Chapter Thirty-Four

"Welcome, welcome. Accept my apologies for not standing to greet you, Sister, Nephew. Let the man show you to your rooms and then join me here."

It was hard, in such a dark cramped room, to see what ailed Jack, but after following his orders and leaving their hats and coats in the bedroom above the small parlor Jack had rented, Judy found her brother-in-law with one leg propped on a stool, heavily bandaged, and a tight look on his face, suggesting he was in a great deal of pain.

"Whatever happened?"

"Accident on the way from Morrisania the other day. Damned horse was startled by a deer. I landed awkwardly. The leg's fine, but my kneecap's smashed."

Tudor slid into the room behind her. "That's not like you, Uncle. Mind you, you didn't leave my aunt's house in the sweetest of tempers. Riding hard, were you?"

Judy blanched, not sure Jack would respond well to teasing, but it seemed her son knew him better than she.

"That damned woman! Of course I was riding too fast. Couldn't get away from her quickly enough. Oh, I dare say she took you two in with her teacups and napkins and her chubby young son, but it turned my stomach to be there."

"She's my sister! And her kindness to Tudor—"

"Kindness?"Jack's face rippled with scorn. "That woman has never done a kindness in her life that didn't have some self-serving motive. She was kind to Tudor to keep the old man sweet. There's no kindness in her. If your own recollection doesn't tell you so, you should talk to some of the visitors I've had in the last two days."

"Who?"

"David Ogden, for one."

"Whoever is he? Really, Jack, I think this pain in your leg—"

"It's my knee, damn you! And Ogden, for your information, is Morris's nephew. Had a lot to say on the subject of Nancy Randolph, none of it good. It's as clear to him as it is to me. She ensnared Gouverneur Morris and means to milk him dry. I heard she made much of her penury when she met him up north. She played him like a fiddle, according to Ogden, refusing to be his housekeeper for months with false plays of modesty and a feigned desire for independence. Then, when she finally agreed to take on the job, she refused any gifts, accepted only the most basic salary and even, wait for this, insisted on being married in her housekeeper's gown. She took nothing from him until the moment they were wed, but since then, it's been spend, spend, spend. The depth of his folly astounds me. But if there was ever a woman to make a fool of a man it was Nancy Randolph."

Judy didn't respond. She reached across the table and took an oatmeal biscuit to chew on while he raved.

"Ogden wanted to sound me out about the boy. The young 'un. Ugly, fat little thing. I soon saw where he was going. When your aging uncle marries a harlot, and after three barren years, she suddenly produces an heir . . . Well, he'd be a fool not to wonder. I wonder at it myself. What better way to secure herself? So, what do you say, Judy? Tudor? I barely looked at the infant. Does the boy look like his father? Or has she bred a cuckoo in the nest? Well, Tudor?"

"I—"

"How can you hesitate?" Judy said. "The child is the image of his father. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous, Jack. You dislike Nancy. Fine. You have your reasons. But to let this David Ogden talk you into suggesting the poor boy is not exactly who he should be is madness!"

"Is it?" Jack moved his bad leg and winced. The color left his face. She wondered what he was taking for the pain and if that explained his extreme behavior. Not that it really mattered. She had no power over him. All his attention was focused on Tudor. "You were there for months, boy. If anyone could see through her, it must be you. Think. Do you suspect her?"

Tudor looked to her and back to his uncle. Judy's mouth turned down, her lips pressing back her disappointment. His desire to please Jack was not new, and she could hardly fault him for it. She'd never hidden their dependence on Jack, she'd repeatedly told Tudor it was his duty to become a favorite. But at the expense of Nancy, the woman who had nursed him back to health? She held her breath.

"Tudor?" Jack flung his head back in frustration and yelped in pain as his own movement jarred his knee again. "You might answer me. If it was your cousin, Theo Dudley, I'd at least have a straight answer to a straight question."

"Dudley? What has Dudley to do with anything?"

"Theo Dudley was here this morning." Jack smiled and folded his arms across his chest.

"To what purpose? Other than the obvious." Tudor's tone was sulky.

"I asked him to come. I had some questions for his mother."

"For Anna Dudley?" It was Judy's turn to be surprised. "Whatever could you need to ask that woman about?"

Jack rubbed at his chin. He took a large mouthful of wine and nodded at Tudor to fill a glass for himself. Judy's fingers curled in annoyance.

"Well?" she demanded.

"If you must know, I asked her about Dick's death."

"What? Why?"

"Ogden believes that Nancy's simply biding her time, waiting for her chance to kill Morris and take his money for her son."

"No!"

"No? Would it be so extraordinary?"

