“I have known other men like him—that bluff, hearty sort. Think they own the world, and they very often do. They stand astride the world like Colossus and they never see what they crush beneath their feet. I hated him from the moment I first made his acquaintance.”
I had no choice but to break in. “Why did you accept a position in his employ?” I ventured softly.
Henry blinked at me. “Employ? I was not speaking of Sir Cedric. I was talking about Lucian Snow.”
“Ah, yes, of course. I do apologise. Go on,” I said with an encouraging smile, but inwardly I was thinking feverishly.
“His inhumanity, his impiety, characteristics to be deplored in a clergyman. To listen to him expounding his plan to reform the Gypsies did not improve my opinion of him,” he said angrily. “And when I heard how he had left the army and taken a living so blithely, as a means of keeping himself with little effort and no care whatsoever for his parishioners, it made me quite physically ill.”
He looked intently at me, his eyes alight with passion. “Do you know what I would have given for a living of my own? My very heart’s blood. It was all I ever wanted. A small country parish where I could do some good. That was my entire life’s ambition. To shepherd a flock. To guide, to help, to protect, to inspire. That is all I wanted. It was my dearest dream, and it was taken from me. And given to a man like that—no, not a man. A child. He looked at it as if it were a plaything, to be picked up and cast aside when it suited him, with no care for the needs of his parishioners, no interest in them save whether they had pretty daughters,” he said, with real bitterness.
His hands were holding mine very tightly, and even if I had wanted to remove them, I doubt I could have done so.
“But I was cordial to him, because it is my job to be cordial to everyone with whom Sir Cedric chooses to associate. I told myself I should not have to bear him long. He would only be here until the wedding was celebrated. After that he would return to his lodgings in the village, and I would see him no more. I would think on him no more.”
Henry’s eyes slid away from mine then, and I knew he was seeing it all again in his mind’s eye.
“And then she came to me, in tears. He was blackmailing her, demanding payment for his silence over some youthful transgression he had discovered through mutual acquaintances. She would not tell me what it was, only that he had misunderstood something quite terribly, had twisted an innocent mistake into something ugly and untrue. She had no money, and she faced utter ruin if he was not silenced.”
The room was quite warm, I decided, or perhaps it was just that we were sitting too near the fire. But I dared not move and draw attention to myself. Henry seemed not to notice. A drop of perspiration trickled down his hairline, but he did not dash it away.
“You must not think we are friends. I would not presume such a thing—but we are confidants after a fashion. I told her of my disappointed hopes, and she told me of hers. She trusted me.” My mind raced on, piecing the snippets he dropped in my lap. I had never heard any scandal attached to Lucy’s name, but she had lived quietly. And if the youthful transgression was an innocent mistake as she claimed, it seemed reasonable we would not have heard talk of it. As for her relationship with Ludlow himself, it was entirely understandable. A young, romantic girl betrothed to a much older man of stern temperament—what other gentleman would serve so well as a confidant than her husband’s cousin, her own future kinsman?
I turned my attention back to Ludlow. He picked up the thread of his tale, his voice lower. The perspiration was beading freely on his brow now, but still he did not move.
“She came to me, that first night we were here in the Abbey, when we were introduced to Lucian Snow at dinner. She was in tears. I have never seen her so distraught. It was half an hour before she could speak and tell me what he had done.”
Here he broke off and, coming to himself a little, he wiped the sweat off of his brow. His other hand still clutched mine.
“What had he done?” I prompted softly.
“He threatened to reveal all to Cedric and the earl if she did not offer him payment. He said he would see her ruined if she failed.”
He leaned a little closer, his expressive eyes dark with anguish. “Can you imagine what that meant to her? To see that monster here? In polite company, received by his lordship as an honoured guest? Sitting at table and making polite conversation with her? She was shattered by it, wholly. I could not believe that a man of God could be so foul. But I heard with my own ears when that man would talk so lightly of worldly things. I realised the picture she painted of him was a true one. And I knew he must be prevented from ever hurting anyone else.”
I swallowed hard, sickeningly conscious of the fact that I was holding hands with a murderer. How had I gotten it so profoundly wrong?
“So you determined you must stop him,” I said evenly. It would not do to alarm him now. There was nothing else to do but encourage him calmly to tell his tale.
“You must see that I had no choice,” he said, a touch of anger sharpening his words.
“Of course,” I told him, my tone soothing. “It had to be done.”
His expression lightened at once. “Yes, that is it. It had to be done. You do understand. I did what must be done. And I am not repentant of it, save for the burden of guilt upon my immortal soul. It was no different than hunting a fox. He was predatory and destructive and he had to be stopped. So I took the jewels from Lady Hermia’s room and while he was turned with his back to me, gloating over them, as trusting as a lamb, I struck him down. It was an easy thing, so much easier than I thought to put my hand to his neck and finish it. He did not even struggle. He simply opened his mouth and gave one great sigh and his eyes rolled over white. I had a bad moment when he would not turn loose of the jewels,” he said, almost apologetically. “I thought I would have to force his hand open, but there was one last shudder and his fingers relaxed. I did not know the dead would do such a thing. I put them into my pocket, and later I left them with his things. I thought someone might find them there, and in death know him for what he was.”
He bowed his head, raising our clasped hands until they touched his damp brow. We were silent for a long while; he seemed spent, and yet somehow cleansed, as if talking of the deed had washed him free of the stain of it. For my part, I knew I should never be clean of it, but still questions lingered.
“I am curious about something,” I said softly. “When we entered the chapel and Lucy was discovered, standing over the body, why did you cry out and ask her what she had done? You as much as accused her of murdering Snow herself.”
He flushed painfully. “That grieves me more than taking the life of Lucian Snow. Snow was a devil, and devils must be cast out. But implicating Miss Lucy was a sin I cannot forgive in myself.” His expression was rueful. “I was tempted, my lady. I saw in that instant she might be blamed for it, just for a little while, and Cedric might break with her.”
“And if he did not marry, you might inherit his millions,” I finished.
He nodded, the flush ebbing to leave him white-lipped. “So much money, so much good might be done with it. But it was unworthy of me to covet what is not mine, and I am wholly repentant.”
“But why did you attack Miss Lucy and Miss Emma with the brandy?”
His eyes widened. “I would never—that is, I could not. Not a lady. Least of all so good, so deserving a lady, nor her sister. I could never raise my hand against an innocent. I promise you, I have confessed my sins. Do not lay that one at my door as well.”