Chapter 14

The cottage where Morgan Knill lived with her husband Anthony lay a short distance to the east. Anne had told us how to find it. We'd just passed through the gate pillars overgrown with clinging ivy and started down the drive when we spied Morgan and her two children emerging from the trees. They all held baskets filled with plums and apples—large red ones and a smaller golden variety. At the sight of us, Morgan shooed the boy of about age ten and the girl aged six on toward the house and paused to greet us, propping her basket on her hip.

"Good morn," she declared, shielding her face from the sun with her other hand. "What brings ye this way?"

"Good morning," Lord Gage replied. "We hoped we might have a word with you and your husband." He glanced around him. "Is he about?"

"I'm afraid you've missed 'im," she said, not sounding all that sad that we had. "Not two hours ago, he set out for St. Austell with the last of this year's harvest bound for the market. He probably won't return until Tuesday." Three days hence.

"I see," Lord Gage murmured, turning to me, for it had been my idea to speak to the Knills.

"Is there somethin' I can help ye with?" Morgan asked, shifting the load of her basket to her other hip and brushing strands of ash-blond hair back from her forehead. Whether it was actually heavy or not, it made me anxious to conclude our discussion, so she needn't stand there hefting her burden any longer than necessary.

"We simply wanted to speak to you about Branok's death and find out if either of you had anything to share you might not have wished to state in front of the others." I added the last for Morgan's benefit, since I'd already talked to her about the matter the previous evening. There was little point in prodding her about the dissenter issue without her husband present. Not when we couldn't gauge his reaction.

Judging from Morgan's steady stare, she wasn't fooled. "Nay. I've told ye all I know. And Mr. Knill knows even less. He and Branok largely avoided each other. 'Twas easiest that way."

"They quarreled?"

She shifted her basket again, peering over her shoulder toward her children still making their way up the drive toward the cottage in the far distance. "They didn't see each other often enough to quarrel." She shrugged. "They simply agreed to differ. And the easiest way to keep that agreement was to avoid each other."

Despite her determined aplomb, this sounded to me like a potential motive for murder. Particularly if their differences were contentious.

"You're welcome to ask 'im about it yourself on Wednesday," she muttered in sudden impatience, turning to follow her offspring. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must go."

She didn't wait for our reply, but hurried on down the drive, leaving us staring resignedly at her back. There was nothing for it but for us to turn and go, once again feeling thwarted. A sensation that was only enhanced by the chough perched on one of the gate pillars as we passed back between them. His distinctive call sounded like mockery. Chee-ow. Chee-ow. Chee-ow.

"What did Mrs. Knill tell you yesterday?" Lord Gage asked me after we'd ridden several minutes in silence but for the clop of our horses' hooves against the dirt road. I waited until we'd navigated around a particularly muddy stretch beneath the shade of a copse of beech trees before replying.

"That it couldn't have been any of them—the immediate family, that is—that killed Branok. That it wouldn't be their way."

He scoffed, just as I'd expected him to.

"She told me to look into the Grenvilles." I studied him out of the corner of my eye, curious to see his reaction. "That they've long held a grudge against the Roscarrocks."

He scowled at the road ahead of us. "For good reason, if they have."

"Not just because of Jago," I persisted, knowing that was what he was referring to.

He met my gaze.

"She mentioned Gilbert's leg. That it had been injured years ago while helping the Roscarrocks with some sort of work on the estate."

His expression darkened. "Smuggling."

My eyebrows arched in query more than surprise. Of course, that would be his first assumption.

"Tamsyn told me." He narrowed his eyes at the tangled hedges bordering the road. "Apparently it was crushed and never set properly."

That was what the Merry Wives had told me, though they hadn't mentioned smuggling. I didn't know whether that was because they hadn't known that was the cause or if they had obfuscated.

"Then the Grenvilles do hold a grudge." I frowned. "But did Tamsyn say if there was more?"

My father-in-law looked to me in question.

"It's simply…there seemed to be more the others weren't telling me. Or perhaps it was just Morgan who gave me that impression." I exhaled in frustration. "I sensed there might be yet another reason for the Grenvilles to dislike the Roscarrocks."