"Of course it would! It's disgusting to even speak of such a thing. She may be many things, but Nancy is not a murderer." A desire to laugh wormed its way into Judy's stomach. The conversation was ridiculous. Jack had lost his mind. She tried to meet Tudor's eyes, to somehow send him a message that his uncle was perhaps drunk or befuddled by some pain medicine, not himself and not to be listened to, but Jack wasn't finished.

"I thought so at first. But only at first. Two things occurred to me. One, I thought of the child."

"What child? Gouverneur?" Her face creased in a frown.

"No. Nancy's other child. The first one."

It still didn't make sense. "Theo's child was stillborn. One of them must have buried it at Glentivar. And that was long before Anna Dudley ever came to Bizarre so—"

"Whose word do we have that it was stillborn?"

His accusation chilled her.

"No one ever spoke of what happened," she said slowly. "You know that. There was only her letter after she left Virginia."

"Exactly!" He smacked the table with the flat of his hand. Wine splashed from his glass. "Think about it. What would she have done if the baby had lived? She certainly wouldn't be Mrs. Morris today, would she? Who else knew the truth but Dick, my honorable, foolishly honorable, brother? And that made me think of Anna Dudley. She was at Bizarre when he died. If Nancy did kill her child and only Dick knew, then getting rid of my brother would be her next logical step. Theo Dudley brought me her answer this morning."

"Then I hope she told you the truth. Dick caught a fever. He battled it for several days. We did everything possible."

Judy found her hand was on her chest, as if to calm the beating of her heart beneath. Nearly twenty years had passed, but memories of the days of Dick's illness were as clear as if it had happened yesterday. It washed over her — the smell of sickness, the color of his skin, the damp bedsheets, the whites of his eyes as he fought the illness, the horrible silence when he took his last breath. She almost didn't hear what Jack said next. She had to repeat the words to herself before the string of sounds formed into meaning.

"Anna Dudley says Nancy gave herbal teas to Dick. She says Nancy could easily have poisoned him."

"No. Absolutely not."

"No? Are you sure, Sister? Really sure? After all, she'd already ruined him. Forcing him to hand himself over to the Cumberland justices and face trial in order to shield her from the charge of infant murder. You can't say any different. Tucker and Dick planned it all out that way to protect her. She's a witch. A succubus. A—"

"That's enough!" Judy was on her feet. "Anna Dudley is a bitter, scheming harpy who wants nothing more than to tell you what you want to hear and taste a little bit of revenge on myself and Nancy for the way we showed her the door after Dick died. The woman is intolerable, and if you weren't crazed with pain, you wouldn't countenance her tall tales for a moment. Hate Nancy all you want, Jack, but don't make her what she's not. If you carry on in this fashion, we will have to leave. Tudor?"

She lifted her hand, indicating that he should stand. He did not.

Jack lifted the bottle of wine by his hand and poured a generous quantity into Tudor's glass.

"I want to stay here with my uncle," her son said, rubbing his teeth across his lower lip. "There is nothing for me in Virginia, Mother. If you will not take my uncle's comfort and health into account, then I will. Go if you choose. But I wish to remain."

"I don't want to leave you. Not with Jack run half mad."

"I am fully sane, Judy." Jack's tone was disdainful. "You and I both know it. The truth has always been there, but you never wished to see it. I know the truth now about Nancy, about Dick, about Glentivar — all of it. If you choose ignorance, that's not my concern."

Nothing more was said. Judy spent the evening in her room, and the next morning, she set out for Virginia alone. Prayer would be her solace. She thought of her children — Saint, ill, perhaps insane, in an asylum in Philadelphia, and Tudor, weak, influenced by Jack's bitterness, his health her constant concern. She thought of Jack and his accusations against Nancy. And she thought of his last accusation against herself — that she did not wish to see the truth and chose ignorance.

Did she? Judy found herself smiling, the muscles in her cheeks rising unbidden with a lightened sense of relief and realization. Jack's "truth" had nothing to offer her. What he did next — and she was certain he would do something next — did not concern her. She only cared that he would look out for Tudor's health, and surely, she could trust him on that head. As for Nancy? Well, Nancy had Mr. Morris now, and unless she had lied to him, she had nothing to fear from Jack. Judy looked ahead to the end of her journey, to her small rooms filled with the few sticks of furniture she still owned. It was little enough, but it was peaceful. Whatever storm was about to break between Nancy and Jack, she planned to ignore it. He was right about that at least. She'd live without the truth, whatever it was. What Nancy had done or not done. What had happened or not happened at Glentivar. None of it mattered to her anymore. As strongly as she believed in God, Judy chose to believe Nancy's letter, sent after she left Virginia. Theo and Nancy's child had been stillborn. Dick had done his best to rescue her sister's reputation, doing immeasurable damage to his own in the process but deserving the affection Nancy showed for him so obviously. He'd died tragically young, of a fever, and Judy's path in life had been set in hardship from that day. There was no other truth that mattered. Or if there was, she wanted no part of it.