Death in Salem (10 page)

“I will,” Rees said, although he doubted any woman could have overpowered Jacob. And would Mrs. Foster be comfortable talking to him, a solitary man? “I might have to ask for my wife's assistance,” he said slowly. Yes—the more he considered that solution, the better he liked it. Lydia could not refuse to join him here if he needed her.

“I'm certain she'll be very comfortable,” said Matthew with a leer. Peggy shook her head at her brother but did not speak.

“I do hope this liaison was not one of long standing,” Betsy said to her brother. “I would hate to think that this woman will suddenly appear with a child in her arms and a claim upon Father's estate.”

“No fear of that,” Matthew said. “At least, I don't believe so. I became aware of the relationship just a few months ago, and I don't believe it progressed far enough.”

“What do you mean?” Rees asked. “What kind of claim?”

Matthew turned his gaze to Rees. “William inherits the business and all the property, the girls have their dowries, and I have my allowance. After that, all the remaining assets are divided between the children. If that woman can prove she's carrying my father's child, he or she will share…”

“Stop!” Peggy cried. “Stop now. How can you both discuss this so … so coldly? Father isn't even in his grave.” Her face contorted with the effort of controlling her emotions, and tears stood out in her eyes.

“Don't cry, Peggy dear,” Betsy pleaded, jumping to her feet and running to her sister's side. She threw her arms around Peggy. “You're right, of course.”

“I don't see why,” Matthew said. He sipped his coffee. “Of course we miss Father. But we don't want some interloper, some loose woman, to come in and take what belongs to us. Do we?” He seemed to realize at the same moment as his sisters that Rees still stood by the door, watching and listening. “I have the right of it, do I not, Mr. Rees? Even in the worst excesses of grief, we must be practical. And my father's estate belongs to us, his legitimate children.”

Rees, who'd seen families fight over farthings, smiled noncommittally.

“You don't have a practical bone in your body,” Peggy said, her voice rising with anger. “Please, at least pretend to some grief for your father.”

“I do grieve,” Matthew said, turning upon his sister with a nasty smile. “But I wasn't his favorite, was I? How fortunate for William that he's the eldest and a son, else you should inherit it all.”

Peggy's face went dead white and Rees found himself stepping forward. He wanted to strike Matthew and wipe that malicious smile off his face. But Rees stopped himself; this wasn't his business. He held out a hand to Peggy in case she needed his support. Betsy, bereft of words for once, stared at her siblings in horror, biting her lip.

Peggy did not faint. Instead, she pulled herself erect with a jerk and said to Rees, “Perhaps you would care to see my father's office?” Turning with stiff movements, like a puppet controlled by strings, she walked toward the door.

As Rees followed her, he heard Xenobia say, “You both should be ashamed of your behavior. Your mother and father would be horrified.”

“Don't forget you can be sold,” Matthew said. “My mother isn't here to protect you any longer.”

“Mattie,” gasped Betsy.

Peggy glanced over her shoulder, her mouth puckered. “That will not happen,” she said under her breath. “Not while I'm here.”

She guided Rees to the back of the house. The key to the tunnels dangled on a string outside the office door. Peggy opened it and invited him inside. Rees was interested to see that the door to the office was unlocked. He stepped inside. Windows overlooking the trees and flowers of a private yard lay directly opposite the door, and the chamber was flooded with light. With its fine carpets, marble fireplace, and highly polished furniture, this room appeared more as a sitting room than an office, although a large desk faced the windows. The desktop was absolutely clear of any papers and, to Rees, it appeared almost ornamental.

To the right, behind a wooden screen, was a much smaller room. A window allowed daylight to fall upon the surface of a small desk below it, but the corners of the room remained in shadow. Papers were stacked not only upon the desk but also upon the shelves that ran along one wall, and pens and an inkwell teetered awkwardly upon the desk's corner. Peggy moved aside the screen and pushed the inkwell towards the table's center.

“This is your office, I assume,” Rees said, peering in after her. He guessed that all the real work for Mr. Boothe's business took place here.

