and Timson's father sent for. I wondered if Sutcliff's blackmail network had begun to break down or whether it had simply been bad luck on Timson's part.
Rutledge was not in the best of moods when he stormed in and encountered us. He stared, mouth open, for a full minute, then the shouting commenced.
'Lacey, good God! What do you mean by this?'
He halted under the portrait of his handsome, smiling wife. Before I could answer, he plowed on, 'The only reason I have not packed you off is because of Grenville. That does not give you leave to wander about as you will and have private conversations with my daughter.'
I planned to extemporize that Belinda had been asking me about Grenville, but I did not get the chance. Belinda, who was already distraught about the meeting with Sebastian, burst into tears and fled the room.
I faced Rutledge, deciding not to explain. A simple silent stare was more effective with him than explanations, in any case.
'I never wanted you here,' Rutledge said. 'I took you on Grenville's recommendation, but I regretted it from the first. You are rude, arrogant, and insufferable. I am surprised you had a career in the army at all.'
I was too tired of Rutledge to be stung by his remarks. 'As I said, my commander agrees with you. But I managed to lead men for nearly twenty years and lose very few of them. A man does that by being arrogant and insufferable and rude enough to tell a general that his plan is stupid and deadly.'
Rutledge did not care. 'Be that as it may, you do not know your place, sir.'
'On the contrary. My place is by the side of my friend, who lies hurt because of my own stupidity. You, sir, allowed two men to die, because you could not see what was happening under your very nose.'
I had said too much, as usual. Rutledge, though he annoyed me in every way possible, was not wrong about me.
