Page 39 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
“I’ll eat when we return,” she promised, sounding a little stronger in her reassurances. “I arranged for Mr. Oswald to keep track of our accounts, so if you would be so kind as to do the shopping, they’ll give the receipts to him.”
“Mutton or pork, if they have it. I’ll go fishing later. We have carrots and potatoes and greens, so pick up anything that catches your fancy,” Rafe advised, pushing the little widow out the door. “We need more flour, if Oswald will have it delivered.”
She’d arranged for the mercantile to keep her accounts? She’d been here less than a week and she’d already made herself at home. Rafe supposed money would do that. It wasn’t as if he had the experience.
“Mr. Upton gave me stakes for labeling the herbs,” Verity murmured as they traipsed through the back garden. “I can use Miss Edgerton’s paints to write on them. I just need to identify them.”
“The basic plants are right there by the kitchen door. They’reprobably in her books. The others... even I may not know what they are. You’ll have to ask Mrs. Walker.” He was still furious and spoke curtly.
“I have no family other than my uncle,” she said softly, irrelevantly.
Rafe held an overhanging branch out of her way until she stepped past. It was a gray September day and the noon sun didn’t add much warmth, but it was pleasant walking along the brook toward the main footpath up to the manor. He studied on what she was telling him until he gathered all the ramifications. He didn’t like the result.
“You are hiding from your uncle? The one who inherited everything? Why?”
She shrugged. The dim light through the leaves darkened her caramel hair to a streaked brown she wore in a tight knot. “He is a drunk and not a nice man. It makes both our lives easier if he believes me dead.”
Did he want to know more? Men could beat wives without the law interfering. Penniless nieces... probably didn’t count for much either. Except she didn’t seem penniless, which might even be worse if the uncle wanted her blunt.
“You think he may have pushed your father under a carriage?” He had to ask, because it very much affected them now.
“I never would have thought so. My father was a generous man. My uncle worked for him in some capacity. I was confined to the schoolroom and paid no heed. Without the company, I shouldn’t imagine my father’s estate was worth much. So my uncle essentially lost his position when the business closed and had to start his own.”
But a child knew nothing of business, and those scraps of paper Minerva had read... Rafe reserved judgment. “If he thinks you dead, then there would be no point in following you here,” he agreed. “Or any reason to harm Miss Edgerton?”
“That’s what puzzles me,” she said as they reached the manordrive. “My father has been dead these ten years or more. No one cared what happened to me after my mother died. Why would they care now that I am dead to the world? It makes no sense.”
“Unless Miss Edgerton has more under her floors than that one packet. Perhaps we should have kept looking. If she was in the habit of painting incriminating scenes...”
“They might be in any of the illustrations we’ve already found and we didn’t notice. Or buried in the medical records we gave to Mrs. Walker. Or perhaps we’re looking at this wrong and someone simply hated her and decided to kill her for reasons known only to them.”
“And searched the cottage for what? No, someone believes she hid something. They may be wrong, but they’re searching, and it’s dangerous. Are you certain they are not searching for you?” Rafe took her arm as they approached the manor’s weathered wooden front doors.
Captain Huntley had workmen crawling all over the tower, rebuilding the interior for the expanding Reid family enterprises. Apparently replacing moldering panels wasn’t high on his list of repairs. Rafe was relieved when the knocker didn’t bring the door down.
Verity was quiet as they waited for someone to answer.
Miss Edgerton had died after Verity had arrived. After discovering the painting under the cottage floors, it was difficult for Rafe to believe it had nothing to do with the widow—who might not really be a widow.
If he was lusting after an innocent miss, he might as well shoot himself now.
Whoever had thought war was difficult? Civilization was an endless swamp in comparison.
TWENTY-FOUR: VERITY
As she tried on gowns,Verity decided she’d told Rafe all he needed to know. He had every right to be angry at her for concealing Miss Edgerton’s last words, but he didn’t have any right to her past. Whatever had happened to her father, they couldn’t prove. She might dislike her uncle for his parsimoniousness, but he’d had no reason to harm her father. And he had no particular reason to harm her.
Except... she’d stolen from him. So hiding her identity was necessary and had utterly nothing to do with Miss Edgerton’s death.
Except that painting. . .
The carriage had to be the clue, but she’d been too young to notice carriages or her father’s visitors. He had been a tough businessman. He could easily have made enemies.
Could someone else identify that carriage?
And what good would it do if they did? Which must have been what Miss Edgerton had concluded. She’d drawn a dreadful scene that had haunted her, but there had been no point in telling the grieving adolescent Verity had been back then.
Believing her father may have been murdered... Veritywished she had never seen that painting. Miss Edgerton would have understood that murder might turn her bitter and suspicious. Grief had been hard enough for the protected child she had been.
