Wings of Fire - Charles Todd [86]
“Did I?” He gave her another swift glance, and saw that she was frowning. “I don’t remember saying that.”
Or didn’t want to. He let it go for the moment.
They were heading inland, away from the sea. The high hedgerows shut off the view, and the deep-cut roads tended to come suddenly out of a curve and into a crossroads, where a heavy dray or a small cart was often and unexpectedly in his way. He nearly missed the turning they were after, but soon found the gates to the Beaton house at the head of a pretty valley.
It was one of those medieval monstrosities the Victorians had loved to build, with half-ruined towers, crenelations, and even a mock Gothic gatehouse. There was so much ivy climbing the walls that when the wind blew, the leaves ruffled and quaked as if the walls themselves were in imminent danger of collapse.
“Gentle God!” Rutledge said, slowing the car to stare.
“Yes, well, I’m told the family knew Disraeli, and admired his novels enormously. They couldn’t wait to tear down the old house and replace it with this. If you say one word, you’ll hurt their feelings! Jenny Beaton is a lovely person. She doesn’t deserve to be made unhappy.”
“I’m incapable of comment,” Rutledge answered weakly.
Mrs. Beaton was a lovely person. The house, built on the foundations of a much older structure, had its finer points, for one an exquisite fan ceiling in the great hall that served as a dining room. The craftsman who created it knew how to turn plaster into a work of art. The drawing room, with its coffered ceilings and stained-glass windows, looked as if it had escaped from a stage set. When asked his opinion of it, Rutledge answered, “it’s stunning!” Mrs. Beaton was satisfied. Rachel glared at him.
Susannah was lying on a chair with a footstool, a white lacy shawl thrown over her lap, but she looked perfectly healthy to Rutledge.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been ordered to rest. I hope it doesn’t mean complications of any kind,” he said, taking her hand in greeting.
“No,” she said irritably, “just a fussy doctor and an equally fussy husband. I’m perishing from boredom!” She glanced wryly at Jenny Beaton.
“She’s a terrible patient,” Jenny agreed, smiling warmly at her friend. She was dark and very pretty, with small hands and feet, and Harnish had noticed her before Rutledge had. “We’d toss her out on her ear, if she had anywhere else to go. Sad, isn’t it?”
“Daniel’s in London, he’s running himself thin trying to be in two places at once. But the doctor refuses to let me travel just now,” Susannah added, “even by easy stages.” She cocked her head and looked at Rutledge. “They say you’re searching the moors for Richard.”
“Susannah!” Jenny Beaton exclaimed. “Who told you that!”
“I may be pregnant. I’m not deaf! Well, is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Rutledge told her.
“Why on earth are you interested in a child who died over twenty years ago? Do bodies even last that long? I don’t see any point in it!”
“I’m interested in what became of him.” He paused, then said, “If he’s still alive, he’s one of the heirs, isn’t he? Nicholas’ younger brother.”
He heard Rachel gasp, across the small inlaid table from him, but he didn’t look up at her. It was Susannah’s response he was interested in.
“If he’s alive, why hasn’t he turned up? Even a child of five knows who he is, where he came from. You’d think he’d have found a way home by now. Somehow.” Susannah was fidgeting with the fringe on her shawl, more from exasperation, he thought, than nervousness.
“Yes, there’s always that possibility. But he hasn’t. I’m just being thorough, that’s all. Did you ever hear stories of what happened on the moor? As you were growing up?”
“No, it wasn’t the sort of thing discussed around children, and by the time I was old enough to be curious about Richard, or Anne, or even my father, Rosamund always managed to change the subject. I remember my father, but of course not the early years, before he married Rosamund.”
“He was brought