Bound By Their Secret Passion
Dell bowed. ‘Squire.’
The man bowed in return. ‘I intended to call upon you, sir. Forgive the omission. Busy, you know. Time gets away from a person.’
‘Yes, it does.’ Dell pointedly looked at the other man.
‘Oh.’ The Squire stepped over to the stranger. ‘Allow me to present Mr Walsh. He is the coroner.’
‘The coroner?’ Lorene’s brows rose, but she collected herself. ‘Oh, yes. Lord Penford said there would be a coroner.’
‘Must call in the coroner, my lady,’ Squire Hedges explained. ‘Not a natural death and all that.’
The coroner bowed. ‘My lady. Lord Penford.’
‘Sir,’ Lorene responded.
The Squire smiled at her, sobered again, cleared his throat and clapped his hands together. ‘Well! I suppose we should proceed, should we not?’ He walked back to the chair behind the desk.
‘Lady Tinmore.’ Mr Walsh spoke up in a deep voice with little modulation. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to leave the room while we speak to Lord Penford?’
Squire Hedges smiled again. ‘We will call you forthwith.’
A worry line formed between her eyes before she curtsied and left the room.
The Squire gestured with his finger. ‘Please sit, sir.’
Dell took a step closer to the desk. ‘I would prefer to stand. I have no objection to you sitting, though.’ His years in the army taught him it was better to stand when facing a man who might have power over him.
The Squire lifted his shoulders and sat, folding his hands in front of him on the desk. Mr Walsh remained standing.
Dell waited for one of them to speak.
The Squire cleared his throat again. ‘Uh...suppose you tell us what happened?’
Dell glanced from one man to the other. ‘First tell me what you have heard already.’
Had Dixon already spoken to them? he meant.
Squire Hedges picked up the pen and rolled it in his fingers.
‘We interviewed Dixon, the butler,’ Mr Walsh answered, which told Dell very little.
Dell straightened and gave each man a steely glance. ‘You spoke to the butler before me?’ To speak to a servant before a member of the aristocracy was a breach of proper conduct.
Squire Hedges tapped the feather pen on the desk. ‘Well, he greeted us in the hall, you see. Expedient to talk to him first.’
By Dixon’s design, Dell was certain. Dell stared at the Squire, until he squirmed in his seat.
Still holding his gaze steady, Dell spoke. ‘What did the butler tell you?’
Hedges looked even more uncomfortable.
‘He believes you pushed Lord Tinmore to his death,’ Walsh said.
Dell turned to Walsh and spoke in a firm, no-nonsense tone. ‘You have placed me at a disadvantage by speaking to Dixon first, but I assure you I did not push Lord Tinmore to his death.’
Walsh shrugged. ‘Then tell what did happen.’
Dell answered, ‘Lord Tinmore attempted to strike me with his cane. I seized it to fend off the attack. He abruptly let go, put his hands to his head and staggered backwards. He lost his footing on the steps. I attempted to catch him, but he fell down the steps to the paving stones below.’
‘You did not push him?’ Walsh asked.
‘No. I merely seized his cane.’
Walsh’s brows rose. ‘And why did he try to strike you with a cane?’
Of course the man would ask this question. ‘He quarrelled with me. I was attempting to leave when he came after me, following me out of the house. That is when he tried to strike me.’
‘What was the quarrel about?’
Dell anticipated this question, much as he detested having to answer it. This coroner, though, would notice any hesitation in responding.
Dell met the man’s gaze. ‘Lord Tinmore believed Lady Tinmore and I to be engaging in an affair. It was not true. I attempted to convince him of that fact. When he would not listen to reason, I tried to leave. That is why he was outside with me without a topcoat, trying to strike me with his cane.’
‘Without a topcoat.’ Squire Hedges dipped the pen in some ink and made a note. He looked up again. ‘It was not true? The affair, I mean?’
Dell bristled. He’d already said it was not true. ‘Not true. I merely escorted Lady Tinmore home from Summerfield House. She and the Earl were invited for Christmas Day. He declined at the last minute, but Lady Tinmore came to spend the day with her sisters, who, with their husbands, were my guests. They are at Tinmore Hall now,’ he added. ‘Lord and Lady Rossdale. Mr and Mrs Glenville.’
‘I will speak to them,’ Walsh declared.
Would he believe them, though, when they told him there was no affair?
