Chapter Twenty

T homas Bolton only realized he didn’t have the key after he’d slammed the door to the old wing and reached in his pocket. He must have dropped it inside!

Panic surged, for footsteps scurried across the hall toward him. He peered into the light, knowing his face must be blackened by smoke.

Deborah was hurtling toward him from the foot of the stairs. The stupid cow had sent Grey five minutes early, before he was ready, before he was certain enough of the fire… On the staircase, a line of frightened people in nightclothes were rushing down. She had roused them early too, but at least Alice was among them, thank God. He didn’t care about anyone else.

“Outside, outside!” he ordered them. “Send for help before the whole house goes up!” He kicked at the door. “Grey is in there! I think Mrs. Goldrich is also.”

“Why would they be in there?” Randolph demanded, striding across the floor looking too damnably like his father. “Grey should be in the library!”

“Oh, those two are playing some deep game of their own! They use the place for assignations. Get everyone outside, Randolph, and I’ll see if I get in upstairs.”

“Thomas, no!” Alice exclaimed as he shooed them all toward the open front door. Her cry warmed his heart as he ran up the stairs.

“I’ll only be a moment. You must take everyone out, Alice. Make sure they’re all safe, including the servants…”

He almost laughed. You could make people do anything with a little conviction, a little courage.

He was grateful to Walter, in a way, for finally inspiring that courage. It hadn’t taken very much bravery to steal from the bank, for he’d known no one would ever find out. The same when he’d taken Deborah. No one would ever believe it of him, and Walter himself was too occupied with Alice to notice his own wife was unfaithful. It had been rather delicious.

Until, inconceivably, Walter had noticed the discrepancies were still going on, and known only Thomas could be responsible. Nothing else mattered but to be rid of him. That had taken courage.

Until, the kitchen knife hidden in his coat, he had followed Walter outside on his walk. He had seen Alice with him by the swing. They were locked in a passionate embrace.

He had never seen them together before, although he had known for months what was going on. And so, cold fury in his heart, he had lurked in the shadows until Alice fled back to the house.

Then he had run across the flowerbed behind Walter and spoken his name.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Walter had growled without even turning.

So Thomas didn’t talk. He plunged the knife into Walter’s back and watched him fall forward. His old friend’s face, turned to one side, hadn’t even looked surprised as the life faded from his eyes. Thomas was glad his was the last face Walter had seen. They had been friends, and he had almost been sorry.

Almost.

He had turned and walked back to the house, the same way as Alice. She was already in bed when he arrived there. But just as he’d known she would, she had lied that he had been there all night. He hadn’t even needed to ask her.

Smoke was oozing under the upper door to the old wing. Bolton amused himself for a little, kicking at the door and calling out to Grey. It shouldn’t be too long before the pair were overcome by smoke. His own lungs felt sore and burned. After that, it wouldn’t really matter if they put out the fire. Grey and the Goldrich woman would already be dead, or as good as. And he would be safe. He would sell the bank to Randolph, at a vastly inflated price, and take Alice abroad, away from the scandal and Deborah and all the other Winsoms.

It really was perfect.

The door was hot to the touch now. Downstairs would be an inferno. He gave one final kick to the door, splintering the lock, and risked a quick foray into the smoke to blacken his face and clothes a little more. Then he left, closed the door, burning his fingers on the metal latch in the process—it would look good to the police that he had tried to save even Walter’s evil killers.

Thinking himself into the role—he had been acting for most of his life, after all—he staggered downstairs and out into the blessedly chilly night. Smoke had dulled the silver gleam of the moon, but there were so many lanterns scattered ahead that didn’t seem to matter. He was slightly surprised not to see the sky orange and bright with flame.

“Thomas!” It was Alice’s panicked voice, calling to him because she needed him. How long had he waited for that particular tone? Euphoric, he wanted to swagger up to her. Instead, he staggered a little, coughing without having to act.

His throat rasped when he tried to speak. “I couldn’t find them. I got no answer when I called. I’m afraid they’re dead already…”

All the same, he felt slightly uneasy about the fire, which was no longer burning out of control. No flames leapt from the roof or through the shattered windows, though through the billowing smoke, he could still see patches of orange glow.

An organized line of servants and tenants and villagers were heaving buckets of water into the building. Some were up ladders, trying to keep the main house wet and safe and to quench the fire in the upper floor. Among the helpers, he picked out Randolph, Peter Albright, and Davidson. And surely that was Sergeant Flynn?

But the night had been his so far. He had done enough. Alice clung very tightly to his arm. Deborah was with her daughters, shivering uncontrollably. Inspector Harris seemed to have materialized in front of him.

