Read Online Silence of Scandal by Jackie Williams - Free Book Online

with a battle axe and dented my helmet. My head became stuck and cook had to use goose grease on my ears before it would shift. My buttocks still smart at the memory of the thrashing we both received but how were we to know that the armour was three hundred years old. It looked spanking new to us and it seemed a rotten waste not to use it.” Laughter filled his tone even as tears filled his eyes as he almost choked at the memory of his mad and exciting adventures with his brother.
    Giles looked up from the smoking fire briefly.
    “Perhaps it has not been sold but placed in storage. I expect Geoffrey will be able to shed more light on what has been happening, though from the look of neglect in the parkland I think that something terrible has gone on for a long time. I know that you don’t want gossip spreading but servants tend to know everything and the situation is too desperate for awkward feelings. I would ask them what they have heard as soon as we have some insights from Geoffrey.” Giles blew the smoking tinder into flames.
    There was a knock at the door. A young maid walked in and bobbed a curtsey before she brought a bottle of brandy and two glasses to the desk.
    “Begging your pardon, Your Grace but Geoffrey from down at the Dower House has arrived. Shall I send him in?”
    Alexander nodded.
    “Please, and furnish us with an extra glass. Lay another setting at the dinner table as well. I doubt I will finish speaking to Geoffrey anytime soon. Prepare him a room too. I think we will be at this half the night.”
    She bobbed another curtsey as she glanced at Giles who was now stoking the fire with logs of wood and rubbing his hands as he warmed himself.
    Geoffrey came in as the maid left.
    “That’s Bethany, cook’s niece. She’s a good little worker. The Duchess has tried to keep as many on as possible but with no income and savings dwindling…” he shuffled his feet nervously on the bare floorboards.
    Alexander poured two generous glasses of brandy and then waited while Bethany brought a third glass and filled it before he spoke again.
    “Right, I want to hear everything you know from the beginning. Don’t spare me a thing. I have to discover all before I can see what to do, though at this stage I am beginning to wonder if there is anything I can do.”
    Geoffrey sat in the chair opposite Alexander as Giles leaned against the mantle.
    “I can only tell you what I remember for the first part of the story. I was young at the time and probably didn’t understand all of it but it must be something important because I recall the day vividly. My father was steward as you know but he never revealed much at home and certainly not anything to me. He said that all matters of the estate were between him and your father and he never discussed them but I was about the house all the time and heard things mentioned. I knew that there were already stresses on the estate income. One evening, not long after Phillip had been sent to school, I overheard an argument between my father and yours. I feared that my father would find himself jobless when he told yours that he was a fool for persisting with payments to someone.” Alexander looked as though he was about to ask who when Geoffrey waved him down. “No names were ever mentioned or if they were I don’t recall them. They eventually came to some sort of agreement over this money but I had the feeling it was Smith the farmer. I recall something about a funeral and your father feeling obliged to pay as no charges had been brought.”
    Alexander’s frown became deeper.
    “You mean that you think father paid Smith to keep his mouth shut about Lily? But it was an accident. None of us knew that the girl had slipped into the barn. Surely my father didn’t think Phillip did it on purpose?”
    Geoffrey shrugged.
    “Who knows, I am only telling you the feeling I had about the argument at the time. If you remember, Smith left with Lily’s body the day she died. He’d said