Search the Dark - Charles Todd [43]
Rutledge could feel the dull ache behind his eyes, the sense of isolation and depression settling in. Fighting it, he walked out into the windy night, looked up at the stars pricking brightly through tide darkness.
Damn Hildebrand!
Let it go, he told himself. He’ll know soon enough if you’re right. And London will hear soon enough if you turn out to be wrong. Sufficient unto the day …
Turning, he walked a short distance up the street, realized it was the way to the churchyard, and stopped. He had enough ghosts of his own, without invoking the murder victim’s! Coming back to the inn, he looked up in time to see the curtains being drawn in the window of the top-floor room that Elizabeth Napier had taken.
She had brought her case with her because she expected to spend the night in Singleton Magna. What Rutledge hadn’t known—but she must have considered from the start—was that she might wish to stay longer than just overnight. He’d overheard her quietly speaking to the inn’s manager as she wrote her name in the register, asking if the room might be available for several days rather than just one night.
Whether she had really been sure that the dress and shoes belonged to the dead woman, only Elizabeth Napier could say with any truth.
But she was already looking ahead to anything useful that might grow out of her identification. Inside that fragile shell was a will as strong as steel. What Elizabeth Napier wanted, she was well accustomed to having, of that he had no doubt
And he thought he knew her target. Aurore Wyatt’s husband.
He’d have been willing to wager his life on that certainty.
10
In the early morning, before the town had begun to stir, Rutledge set out again for Charlbury, his mind occupied with how and what he wanted to say. And to whom. Clouds filled the sky, promising rain, and the heat had broken.
He arrived at the Wyatt home while the family was still at breakfast. The maid left him standing in the parlor, and he looked around him at the room. The furnishings were beautifully made and well polished, handed proudly from generation to generation. They were for the most part Georgian, though two of the tables had skirts to the floor and phalanxes of photographs in frames, in the Victorian style of never is too much too much. There was a large portrait over the fireplace, a man dressed in early Victorian black, looking much like a slim and intelligent Prince Albert. At a guess, this was the first Wyatt elected to Parliament. Hinted at in the dark background behind him were the soaring pinnacles of Westminster, as if he’d been painted standing on the bridge at midnight. The inference was both subtle and powerful.
Aurore herself came out to greet Rutledge, a questioning look on her face. Before he could speak to her, she asked if he’d care to join them for a cup of coffee. “Simon is just finishing his breakfast. He’ll be happy to see you again.”
Rutledge had his doubts about that. “Thank you, no. I wanted to ask you—what was Margaret Tarlton wearing the day she left for London?”
Aurore’s face was a polite mask, as if another woman’s apparel was something she seldom gave thought to. Rutledge would have wagered she could have described everything Margaret Tarlton had brought with her. He could count on one hand the number of women he’d met who were oblivious to other women’s appearance and clothing.
She said, considering his question, “I spent most of the morning at the farm, as I told you when you were here before. I didn’t return home in time to drive Miss Tarlton to Singleton Magna. She was wearing blue at breakfast, I remember that. It was very nice with her eyes, and there was a pleat of white in the skirt, to one side, like so.” She demonstrated, pleating the soft cream skirt she herself was wearing. He could see what she meant. “But she went up to pack as I was leaving, and to change. She said it had been terribly warm on the train coming down, she thought she might prefer something lighter for the journey. I didn’t see her after that. You might ask Edith. Our maid.”
To pack. Where