Legacy of the Dead - Charles Todd [52]
She frowned, considering his question. “Eleanor Gray? No, I can’t say that I ever met anyone by that name. I did know a Sally Gray.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“In Carlisle at a party given for my husband. But that was before the war. I haven’t seen her in years. Her husband was something in shipping, I think.”
A dead end. He thanked her and walked on, immersed in his own thoughts.
Realizing that he’d arrived at the stone monument at the top of the square, Rutledge stopped there for a time, listening to Hamish comparing this town with the scattered houses that comprised his own small village. Like most Highlanders, Hamish had been used to the silences of the mountain glens and the long, smooth mirrors of the lochs. These had given him, as a soldier, a resilience and a strength of mind that had raised him from the ranks.
Idly watching the medley of activity that gave life and color to the street, Rutledge considered the townspeople of Duncarrick. If anyone here had had close ties with Fiona MacDonald, they were busy now burying them as deep as possible.
It also seemed unlikely that Fiona had confided in her aunt.
But then, it was two secrets that Fiona held close. That the boy was not hers—and that she knew the identity of the child’s mother. For some reason, the latter must have been the darker of the two. Fiona had taken the very grave risk of going to trial for murder to protect it.
And if the mother was still alive—
As Mr. Elliot had so cleverly pointed out, she hadn’t stepped forward.
Why not? And where was she?
Hamish sighed. “Anywhere in England or Scotland, for starters.”
Rutledge turned toward the monument, one hand reaching up to touch the surface. This face was cold at this time of day, waiting for the sun to reach it. Like the town itself in some ways. Waiting for enlightenment.
The stone was a rough-hewn monolith set in the pavement. Links of heavy iron chain attached to four short iron posts encircled the stone, marking it as a shrine of sorts. On the side of the monolith that looked down the length of the square was a relief carved coarsely but tellingly into the stone. Houses, buried nearly to their rooftops in flames, jutted from the surface, and around the scene reivers sat on their horses, dressed in trews and leather jerkins, hats jammed on their heads as they watched the town burn. At the feet of the horses lay sacks of plunder and sheep milling about in fright.
Beneath the relief, three dates were incised in the stone—the three times Duncarrick had gone up in flames at the hands of English raiders. It was a powerful memorial, and Rutledge made a rough guess at the number of dead.
Or had the inhabitants been warned in time and found sanctuary somewhere in the fields or behind the stout walls of the pele tower, watching the night sky as their homes and possessions went up in black smoke, filling the cold air with choking ashes.
Small wonder the people here were a different breed from the citizens of southern English towns that had settled into quiet prosperity centuries before—where the tread of armies and the threat of fire and sword were a far distant memory. Small wonder that a stranger was welcomed for her aunt’s sake—and not her own. Small wonder that suspicion was so easily aroused, and trust was snatched back so readily.
Someone had known how to use Duncarrick’s entrenched character to reach out and anonymously destroy Fiona MacDonald. But to what end?
For what purpose?
Hamish said, “When I went to France, she was living with her grandfather. But when he died, she left the land and went to Brae—her last letter was fra’ Brae.”
It was where Rutledge had sent the only letter he had written to Fiona MacDonald. To tell her of Hamish’s death. He said, “Then I’ll have to go to Brae. . . .”
He had come here to search for Eleanor Gray. If Oliver was right, she must be somewhere in Fiona MacDonald’s past. He had to find out where their paths had crossed—and if they had crossed.