She nodded. “Well, it was. When William came home he took it over. And, of course, my father and brother did a significant amount of work at the counting house.” Her voice trembled, but Rees could not tell if it was from anger or sorrow.

“What did you do for your father?” he asked.

“Everything.” She smiled as she brushed away the moisture in her eyes. “He trusted me. Sometimes I even looked over the books, ‘just to insure their accuracy,' he always said.”

“And how long have you—did you assist your father?” Rees asked, eyeing her. Many women could not even sign their names, so the fact that Peggy not only handled her father's correspondence but also reviewed the books spoke to an unusual level of education for a woman.

“I began running messages when I was ten or so,” Peggy said. “As I learned the business, my father gave me other responsibilities. I kept lists of cargoes and oversaw the ships' manifests. I sent letters to the
banias
—the trading agents in India.” She sighed. “My father may have felt awkward about it at first, but Mattie didn't care and William was already in the counting house. I was good at it. And when William took passage as a supercargo on one of my father's ships to learn that part of the business, there was no one here but me to do the rest.” She sighed again. “My, I would have loved to sail on one of our vessels. But of course I couldn't, not as a female. And now William,” her voice shook with anger, “is taking all of this away from me.” Her voice roughened and she sounded as if she might cry.

“He's not going to avail himself of your experience?”

“Do you truly expect that to happen?” She turned to look at Rees, her expression weary. “William would sooner cut off his right leg than ‘let a woman interfere in men's business.'” Rees clearly heard the quote. “It doesn't matter that I know most of the details of my father's dealings and that William will surely make many mistakes. The very thought of my help affronts him.”

“Then more fool he,” Rees said. She smiled at him, looking suddenly girlish and almost attractive. “Maybe you'll marry a ship's captain and travel with him,” he suggested. He couldn't see Betsy managing the difficulties of shipboard living, especially surrounded by a crew of crude sailors, but suspected Peggy would do well.

“Maybe,” she said, but not as though she believed it. “If you listen to William, I will never marry. I'm too plain. Too awkward. And too unfeminine.” With a final glance at the desk that she'd called her own, she stepped away, urging Rees before her.

Rees backed into the larger office. He walked around the room but didn't possess the necessary brashness to open Mr. Boothe's desk drawers. Especially not under the eye of his daughter. “Any problems in business lately?” he asked. “Any conflicts with partners?”

Peggy shook her head. “No, nothing,” she replied. “He was well-respected and well-liked. That's why I don't understand…” Her throat closed and she couldn't speak.

Rees wondered if that were true; Mr. Boothe would no doubt have sheltered his daughter from the rougher aspects of his profession. But if he had been embroiled in a disagreement, someone would know it. “To whom should I speak among your father's business associates?”

Peggy shook her head at him. “I'm certain you'll find they have nothing but praise for my father. But begin with Mr. Crowninshield, if you wish.” Rees also planned to make a circuit of the taverns. A few discreet questions, and then he could sit back and listen. A quiet man sitting in a dark corner with a glass of ale was like a piece of furniture: no one heeded him.

“I will. Maybe Mr. Crowninshield will take you into his business,” he suggested.

“I doubt that, Mr. Rees. Most of the businessmen are fond of me, as they would be of a puppy. But they agree with William. My father allowed me too much freedom and now I must be confined to a woman's proper sphere.” She bit her lip. “Even my father thought so at the end. But you, you seem unusually accepting of a woman's abilities.”

“My wife would not permit me any other opinion,” he said with an answering grin. A longing for Lydia assailed him, acutely bittersweet, and he wished she were by his side right now. What would she make of this household?

“I hope I have the good fortune to meet her,” Peggy said.

“I think she'd like you,” Rees said.

