Page 13 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
“You don’t know how to cook a potato?” That jarred him from complacency. A woman who couldn’t cook? She had definitely been gently reared, and he’d better quit admiring those fine dark eyes.
His confidence reasserted itself. “Then you need me. Let’s verify that all the gates and doors are locked. Then give me a key, and I’ll be off to find a maid, and to see what the village offers in the way of provisions. I’ll try not to be gone long, and Wolfie is here to protect you.” He followed her into the yard and snapped his fingers at his hound, who came over, floppy tail wagging, for a shaggy head scratch.
“He’s a beautiful animal,” she said, almost wistfully. “I’ve never been able to keep one.”
“I’ll teach you his commands when I return. First, let us be certain no one has attempted to visit while we were gone.” Readjusting his thinking, he treated her as he would a lady stopping at the inn, placing her gloved hand on his arm and leading her to the front door. It would be tough remembering how to behave in civilization, but this was good practice.
She’d actually locked up. In the country, folk seldom did. She produced a key ring and entered the now empty house.
Yesterday, it had been full of people. Today, the loneliness had seeped in. Rafe had never lived alone and had no desire to start now. A maid was a good place to start.
As promised, he checked all the locks. The widow had even shut all the windows and knew to hold them closed with sticks—she must have come from the city. He opened the window in the kitchen a bit to air the place out.
She was still standing in the middle of the front room wherehe’d left her, her gloved hands clasped in her skirt as she studied her surroundings with tears in her eyes. They might both be thrown out on their heads when the heirs arrived, but until then...
“Wolfie will patrol the grounds. The kitten needs to be let out.” He handed her the key ring. “Keep the doors locked.”
He’d lost friends in battle. He knew the pain. It would take time for her to recover from loss. He couldn’t offer comfort, yet.
But he hadn’t had a woman in much too long and longed for a friendly hug and kiss. The widows he’d known had acknowledged the same loneliness. They were often welcoming on chilly, lonely nights. In the dark, it didn’t matter if he was nobody.
NINE: VERITY
Quartermaster Sergeant Rufus Russell—knownas Rafe, Verity smiled a little at this insistence—was the most deliberately aggressive man she’d ever encountered. Most men she had known, however vaguely, had been polite, bowing and scraping if they wanted something and ignoring her existence otherwise.
Rafe just walked in, declared himself at home, and went to work proving it.Obnoxious. But right now, she felt like a fluffy seed blowing on the wind. She needed grounding—and a roof over her head. How many homes could one lose in a lifetime? Rafe gave her confidence that all might be well, if she developed a plan.
She wasn’t at all certain she was ready to think. It brought back too many fears...
She fed Marmie—Manny? Marmot?—some ham and cheese from the larder, then let him out. She couldn’t even decide on a name. How could she possibly decide what to do with her future? Evidence that she wasn’t thinking at all— she should have picked up scraps from the buffet for the kitten.
She fixed tea for herself. Then, while the sergeant was out, she returned to studying the floorboards in the front room. Thekitchen was flagstone, so she was reasonably certain if Miss Edgerton had saidboards, she meant the front room.
How did one pry up floors? She crouched down and pushed and pulled at a wide plank. She knew so extremely little of life outside of her father’s books and her uncle’s counting house... She stood again and brought her heel down on a board. It creaked but didn’t move. Were boards laid over dirt? On joists, she thought, to raise the floor above rainwater. She tried to recall treatises on architecture she’d removed from her father’s library. Had she packed any of those in the crates she’d ordered delivered here?
The original cottage floor had probably been dirt or stone. The boards most likely had been added later. She started at the kitchen end of the parlor and systematically stomped on each board with her good foot. All she did was make the broken one hurt.
Had she been wrong about Miss Edgerton’s last words? It wasn’t as if she’d been clear. It had just made sense to assume thatPapers. Under... bor. . .sssssmeant she’d hidden something under the floorboards. She couldn’t imagine what kind of papers, but they must be important. A will, perhaps?
She’d also saidtea. Had she known she’d been poisoned? Why had she not named her killer instead? Because the papers would reveal the killer?
Shudder.Therewould be a reason for someone to break in. How long would it take to find out who the killer and would-be thief was? The poor sergeant couldn’t live in a lean-to in the yard forever.
And she couldn’t occupy a house not hers for very long at all. She needed to find the papers before she was thrown out.
She let Marmie in, locked the door, and faced the inevitable.
She couldn’t sleep on the sofa forever any more than Rafe could sleep in the yard. She had to go upstairs, invade Miss Edgerton’s personal quarters. She’d done this for her parents. She’d hated every minute of it, the invasion of their private lives,knowing they kept tattered underwear and love letters from their youth...
But she knew from her correspondence that Miss Edgerton seldom ever saw her sister and nieces. They were farm folk and weren’t likely to find time or means to travel from Yorkshire during harvest or anytime soon. Verity had asked in her letter to them if they wished to direct her in disposal of the cottage.
She’d be doing them a favor to start cleaning out private possessions. Or should she wait until Rafe found a maid?
In either case, she must go upstairs and look for a place to sleep. Staying in Miss Edgerton’s home seemed simpler than contemplating setting into the unknown alone—an effort akin to leaping off a mountain into the ocean. The journey here had taken all the courage she could muster.
She took the narrow stairs from the kitchen up to the wide loft over the parlor. The kitchen had been added on and had no second floor. The centuries-old cottage loft had probably once held hay for the animals kept below. People used to sleep with the animals, she’d read. She couldn’t imagine anything more unpleasant... Well, except for murder.
The loft was enclosed but not divided. A heavy drapery hung between the front and back walls, with a rope to pull it forward to create a separate room. She knew Miss Edgerton had company occasionally, since there were two beds on either side of the curtain, and she’d invited Verity to visit.
