Page 24 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
“I was rude,” he admitted. “I know you didn’t kill Miss Edgerton. I have no right to ask more.”
“For what little it’s worth, we are living together. We should trust each other. I just don’t have much experience at it.” She added another book to a small stack growing beside her, then cuddled the kitten for comfort.
He’d rather she turned to him for comfort, but that was currently out of the question.
“I’m afraid there’s not much to be known about me,” Rafe offered in return. “I grew up the son of an innkeeper, expecting to follow in his footsteps. Except Parliament macadamized the road to London and allowed the lords who owned land along that route to connect a new toll road into Norwich. The lords built a new inn on the new road. All the traffic went around us, our business failed, my father borrowed money he couldn’t repay, and we lost it all for far less than it was worth. I went to be a soldier to earn my keep.”
“And because you felt like murdering a lord or two?” she asked with that hint of amusement he occasionally detected. She set the kitten down and checked the next book.
Bent over an illustration, hair the color of rich caramel gleaming in the lamplight, she gave the appearance of an ignorant miss, but those glimpses of astuteness were revealing. He’d definitely felt like killing. “Probably. I was only seventeen. My parents now live on my uncle’s farm. What happened to your parents?” Now that she was opening up a little, he tried again.
She hesitated as she flipped through pages. Inventing a story?
“My mother developed a lung ailment. London is not the most salubrious place for an invalid, but she refused to leave us for the country, and my father’s business required that he stay.” She paused to wipe a tear with the back of her hand. “He was killed in the street when I was fifteen. My mother only lived another year.”
It sounded truthful, not that he was any kind of judge. She’d been orphaned young. That seldom went well. “And so the governess had to go?”
Straightening, she briskly started on the next book. “After my father’s death, any money that might come to me was in my uncle’s hands. We did not get along. So, that is who I am—nobody.”
An educated nobody who did her own shopping in the dirty street markets, buying meat pies. He suspected that left a gap of some years after Miss Edgerton’s departure. Inquiring how Verity supported herself during that time would be truly rude. He’d hope the uncle had provided a roof over his young niece’s head.
“Soldiersare nobodies, mere cannon fodder. It’s a struggle for anyone to become somebody.” He’d had to do it over the backs of the men above him who had died. And with hard work and an education that gave him an advantage over others.
“Do not discount good fortune in surviving, although in my experience, bad fortune comes more often, and it’s what you make of it that matters.” She took down a heavy tome she nearly dropped. “As adolescents, we were forced to make decisions for which we were not prepared.”
“And lacked the wisdom to think them through. I liked the scarlet uniform that turned girls’ heads, plus the promise of a full belly.”
She didn’t reply. Rafe glanced down. In the lamplight, he could discern a few strands of copper gleaming among the light brown of her chignon. Her nape looked very frail. “Found something?”
When she didn’t reply, he put his book on the shelf and crouched down in front of her.
She slammed the book shut and stared at him wildly. The placid lady did not terrify easily. He held out his hand.
She studied the book, studied his hand, then reluctantly placed one in the other. “She was keeping medical records. For her own use,” she hastened to add. “To learn from experience.”
He opened the ledger and scanned the fine handwriting. The lady had named names. And procedures. And dates.
“Evidence for extortion,” he concluded angrily.
“And possible reason for murder?” she whispered, staring at the unassuming ledger in horror.
“And reason for the killer to return. This goes to the manor in the morning. Meanwhile, I’m sleeping by the kitchen door and Wolfie will sleep by the front.” He stood and looked for a better hiding place than a bookshelf.
“The shelves are the best concealment,” she offered. “Look how long it took us to find it. And you should have a better bed than the floor. I know the one in the kitchen is too small. Can you not push the sofas together? Then Wolfie can lay across the kitchen door.”
He raised his eyebrows but she’d returned to working her way through the shelves as if she hadn’t just invited a complete stranger to sleep inside her house, with no more than an old woman as protection.
The woman had utterly no sense of personal safety—which was why she’d traveled here without even a maid as companion. Fearlessly stupid... He hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of her depths. And shouldn’t want to.
But as he studied the furniture arrangement and thought about sleeping under a roof, with actual cushions under him, a long-suppressed longing for a real home niggled its way through the bedrock of his soldiering years.
He’d never meant to be a bailiff, but protecting people like the widow had been what he’d been doing for most of his life. He simply had to learn to do it within the confines of civilization. Cannon wouldn’t catch a killer.
TUESDAY
SIXTEEN: PAUL
Paul studiedthe medical notes that Meera showed him after the new bailiff delivered them to the manor. With everyone else occupied, Paul was the only connection between manor and village.