"Tamsyn didn't say anything. But we could ask her," he offered, not sounding the least opposed to the idea.

It was strange to hear him call a woman by her given name even though she'd invited us to do so. Normally Lord Gage was quite formal, insisting on proper titles. Even as his daughter-in-law, I had been addressed as Lady Darby or Mrs. Gage until quite recently. It had not been difficult to deduce why he was such a stickler to protocol, though I was certain he would have been horrified to realize his motives were so transparent. Because despite everything he'd achieved, deep inside he struggled not to think of himself as the mere second son of a minor baronet once arrested for smuggling. That insecurity drove him to hold fast to those things that were tangible evidence of his success—his title, his position, his reputation, and his wealth.

Incidentally, this insecurity also put him at odds with his son because Gage didn't measure his success by any of those things. They were useful tools, but not achievements in and of themselves. Though, to be fair, he'd had a much different upbringing than his father.

However, here was Lord Gage, willingly shedding his carefully cultivated image and pretense for a woman he hadn't seen in nearly fifty years.

"The two of you were close," I prodded lightly, knowing that if I showed too much interest he would refuse to respond.

"Jago and I were close, and Tamsyn was his cousin. She seemed to always be under foot, insisting we include her."

"And did you?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes not." He turned to watch a squirrel scamper up a series of exposed roots revealed in the road embankment to our right. "As we grew older, it got harder to deter her. Especially when she was taller and faster than us for a time."

I was attuned to his tone, listening for the things I knew he wouldn't readily admit. Or at least, that I didn't expect him to.

"It was a long time ago, but when I think back, I do believe I thought I'd marry her one day."

My head snapped around in surprise.

"Oh, not anytime soon. I was only eleven. Nor was I smitten with her or any of that claptrap. It simply seemed the way it must happen." He shrugged and then turned to look at me, a sharp gleam in his eyes. "Is that what you wanted to hear? You and your cursed all-seeing eyes." His upper lip curled in annoyance. "I could tell exactly what you were thinking last night when you watched us together."

I wasn't about to apologize for being observant. Particularly when it proved so invaluable to our inquiries in the past. Instead, I elected to tweak his nose a bit. "It was good to see her, I imagine."

The sardonic glare he fastened on me was so exasperated that I was hard-pressed not to giggle. That urge became almost unbearable when he began to mutter to himself. Something about upstart women and the downfall of humanity. I stared straight ahead and let him mumble and grumble, knowing his real struggle was with himself and all the emotions these memories from his boyhood brought forth, not me. He'd spent so much of his life fighting and suppressing and denying his past and how he felt about it. It was foolish to think he would submit easily to it now that he was being confronted with the people and places he'd avoided for so long.

"Did Tamsyn believe the same?" I asked, deciding I wasn't finished badgering him.

The withering look he cast my way was answer enough. "I don't know," he bit out. "It's not as if I asked her." Then his irritation suddenly faded. "But I know she took Jago's death hard."

My heart clenched as his face turned pale and stony.

"I saw her." His throat worked as he swallowed. "On the day I was released from custody and escorted to Plymouth to take up my commission. She was standing outside the jail." His expression was stark. "She loved Jago. He was more like a brother than a cousin. And she looked like her heart had been pulled clean from her chest."

I didn't question this assessment. I could only imagine what it would be like to lose my brother or sister, or even one of my beloved cousins, in such a tragic way. But I also wondered if Tamsyn's grief had also been compounded by the loss of her friend. Lord Gage might not have died, but he'd been lost to her just as surely.

If Branok had been the one responsible for placing Jago and Lord Gage in the position to be shot and arrested, I could understand Tamsyn's desire for vengeance. Though would she truly have waited almost fifty years to exact it?

Unless she'd just found out.

The road passed over a rise, and then the hedges began to fall away, affording us a view of the Roscarrocks' golden fields and green meadows stretching out toward the cliffs and the sea. The clouds we had seen gathering over the ocean earlier that morning now all but choked out the sunlight struggling to pierce through the cover. The breeze tugged at the veil of my hat draped down my back and sent autumn leaves scuttling down the path. However, I gauged there was no need to urge our horses into a canter. We should still return before the rain began to fall. Allowing me time to prod my father-in-law about one more matter.

