Page 49 of Beyond the Grave
"Surely Lady Harcourt contrived to sit you next to her."
"She did, with her mother on my other side. They soon learned that I make a terrible dinner guest and gave up attempting to converse with me."
"Did you even try to have a proper conversation? Or did you sabotage it deliberately?"
"I don't give away my secrets." His eyes gleamed like polished jet.
I couldn't help a smile, although it vanished just as quickly as it rose. "Poor Miss Overton. Do you think she will give up now and set her heart on someone else?" Or was she so smitten with him that she would continue to throw herself in his path? It was a distinct possibility. I certainly couldn't imagine setting aside my affections to consider another man.
"I don't think it's up to Miss Overton but her mother. And perhaps Julia, to some extent. She hasn't accepted that I am a hopeless case, unfit for marriage."
"You're not, Lincoln. Not in the least." I raised my fork as he opened his mouth to protest. "Can we discuss something else? Please? I don't wish to go over old ground with you again. We only seem to end up fighting, and I don't like it when we do."
"Nor do I." He rose. "Tea?"
"Yes, please. So we've hit a dead end again in the search for Buchanan."
"Not quite," he said as he checked the kettle. "I'm catching a train to Emberly Park straight after breakfast." He cast an eye at the clock on the sideboard. "Seth or Gus will drive me to the station even if I have to drag one of them out of bed."
Seth chose that moment to enter, hand over his mouth, smothering a yawn.
"Speak of the devil," I said.
Seth blinked sleepily. "Huh?"
"You're driving Mr. Fitzroy and me to Paddington station this morning. Come on, eat up or we'll be late. What time does the train leave?" I asked Lincoln.
"It's inappropriate for you to join me," he said darkly.
It was not an outright refusal. I took that as a positive sign. "It's inappropriate for me to live here with four men, and yet I do. Lincoln," I said, deliberately calling him by his first name, even though Seth was listening, "let me be involved. I think I'll be of use in questioning the servants, which I'm assuming was on your agenda." At my arched brow, he nodded. "We all know that I'm better with people than you."
After a loaded silence in which his gaze didn't waver from mine, he finally gave in. "Don't make me regret it."
"Thank you," I said, in the most dignified manner I could muster, when I really wanted to let out awhoopof victory.
"Pack for an overnight stay in the village. You'll act as my sister."
"We look nothing alike. No one will believe it."
"My ward, then. It's close enough to the truth."
I hadn't thought of our relationship like that. I was an adult in my own eyes, if not that of the law. I wouldn't gain my majority until I turned twenty-one. But it threw up an interesting question—who was my legal guardian? My real father was dead, and if I had living male relatives, I didn't know them. Anselm Holloway might have been given legal guardianship when he took me in, but he'd disowned me so was that still relevant? And did it really matter if I didn't have a guardian anyway? All my needs were taken care of by Lincoln, and I owned nothing, not even the clothing I wore.
"Can we simply say I'm your assistant?" I said.
Lincoln blinked, which I took as ascent.
Seth sighed. "It seems you're going to be doing more ministry work, Charlie, and that means less time for your maid duties."
"Don't worry," I told him. "I'll only leave you the dirtiest tasks. I know how you love them."
He groaned.
The trainto the village of Harcourt in Oxfordshire took a little under two hours, and we both read most of the way, although I regularly peeked to see if Lincoln was looking at me. He wasn't.
We secured rooms at The Fox and Hound Inn, a short walk from the station. The bedrooms were separated by a private sitting room that could be accessed from each bedchamber. Lincoln had asked for entirely separate rooms, that were not joined in any way, but the proprietor had said there were none. If we wanted a sitting room, then those were the only two bedchambers available. I'd quickly accepted them before Lincoln could announce that we were going to try another inn.
"My foot's a little sore," I lied. "I don't wish to traipse all over the village in search of another place to stay. Besides, The Fox and Hound is charming." I smiled at the innkeeper as I said it, and he smiled back, handing me a key.
