Face Down under the Wych Elm (16 page)

That question again. Constance felt herself flush with anger. “I know one thing. In spite of her familiarity with banewort, Lucy did nothing. You were aware of this same poison without ever having used it against another. Can you not convince the justices of that simple fact."

"Only if I can also show them that you are both innocent pawns in someone else's game. Otherwise, or so I am informed, I may end by putting my own head into the noose next to yours."

That bald statement left Constance momentarily speechless. She'd not considered that there was any great danger to Lady Appleton. That explained, she supposed, why the other woman had not come at once. Appalled at the risk she'd unknowingly asked Lady Appleton to take, Constance opened her mouth, then closed it again. What point now in apologizing for writing that letter, for pleading with her to involve herself in their troubles?

"Answer my questions, truthfully and completely,” Lady Appleton said. “That is the way out for us all. Let us work together to discover who had reason to concoct such an elaborate scheme. Someone stands to profit by one or more of four deaths.” She turned again to Lucy. “There were no books in your cottage. Had you hidden them?"

Lucy's sudden mirth verged on hysteria. “They think to find spells in them."

Constance failed to see the humor. Between cures and spells there appeared to be little difference under the law.

Still sputtering, Lucy subsided enough to answer Lady Appleton. “The books were seized when I was arrested."

"So much for my inheritance,” Constance murmured.

"I know my recipes.” Lucy had missed the sarcasm. “I can write them again did I but have paper and ink and a good goose quill."

"I will provide those things,” Lady Appleton promised. “I also want you to write down anything you can think of that may help me find out who is behind this sorry business."

"'Twould do as much good to consult the nearest bed of lilies.” Lucy chuckled and snorted.

"Lilies?” Confused, Constance looked to Lady Appleton for an explanation.

"I wish it were that simple,” Lady Appleton said. “Your cousin refers to an old superstition that holds one can bring forth the clues necessary to solve any crime committed during the past year by burying an old piece of leather in a bed of lilies."

After two long hours of asking questions, Susanna left Maidstone gaol with no better sense of who might be behind Constance's troubles than she'd had when she went in. There seemed no reason for anyone to kill either Edgecumbe or Marsh, let alone cast blame on Lucy and Constance.

Finding a bed of lilies had a certain appeal. The dearth of clues and the nearness of the Assizes left Susanna in a quandary. She had only this evening and the next three days to discover the truth. If she did not, those two women would die.

At least, Susanna thought, she had solved one minor mystery. There had been no books or papers in Lucy's cottage because they had been confiscated by the constable when he'd come to arrest her for witchcraft.

"What now?” Jennet asked. Although she'd been with Susanna in the cell, she'd spoken not a single word during the visit. Susanna had surmised, from the wary glances Jennet darted at Lucy, that she feared to call herself to the old woman's attention.

Both the gaol and the Queen's Arms were in Maidstone's High Street. They were already in front of the inn.

"I need to confirm my suspicions about the use of banewort by speaking with Damascin,” Susanna told her. “She saw Marsh's body. And I would learn if Hugo Garrard has arrived in Maidstone yet. Then there is the constable who confiscated Lucy's books and papers. I wonder if he had them sent here?"

She dispatched Jennet to the common room to give Fulke and Lionel their instructions, and continued on alone to her bedchamber. She hoped to find that a messenger had come from Canterbury with word from Master Calthorpe.

Someone had indeed paid a visit in her absence, but not to deliver a letter. Susanna surprised the intruder in the act of rifling her possessions.

"Do you seek something in particular, Mistress Baldwin?” She made the inquiry in her sweetest voice but, as soon as she was inside the chamber, she closed the door behind her and dropped the bar into place.

Winifred Baldwin whirled around. A snarl escaped her when she saw that Susanna had locked them in. “A mother has a right to protect her only son!"

"What harm do you imagine I intend him?"

The insinuation made her furious, but as she moved deeper into the room she grappled with her rising anger and contained it. This confrontation had been brewing for months. If she could stay calm and talk to Nick's mother, one rational being to another, perhaps she could ease the animosity Winifred Baldwin obviously felt.

