Death in Salem (29 page)

“Annie. Annie. Annie!” Someone called the child, their voice growing ever more impatient with each repetition. Very quietly, she closed the door.

Rees pulled out the tail of his shirt and wiped his face. The cut over his eyebrow had bled copiously; the linen was soon sodden with blood, and still the wound oozed. He pulled the other tail free. Briefly he considered tearing a strip and binding the wound, but that would instant draw attention to him. He gingerly tucked the bloody linen into his breeches and started for home.

Despite his efforts, passersby stared at him, looking quickly away when he tried to catch their eyes. The wound, and the blood oozing from it, must be fearsome. But the cut above his eyebrow barely stung. It was his thigh that hurt, a sharp pain that ran up to his groin and down to his ankle. Now that the first fury had left him, he found himself limping.

With frequent glances over his shoulder, and the spot between his shoulder blades tingling with nerves, he hurried home as fast as he could. Lydia was still in the kitchen, a plate of bread and cheese before her. “Oh, my dear,” she gasped when she saw him. “What happened?”

“Philippe Benoit is gone from the jail. Swett as good as admitted he took a bribe from Matthew Boothe.” Rees collapsed into a chair at the table with a groan.

Lydia frowned. “And you, no doubt, accused him to his face,” she said in exasperation. She leaned over him and tipped up his face to better see the cut over his eyebrow.

“I lost my temper,” he admitted in a low voice. “Him sitting there in a new silk waistcoat, buying drinks for all the tavern rats.”

“This isn't too serious. The wound is already beginning to close.”

“It bled like a fury,” Rees said. “I need to change my shirt.”

Lydia sighed audibly. “Very well. I'll bring up a basin of cold water.” Rees struggled to his feet, gasping with the pain. “Why are you limping?” Lydia asked.

“One of the dirty dogs kicked me,” Rees said. He went out into the hall and started up the stairs. He had to take one step at a time, like a child, and he groaned every time his injured thigh took his weight. Lydia followed with the basin of water. Once inside their room, Rees carefully lowered his breeches and took out the shirttails. Lydia inhaled. “It's from the cut over my eye,” Rees said, striving to make light of the blood. “Head wounds always bleed.”

“No, it's your leg.” Lydia fixed her gaze upon Rees's exposed thigh. He looked down. A huge purple and red bruise was spreading across Rees's freckled skin. No wonder it hurt. “I suppose I'll spend the rest of my life bandaging you up and worrying that the next injury will be your last,” Lydia said, lowering herself to the foot of the bed.

“Now, now, Lydia Jane, it's not that bad,” Rees said, sitting beside her and putting his arm around her shoulders. She burst into tears. “Really,” Rees said, not understanding this sudden emotional outburst, “the scrapes don't hurt that much.” Lydia wept harder. Rees pulled her to his chest and patted her back. Her sobs did not diminish for several minutes. Finally, using a corner of her apron to wipe her face, and holding her breath, she brought her tears under control.

“It's just that,” she said, her voice hoarse and shaking, “I don't want to be a widow. Now you've been both threatened and badly hurt within the space of a few days. Maybe you should stop. Captain Benoit is gone. Let this investigation end here.”

Rees hesitated for several seconds. He could offer her some soothing lie, but he wouldn't treat Lydia with such contempt. He told the truth. “I can't. Maybe Benoit murdered Jacob Boothe, but if he did, it was at the command of someone else. Probably John Hull. And I need to know who Hull really is. Matthew Boothe? Maybe. Did he also murder Isabella Porter? I would suspect yes, but I don't know for sure.” He'd known that at some point, Lydia would object to something he chose to do. He'd thought it would be the constant traveling for his weaving, not this, not the investigation into murders. This was something she'd participated in, several times. “Remember, in Zion?” he went on. “The murderer of Charles and Sister Chastity would never have been found without us. My friend Nate Bowditch would not have had justice, and Maggie Whitney's killer would have gone free. And there are so many more.” He paused, thinking back to other investigations. “This is what I do.”

“But what if you're killed? Or what if they come after me? We're going to have a baby now.” She put her hands protectively upon her belly.