Walsh looked askance. ‘Why did Tinmore decline the invitation?’
‘I do not know why.’ How could Dell speak for Tinmore?
‘Why did he believe you and Lady Tinmore were...’ he paused and his voice dipped even deeper ‘...having an affair?’
‘I do not know. There was no reason for him to believe it.’ Lorene would never be so dishonourable and Dell—Dell did not form attachments. Not any more. ‘Lady Tinmore and I met on social occasions. And I sometimes did my duty by her and her sister as their father’s heir, but nothing more.’
Walsh’s brows rose. ‘Nothing more? Tinmore was an old man and you are not—’
‘To suggest that is to insult Lady Tinmore.’ Dell snapped. ‘She is an honourable lady.’
‘But you invited her to this house party. Why have a house party at what must be a minor property of the Earl of Penford, instead of at Penford?’ Walsh asked.
‘Do you not know my history, sir? Surely you heard that my mother, father, sister and brother—my whole family—died in a fire not two years ago. I am not yet comfortable in the country house I once shared with them. The Marquess of Rossdale, though, is a friend and he is married to Lady Tinmore’s sister. To please my friend’s wife, I offered to open Summerfield House to her and her sisters for Christmas.’
Of course, Dell did not mention that when he’d invited Lorene and Genna to Summerfield House a year ago, both he and Ross had met them for the first time. He did not speak of pocketing the miniature Genna had painted of Lorene, the one Tinmore tossed aside at Christmas a year ago. Nor did he mention he had sent sheet music to Lorene as a gift last spring, even though he sent it anonymously.
He certainly would not be able to explain his motivation to do those things, because he did not understand why himself.
‘You don’t know why Tinmore thought there was an affair?’ the Squire asked.
‘I do not know why he thought what he did. I do not know why he would not listen to reason when I told him his fears were unfounded,’ Dell continued in a firm voice. ‘I grabbed his cane to keep him from striking me, but that is all. When he let go of the cane, his feet were firmly on the stone outside the door. Something else made him stagger backwards. Something made him press his hands on to his head.’
‘Yes. Well.’ Squire Hedges tapped his fingers on the desk.
Dell turned to the coroner. ‘You will call in Lord Tinmore’s physician, will you not? Tinmore looked as if he was seized with some sort of fit. Something caused him to stagger and fall. Perhaps his physician will know what it might have been.’
Walsh glanced at the Squire, who dipped his pen in the inkwell and wrote a note. ‘Yes, indeed. Speak to Tinmore’s physician.’
Walsh turned back to Dell. ‘Thank you, Lord Penford,’ he said. ‘You may go now.’
That was it?
Dell nodded to each of them and turned to go.
‘But do not leave town until after the inquest,’ Walsh added.
As if he would return to London before all this was settled.
Dell nodded. ‘You have my word.’
‘If you would be so good as to send in Lady Tinmore,’ Walsh said.
Dell left the room only to encounter Dixon attending the door.
‘Where is Lady Tinmore?’ he asked the butler.
Dixon avoided looking at him. ‘Returned to her guests.’
Dell made his way back to the morning room and the Summerfield sisters and their husbands all looked at him expectantly when he entered.
‘Nothing is resolved,’ He turned to Lorene. ‘They wish to speak to you.’
She nodded and stood.
He escorted her back to the magistrate and the coroner, although there was really no reason for him to do so.
‘What did they ask you?’ she asked as soon as they were out of the morning room.
‘They asked me to tell them what happened,’ he responded. ‘Then they asked about Lord Tinmore’s accusation.’ He did not need to explain what accusation he meant.
Her eyes widened. ‘But that was all nonsense!’
‘Then you have nothing to worry about.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘Tell the truth and all will be well.’
‘Sometimes men do not listen to reason,’ she said.
She was speaking of Tinmore, of course. Certainly he had not listened to reason.
‘You can only control what you say and how you say it,’ he responded. ‘You cannot control what they will think.’
‘That is why I am afraid,’ she murmured.
They fell silent when nearing the room, its door still guarded by Dixon. When the butler saw them, he opened the door to announce her, just as he ought.
Dell gave her a reassuring look and watched her disappear behind the door.
Chapter Four
Dell turned and encountered Dixon’s scathing glare.
Dell met the butler’s gaze. ‘I regret what happened, Dixon, but, I assure you, I did not push Lord Tinmore.’ He turned to leave.
