Kate nodded. He wasn’t like she’d imagined from Puck’s story. He certainly wasn’t the scowling, angry, full of hatred person she’d pictured.
“Are you here to find out who murdered Sean and Diana?”
His words so shocked Kate she couldn’t speak.
“Too much too soon?” he asked.
“Murdered?” she managed to whisper. Did he know about the body? Had he put it there?
“Again, I apologize. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just my theory. I’ve not said it out loud before.”
Kate was staring at him in silence.
“Perhaps we should start over. I’m Clive Binswood and I work at Coutts Bank in London.” He held out his hand to shake.
“I’m Kate Medlar.” She shook his hand.
He glanced down at her shoes. “How about if you and I take a walk? I haven’t seen the place in years and I’d like to see what Mrs. Guilford has done to it.”
Kate was recovering. “Will you tell me your side of what happened?”
He smiled so warmly that she smiled back. “No one has ever asked to hear my side of anything about Oxley Manor. I assume you’ve been told that I was an angry young man. Disliked by all.”
The kindness in Kate wanted to deny that, but she didn’t. “Actually, yes. I expected you to have fangs and a forked tail.”
He grinned. “No fangs. Haven’t looked to see if a tail has grown.”
She smiled as she stood up. “Yes, let’s walk. Tell me how you first came to be at Oxley Manor.”
“My guardian angel,” he said as he held open the door for her. “At least that’s what I thought at the time.”
They walked side by side down a well-kept gravel path.
Clive was looking around. “It’s hard to believe this is the same place. Bertram... He’s—”
“Nicky’s father. The drunken earl.”
“You’ve been doing your research. Bertram didn’t care about the place.”
“Only about his slow horses.”
Clive chuckled. “He said that when they made millions he’d repair everything. But he—”
Kate had heard enough about Bertram and his horses. “What about you? How was your angel involved in putting you here?”
“By the time I was fourteen, every person I’d ever lived with had died.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said.
“I grew up in houses of grief and illness and tragedy. Only quiet sadness was allowed.”
“Not good for a child,” she said.
“Understatement. But I knew nothing different. I was the passed-around kid. After my parents died when I was eight, I went from uncle to aunt to cousin.”
“Sure doesn’t sound like fun,” Kate said. “But I bet they were all so very glad to see you arrive.”
“Their joy was overwhelming.”
“Put you in the closet under the stairs, did they?”
He laughed at her reference to Harry Potter. “It was about that bad.”
“Then came Oxley Manor.”
“Yes. Then came this.” He swept his arm out. They were by a pond that had tall cattails and ducks floating on the blue water.
“But I don’t think you were welcomed,” Kate said.
“Actually, I was. Nicky and I were the same age and he’d lived such a sheltered life that I was a novelty. I knew how to ride busses and how we could hide from his father. I knew—” He waved his hand. “Anyway, it was good for us both.”
“What about you and Bertram?”
“Ever hear the saying that lazy people are brilliant at finding people to do their work for them?”
“No.”
“Then I probably made it up. I worked hard to make myself useful so I wouldn’t be sent away.”
“Been there, done that,” Kate said. He looked at her in interest. “Nope. This is your story. What changed?”
Clive lost his smile. “It was all wonderful—until Bertram pulled me out of uni after two years. He said Oxley was falling apart and I was needed here.”
“Selfish in the extreme,” Kate said. “I assume you were part of the group, but then...” She looked at him.
“In a single day, I went from being their friend to being their servant. And they bloody well let me know of my fallen status.”
“No wonder you were angry. Why didn’t you leave?”
They had reached an area with a long vista and there was a bench nearby. Clive motioned for her to sit and he took a place beside her.
“I was too afraid to leave. Oxley Manor was the only place I’d ever known any happiness. The world I’d seen outside was full of misery.”
“And there was Willa.”
Clive shook his head. “That poor woman. I was a beast to her. But then, they all were.”
“I thought they liked her.”
“Hell no! They put up with her because she paid for everything. And she applauded Byon’s hateful little plays. All Nicky had to do was smile at her and she’d get out her checkbook.”
“That is cold.”
“Her family was worse!” Clive said. “She and I were alike in that we were terrified that it would all be taken away from us. I was scared that Bertram would run the place into bankruptcy, and she was afraid Nicky and Byon would do to her what they’d done to me. One day they’d decide she was out and she’d be told to leave.”
“But if you and Willa married...”
“Yes, if she and I were together they might keep us both.”
“You to run Oxley Manor and Willa to pay for it.”
“You are exactly right.”
She took a breath. “But it all ended on one night.”
Clive took his time before speaking. “They didn’t even notice,” he said softly. “Nicky was engaged to Diana but she was gone for twenty-some hours before they realized it.”
“And Sean?”
“They would have let the horses starve before they bothered to feed them. When the police came late in the day, they fed and watered the poor creatures.”
“What do you think happened to those people?” She waited for him to say the M word again.