Page 36 of The Case of the Curate

“If it was what the girl wanted.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No.” He actually sounded shocked. “She might have had better options, for all I knew, girl like that. I was waiting till the curate suggested it to her.”

“I think he was going to the night she died.”

Jack nodded and dropped his gaze. “That was my understanding.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Kate said. “Did you see her at all that evening?”

He shook his head. “No, they were all busy in the house. Saw her at tea in the servants’ hall about half past six, and that was all.”

“How did you find her?”

“Never spoke to her.”

Was there a hint of regret there? Or was he just being defensive? Kate persevered. “Did she seem worried? Relieved? Happy?”

Jack scratched his chin, looked up at the sky, then chewed on his lower lip. “Sort of excited,” he said at last. “Distracted.”

“Why do you think that was? Because she had heard you were willing to marry her?”

Kate expected him to look pleased, even to preen a little, but he only frowned. “Not sure it was that kind of excitement.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t what she wanted in life. I always knew that.”

And yet he’d been prepared to marry a girl he knew would only be settling for him because she was desperate and had no other way out. Kate had seen him with his horses. He was a gentle and kind man beneath his brusque exterior. Dinah and her child could surely have been content with him, which made the tragedy of her death even worse.

“You think she had hope of a better offer?” Kate asked. Not Rupert. Please not Rupert…

“Maybe,” Jack said without conviction.

“Like whom? Lewis was in no position to marry her.”

“Nor anyone else on the staff.”

“What about other people’s staff? A gentleman, even?”

“Gentleman wouldn’t have married her. She knew that much.”

Kate nodded. Rupert had said more or less the same thing. Dinah had been well aware that the squire’s son, the father of her child, wouldn’t marry her. But had she hopes of Rupert’s goodness? Had she even known of his aristocratic birth that put him much farther above her even than the squire?

She dragged her mind back to practicalities. “After you ate in the kitchen, did you go back there at any point? Did anything take you near the courtyard garden or the orangery?”

“No. I played a hand of cards with the grooms, locked up the carriage house, and went to see my horses had water enough. Then I went indoors to my own cottage.”

“When did you hear what had happened?”

“When the lad was sent to fetch the doctor. Never seen old Kemp so white and rattled.”

“Kemp came himself?” Kate asked in surprise.

“I think he was keeping it from as many people as possible. He never said what had happened, just to fetch Dr. Paxton to the walled garden, outside the orangery.”

Interesting. Though she couldn’t quite see how it made any difference. “Can you think who might have wanted to hurt her? Or silence her?”

The coachman shook his head slowly. “No, my lady, I can’t. But if I find ’im…” He dashed the back of his hand over his face and turned away. “Excuse me.”

Kate sloshed thoughtfully through the mud and back to the house, holding up her skirts and swerving around the worst puddles. She left her dripping umbrella in the stand by the door and was fortunate enough to run into Kemp in the hall.