Dell was willing to accept his part in the sequence of events that led to Tinmore’s death. He should have returned to his carriage instead of confronting Tinmore. But his intentions were honourable. He wanted to defend Lorene and prevent her husband from believing ill of her. But he had not killed Tinmore. Killing was what one did in battle. The images of those soldiers he killed could never be erased from his mind.
Dixon spoke. ‘You killed him, sure enough. You and Lady Tinmore.’
Dell whirled on him. ‘Enough of this talk. Lady Tinmore has done nothing.’
‘That is not what his lordship said,’ Dixon persisted.
‘Tinmore was wrong. His wife’s attachment is to her sisters, not to me. I am merely a friend of her sister’s husband.’
What was the use? This butler was as thick-headed as Tinmore had been. Not listening to reason. Nothing good would come of trying to convince a man who was determined to think otherwise.
Dell turned to leave again.
‘I could be quiet about it,’ Dixon called after him.
Dell looked over his shoulder, not certain he’d heard correctly.
Dixon smirked. ‘You have money, Lord Penford. You wouldn’t miss a few quid. You’d see how easily I could change my mind. Tell them I was mistaken and no harm done.’
Enough sympathy for this man. Dell had thought him motivated by grief, which Dell could well understand, not greed. ‘You want me to pay you to keep quiet?’
‘If you like.’ Dixon sounded all innocence suddenly. ‘I could say I misspoke—out of shock at losing my lord. I could say I didn’t see you push him.’
‘You did not see it. It did not happen.’ Dell’s voice deepened. ‘Perhaps you would like me to tell those gentlemen behind the door that you attempted to extort money from me?’
Dixon continued to look smug. ‘My word against yours, is it not? Who has the most to lose if it comes to that?’
The word of a servant against a peer of the realm. A lying servant at that. Dell would like to believe there would not be much contest.
Unless a jury were willing to believe a young wife of an old man would engage in an affair with a younger man who seized upon an opportunity to hasten her becoming a wealthy widow, assuming Tinmore made a generous settlement on her. That made for a good story. Especially if the young wife was one of the Scandalous Summerfield sisters.
‘Your lie against my truth,’ Dell countered. ‘I’ll bank on the truth and I suggest you do the same.’
He strode away.
Curse Dixon. Grief Dell could accept, even understand, but he’d be damned if he’d pay Dixon to keep the man from lying.
He headed back to the morning room, but Ross intercepted him on the way.
‘You look like thunder,’ Ross said.
‘I feel like thunder.’ He still reeled from the exchange with Dixon. ‘Do you know what that butler said to me?’
‘What?’
‘He asked for money. If I paid him money, he would not lie about what he saw.’ Dell shook his head. ‘Can you believe the man?’
Ross’s brows knitted. ‘He could cause you a great deal of trouble, Dell.’
‘I know that, but I’ll be damned if I pay the man.’
‘I’m not suggesting you pay him,’ Ross countered.
‘This death was not my doing and I’ll not be intimidated by some butler who thinks he can make it appear so.’
‘I want to talk to the coroner, Dell.’ Ross tried to pass him. ‘I’ll make him listen to me.’
Dell held him back. ‘You will have your chance. They wish to speak with all of you.’
‘Good.’ Ross nodded. ‘They need to know who you are and who your friends are.’
‘They know who I am. The Earl of Penford.’ He released Ross. ‘But all that is irrelevant. You being my friend is irrelevant. All that matters is what really happened. And I have nothing with which to reproach myself.’
They started back to the morning room.
‘Damned Tinmore,’ Ross said. ‘If anyone is to blame, it is he. Fitting end, I say. He tried to manipulate everyone. Tess and Glenville told me what he did to them.’
‘What did he do to them?’
‘Forced them to marry. They did not even know each other. They were caught in a storm together and Tinmore used that as an excuse to marry her off without paying her dowry. He put pressure on Genna to marry, too.’
Dell knew about Tinmore’s pressure on Genna. That was partly why Ross came up with his scheme to pretend to be betrothed to her.
‘Lorene should never have married him. She and her sisters deserved better than his treatment of them,’ Dell said.
Of course, it was really Dell’s father who put Lorene in a position to agree to marry the elderly, autocratic Tinmore. When Lorene’s father died, Dell’s father inherited the Summerfield estate. It was Dell’s father who turned out the Summerfield sisters. His father might have been generous to them instead. Allowed them to stay at Summerfield House; provided them dowries. He might have done so, but Dell’s father assumed the sisters were as morally loose as their parents.
