Chapter 28

28

The candle started to shake and the pistol drooped.

Dougald relaxed his painfully tense muscles. He'd been shot once today. That was enough.

Aunt Spring stood and walked toward Mrs. Trenchard. Kneeling beside the wall, she touched the brown box. "Is my baby inside?"

As Hannah sank back into her seat, she whispered, "Oh, dear heavens."

At a gesture from Dougald, Charles hastened to bring more light from the office, and illumination sprang from the two candelabras he fetched.

Seaton stood, back pressed to the far wall as if he realized he didn't wish to witness this scene after all. Aunt Isabel sat, eyes fixed on the sad scene, her handkerchief over her mouth. Aunt Ethel wept softly. Miss Minnie moved closer to Aunt Spring as if trying to lend her strength to the tiny old lady.

"M…Miss Spring?" Mrs. Trenchard stammered.

"What are ye doing here?"

"I came because Hannah asked me to, Judy. The dear girl wanted me here, and now I know why." Aunt Spring smiled sweetly at her. "I always longed to know what had happened to my baby. I'm so glad she's here in the family chapel. Judy, did you put her here?"

Mrs. Trenchard looked around at the pitying, accusing, horrified faces, then fixed her gaze on Aunt Spring. "I did it. Yes, I did it."

Aunt Spring took the pistol out of Mrs. Trenchard's hand and without looking, passed it to Miss Minnie. "You were always so good to me."

Dougald took the pistol from Miss Minnie and carefully unloaded it.

"I didn't want to be good to ye," Mrs. Trenchard said to Aunt Spring. "I didn't like ye at all."

"I know." Aunt Spring rescued the candle from Mrs. Trenchard's shaking grip and set it on the pew. "But you were good to me anyway."

Mrs. Trenchard twisted her apron in her large, work-roughened hands. "My mother made me be good to ye."

"Your mother was a lovely woman."

"Of course ye would think so." Mrs. Trenchard seemed sunken, cowering before the smaller Aunt Spring. "She loved ye better than she loved me."

"This is horrible." Hannah moved forward to stop Mrs. Trenchard.

Aunt Spring waved her away. "Sit down, Hannah." Her voice was firm, not at all like the Aunt Spring Dougald had come to know.

Hannah sat.

Miss Minnie nodded at her and gave a rueful smile.

"Your mother coddled me because I wasn't clever like you." Aunt Spring stroked Mrs. Trenchard's shoulder. "How I used to envy your height and your strength!"

Dougald realized that, while Aunt Spring might be vague, she understood more than he had realized. He sat beside Hannah.

"No, Miss Spring, ye shouldn't have. Ye shouldn't ever have envied me anything." Mrs. Trenchard breathed heavily through her mouth. "All the time I was growing, all I heard was Help Miss Spring. Give it to Miss Spring. Don't upset Miss Spring."

In a soothing voice, Aunt Spring said, "How tiresome for you."

"Then I got old enough to get away, so I got married."

"Mr. Trenchard seemed like a pleasant man." Aunt Spring lifted her brows in inquiry.

"He was a disappointment," Mrs. Trenchard said flatly. "He didn't take me away. He just lolled around on his arse and said, Make Miss Spring happy. Then I won't have to work. So I had them both at me all the time. Mother and Trenchard, using me and adoring ye. Ye got older. Ye were thirty-two and couldn't find a man. I comforted myself that ye were on the shelf. I had a man, for what he was worth. Then ye…ye met Mr. Lawrence. He was handsome and strong and brave."

Aunt Spring smiled at the memory. "Oh, he was."

"Everything I didn't have. I resented ye so much, it ate at my guts. I was glad to arrange yer secret meetings."

"I appreciated your help."

"I know ye did. Ye saw nothing but goodness in me."

"Dear…"

"No. I wasn't being good. I was hoping yer brother would catch ye and throw ye from the castle. Instead, ye know what happened? Mr. Lawrence got ye with child." Mrs. Trenchard put her hand over her eyes and gave a sob. "I couldn't have any babies. In all those years of marriage, my body never quickened. But ye…ye were increasing. His Lordship, yer brother, sent Mr. Lawrence away to the wars, but ye were still happy, hugging yer secret to yer bosom. Ye glowed, and not even the prospect of yer disgrace could make up for my unhappiness."

Tears trickled down Aunt Spring's rosy, wrinkled cheeks. "Judy, you're not responsible for what happened."

"I ill-wished ye. I wanted all yer happiness to die."

Hannah's icy fingers convulsively clutched at Dougald's, and he took her hands and warmed them between his.

"If ill-wishing could end a pregnancy, Trenchard, there'd be many a woman who would be childless," Miss Minnie pointed out.

Mrs. Trenchard didn't seem to hear. She spoke to, listened to, only Aunt Spring. "'Twas my fault. I just hated and hated. I imagined yer death, and the babe's death…instead, the word came about Mr. Lawrence. I didn't mean to hurt him. I tried to take it all back. I truly did, but the news shocked ye so much. Ye lost the babe."