“Who is dead already?” he asked sharply.

“Grey and Mrs. Goldrich. They were in the old wing—they must have knocked a candle or something and not noticed. But I couldn’t find them, and they didn’t answer when I called…” Careful. He mustn’t repeat himself. “I was driven back by the smoke and the heat. I couldn’t save them. Perhaps we can get in now… The housekeeper will have a key!”

He started toward the house again, pulling free of Alice, but it was the inspector who stayed him.

“No one is to go back inside the house until it’s safe.”

“But we can save them now from the worst of the fire—”

“There’s no need, sir. What makes you think they were in the old wing?”

“I saw them go in.”

“When was that, sir?”

“Just after midnight. I daresay you know Grey had this ridiculous idea that one of us would go to the library and confess to killing poor Walter, after which he would decide what to do about it! I confess I was curious to see if anyone would go. So I went downstairs, and that was when I saw him with Mrs. Goldrich, slipping through the door to the old wing. He must have given up on confession. Perhaps she convinced him of his stupidity.”

“Not many people call Solomon Grey stupid,” Davidson remarked.

“And yet we are all here,” Bolton snapped. “And he is in there !” He gestured toward the smoking building. Which was when he realized what he should have observed from the beginning.

No one was concerned for the pair trapped in the fire. No one was trying to save them.

Because…

A foot crunched in the gravel behind him. His neck prickled and he turned very slowly to face Solomon Grey. In his black-streaked white shirt, his short hair awry, he should not have been able to look elegant or superior. He managed both. And beside him, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, looking like a decadent angel, even with a bandage around her head and Grey’s coat around her shoulders, was Mrs. Goldrich.

He had told her everything. The urge had been irresistible.

He swung back to the inspector. Deborah stood just a little way from him, flanked by Miriam and Ellen. Alice had let go of him. Her face showed he had never won her, only a last trickle of dying loyalty. It had never been enough.

And Deborah…

“You told them,” he said in disbelief. Despite the danger to herself and her family, the damage of such scandal, she had blabbed.

“You wouldn’t stop,” she whispered. “I had to do the right thing. Finally.”

Miriam put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. Ellen stared at him. Walter’s children.

“Thomas Bolton,” Inspector Harris said, “I am arresting you for the murder of Walter Winsom, for the attempted murder of Solomon Grey and Constance…er, this lady.”

*

The residents of Greenforth all slept elsewhere that night. The Winsoms were taken in by neighbors, the servants scattered.

Ellen barely slept. She felt stunned by the revelations of the night, wondering if she should despise her mother for her moral lapse. But a new kind of adult understanding was seeping into her, a sympathy with making mistakes in impossible, tragic situations. Was there really nothing in the world to look forward to except heartache and an unfaithful husband?

Not all husbands were like that, of course. Peter was not. But then, she could never imagine being married to Peter. He and Miriam seemed to have grown closer over these last difficult days. She hoped that would last. Miriam deserved to be happy.

If any of them could be now.

Outside the window of her guest bedroom, the sun shone. Incongruous . Over the fields and hedgerows, she could still see the gray cloud over Greenforth House. In more ways than one.

Dressed in the ill-fitting gown loaned by the squire’s daughter Amelia, she left her room and prowled the quiet house where her hosts still slept. She hoped her mother and her siblings did, too.

She was crossing the entrance hall toward the front door when someone sprang up from the old-fashioned wooden settle that lived there to discourage unfavored visitors.

“Sergeant Flynn,” she said in surprise.

She ought to be annoyed to see him here, bothering them even now, and yet she wasn’t. He had helped extinguish the fire last night. He had taken her father’s murderer away to prison. She still couldn’t think of the murderer as the same man she had known all her life.

“I’m sorry to come so early,” Flynn said. “After the night you’ve all had, I didn’t really expect to find anyone up. I really just wanted to pass on the message that the sooner your mother writes and signs her statement, the better it will be. Also for Mrs. Bolton.”

Ellen frowned. “Where is Mrs. Bolton?”

“With the vicar and his wife.”

Ellen rubbed her forehead. “This must be as awful for her… I don’t really know what to do.”

She didn’t like the helplessness in her words or her voice, but they were at least truthful.

“Were you going for a walk?” Flynn asked. “I can walk with you for a little, if you like. Or not,” he added hastily.

It brought a smile flickering to her lips. She liked the sergeant. He had no pretensions, no axe to grind or role to play. He had honest eyes, a touch of sardonic humor, and a really rather wonderful smile.

“I would like,” she said.

They walked into the sunshine together, quiet and companionable.