What possessed his father to be so heartless?
A pang of guilt hit Dell.
How could he reproach a father he so tragically lost a few months after his father made that decision?
Ross went on. ‘I am going to tell the coroner and the magistrate just what I think. I would be remiss if I did not.’
‘Do not bully them, Ross,’ Dell insisted. ‘It will not work with this Walsh fellow.’
‘I can at least let them know I expect them to proceed properly,’ Ross insisted. ‘And that I expect them to protect Lorene’s reputation.’
For Lorene’s sake, Dell would not further argue with his friend. Her reputation must be protected above all else. After all, the Summerfield sisters had suffered enough damage to their reputations, most of it due to their parents, not themselves.
Lorene, though, had often been the object of gossip, accused of tricking the ancient, but wealthy, Lord Tinmore into marrying her. Yes, she had married Tinmore for his money, but not for herself. For her sisters and her half-brother.
She deserved their esteem, not more gossip.
* * *
Lorene’s knees shook as she stood before Squire Hedges and the coroner. There was no reason for her to be fearful, but she could not help it. She glanced around the room, but it did nothing to still her unease. Rather, the portraits on the wall seemed to be glaring at her, blaming her for what happened.
If she had not defied him, they seemed to say, he would be alive today.
Would the Squire and the coroner see her guilt?
Or did they already believe Dell had pushed Tinmore?
Dell would never have done such a thing. Never. Surely they would have believed him and not a grieving butler too upset to realise who he accused.
Squire Hedges gestured to a chair near the desk. ‘Would you care to sit, Lady Tinmore?’
Sitting would make her feel too small, somehow. She was Lady Tinmore, she must remember. Here was one rare occasion that she must assert her rank.
She straightened her spine. ‘I will stand, thank you.’ She pointed to the pen and paper on the desk. ‘But you must sit so you may write.’
The Squire inclined his head and lowered himself into his chair. Mr Walsh, the coroner, stood with his arms folded across his chest. He was the one who made her insides tremble.
Squire Hedges smiled. ‘Tell us what happened, my lady. What you saw. What you heard.’
She decided to begin with her return from Summerfield House. ‘I spent the day with my sisters at Summerfield House and when the day was over, Lord Penford offered his carriage and his escort to return me to Tinmore Hall—’
Mr Walsh interrupted. ‘You did not have a carriage at your disposal?’
She faced him. ‘No.’
‘Then how did you travel to Summerfield House?’ he asked.
‘I walked.’
His dark brows rose. ‘You walked?’
‘Lord Tinmore was supposed to have come with me to spend Christmas with my family. At the last minute he declared that we would not be going. He gave no reason for declining the invitation right before we were expected to arrive.’ It had been a deliberate cruelty, which had surprised her. Tinmore’s cruelty was more commonly thoughtless. ‘He knew how much I desired to see my sisters. I had not seen my youngest sister since her wedding to Lord Rossdale. I decided to go without him even though he refused me the carriage. So I walked.’
‘You defied him,’ Walsh stated.
‘Yes.’ No use denying it.
Walsh nodded. ‘Go on.’
She wished she could tell what the man was thinking. ‘When Lord Penford’s carriage reached Tinmore Hall, Lord Penford walked me to the door. I entered the house and encountered Lord Tinmore in the hall, waiting for me. He immediately started to accuse me of—of things that were not true. I started up the stairs when Lord Penford opened the door and tried to speak with Tinmore, to tell him he was mistaken—he must have heard Lord Tinmore shouting at me through the door. Tinmore took him to one of the drawing rooms to talk, but only for a minute or two, then Lord Penford returned to the hall and walked out. Lord Tinmore followed him.’
‘Followed him?’ Walsh repeated.
‘Yes.’ Was she telling Walsh too much? ‘Tinmore was angry. First angry at me, then at Lord Penford, but without reason. I never saw him so angry.’
Walsh’s face remained expressionless. ‘Then what?’
She took a breath. ‘Lord Penford left, but Tinmore followed him outside.’ She swallowed. ‘I heard a cry and I ran outside, too. Lord Tinmore was—was on the pavement.’
‘You did not see him fall?’ Walsh asked, somewhat ominously.
