An Anne Perry Christmas_ Two Holiday Novels - Anne Perry [54]
Leighton's face was grim. He straightened up, frowning. “You can be forgiven a certain amount for the shock of your loss, Benjamin, but if you suggest, outside this room, that Gower had anything to do with your brother's death, you will be even more guilty of slander than he is. There is nothing whatever to indicate that he met Judah or had any intention of harming him, then or at any time. Please don't bring any more grief on your family than it already has. It would be utterly irresponsible.”
Benjamin stood without moving for a long moment, then turned and strode out, leaving the door swinging behind him.
“I'm sorry,” Henry apologized for him. “Judah's death has hit him very hard, and Ashton Gower's charges are vicious and profoundly wrong. Judah was one of the most honest men I ever knew. To blacken his name now is an evil thing to do. I agree with Benjamin completely, and regardless of what he does, I will do all I can to protect Judah's widow and son from such calumny.”
“Everyone in the village will,” Leighton said gravely. “Gower is a deeply unpopular man. We all remember what he did over the forged deeds. He's arrogant and abrupt. But if Benjamin accuses him over Judah's death, he will make it a great deal more difficult than it has to be, because some are then going to see injury on both sides, and it will become a feud, and split the village. That kind of thing can take years to heal, sometimes generations, because people get so entrenched, other grievances are added, and they can't turn back.”
“I'll speak to him,” Henry promised. Then he excused himself and went outside into the snow to catch up with Benjamin.
Benjamin was standing holding both the horses. He looked at Henry defiantly, his blue eyes burning. “I know,” he said before Henry could speak. “I just hate being told by that satisfied, self-righteous…” He stopped. “It's thirsty work walking in this. Let's go to the Fleece and take a pint of Cumberland ale. It's a long time since I've tasted a jar of Snecklifter. It's too early for lunch, or I'd have had a good crust of bread and a piece of Whillimoor Wang. There's a plain, lean cheese for you to let you know you're home. I'd like to hear a tale or two of good men and dogs, or even a fanciful yarn of demons and fairies, such as they like around here. They used to write that in as cause of death sometimes, you know? Taken by fairies!”
Henry smiled. “That must have covered a multitude of things!”
Benjamin laughed harshly. “Try explaining that to the constable.”
An hour later, warmed and refreshed, entertained by taller and taller stories in broad Cumberland dialect, they emerged into the street again to find the weather brighter, and the sun breaking through wide rifts in the clouds, dazzling on the snow and reflecting on the lake in long blue and silver shards.
They had ridden barely a hundred yards, past small shops, the smithy, the cooper's yard, and were just level with the clog shop where the clog maker was hollowing out the wooden soles with his long, hinged stock knife when they almost ran into a broad-shouldered man with densely black hair.
The man was on foot and Benjamin looked down at him with an expression of cold fury. The man's eyes were narrowed, hard with loathing as he stared back. Henry did not need to be told that this was Ashton Gower.
“So you've returned from following the footsteps of God!” Gower said sarcastically. “Much good it'll do you. I'll give you a decency of mourning, for the widow's sake, though those that profit from sin are as guilty of it as them that do it. But I suppose a woman's got to stay by her man, she's little choice. It'll make no difference in the end.”
“None at all,” Benjamin agreed harshly. “Speak another word against my brother, and I'll sue you for slander and see you back in prison, which is where you belong. They should never have let you out.”
“Slander's a civil suit, Mr. Dreghorn,” Gower replied, glaring up at him. “And you'd have