“It will take time,” he said at last, “to adjust to everything.”

She nodded. “Will we able to go back to Greenforth? If my mother wishes to.”

“I believe so. The only damage is to the old wing. It will have to be rebuilt. It will be an interest, perhaps. A distraction.”

Her lips twisted. “From the unpleasant reality that our neighbors won’t speak to us once the whole scandal comes out?”

“It needn’t all come out, except in court. The inspector will see what he can do to limit how much is reported in the newspapers.”

“That is kind of him.”

“We’re all human.”

“And all afraid of scandal, how it will affect our standing in the world, our career—poor Peter!—our marriage chances…”

“Poor you?” he asked sympathetically.

She sighed, gazing out over the fields to the horizon, imagining the vast world beyond. “I don’t think I want to be married. Ever, if I have to live like my mother. Certainly not yet. I flirted with Mr. Davidson, you know. I thought it might be fun, but it’s just dishonest because neither of us means it.” She cast him a quick smile. “I think I might have just grown up. At least enough to know that I don’t want to sit sewing samplers until some man I don’t hate deigns to take me off my mother’s hands for my fortune.”

“No, that does sound a dreary life,” he agreed.

“I shall be bored,” she said. “I think I was bored already. Perhaps I should become more involved in causes. Like the anti-slavery society.”

“A cause worthy of your time,” he said. “Like many others.”

“I know nothing of the world,” she said, almost surprised by the discovery.

“Young ladies are sheltered to protect them.”

“And if we don’t want to be protected?”

“You should.” He sounded stern, but there was no criticism in his eyes, only concern. She saw with some surprise that he liked her. And she liked that much more than Ivor Davidson’s fulsome compliments and secret touches.

“Maybe it’s the kind of protection you need to question,” he suggested. “You must be safe, but everyone should have that right. If you want to see the world, you really just need to look beyond sending a pot of jam to your poorest tenants or cast-off clothes to the deserving poor in London. There is a whole world of poverty and sickness out there. Much of it leads to crime, so I see an awful lot of it. The poor need work, decent housing, warmth, and water. They need education and self-respect and hope.”

Ellen took his arm, happy to have found a friend of her own, and suddenly much more interested, even excited, about the future. “Tell me more.”

*

Constance found that the Greenforth servants had packed all her bags and brought them to the inn, where she had spent a few uncomfortable hours dozing through pain. She was very glad to wash from head to toe—again—and dress in her own clothes. She didn’t think her hair smelled of smoke anymore, but she could not be sure. It seemed to linger in her nostrils and her throat.

Wincing, she put a clean dressing on her head and kept it in place with a dashing scarf rather than a bandage.

Disappointingly, there was no sign of Solomon when she went downstairs for breakfast, though the maid assured her he was fine and had eaten before he went out early with the police inspector.

Constance could not really do justice to the inn’s generous breakfast. Her throat was too sore. But she ate some soft, crustless new bread with a little egg, and drank lukewarm coffee.

She was even contemplating a second cup from the pot when Randolph entered the inn.

“How are you?” he asked anxiously. “May I join you?”

“Only a little the worse for wear,” she said lightly, “and of course you may. How are you? And your family?”

He grimaced. “In shock, I think. My father was an old goat, of course, always had been, but my mother and Bolton?” He glanced hastily in the direction of the kitchen. “You won’t speak of this, will you?”

“Of course I won’t. And the inspector will try to keep newspaper reports to a minimum.”

“My mother might still be charged,” he said, staring at his hands.

Constance poured him some coffee into the cup provided by the smiling maid. Randolph waited until she had gone.

“She didn’t know what to do after he killed my father,” he said urgently. “She hadn’t even guessed what he intended, though she knew immediately who was responsible. I think that’s why she fell so utterly to pieces. If she denounced Bolton, she would have to say why, and that would ruin us all. It was only after the dog incident that she realized he would kill again to save himself and knew she would have to tell everything. A pity the policemen chose that day to stay away, though I was very glad to see them last night… It’s a devilish mess, isn’t it?”

She knew he didn’t mean the house. “It will be difficult. But it’s not insurmountable, Randolph. Not for you, if you put your mind to it.”

He glanced at her with a hint of the old warmth, but a new ruefulness too. “I don’t suppose you’d care to help me with that? We’re not related, you know.”

She looked up at him quickly, and he took a folded paper from his pocket, pushing it across the table to her. She gazed at it. He had sounded very certain.

She said, “My name is not Goldrich. It’s Silver.”

“I had already guessed. In a way, it makes you even more wonderful.”

“You are very kind to say so, but I was never for you, Randolph.”