‘I did not.’
He glanced away. ‘And in what position did you find him when you came outside?’
She was confused. ‘I—I—he was at the bottom of the steps.’
Squire Hedges spoke, his voice kinder than the other man’s. ‘This is a delicate question, we do realise, my lady. Mr Walsh means for you to describe the position of your husband’s body. Describe how he looked.’
She closed her eyes, but it only made her see it all again. ‘He—he was on his back, his head to one side in—in a pool of blood.’
‘Where were his arms and hands?’ Walsh asked.
‘Up.’ She raised her arms to demonstrate. ‘Up above his head.’
Walsh nodded. ‘Tell us, ma’am, was your husband ill?’
‘Not that I knew of,’ she responded.
But he had been acting strangely that day. Had he been ill? If so, she never should have left him. Although he always refused to allow her to tend to him when he was ill, so what good would her presence have done?
‘He was acting very unlike himself, though. Very irrational,’ she added.
Walsh’s brows rose. ‘Are you referring to your husband’s suspicion that you and Lord Penford were having an affair?’
She felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Yes. That. There was no reason for him to think such a thing.’
Tinmore could not have known of her infatuation.
‘Come now, Lady Tinmore,’ Walsh began, in a smooth tone that did not ring true. ‘Lord Tinmore was a very old man and Penford...’ he paused significantly ‘...is not. Why would your husband not believe you engaged in a little dalliance?’
Her face turned hot with anger this time. ‘I promised fidelity to my husband and I kept that promise. Lord Penford has always acted as a gentleman ought. He thought he could explain to my husband that my husband was wrong, but Tinmore would not listen. It was as though Tinmore was crazed.’
Walsh’s brows rose. ‘Crazed? But would not a man who suspected his wife of infidelity act crazed?’
She lifted her chin. ‘I do not know. How would I know of such things?’ Except, perhaps, from the loud arguments between her mother and father before her mother ran off with a lover. ‘I do know I never saw my husband behave that irrationally before.’
Of course, she had never so blatantly defied him before. Why had she done so? She could admit to being weary of his dictates and it was true she wanted to see her sisters, to share Christmas with them.
But was it also true she wanted most to see Dell?
Walsh made an incomprehensible sound.
Did he believe her about Dell? Or not?
‘Do you know for certain that your husband did not scuffle with Lord Penford?’ he asked.
Her jaw stiffened when she tried to answer. ‘I did not see what happened.’
Walsh glanced at Squire Hedges, who stood. ‘Thank you very much, Lady Tinmore. That will be all for now. We will be questioning your servants, as well.’
The servants!
She had completely forgotten. This was Boxing Day. The servants would expect the day off. And their boxes. She was supposed to distribute their boxes. She’d scoured the attics and closets and old linens and had found enough cloth and old clothing to make a box for each family. Tinmore was to have given them money and she was to have stood at his side, handing them each a box.
‘Please do not delay in speaking to them,’ she requested. ‘They expect to have the day off.’
Squire Hedges walked around the desk to escort her to the door. ‘We will move as quickly as possible. Dixon will organise them for us.’
Certainly. Dixon would be pleased to do so, Lorene was sure. He would probably be pleased to tell them what to say, as well.
Squire Hedges opened the door for her and she stepped into the corridor where Dixon still stood on guard, but the area soon filled with other voices. Her sisters and their husbands. And Dell, who looked absorbed in his own thoughts.
‘Tess. Genna. I forgot it was Boxing Day. I do not know where Tinmore put the purses for the servants and tenants.’
‘Filkins will know,’ Genna said. ‘I’ll find him.’
She dashed off, but her husband, the Marquis of Rossdale, heir to the Duke of Kessington, marched right past Dixon, entering the room with the Squire and the coroner.
‘What is he doing?’ Lorene asked, alarmed that Rossdale just barged in on the men.
Glenville, Tess’s husband, answered, ‘He wants to be certain they handle this properly. And as quietly as possible.’
She supposed a future duke would have some influence. It was a good thing to have someone even more important than Earl Tinmore to advocate for her.
And for Dell.
‘Surely they will decide that it was merely a horrible accident,’ she said.
‘Dell tells us there will be an inquest,’ Glenville explained. ‘The coroner will have to find jurors and swear them in. They will have to see where the death occurred and view the body, so you cannot bury your husband until that takes place.’