The Vanishing Thief(79)

“They’re together and quite happy,” I reported, hoping my words were true. I could see their daughter loved Drake. I wasn’t certain of his feelings.

“Good,” the woman said, handing me a cup of tea. “It must have been a long journey to reach here.”

“Two days.” The tea was hot and weak.

“Why’d ye come? It wasn’t to see us,” the man said.

“I had business at the castle. Shame about Lady Margaret.”

“Annie helped in the nursery in her first job when Lady Margaret was small. She thought Lady Margaret was the most beautiful creature. And she was. But no one ever said no to her until she went to London. The shock was too much and destroyed her,” the woman said.

I took a sip of tea while I considered her words. Trying to sound only mildly interested, I said, “But drowning. How terrible.”

“Not as terrible as it was for those who had the watch of her, letting her escape. They didn’t find her body until daylight, caught on some rocks at the mouth of the river.” The man sounded like he relished the story, giving a jerky nod when he finished.

“Letting her escape? She was a prisoner?”

“Aye, orders of His Grace. She’d already tried to run away once before.”

“Why do you think she didn’t take the road and the bridge if she was running away from the castle? What would she gain by trying to escape by sea?”

“Perhaps it was a different escape she had in mind,” Mr. Carter said.

“Oh, don’t say that. ’Tis a sin and you know it. Lady Margaret loved life. ’Twas an accident, was all,” his wife told him in a sharp voice.

It took me a moment to take in the full measure of their words. Steering the conversation away from this new possibility as I digested it, I asked, “Do your daughter and Nicholas Drake know what happened to Lady Margaret?”

“Of course. At least Annie does. I told her when I visited her in prison. Terrible place,” her mother said.

“What did Annie tell you about Lady Margaret as a child? I heard she liked to pretend the Vikings were coming to Blackford Castle.”

“Aye, she did that. Imaginative little sprite she was. Spent a lot of time in the garden asking all sorts of questions about the flowers. Then when she got a little older, she became interested in the healers and apothecaries of the olden days. She knew good flowers and plants from poisonous ones before she could read well or do her sums. Her painting and sketching were marvels, but she hated to do needlework. Said it was too predictable.” Mrs. Carter smiled.

“Too imaginative by half, I’d say. Left on her own with no one but servants and governesses, and if you told her no, you’d be out on your ear,” Mr. Carter grumbled.

“You told her no a time or two, and you kept your post,” Mrs. Carter said.

“Only because the duke, father and son, respect a man for the work he does, and I did good work until the arthritics took over my body,” Mr. Carter said. “And she couldn’t drown me like she did her pets.”

“She only did that the once, and it was an accident.”

“What about all those kittens and puppies we found drowned over the years?”

I shuddered at the picture forming in my mind.

“But we know that wasn’t her, don’t we?” Mrs. Carter said.

“We do know it were her. The whole village knew.”

“That was only a daft rumor.”

“There seemed to have been a lot of rumors about Lady Margaret. Whether she meant to end up in the water, whether she was the one who drowned kittens and puppies. Are there any other rumors?” Hateful things, rumors, but I needed to know what was being said in the village where people knew her better than anywhere else.

“’Twasn’t rumor. ’Twas fact,” Mr. Carter said.

“It was all nasty rumor. She was a spoiled, lonely little girl, and not well loved around here for it. That’s the truth,” Mrs. Carter said.

“Rubbish,” Mr. Carter said.

I didn’t want to get sidetracked by what sounded like an old quarrel. “Drake worked for the family, too, didn’t he? As a footman? So he must know the duke.”

I must have spoken too eagerly, since the old man looked at me sharply. “Aye, he did and knows the duke. The duke knows him, too.”

Then why didn’t the duke point out Drake’s lies when he was engaged to Victoria Dutton-Cox? What would make someone like the Duke of Blackford put up with Drake infiltrating polite society posing as an aristocrat?

Unfortunately, the Carters didn’t know any more, or they weren’t willing to tell me. Whatever secrets Lady Margaret brought here wouldn’t be revealed to me.