Antonia Hodgson - A Death at Fountains Abbey

The faint lines about her eyes and mouth suggested she was in her late twenties. Aislabie’s London home had burned down in the winter of 1701. If by some miracle his youngest daughter had survived the fire, she would be nearing thirty now.

‘Elizabeth?’ I ventured quietly, to Lady Judith.

Her wide blue eyes gleamed, but she said nothing.

Aislabie led his charge forward as if he were presenting her at court. She moved gracefully, but her expression was curiously blank, as if she had left her character tidied away in her chamber. Aislabie, in contrast, was almost overcome with feeling. He looked on her as one might expect any father would look upon a lost daughter. With wonder at her return, fear that he might lose her again, and with love: ferocious love.

‘Mr Hawkins. May I introduce Mrs Elizabeth Fairwood. My daughter.’

Lady Judith exchanged a glance with Sneaton – frustration and concern, swiftly suppressed.

Aislabie was smiling, tears welling in his eyes. ‘My daughter,’ he said again, in a whisper. But there was something fragile in his smile, a touch of doubt in his words. Was this truly his daughter, lost in a fire so long ago? How could she have escaped? And where had she been, these past twenty-seven years?

Mrs Fairwood lifted her head. Her eyes were as dark and compelling as Aislabie’s. And what a fierce, angry look they bestowed upon me! I’d been thrown such a look before by a woman – but at least I had earned it first. One would think – as an abstract example – I’d promised to marry her, then accidentally slept with her sister.

I stepped into a low bow, pressing my hand to my heart. ‘Madam. I am truly honoured.’

I was mocking her, and she knew it. Her gaze shifted somewhere beyond my right shoulder. ‘So the queen has sent you to discover who threatens us? Extraordinary. Were there no gentlemen available at court?’

Aislabie looked startled. ‘You know of the letters?’

‘The servants talk, Mr Aislabie.’

The sun had gone in as we spoke and the sky was heavy with rain clouds, as if summoned by her ill humour. A few light spots of rain spattered upon my face. Mr Aislabie . Not, Father .

He began to splutter out a reply, but she stopped him with a curt gesture. ‘I believe this morning’s note contained a threat to my own life?’

‘You will come to no harm under my roof, Lizzie,’ Aislabie promised.

I had never seen a woman who looked less like a Lizzie.

We had all been ignoring the rain, but with the next gust of wind it began to pour down with a sudden violence. Lady Judith jumped down from her horse, handing the reins to an approaching groom. ‘Inside!’ she ordered, as if the thought might not have occurred to us. We rushed up the steps into the great hall. Sneaton was the last to arrive, wiping the rain from his coat.

‘Well,’ Lady Judith said. She stood by the window with her hands on her hips, scowling at the weather. Her plans for a ride about the gardens were ruined. A blinding flash lit up the grey stone walls, followed by a deep roll of thunder. Once it was gone, the room seemed darker still. Bursts of rain blew in through the open doorway, splattering on the flagstones. The butler pushed the great arched doors shut with an echoing thud. It felt as if he were shutting us all together inside a tomb.

‘I must change from these wet clothes,’ Lady Judith declared. She strode up the great oak stairs, her long legs taking the steps two at a time. Legs, in woollen drawers. Legs, visible, on stairs. I’m sure I paid them very little attention.

I moved to the window, studying the scene that she had been watching moments before. The sudden storm had turned the whole world grey, rain sweeping across the grounds in great squalls. A herd of deer sheltered beneath a beech tree, barely visible through the downpour. The men working on the new building had clustered beneath large waxed canvases that looked like the black sails of a pirate ship. The water poured off the edges in thin streams.

Mrs Fairwood joined me at the window. ‘You think me a fraud,’ she said, breathing the words on to the glass. ‘You are here to expose me.’

I laughed. ‘No, indeed. I didn’t know of your existence until this morning.’

She frowned, and wiped the mist from the windowpane with a grey gloved hand.

The sky flashed again with lightning. ‘Glad I’m not out there,’ I said, nodding towards the men sheltering under canvas. ‘Hard work in foul weather.’

‘Indeed,’ she murmured, seemingly surprised that I should consider it. ‘And they were not paid last quarter day. Mr Aislabiedisputes the bill.’

‘They’ll be paid.’ Mr Sneaton had limped across the room to join us. ‘Mr Simpson drinks hard and counts poor. One day I’ll catch him sober and we’ll make his bill tally. His men are fed and most are quartered on the estate. They won’t starve.’

The rain had eased off enough for the men to discard the waxed sheets and take up their tools again. The sound of hammers and chisels rose up once more, ringing against stone.

‘They won’t starve,’ Mrs Fairwood echoed. ‘What good fortune they enjoy.’

If Sneaton heard the sarcasm, he chose to ignore it. ‘I’ll make a list of all the servants for you sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Mark those who could visit the laundry and the linen cupboards unseen.’

‘-Sneaton!’ Aislabie was heading towards his study. ‘Mr Hawkins, we shall speak further at dinner. And you must visit Mr Hallow, my head keeper. He knows all the poachers hereabouts. See that you ask him about the Gills.’

Sneaton bowed to us and turned upon his good leg, hobbling after his master.

‘You have your orders, sir,’ Mrs Fairwood said, looking pleased to be rid of me.

‘Yes. I’m afraid I’m excessively poor at following orders. If it is not too much trouble, madam, I should like to hear your story. Dinner must be an hour away, at least.’

She drew back. ‘It would not be seemly to be alone in your company, sir.’

I had spent so long in London, I had quite forgotten the cramped etiquette found in some parts of the country. I assured her I had no designs upon her virtue. She was a fine-looking woman, without question, but hers was a cold beauty, worn like armour. And she lacked that spark I loved, the wit and play that made seduction so enjoyable. I might as well flirt with a marble statue.

‘Well.’ Mrs Fairwood remained reluctant. ‘I still do not see how it is your business.’

In truth, it wasn’t. I had one urgent task at Studley Hall, and it did not involve Mrs Fairwood in the slightest. But that must wait until nightfall. If, in the meantime, I did not investigate the threats made against his family, Mr Aislabie would grow suspicious. And a lost daughter, returned from the grave? I confess – I was intrigued.

I reached into my pocket and drew out the most recent note. Mrs Fairwood read it slowly. ‘ You are not alone by day or night .’ She shuddered. ‘How terrible.’

I found it curious that it was this line that disturbed her the most, more than the threat of being burned alive in her bed. ‘It was pinned to a butchered doe. Her fawn had been cut from the womb.’

‘Dreadful,’ she said, in an absent tone.

I plucked the note from her hands. ‘I am under orders from Queen Caroline to investigate these threats. Whoever wrote this letter believes that you are Elizabeth Aislabie, saved from the fire. They would have you burn along with your father. You are the fawn , Mrs Fairwood.’

She considered this for a long moment, her lips caught in a deep pout. ‘Very well,’ she decided. ‘Let us be done with it. The library should be empty, unless Metcalfe has taken up residence.’