“Perhaps. But I’m sorry you’re not my sister.” He touched the paper on the table. “My father did have an illegitimate daughter of around your age. Her mother was a girl in Norwich who died a year after the birth. My father paid her an allowance, which I will continue. I believe she has a very nice milliner’s shop, should you ever be in Norwich.”

Would I have made a good milliner? Would Solomon look on me differently then? Beyond the silly surface thoughts, the old, familiar ache came back, because she was still no one. She still had no family to look out for, even if she never saw them or spoke to them. Except her mother, of course, which was more than the milliner in Norwich had.

And she had a friend. Randolph had not needed to come to her with this. He had enough on his mind and his shoulders. And yet he had thought of it and done it.

“Thank you,” she said warmly. “You are becoming a very fine man, Randolph.”

He looked away. “My father was fine, in some ways.”

“He was. But you will be better.”

“I will try to be.”

She smiled, pushing the unread document back to him. “What will you do? Hope the bank will ride out the scandal?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need to think and consult with wiser heads than mine.”

“You could do worse than talk to Mr. Grey.”

“I intend to. I’m going to see him in London next month.”

“Good. I wish you well.”

He smiled back, then rose from the table and said goodbye.

She doubted she would see him again.

She finished what was left of the coffee and went back to her room. Perhaps a walk would be in order. She did not want to return to London until her bruises had faded and her head healed.

Feeling suddenly tired, she sat down on the windowsill and rested her forehead on the glass. Now that she knew, she found she didn’t actually mind that she had not found any family. She had accomplished what she had without them, and any bizarre urge toward respectability was surely nipped in the bud by the very fact she’d had to lie her way into Greenforth. Even if Walter had been her father, she would have achieved nothing by this escapade.

And yet she was glad she came. She had done a good thing in helping to solve the mystery. And Solomon Grey was her friend.

The noises of a coach-and-four pulling into the inn yard below dragged her out of her thoughts. Baggage was packed on the roof and the coachman looked vaguely familiar. No wonder. It was Solomon who alighted.

She smiled, her tiredness dissipating like a summer cloud. But the coachman did not dismount as Solomon strode inside. No one unloaded the bags.

He was going back to London.

Of course he was. He had a business to run, and…and she had been fooling herself to think he was truly her friend. They had never been more than temporary allies. Although he was unmarried—she knew that much about him—he was bound to have a special lady awaiting his return, a lady he could never introduce her to. Solomon Grey did not want or need a woman like Constance in any part of his life.

Reality was a slap in the face. She knew that, and yet she always dreamed beyond it. He had come to pay his shot at the inn.

She would spare them both the farewell and absorb the pain alone, in private, as she always did.

She stayed where she was, not looking below but across the gently rolling hills in the distance. The countryside was pretty. She should spend more time outside the city. Perhaps she should close the house for a few days next month, take everyone on holiday to the seaside. Clacton, perhaps. Southend. Even Brighton…

A knock interrupted her.

Hastily, she dashed her sleeve across her face, so as not to appall the maid. “Come in.”

Not the maid, but Solomon. He entered and took off his hat, inclining his head with his usual courtesy. “I’m glad to see you up and about. How are you?”

“Sore but proud,” she said lightly. “How are you?”

“Likewise,” he said with a quick smile. “I thought you would like to know you were right about the muddy shoes. Flynn found a pair of Bolton’s uncleaned, with traces of the flowerbed in question on the soles.”

She grimaced. “It didn’t help catch him, though, did it?”

“It is useful evidence to help convict him.”

“Maybe.”

He said, “It’s reprehensible in the face of such tragedy, I know, but I enjoyed it.”

“A guilty pleasure. I understand the Tizsas better now.”

“I think we have earned their approval.”

She rose from the window seat. “You are going back to London.”

“I need to. There are things I have been neglecting. I would offer to take you, but I don’t think you are fit to travel.”

I could be. With you.

Foolish. Foolish.

She walked toward him, her hand held out, her friendliest smile on her lips. “I shall be more comfortable in a day or two. Goodbye, Solomon Grey. You’re right. It has been fun.”

He took her hand in his firm grip, his dark, perceptive eyes searching hers. “Perhaps we shall do it again some time.”

“Perhaps,” she said, still smiling, because she knew they would not, and the hurt intensified. Please just go. And be happy…

He leaned closer and dipped his head. In astonishment, she felt his mouth cover hers, soft and infinitely gentle, and gone in an instant. But the world stood still.

She found herself staring at his back, at the door closing behind him.

Wonderingly, she touched her lips and smiled.

“ Au revoir, ” she whispered to the door. Because she knew now that she would see him again.