Rees shivered. He had not thought of the peril in which he had placed his wife. A truly good husband would cease his dangerous work. But Rees knew he couldn't. Once he'd started something, he did not stop. In fact, the more resistance he met, the harder he tried. And in this case, he was working to find justice for two people that, although he had not known them well, had not deserved their deaths.

“I'll try to be careful,” he said. “That's all I can pledge. Lydia, you know me. I could promise I'd stop involving myself in these kinds of adventures. But I'd be lying. And you know I'd be lying.”

She raised her head and looked at him, her blue eyes smeared with tears. Finally she nodded. “Yes. And you do good and necessary work, along with the weaving that helps us keep body and soul together. I know that. I can't imagine what I was thinking.”

“You're thinking you love me,” Rees said, dropping a kiss upon her forehead. “But you, you must take care as well. I don't want anything to happen to you.”

She pushed him away. “Change your clothes so I can wash these. And then we'll continue this investigation. Both of us. Let's get it over with. And let the end be soon,” she added in a much lower voice. “I want to go home.”

Rees did as he was told, stripping off the bloody shirt. Lydia insisted he add the breeches: blood from the shirttails had stiffened the waistband with brownish smudges. Lydia added them to the basin while Rees changed into his last clean pair, blue dyed linen so old it was soft. “I know where Benoit has gone,” he said.

“Where?”

“To the ship. The
India Princess.
I'm going to go to the docks, see if she's sailed already.”

“Oh, and how are you going to get there?” Lydia asked. She gestured to his thigh. “Walk? On that?” Rees did not reply. “I suspect the ship is long gone. Probably out in the middle of the Atlantic by now.”

“I'll harness Amos to…” Rees began.

A light tap sounded upon the door. Lydia crossed the room to open it. “Someone is here to see you,” Mrs. Baldwin said, frowning. “Downstairs. By the kitchen.”

Lydia and Rees exchanged glances. Mrs. Baldwin's manner was odd. “Twig?” Rees said.

“Not Mr. Eaton,” she replied with a shake of her head. “And not Mrs. Foster either. Someone else.”

Lydia hurried down the steps, Rees following more slowly and cursing the pain that hobbled him. Mrs. Baldwin motioned to the door into the garden. She had not invited their guest inside. Lydia opened the door. Xenobia stood outside. She was breathless, as though she'd run all the way from the Boothe residence, and her face was wet with tears.

“What happened?” Lydia asked.

“Miss Peggy is missing.”

 

Chapter Twenty-seven

“Missing?” Mrs. Baldwin's shrill question cut through the sudden quiet.

“You mean she ran off?” Rees suggested. For the first time, he wondered if she knew Captain Benoit, a man handsome enough to set any maiden's heart to beating. “Was her bed slept in? Did she leave last night?”

“She ate—well, cook says Peggy ate breakfast very early,” Xenobia replied. “I searched her room but didn't find a letter or anything. Master William wants you to come and look. Maybe you can find something that will tell us where she went.”

“Exactly when did you notice she was missing?” Rees asked.

“She didn't eat dinner,” Xenobia said. “Cook asked if Miss Peggy would be out again for supper. So, I looked for her.”

Lydia turned a significant glance upon her husband but said, “Perhaps it is a social engagement? Or maybe she is visiting with a friend?”

“She has no friends,” Xenobia said sharply. “Not lady friends, anyway. And someone in the family would know if she had plans.” When both Rees and Lydia stared at her, startled by her tone, Xenobia inhaled a deep breath. “I'm sorry. But you must understand, Miss Peggy's whole world was her father's business, especially the ships. She didn't have time for social engagements or lady friends.”

“Perhaps a man then,” Lydia said. Rees looked at her. What did she suspect?

“A man?” Xenobia barked a laugh. “And where would she meet a man? In her father's office? Yes, she ran to the counting houses every day, but her father wouldn't allow her to marry any of his employees. And that's if she'd had a chance to talk to those young men. Besides, how many men would want to wed a girl who behaves like a boy in skirts?”

Lydia did not reply, but Rees could see from her pursed lips that she did not agree with everything Xenobia was saying.

“Run and tell Master William we are on our way,” Rees said. “We'll arrive directly.” Xenobia opened her mouth but decided not to speak. With a nod, she turned and hurried away. When she had disappeared through the outside gate, Rees looked at his wife.