Sunlight streamed through the open window. Voices carried plainly from the innyard below, making it seem as if they were surrounded by other people. For that reason, it did not occur to Susanna that she might have anything to fear from her visitor ... until she got her first good look at Mistress Baldwin's eyes.

They were dark with hatred. Her nostrils flared. “What kind of love potion did you use on my poor boy? Was it the fruit of the mandrake? Powdered white thornapple?

A sensation like cold fingers caressing the nape of her neck made Susanna shiver. The thornapple growing in her stillroom had not been acquired for that purpose. Indeed, the only aphrodisiac she knew of that used thornapple as an ingredient was intended to make a woman subject to a man's will, not the other way around.

"Admit it. You cast a spell on him."

"I do not make or use love potions. I do much doubt they have any effect."

"Do not play the fool with me. I know such magic works."

"Indeed?” It seemed to Susanna that Mistress Baldwin possessed considerably more information about aphrodisiacs than a respectable matron ought to. “How do you come by such knowledge?"

A sputter of outrage answered her. “Do not try to cast blame on me, you vile creature. You have bewitched my son."

"You know that is nonsense, Mistress Baldwin. Can we not sit down like two reasonable women and discuss why it is you so dislike me?"

This request produced not agreement, nor greater anger, but an inexplicable change in Mistress Baldwin's demeanor. She paled, staggered a bit, and had to cling to the bedpost for support. “By St. Frideswide's girdle. Never tell me you enticed my son with naught but your body and the erotic arts."

Color crept into Susanna's face. She did not know which charge to resent more. It required renewed effort to keep her voice level. “What is it you fear, Mistress Baldwin? That I mean to marry your son?"

"He is very wealthy."

"So am I.” Susanna seated herself before the window and gestured for Mistress Baldwin to sit beside her. As continued to happen more often than she liked, she forgot that her right hand had been burnt until the sudden movement reminded her of the injury.

If Mistress Baldwin noticed that Susanna winced, she did not comment on it. Nor did she accept the invitation to sit. “He's too good for the likes of you."

"I have no intention of marrying your son, Mistress Baldwin, and I have told him so repeatedly."

"But you are already his mistress. Do not trouble to deny it. That he is so besotted with you is as much a hindrance to his making a good marriage as having you already to wife.” She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “All I want is for my son to make a suitable match."

Understanding burst upon Susanna and with it reluctant sympathy. Winifred Baldwin wanted her son to marry a woman young enough to give him heirs. His mother wanted to be a grandmother.

"Perhaps your prayers will be answered. Doubtless by the time Nick returns from his sojourn in Hamburg, he will have lost interest in me. Why, he may even meet someone else there, someone of whom you can approve."

Imagining Nick with a young bride was surprisingly painful. Distracted, Susanna almost missed seeing the peculiar expression that came over Mistress Baldwin's face.

"Hamburg? When does he go to Hamburg?” Her voice rose with every word until it was shriller than the cry of a herring gull.

"After the Assizes. Mistress Baldwin, I—"

But Winifred Baldwin was no longer listening. A militant light in her eyes, she stormed to the door and unbolted it, then swept out of the inn chamber. Susanna was left behind to stare after her in astonishment.

Winifred burst into her son's parlor without knocking. “Hamburg?” she demanded. “You are going to Hamburg? When did you plan to tell me? Can you imagine how mortified I was that I had to hear it from that woman?"

"Mother, calm yourself. I would have informed you of my plans soon enough. I'd scarce go off and leave you without making proper provision for your care."

"You can scarce go off at all when you are needed here."

"My presence in England is not essential. My presence in Hamburg will assure our future profits. It is necessary that I go."

Winifred glowered at him but she knew full well the latest news from the Continent supported his argument. Even before Nick's father's death, she had made it her business to be informed of the fortunes of the Merchant Adventurers. Hamburg was vital to trade. If Nick went now, his interests there would be established for years to come.

