“The changes you’ve wrought are astounding,” Cecilia said. “I even saw Tregeagle speaking amiably to Mrs. Mayhew. Chloe giggled in front of Polgrain. I begin to think you a miracle worker, Caroline.”
North strolled into the drawing room. He kissed his mother’s cheek, hugged his wife, and went down on his haunches next to his sister.
“So soft,” Marie said to him, never taking her eyes off the baby, then kissed Eleanor and rubbed her cheek against hers. “So soft.”
“Yes, she is.” He turned to his wife. “That’s what I tell you, Caroline. Here, let me see.” He lightly ran his fingertip over Eleanor’s cheek. “I don’t know. It’s really not the same sort of softness. Oh, and Mother, she does work miracles, but they’re only temporary ones, minor ones, really.”
“I suggest that you moderate your speech, North, else your mother just might think you a rogue and a reprobate.” But Caroline was smiling when she said it, for her mother-in-law was looking so blissfully content to be called Mother by a son she hadn’t seen in twenty years.
North said, “Just wait until she hears Marcus speak to the Duchess. That’s the Earl of Chase, Mama, and his wife. They’re coming back on the first of January, and they refuse to leave until we discover who is out to hurt Caroline.”
“At least we know it isn’t Coombe,” Caroline said. “He couldn’t have been hiding out here doing bad things and off fetching you at the same time. Mrs. Freely told me that no one believes him guilty now. Indeed, everyone is up in arms that someone local would try to make him look like a murderer. Yes, everyone admits now that it is someone in our midst, and that someone purposefully left that knife in his room in Mrs. Freely’s inn and that person was the killer.”
“It offends deeply that the villain tried to blame me,” Coombe said from the doorway where he’d been standing silently, a platter of cakes and sandwiches in his hands.
“Just don’t thank God again,” Caroline said, craning around to look at Coombe, “that someone tried to kill me, thus clearing you of suspicion.”
“It is, however, an unexpected event that can’t help but raise my lowered spirits, my lady. I might add that from reading that letter left in your bedchamber that the person is really quite insane.”
“I would agree,” North said slowly. “I hadn’t really believed the killer sane, but the letter, it showed such imbalance. Also,” he continued to his mother, “we’ve tried to remember everyone who came to Mount Hawke that day because one of those people managed to leave that note in Caroline’s dressing table. There were many people in and out. There are very few local people we can eliminate.”
“I vote for the vicar, Mr. Plumberry,” Miss Mary Patricia said. “He is a dreadful man.”
“He hasn’t the guts,” Coombe said.
“He wasn’t here either, more’s the pity,” Caroline said as she took a cucumber sandwich from Coombe.
“Goodness sake,” Miss Mary Patricia said, her sandwich in midair to her mouth. “I do believe that the Plumberry servant was here, speaking to Mr. Polgrain in the kitchen.”
“No, no,” North said. “That’s quite impossible.”
“The vicar hasn’t the guts,” Coombe said again. “ However, I will ask Mr. Polgrain about this visiting Plumberry servant. You won’t worry about it, my lord.”
“Thank you, Coombe. Do tell me what Polgrain says.”
Caroline said, “Before you do that, Coombe, tell us why you simply left without a word to fetch North’s mother.”
“I wouldn’t have felt right about saying anything,” Coombe said simply. “I didn’t know for certain that she was alive. I didn’t wish to raise his lordship’s hopes, then just to have them dashed. Thus I went off to see for myself. She was well, thank the good Lord, and there was Marie as well, all grown up and looking the spitting image of his lordship. Understand that his lordship’s grandfather told us that the little girl looked like a friend of your husband’s and thus another Nightingale wife had betrayed her husband. It was then he made us swear never to tell his lordship here that you were alive.”
“What changed your mind, Coombe?” North asked, looking up. He was seated cross-legged, now holding Eleanor on his knee.
“You were so bloody happy,” Coombe said. “As much as I wanted to despise her, to believe that she would hurt you as did all the other Nightingale wives, I ended up thinking perhaps that I’d been wrong. I said nothing of what I was going to do to either Mr. Polgrain or to Mr. Tregeagle. I just went to Surrey, to Hollywell Cottage in Chiddingfold. Thank the good Lord that Lady Chilton was there. Thank the good Lord she didn’t slam the door in my face.”
“I was only tempted to for a brief moment, Coombe. I was so surprised to see you. Actually, truth be told, I would have had to write you, North, for the money was quite low. I was giving deportment and music lessons to the local children, but still it was difficult. Then here is Mr. Coombe, standing on my doorstep, hat in hand, and looking ever so pleased with himself and scared to death at the same time.”
“When I saw Miss Marie,” Coombe said, “I knew it had all been a lie. I knew that all of us had been wickedly wrong all those twenty years. I begged her to come back to Mount Hawke with me to allow me to make things right.”
?
?You’re rehired, Coombe.” North handed Miss Mary Patricia her little daughter, rose, and stretched out his hand. “All you have to do is promise you won’t dangle any more monster masks in front of her ladyship’s window and you’ll stay here as long as you want to.”
Coombe drew himself up as high as his five feet five inches could carry him. “I must admit that was beneath my dignity.”
“Well beneath it,” Caroline said. “But I imagine it was fun if you weren’t too afraid of falling off the roof.”
“Yes, well, I suppose I was a bit nervous. Everything is different now, that is, I see different things now. It is now my quest to discover this awful creature who killed her ladyship’s aunt and those other two women, that creature who had the gall to try to blame it on me. Yes, Mr. Tregeagle and Mr. Polgrain and I have our heads together. The three of us—with perhaps a tiny bit of help from Mrs. Mayhew—will solve this mystery and all will be well again. There will be laughter at Mount Hawke and all of us will accustom ourselves to it. Perhaps we will even trade about a jest upon occasion.”
“If you and Tregeagle and Polgrain will allow her ladyship and me to be of minor assistance,” North said, “we would be most grateful. Now, give me one of those lemon seed cakes.”