“All right. Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” She did not look at him.

“Whatever it is you were thinking while Xenobia was speaking.”

Lydia sighed. “Philippe Benoit is missing as well, is he not?”

“Perhaps that is a coincidence,” Rees said, sounding unsure. “As far as we know, they've never met.”

Lydia shook her head at him. “Don't tell me you haven't already thought of a possible connection between Peggy and Captain Benoit. Especially if Matthew is involved. What could be more natural than Matthew introducing his sister to one of his captains?”

“Why then did Philippe Benoit not mention her?” Rees asked.

“Perhaps he is a gentleman,” she retorted. Leaning forward, she put her hand upon Rees's arm. “I tell you, Will, when you spoke to Matthew and told him Captain Benoit was in jail, Peggy looked horrified and frightened and determined all at once. She did not look like a woman worried about her brother, for all of her assertions. She looked like a woman in love and hearing for the first time that her man was in danger. Peggy is more involved in this affair than you believe.”

Rees hesitated. He'd learned to trust Lydia's intuition, and Peggy had been acting strangely. But in love with Philippe Benoit, a foreigner, and a man so far out of her social class as to be virtually invisible? He did not see how she would have gotten to know him well enough to fall in love, even if Matthew had introduced them. “Perhaps,” he said cautiously. “I don't want to make any assumptions now.”

“We'd better leave,” she said briskly. “The Boothes will be expecting us.”

Rees harnessed Amos to the buggy and helped Lydia over the high wheel. They drove to the harbor, Rees keeping a sharp eye out for the deputy and his lackeys. It was possible that they'd lost interest in him, but he couldn't be sure.

He could see, from the dock end of the Boothe wharf, that the
India Princess
was gone. “Blast,” he muttered, disappointment welling up inside him. The ship had sailed a day early, just as he'd feared.

Now he just needed to know
when
the
India Princess
had sailed. He looked around the busy wharf, busier now after noon than during the morning, as everyone hurried to complete the day's work. A street vendor hawking pies caught Rees's attention, reminding him he'd eaten nothing since breakfast. “Wait here,” he told Lydia. He jumped down and approached the man. Grizzled and tanned dark, he looked to Rees's eyes like a sailor, too old to go to sea and yet wanting to live out his final years around the ships. “I'll take a pie,” Rees said, handing over a penny. As the man wrapped the pie in a bit of brown paper and handed it over, Rees asked, “How early do you get here?” His first mouthful demolished almost a quarter of the pie.

“Dawn, most days.”

“Did you see the
India Princess
leave?”

“Aye. She sailed with the tide, first thing this morning. Light enough so I could see the wooden eagle at her bow.” Rees gave him another ha'penny in thanks for the information and returned to Lydia.

“The
Princess
sailed at dawn this morning,” Rees said. “Peggy Boothe could not have been on her because the cook saw her at breakfast. But I'll wager Benoit was.” He offered Lydia the pie. “Care for a bite?”

She eyed it with doubt. “No, thank you.”

“It's good.” He took another big bite. Although Rees couldn't identify the meat, the gravy was savory with sage and full of fresh vegetables.

“The Boothes are expecting us,” she reminded him. Rees nodded and quickly ate the remainder of the pie. Then he wiped his fingers on the greasy paper and took up the reins.

Rees parked the buggy in the yard behind the Boothes' house. He'd planned to leave it with the grooms while he and Lydia walked to the front of the house. But as they alighted, Xenobia came out to the steps behind the kitchen and gestured frantically to them. Rees, who resisted entering any house through the back door, stopped and shook his head. But Lydia had no such hesitations. She put on a burst of speed, traveling up the drive at such a pace she left Rees behind her. He hurried after her so they reached the steps together.

“Where have you been?” Xenobia asked, holding the door open. “Master William has been waiting a good hour.”

Rees, who felt sure less time had elapsed, grunted.

“He's waiting in the morning room.” She ran ahead of them, pattering across the black and white marble floor. But William Boothe did not wait for them to reach the morning room. He popped out of the door and darted across the hall to meet them. His neck cloth had come untied, but he didn't seem to notice.