"You told us what happened the evening Jago was killed and you were apprehended for smuggling, but you didn't go into much detail," I prompted gently, knowing this was a sore subject for him.

"There was no need to," he bit out.

"Perhaps not then, but…I can't help but wonder if it might be pertinent now."

He turned to glower at me.

"At least we then might understand better all the factors involved. Such as where exactly you were when the preventive officers caught up with you? Who directed you to transport the goods? Did you submit when you were challenged or were you attempting to escape?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might."

He fell silent, as if indicating the matter was closed. It was true. I couldn't compel him to speak. But the more I thought about it, the more significant it seemed to become. After all, Gage and I knew only the barest details of the matter. Knowing the rest might not enable us to solve the riddle of Branok's death, but it might help us better understand the undercurrents that ran between the Roscarrocks and all their extended family, including the Grenvilles. It might help us to know what unspoken secrets and hostile glances and strange reactions were relevant to our inquiry and which were not.

I decided to raise the subject with Gage when he returned. Perhaps together we might be able to persuade his father to tell us more.

In any case, I was soon distracted by a figure striding down the road toward us. From such a distance, I couldn't discern more than the fact it was a female, but Lord Gage seemed to recognize her quickly. That, in turn, told me who she was. I wondered if her ears were burning.

"Just the people I was lookin' for," Tamsyn pronounced as she drew near enough for us to hear. She had been walking fast, mostly uphill, but she didn't appear winded.

Lord Gage dismounted, and I began to follow suit, but she waved me back in my saddle.

"I know 'ow awkward it is to get in and out of those sidesaddles, 'specially without a convenient mountin' block nearby. What I 'ave to say won't take long."

"Has something happened?" Lord Gage asked in concern.

"Nothin' more than that you've been invited to tea. Both of ye. And yer son." Her eyes scrutinized Lord Gage closely. "By my Auntie Pasca."

Jago's mother.

"You told her I was here?" my father-in-law protested, his back stiffening.

"?'Course she knows yer 'ere! Everyone's been talkin' about it." Tamsyn arched her eyebrows. "And if ye don't accept her invitation, she'll be terribly offended."

Lord Gage's face reflected a confusing jumble of emotions, all of them raw. I found myself wanting to shield him from them, but I knew I couldn't. That I shouldn't. Because while it was evident that facing Jago's mother was the last thing he wanted to do, it was also clear that it was what he needed most. So before he found his tongue, I answered for him.

"Of course we'll come."

They both turned to me, but while Lord Gage's astonishment thawed into a renewed desire to throttle me, Tamsyn's gaze glinted with the recognition of a co-conspirator.

"Good. Monday afternoon," she stated with finality, relaying the rest of the details.

I thought then that she intended to continue on her way, but apparently, she had more to impart, and these words were a great deal more difficult to say. Her hands fidgeted with the dagged trim of her pelisse, and her eyes kept straying in every direction except our faces.

"The second thing I've come to tell ye is not so easily said, but I know you'd prefer to have the truth, whatever it might cost ye."

I glanced at Lord Gage, unsure whether we should be alarmed.

"But before I do." She exhaled, finally lifting her gaze to meet mine and then Lord Gage's. "You're aware that a vigil was not 'eld for Branok. Nor the usual funeral trappings."

"Yes," I answered hesitantly.

She nodded. "Then you're also aware that the only people to see 'is body were Bevil, Meryasek, and Tristram, as well as Dr. Wolcott."

I began to ascertain the direction she was leading us. "Yes."

She paused, almost as if waiting for us to say it. "Have you wondered if they might be lyin'?"

"About the manner of his death and the nature of his injuries?" Lord Gage asked as we shared a speaking glance. It was clear that, while he might trust Tamsyn, he hadn't completely forgotten the importance of keeping our suspicions close to the vest as inquiry agents.

"That and…about the fact he died at all."