But as he left the Boothe home and began walking west, back to Mrs. Baldwin's, he found himself thinking about his sister. Their father had wanted his daughters to be proper and ladylike. They were not expected to work outside on the farm, as most of their schoolmates did, but were supposed to spend their days spinning and weaving. Phoebe, a much more compliant girl than her sister, had done as her father wished. But Caroline hated it. She wanted to travel, perhaps go to Boston. She wanted more education. Her father refused her. No college would accept a woman, and anyway she'd only marry and have children so why waste any money upon her? Rees remembered scoffing at Caroline's aspirations and telling her she was only a girl. He'd laughed at her attempts to write poetry. He wished now he had not been so heartless, and promised himself he would do better in the future. As he considered this, he realized that Caroline, even more than Lydia, would sympathize with Peggy.

Shaking away these memories, Rees turned his thoughts back to the Boothe family. He stopped, stock still, thinking. Matthew was an unpleasant young man and his behavior was suspicious. The boy was involved in something—perhaps not the murder of his father, but something—and Rees would wager it was illegal. But he could not be certain of what without further investigation. Betsy? She seemed to be exactly as she appeared, a young woman entirely consumed with her wedding and her future as a wife and mother.

Rees started walking again, very suddenly, attracting a curse from a man hurrying by him. He would visit the Coville family, as Matthew had dared him to do, but a visit to Miss Georgianne Foster was of more importance. Was she the future Mrs. Boothe or a soiled dove as the Boothe children believed?

Finally, Rees considered Peggy. For all he knew, she too could be hiding something. Sometimes even those who asked for Rees's help were guilty. He doubted it, in this case, but then he liked Peggy. And what was the secret he suspected Xenobia was keeping back? Rees tried to pin down his feeling from an elusive sense to something definite. He did not think Xenobia was telling him lies, but she was very carefully not telling him something.

Sighing, he reluctantly concluded that his investigation into Jacob Boothe's death was going to take far longer than he'd first assumed. And this was exactly the kind of situation in which Lydia's assistance could be so valuable: women were more willing to confide in another woman than in a man. He needed a woman's touch; he needed Lydia.

He paused again in the middle of the dusty lane, people shouldering their impatient way past him. He missed Lydia, and not like a silly young girl in love with love. No, this felt as though he were only half there, like his leg or his arm was missing. He was coping, adapting, but the shadow pain and the awful sense of something lacking remained.

He didn't like this dependence, didn't like realizing he would never be able to be far from her for very long. But he missed her too much to dwell on his own womanish feelings. Besides, he needed the assistance her insight would give. He began to figure out how he could bring her to Salem.

 

Chapter Nine

Twig objected most strenuously when Rees informed him of his intention to leave for Maine the following day. “And what shall I tell Miss Boothe?” Twig demanded. “And Xenobia? That you've abandoned them?”

“I'm not abandoning them,” Rees said, for perhaps the third time. He had hoped that meeting Twig in the familiar surroundings of the Moon and Stars tavern would calm him, but that strategy had failed. “I'm fetching my wife. That's all. Since I now expect to stay in Salem longer than I expected, I want my wife beside me. You would be as reluctant to abandon Xenobia for many weeks, wouldn't you?” He sliced the strong yellow cheese and dropped it upon a hunk of bread. This would have to do for today's dinner. “She‘ll assist me in questioning Miss Foster.” As well as Peggy Boothe and Xenobia, Rees thought, but he knew better than to share that with Twig.

“And how long will you be away? A week or more?” Twig's rising voice boomed out, attracting several stares from customers at other tables.

“Two days, if all goes well,” Rees said, keeping his tone low with an effort. “I will not stop for anything. And I will return, I promise you that. I'll even ask Mrs. Baldwin to save my room, and pay for it in advance. Will that put your mind at rest?”

Twig stared blankly into space for a moment. “I should do it,” he said.

“Do what?” Rees was momentarily confused.

“Fetch your wife. Does she read? You can send her a letter. Yes, this will work much better. I'll travel faster on my horse than you in your wagon.”

“And how will she travel to Salem?” Rees asked scornfully. “Riding pillion behind you?”

“Do you own a buggy? We can drive down in the buggy with my nag tied on behind. That may take a little longer, but in the meantime, you can work on identifying Mr. Boothe's killer.”