"You leave after the Assizes?"

"Aye."

"How long will you be gone?"

"I cannot say. I do not mean to stay longer than necessary, but it may well be a matter of years rather than months.” His slight smile seemed forced. “You'd best return to London in the interim."

He knew she hated country living, but he did not know why. He did not understand that she'd been able to escape rural poverty only by running away to London. He did not know that the girl she'd been then would have done far worse things than trap his father into marriage.

Life had taught Winifred to know the value of each item Bevis Baldwin traded and to keep a tight hold on every groat, too.

"I have been giving some consideration to leaving you in charge of the business while I am gone,” Nick said. “You managed well on my behalf after Father died.” Nick had been out of England then. On his return he'd lost no time taking up the reins himself.

Winifred did not reply. He spoke naught but the truth. She'd turned a tidy profit, too, and had resented it when she'd been made to feel she was no longer needed.

"I thought this news would please you."

"So it does.” But not enough to reconcile her with his announcement that he meant to spend months, perhaps years, abroad. “I do not like losing you for an uncertain length of time and I do much mistrust those foreigners among whom you will live when you are on the Continent."

"Better the German states than Persia or Muscovy. Letters can reach me with considerable ease. We will not lose touch as we did the last time I traveled abroad."

"There is that.” Cajoled into a better humor, she forced a smile. “And in Hamburg you will be away from that woman."

"Her name is Susanna."

"She is not for you, Nick. You need a young woman. Biddable. Fertile."

"I have asked Susanna to marry me."

"She turned you down.” Even Winifred could hear the smug satisfaction that laced her voice.

"I believe I can convince her to change her mind.” He seemed oblivious to his mother's dismay.

No bribe, she thought, not even arranging for her to run the business for him, could make up for the possibility that Susanna Appleton might one day step in and take her place.

As Nick elaborated on his plans, Winifred began to make a few of her own. She could not trust that woman to keep her word. Lady Appleton was simply playing a devious game. She only delayed accepting Nick's proposal, angling for some concession or other. After all, Winifred's son was a rare prize. Any woman, deep down, had to want to marry him.

That being the case, it was only a matter of time until Lady Appleton accepted Nick's proposal ... unless Winifred found a way to stop the match.

She had discovered no love potion in Lady Appleton's chamber at the Queen's Arms, but with a bit of effort that lack could be remedied. She would arrange for Maidstone's constable to search the premises, Winifred decided, after she had planted sufficient evidence to prove Susanna Appleton dabbled in witchcraft.

Disappointment flashed across Susanna's face when she opened the door and saw Nick. “I hoped for Jennet. She left some time ago with Lionel and Fulke to search out the inn where Mildred and Damascin Edgecumbe lodge."

"If they are staying in a private house, your wait may be prolonged. Jennet is not the sort to come back before she discovers the information you've asked for."

"Keep me company, then,” she invited. “I will tell you of the visit I paid to the gaol after church."

"Let us talk instead of the meeting between you and my mother."

Either she'd followed him when he'd visited Susanna the previous night, or she'd discovered their neighbor's presence by accident. Either way, Winifred Baldwin had known how to find the woman she thought such a bad match for her only son.

"She told you of our conversation?"

"Not in so many words but it was not difficult to guess she had seen you. No one else knows of my plan to go to Hamburg. Mother was most upset to learn I mean to leave England again."

"Yes."

"I told her I'd asked you to marry me and go there with me."

"Oh, Nick."

"I am tired of her meddling, Susanna.” He took both her hands in his. “I am capable of choosing my own wife."

"Indeed you are. But I am not she.” With gentle firmness, she extricated herself from his grip. “I told your mother that."

"She did not believe you."

"No.” She began to pace. “She swore I was deceiving her. Swore most colorfully indeed and...” Susanna stopped in the middle of the bedchamber, looking thoughtful. “She swore by St. Frideswide. Nick, when your mother was a girl, she'd have been raised in the church of Rome."

"Aye.” Wary, he waited for her to explain.