"Judy, dear, it wasn't your fault." Aunt Spring tried to embrace Mrs. Trenchard.

Mrs. Trenchard shrank back. "I helped Mother deliver it. A sweet infant girl, perfectly formed, too tiny to live."

"I remember." Aunt Spring's voice shook.

"Mother gave it to me to bury. She said to bury it in holy ground so it could be blessed, but hide it so no one would ever discover its existence. She said if we managed this right, no one need ever know about the disgrace, and ye could marry and be happy."

"But I couldn't marry another." Aunt Spring wiped tears away with her trembling fingers. "I loved Lawrence, and he was dead."

"I failed. I swaddled the babe and put it in my sewing box and brought it here. I thought it would be safe. I protected the babe from everyone who tried to find it. I protected ye, Miss Spring." Mrs. Trenchard lifted her gaze from Aunt Spring at last to toss Hannah a contemptuous glance. "But that nosy bastard found the place—"

Hannah lunged toward Mrs. Trenchard.

Dougald caught her arm.

As if nothing had happened, Mrs. Trenchard finished, "—And now because of her, ye'll never marry. Ye'll never be happy."

Hannah settled in her seat, but she trembled in little spurts, like someone who'd been gut-shot.

Dougald had never seen her react with such vehemence, but then, he'd never heard anyone call her a bastard before. "She's crazy," he murmured to Hannah. "No one cares what she called you."

"I care." Hannah glared at him, then turned her face away. "Crazy or not, I care."

Aunt Spring took Mrs. Trenchard's hands in hers and stared her in the eye. "Judy, dear, did you kill all the earls of Raeburn?"

"So she does understand," Dougald murmured to Hannah.

"Poor dear Aunt Spring," Hannah whispered back. "To face this, now."

Mrs. Trenchard answered Aunt Spring without hesitation. "I didn't kill all of them. Not yer brother, or his sons. But the other two, aye. They were going to tear apart the chapel to fix it. I couldn't allow that."

"Judy, killing people is a bad, bad thing," Aunt Spring said.

"I know." Mrs. Trenchard sounded impatient with Aunt Spring's gentle instruction. "But I was already damned for murdering Lawrence and the babe. What did the others matter?"

Aunt Spring shook Mrs. Trenchard's fingers. "You must promise never to kill again, not even for my sake."

Mrs. Trenchard nodded. "I won't, Miss Spring."

"Now, Judy, I think you should go rest."

"Yes. I need to rest." Moving with the weary lethargy of an aged crone, Mrs. Trenchard hefted herself off the floor and left.

A stunned, grieving silence settled on the chapel.

Finally, Hannah murmured, "I shouldn't have meddled."

"You had no choice." Dougald turned her to face him. "I object to being murdered for whatever the reason."

The candlelight changed Hannah's hair to molten gold, gave her eyes the curve of mystery and blessed her with a ethereal glow. But Hannah was not ethereal, and the problems between them wouldn't be solved on some heavenly plain.

They had to talk.

He didn't want to. While it was easy to blurt out truths in a rage, this conversation involved painful truths, confessions and possibly even emotion.

But if they didn't communicate, they would separate again. He couldn't bear that.

Hannah tilted her head, her eyes wide with alarm. "Dougald, what's wrong?"

"We need to—"

In a loud, nervous voice, Seaton asked, "Lord Raeburn, shouldn't you send someone to arrest Mrs. Trenchard?"

Dougald wanted to snap at Seaton. Tonight, he wanted to be free of the duties of lordship. For a few hours, he would like to be alone with his wife to talk, and then, if everything went well, he would pleasure her until he had imprinted himself onto her forever.

"That woman killed two earls of Raeburn," Seaton insisted. "You have to arrest her."

Dougald gazed at the aunts. Miss Minnie, Aunt Ethel and Aunt Isabel sat on the floor beside Aunt Spring. Aunt Spring, who had been the catalyst for so many dreadful events, and who cried now for her baby, her lost love and an old friend. He glanced at Charles, still holding two full candelabra and looking as aghast by the emotional events as only Charles could look. He watched Hannah, whose tears still trembled on the tips of her lashes. And he thought about the broken old woman who even now made her way down the stone steps to the kitchen.

Dougald was the lord. The babe needed to be removed and placed in a proper coffin. The chaplain would have to be called to minister to Aunt Spring. Mrs. Trenchard…he would have to decide what to do with Mrs. Trenchard. Dougald couldn't escape his duties tonight.

His talk with Hannah would have to wait.

"Charles, will you follow Mrs. Trenchard?"

Charles placed the candelabra on a table and hurried out of the chapel.

To Seaton, Dougald said, "You don't need to worry. Mrs. Trenchard wouldn't hurt you, and I doubt she is going to run before morning."