Heartstone

I turned to Dyrick. 'So you were part of the plan to steal the children's assets from the start.'

'Many people do it,' Dyrick said impatiently. 'And it kept Master Hobbey and his family from penury. And gave the children, who had nobody else, a home.'

'And David a potential wife. Whether Emma wanted him or not.'

Hobbey said, 'We hoped Emma would come to love David in time. Abigail said she would have made a steady, sober wife for him, which he needed. She was right.'

'What of her needs?' I asked in sudden anger. 'That orphaned child?'

'Listen,' Dyrick said. 'Never mind the moralizing, much as you love it. The point is, what is going to happen now?'

Hobbey said, 'Yes. To Emma? And David?'

'First I need to know it all,' I answered. 'Everything. What happened, who was involved. So, Dyrick got you the children's wardship and you tried to cajole Emma into marrying David. I imagine Hugh and Michael Calfhill both counselled her to resist.'

'Yes, they did.'

'But then something went badly wrong, didn't it? Hugh died. His lands passed to Emma. Who, unless she married David, would inherit at fourteen, not twenty-one.'

Hobbey said, 'We were in a panic, we thought we would go bankrupt. After Hugh died we begged and pleaded with Emma to marry David, but she refused utterly. She said she would go to the Court of Wards and say David was not a suitable husband because of his falling sickness. Though we knew she could hardly do that alone.' Hobbey bowed his head. 'And then—then my wife had the idea of substituting Emma for Hugh.'

'And Emma agreed?'

'She agreed readily, perhaps too readily. I still do not understand why she disliked my son so much, but—she did. In fact it was David that Abigail and I needed to persuade to accept our plans.'

'And then you got rid of Michael Calfhill and moved down here. Where no one had ever seen the children.'

'Yes. It was only then that we realized that we were all trapped. Me, David, Abigail and Emma. If the truth came out we could have been in deep trouble. The only other who knew was Fulstowe.' Hobbey looked at his steward. 'He was always so good at organizing things, anticipating difficulties. And Emma—she retreated into herself, into books and archery.'

'Which she had already practised with Michael.'

'Yes. And the other tutors. We never let one stay too long. It was easy enough to deceive them at first, but it grew harder as Emma grew older. We—we became frightened of her. She never let us know what was happening in her mind. She impersonated her brother so well—sometimes I found myself thinking of her as Hugh for days at a time, somehow it eased my mind. Abigail never did—if I accidentally referred to Emma as Hugh in her presence she would shout and rail at me. But she was utterly terrified of exposure. And at the time you came there were only three years left till Emma could go to court as Hugh and claim her lands. I do not know what would have happened then.' Nor did I, I thought. Emma had truly made herself unreachable.

Hobbey continued: 'As the years passed the deception was a toll on us all. But especially on Abigail. She was the one who had to counsel Emma how to deal with the monthly woman's curse, cut and sew padding for her breasts. That only seemed to make Emma hate her, and—and somehow we all came to blame Abigail because it had been her idea. Especially David. It was not fair, it had all been done to pay my debts. But even I came to blame her. My poor wife.'

'And then Michael Calfhill returned.'

Hobbey flinched. 'He realized at once that Hugh was really Emma. The moles on her face were enough. He threatened to expose us. But Emma did not want him to.' He looked at Dyrick. 'And you had found out something about Michael, hadn't you, when he was encouraging Emma to refuse to marry David.'

'You suspected it yourself,' Dyrick answered sharply. 'You asked me to see what I could find.'

Hobbey dropped his gaze. He said, 'Someone in London told me Michael was said to have had an—improper—relationship with another student at Cambridge. And Vincent discovered there had been others.'

'So after he came this year you threatened him with exposure?'

'Yes. I got Vincent to visit him. God forgive me.'

'Sodomy is a hanging offence,' Dyrick snapped. 'I told Calfhill I would tell the world what he was if he lodged a complaint at Wards. How was I to know he would kill himself?'

'So it was suicide, after all,' I said.

'What the hell else did you think it was?' Dyrick burst out.

'You went and threatened him.' I looked at Dyrick with disgust. 'You drove that young man, who had only ever sought to help both children, to his grave.'

'I did not know he was that weak,' Dyrick said defiantly.

'You dirty shit,' Barak said.

I stared at Dyrick. 'Someone attacked me in London and warned me off the case. Was that you as well?'

Dyrick and Hobbey stared at each other, then at me. Dyrick said, 'That was nothing to do with us.'