Jenny tilted her head to one side. “Why you care how Sybil died?”
“Because I don’t believe she threw herself off the cliffs of Northcott Gorge, just as I don’t believe Hannah Grant drowned herself in the millpond or Leopold Seaton simply fell off his horse coming home drunk one night from the Blue Boar. I think they were murdered. And I think whoever killed them is now responsible for the death of Emma Chandler and all the other killings that have followed on from it.”
Jenny swung her axe to sink the blade deep into the chopping block beside her. “You’re wrong. Sybil did throw herself off the cliffs of Northcott Gorge.”
“How can you be so certain?”
She swiped her sweaty face with the sleeve of one crooked elbow. “Because I was there.”
“At the gorge?”
Jenny lowered her arm, her hands dangling loose at her sides as she silently stared back at him.
He said, “Tell me what happened.”
She continued to stare at him, and there was something about her face in that moment that reminded him so much of the last time he’d seen Jamie Knox that it tore at his gut.
“Why?” she said at last.
And he thought, Because I don’t want to believe that the man who was like a brother to Jamie is a killer, although I am very, very afraid that he is.
But all he said was, “It’s important.”
She twitched one shoulder. “Sybil never made any secret of the fact she was lying with his lordship—had been for months. She was so pretty, no one was surprised when she caught his eye. He went after all the pretty girls.”
Sebastian studied the flaring line of Jenny’s cheekbones, the gentle curve of her lips. She was still an extraordinarily attractive woman. And he found himself wondering if she herself had once attracted Leopold Seaton’s attentions. If so, Seaton must have quickly realized that this woman was far too dangerous to trifle with.
She drew a painful breath. “But Sybil . . . Somehow she convinced herself things were different with her. She was so excited when she realized she was carrying his child. She thought once he knew, he’d set her up in a fine house in Ludlow with servants and a carriage and fancy clothes and jewels. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Said I was jealous and didn’t want her to be happy.”
“So what happened?”
“She told him about the baby on Midsummer’s Eve, during the bonfires. At first he just laughed at her for thinking he’d acknowledge one of his bastards. But she didn’t take it well, so then he flew into a rage. Told her if she tried to claim he’d fathered her brat, he’d have her taken up for being a whore and whipped through the village at the cart’s tail.” Jenny swiped at her forehead again. “He was like that. He could be smiling and oh so handsome one minute, and then, just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“he’d turn mean and ugly. In the end, he pushed her away from him hard enough to send her sprawling. Then he just walked off and left her there on the ground.”
She fell silent. Sebastian held himself very still, waiting for her to continue.
She said, “I went to help her up; put my arms around her and told her everything was gonna be all right. But she wouldn’t stop crying. She was talking wild, about what a fool she’d been and how she just wanted to die—that she ought to go throw herself off Monk’s Head. Then she pulled away from me and ran off into the night.”
He could picture the scene all too well. The hellish glow from the bonfires lighting up the darkness and reflecting on the young girl’s tears. The warm night air heavy with herb-scented smoke. The laughter and excitement of villagers drunk on cider and a primitive tradition older than anyone knew.
“What did you do?” he asked quietly.
“What you think I did? I found Jude, and we went after her.”
“To Northcott Gorge?”
Jenny nodded. “Jude, he didn’t think she’d really do it, even though she was standing at the edge of the cliff when we got there. The wind was whipping at her skirts and blowing her hair across her face. I begged her to get back from the edge, and Jude, he told her not to be such a damned fool. She looked over at us—didn’t say anything, just looked at us in a quiet, steady way that scared the hell out of me. There was a full moon that night, and I could see the determination in her eyes. Then she just . . . stepped over the edge into nothing.”
Jenny fell silent again, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on the distance, and Sebastian knew she was seeing again the young woman’s skirts billowing in the moonlight, hearing the bone-breaking thump and tumble of her body hitting the rocks as she plummeted into the gorge.