"Exhaustion," I said, shutting my eyes. The carriage bumped hard over a hole in the road, and pain spiked in my cramped leg.
When I opened my eyes, Grenville was watching me. "Are you certain exhaustion explains everything? How goes the search?"
Grenville was canny. He'd learned the signs of my melancholia over the past year and a half, and he'd learned how to keep me from falling into it.
"Oddly," I said. I told him what the shepherd had said. "It is too foul to search today, but as soon as this lifts, I'll take a horse and go out there."
"With me," Grenville said. "Despite my performance as a soft-living dandy these past few days, I am a hardy sort."
"I know." I kept my tone light, still trying to banish the anguish of what Buckley had told me. "You've rowed on the Nile and across rivers in Canada, you've tramped across deserts and over the highest mountains."
Grenville shook his head. "Flippancy does not become you, Lacey."
"So Lady Breckenridge tells me." Donata. I'd sent her away, and I was happy I had, but at this moment, I longed for her warmth.
"Has something else happened?" Grenville asked me.
I debated what to tell him. I was still sifting through Buckley's confession and his revelation that my mother had carried his child, the miscarrying of which had led to her illness and death. Emotions chased through me-anger, shock, sadness, guilt. I could not fix upon one.
"Discovering things about one's own past is a jolt," I said.
Grenville nodded. "I know that well, my dear Lacey. I have told you of one or two of the shocks I've faced in my life, including discovering I had a grown daughter. You've found something out that has upset you. I understand. You may keep it private if you like."
"Thank you," I said.
"I have a healthy curiosity, but I will not pry into your darkest secrets." He held out a silver flask. "But you look like a man who needs sustenance."
His flask was free of rust and sand. I lifted it to my lips and gratefully downed the brandy inside.
I handed it back to him. "What troubles me has nothing to do with finding Cooper, or the paintings Easton hid, or Miss Quinn," I said.
"I did not think so. However, I am curious about what you've discovered regarding all three of those."
I was grateful to Grenville for bringing my mind back to the immediate problems. I told him what I'd learned since we'd spoken yesterday, and he listened without interrupting.
"So the hand was indeed Cooper's," Grenville said when I'd finished. "We must wonder-was it he the shepherd saw on the marsh? Or the murderer? And did the same man kill Mr. Ferguson?" He glanced out the window at the farmland we passed. "I must say, the idea of a nameless, faceless killer stalking about your marshes unnerves me."
"It unnerves me as well, and I know it unnerves Denis. I have been thinking that we are up against someone who wants Denis dead. One of his rivals. The woman who calls herself Lady Jane is cold enough and ruthless enough to send people after him."
"I would think that she'd send someone directly to the house to kill him," Grenville said. "Not pick off his servants in the wilderness one by one."
"But Denis guards himself carefully. He knows how many enemies he has. The way to reach him is to remove his guards, even one at a time. Thin the ranks. Or else, be hired on into the heart of his household. The killer might be residing with him even now."
"And you are taking me to sleep there. Thank you very much." Grenville took another pull from his flask. "I'd think that Denis would be careful enough to screen any who works for him. An assassin infiltrating his household takes a great risk. They'd not survive the mission."
"I wonder if Ferguson, the newest member, was sent to kill him," I mused. "Perhaps Cooper found out, fought him, and killed him."
"And then Cooper vanished. Perhaps. But why not rush back to Denis and proudly proclaim his deed? I have the feeling that the death of Ferguson and the disappearance of Cooper are unconnected."
I was not so certain. I'd learned to keep my mind open to possibilities, because in the past I'd gone wrong by fixing on a solution too soon. Ferguson, a big man and an experienced fighter, hadn't gone down easily.
I told Grenville about interviewing Denis's men and their thoughts about Ferguson and Cooper. We agreed that any of them might have killed Ferguson for their own reasons. We also agreed that Denis employed an interesting lot.
Grenville eyed Easton's square brick house uneasily as the carriage pulled to a halt in front of it. "Another adventure," he said. "I pray I do not regret it."
Denis, of course, wanted me to report to him immediately, and I found myself in his study once more, relating the events of the day. He listened as attentively as Grenville had, but with less animation in his eyes.
When I put forth my idea that one of his rivals was trying to kill him, either by taking out his bodyguards one by one or infiltrating his household, Denis shrugged.
"That is always a possibility, one against which I take constant precaution. Ferguson was not an assassin. I investigate people thoroughly before they are allowed anywhere near me."
I leaned on my walking stick, neither of us having bothered to sit down. "Should I be flattered that you allow me near you?"
"Not at all. Notice that I have you watched at all times."
I did. Only recently had he begun speaking with me alone, and even then, I knew that one of his bodyguards had been within shouting distance.
"About this mysterious man walking about the marsh," Denis said. "I take it you will explore that?"
"Tomorrow, after chapel. Hopefully the rain will have lessened. I'll go on horseback and comb the area."
Denis's brows lifted. "After chapel?"
"I want to attend the morning service in Parson's Point. The Laceys have a pew there." For some reason, I was curious to hear what Reaves had to say. "Perhaps you would like to attend with me?"
Denis's eyes flickered. I'd surprised him. He studied me sharply, wondering what I meant by it, then he surprised me. "Of course," he said.
In spite of Grenville's uneasiness, we spent an uneventful night. When I woke the next day, Sunday, the sound of bells drifted on the wind, filling the morning. The rain had stopped and the air was cold and crisp with autumn.
Denis provided his carriage for the ride to Parson's Point. Because he went nowhere without at least one bodyguard-today deciding to bring three, one riding inside-the carriage was crowded.
We reached the church at Parson's Point a few minutes before the service was to begin. Grenville studied the unadorned, twelfth-century church with an approving eye. "Quite a good example of Romanesque architecture," he said as we went in.
The church was rather full this morning, perhaps because the weather was good, or perhaps because of curiosity about whether I would attend. The church, large for the community, was mostly full.
Heads turned and people stared as, for the first time in many years, a Lacey opened the small wooden door of the pew at the front of the church and stepped inside. Grenville and Denis sat down with me, and Denis's bodyguards squeezed into the end of a pew behind us.
The service of morning prayer progressed, the familiar words read in Reaves' rather pompous voice. I found the murmured responses of the congregation somehow soothing. The church had no organ, and anything we sang was led by Mrs. Landon with a pitch pipe.
Denis read the responses with the rest of us, his voice rich and strong even through the confession of sins. We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep; We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts; We have offended against thy holy laws
… His bodyguards behind us said the same, and got through the Apostle's Creed and Lord's Prayer without stumbling.