Regency Masquerade

Chapter Thirty Four

"I am certain you wish to be off to examine the scene, so I will not keep you long. Richard and I were riding back along the public path from Selby, when someone shot at him from the hedgerows. I fired back immediately and John tells me I hit the man and killed him." Frances summarised succinctly.

"Did you see anything suspicious beforehand?" he enquired, taking this in his stride.

"No, nothing ... but Richard may have. I remember he called out a warning to me just before he was shot."

"And the assailant? Do you have any idea who he was?"

"I never saw him," she replied honestly. "I stayed with Richard. It was John, my manservant, who went to investigate when he arrived to help us; but I can tell you one more thing," she paused briefly, "I am certain it was no accident! Well, you will see for yourself, Squire. If you do not mind, I will stay here. John will take you to the body if that is agreeable to you?"

Squire Herbert acquiesced, and Hopgood was sent for to accompany him back to the scene of the crime. They rode the couple of miles, John slowing as they neared the scene. "It was about here," said John dismounting. "Look there is some blood on the road, that must be where Lord Carleton was lying." He turned back the way they had come, "The body ought to be over there. Would you like me to show you, sir?"

"No I'd better look for myself, if you wouldn't mind waiting here, Hopgood?"

The Squire spent a few moments looking up and down the path first, then walked slowly to the hedgerow and soon saw the body of a man, lying where he had fallen on the ground. He bent down to examine the body. The cause of death was obvious, a bullet to the chest. Gingerly he reached into the man's coat pockets and drew out about ten shillings, a couple of French coins, a linen handkerchief and the stub of a coach ticket to Guildford.

Interesting. It was clear the man was not a local, in fact the indications were he was not even English. Squire Herbert stood up and looked around in the immediate vicinity of the body and soon spotted a pistol in the grass to his right. He picked it up and sniffed it, yes, it had definitely been fired recently. He judged where the assailant would have been standing when he was shot and peered through the hedgerow to ascertain what he would have seen. He found himself in agreement with Lady Carleton, it had undoubtedly been a deliberate ambush.

"I doubt that there is anymore to learn here. Would you wait here to guard the corpse and I shall send some of my men to collect it and take it to the church," Squire Herbert requested. John nodded in resignation and sat down to wait.

The squire was already thinking ahead, he would need to send a man to Guildford to canvas the inns for a missing guest. Once they knew the identity of the assailant, it might give them a lead to the motive. When Lord Carleton regained his senses he would ask him to have a look at the corpse and see if he recognised him, but the more he considered it, the more he fancied the man was a foreigner. French possibly, if the coins in his pocket were an indication.

At least, from what he had seen so far, there was no doubt the man had been killed in self-defence. He could not quite believe Lady Carleton had shot him herself, and suspected it had actually been her husband who had fired the gun, although how he had managed it with a wounded shoulder was something to mull on.

Carleton came to his senses gradually and discovered that his shoulder hurt like the devil and he was lying on the couch in the front parlour. What on earth had happened? Frances saw that he was awake and hastened to his side. Gently she kissed his forehead, "How do you feel? You saved my life, you realise?"

"What?" he asked, still half in a daze.

"You were shot, do you remember?"

She saw he was struggling to recollect what had occurred and filled him in. "I fired back, in the direction of where I thought the shot had come from, and I hit him. To be more precise, John says I killed him. It was the Comte Duverne. Richard, I am so sorry, it is all my fault you were shot!"