“Fine.”
He picked her up in his arms and swung her about, dancing the infamous waltz around the bedchamber.
Tregeagle heard their laughter from the corridor down in the west wing of Mount Hawke. He frowned even as he knocked on the master’s bedchamber door to tell them that Flash Savory was here to see his lordship.
“Caroline,” North said, “do you hear me? Now, why didn’t you ask to speak to Dr. Treath when he was here?”
She shrugged but didn’t meet his eyes.
He stared down at her, then suddenly hooted with laughter. “My God, you’re embarrassed. My Caroline is embarrassed of a doctor.”
She gave him one of her brilliant smiles. “That’s the second time you’ve called me your Caroline.”
“No, my Caroline. Now, why don’t I ask Dr. Treath to come back and see you?”
“Not yet, North, please. I’m just not ready. You’re the only man who’s ever, well, you know very well what I mean.”
“He’s a doctor, Caroline. He helped both Miss Mary Patricia and Evelyn. Do you think he cared that they were both lovely young women?”
“No, probably not, but it doesn’t matter. Give me a bit longer, North.”
“Good grief, Caroline, he’s nearly old enough to be your father. Surely you wouldn’t mind him examining you if Bess Treath were with you?”
“Just give me a bit longer, to adjust myself to all this. It’s very strange, North.” She hugged her arms around herself, thinking that he’d called her his Caroline. No, she thought grinning,“my Caroline.”
She didn’t think she’d ever been happier in her life.
She felt that way until the following afternoon.
Coombe had disappeared. He’d left Mount Hawke the day North had dismissed him. He accepted the sizable pension paid to him by Mr. Brogan, moved to Goonbell into Mrs. Freely’s inn there, and brooded about, always silent, never speaking to anyone, North was told, never telling why he’d left Mount Hawke after more years than
most of the locals could even remember. Then, he’d simply disappeared.
Mrs. Freely came to Mount Hawke to speak to North privately. North simply told Caroline that Mrs. Freely hadn’t seen Coombe for two days. She’d gone to his room and found he’d left. No, he hadn’t owed her any money, indeed, he’d paid her enough to hold the room for him for another month.
North went back to Goonbell with Mrs. Freely. When he finally returned to Mount Hawke, there was quite an audience awaiting him. All the female staff, Tregeagle, Polgrain, and, of course, Timmy the maid, and all the ladies, pregnant and otherwise, looking at him, waiting for the worst, only he knew they couldn’t begin to imagine the worst that he had to tell them.
He stared at all of them, then said simply, “It’s difficult, believe me, but it seems that Coombe might have been the man who murdered all the women. I’m sorry, Caroline.”
“No,” Mrs. Mayhew said, her voice surprisingly strident. “Mr. Coombe was in many ways a very strange man, sometimes downright nasty, but I can’t believe he would have killed the women. I even liked him sometimes, not often, mind you, but two times I can remember. How many women were there?”
“Three women in as many years,” said Polgrain. “All of them stabbed, as you know. My lord, she’s right. Mr. Coombe wasn’t a violent man.” Then he shut his mouth, realizing what he’d said, for he too had wondered about the oxtail soup.
North shook his head and said, “It appears that he simply left, but he didn’t take everything with him. There were papers, some odd clothes, a pair of slippers.” He drew a deep breath. “Amongst the papers we found a letter from Elizabeth Godolphin to Coombe—one supposes it was to Coombe; she was the woman who was killed some three years ago. It was of an amorous nature. Also, there was a knife wrapped in a shirt stuffed in the back of the armoire. There was dried blood on it. All three women were stabbed.”
Caroline heard the words dinning in her mind, and for the first time in her entire life, she fainted. She heard North calling her name before the blackness closed over her.
32
MARCUS WYNDHAM, THE Earl of Chase, said to North, “I can’t believe I let you come back to Cornwall and the first thing you do is get married and start laughing and jesting about like a man born to it. Why, you’ve given up your gloomy brooding entirely. It shocks the senses, North. What am I to think?”
North grinned, an engaging grin that held no melancholy, no gothic overtones at all. “What can I tell you, Marcus? I met Caroline and it seems that the damnable black cloud that always floated over my head wafted away, leaving only the sun. She smiles at me and I’m warm to my toes.”
“Odd,” the earl said, gazing over at his wife. “I’ve known the Duchess since we were children and I’ve never changed a bit. She’s done nothing to improve my spirit or my character. Perhaps both were perfect to begin with, whereas you were too dour a fellow, North.”
The countess said to Caroline, a slight smile playing around her mouth, “My lord counts himself a philosopher wit. It occasionally leads to quite unpleasant physical discomfort for him.”
Caroline laughed. “Could you please be more specific?”