Page 100 of A Debt Inherited

“Blood?”

“No, sir,” Hill said at once. “None that I saw.”

The answer should have comforted him. It did not. There were harms that left no blood upon a bonnet.

He held out his hand.

Perkins crossed the room and placed the bonnet upon the table as gently as if it might wake.

Bennet touched the torn ribbon.

For a moment, the kitchen, the servants, the tenants, the fire, the journal, all withdrew to the edge of sense. He saw only Elizabeth’s hand tying that ribbon beneath her chin, impatient with the knot, laughing because the wind had taken the brim against her cheek.

Then the moment passed.

He drew the bonnet closer and looked at Hill.

“Who knows?”

“Only Perkins and me, sir. Weller saw the marks. Dawes knows nothing of this.”

“Then it remains so.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bennet opened the journal again. His pencil hovered above the page.

“Time found?”

“Near dawn,” Hill said. “A little before first light.”

“Who has crossed that lane since midnight?”

Perkins swallowed. “No one I saw, sir.”

“Since noon yesterday?”

“Two carts before dark. One from Goulding’s side. One I could not name. A boy with sheep. Vickers with his barrow. No lady.”

Bennet wrote each word.

“Perkins.”

“Sir.”

“You will go home by the back way. You will tell your wife I required you on estate business and nothing more.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Weller, Dawes, the same. If any neighbour asks, you were mending a fence by moonlight because I have become unreasonable in my old age.”

No one smiled.

“Go separately. Keep to your farms. If I send, come at once. Bring no sons.”

The men bowed and withdrew one by one, slow with fatigue.

Hill remained.