Page 53 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
Wordlessly, checking to be certain the back gate was closed, she let the kitten down, then picked up a laundry basket, and undaunted by his warnings, started up the stairs.
She stalked past the ripped mattresses and floorboards and began folding Mrs. Underhill’s clothes into the basket first.
“At least I didn’t leave my new shirts here.” With a sigh, Rafe folded quilts and sheets. Apparently Clement’s knife arm had grown tired by the time he climbed to the loft.
“Leave those there,” she ordered. “I will sleep on the floor until I find someone to sew a new mattress. But Mrs. Underhill may need her clothes. I can’t expect her to sleep in this.”
Rafe thought pounding his head against hard objects might become his new pastime.
“Do you believe that sot poisoned your governess?” he asked bluntly. He’d been tossing that notion around since he’d caught Clement and simply couldn’t see it.
That stopped her madness momentarily. She set down the garment she was folding to stare at him. “I thought we assumed the thief is also the killer?”
“You heard him this morning. He still claims he was out fishing, got wet, and put on his wife’s skirt to go home.”
“Why would he be walking around with his wife’s skirt and where is home? Didn’t the captain throw him off the estate?” In the dim light from the garret window, she presented an ethereal figure of tan and cream against the dust motes.
If she smiled at him, he’d probably roll over and ask her to rubhis belly. Good thing she wasn’t smiling. He needed to reclaim his sanity. “He claims his wife has a place down the road by the river, which would explain how he got past Ned. Upton is asking around. The area is littered with abandoned hovels anyone could move into without being noticed.”
“You think the killer is still loose?” she asked cautiously. “And Clement was simply hired to hunt for those papers?”
“That’s one theory, yes.”
“The woman in black and Mrs. Prescott both know herbs. The woman was seen walking toward the cottage yesterday. I saw her plainly. I’m quite certain she wasn’t Clement in skirts. And Mrs. Prescott wants to buy sketches of poisonous plants.” She sat down on the window seat. “It’s possible they are seeking Miss Edgerton’s drawings and not the hidden painting and we’ve practically put the portfolios in their hands.”
“You can’t stay here,” he said as gently as he could. “They tried to burn the cottage.”
She nodded reluctantly. “You have an inn to build. I can’t sit idle. I’ll do what I can to clean up here. The heirs shouldn’t be left with a smelly mess. Tonight—I don’t know. I’ll think on it.”
Rafe kneaded his eyes, shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and partially conceded. “We need what food is left in the larder and the garden. I’ll help clean the kitchen, come and go as needed, set Wolfie to guard the yard.”
“And watch out for strangers,” she agreed with a sigh. “It’s not as if I can mend furniture. I wish I knew how to catch a killer. I hate to see the cottage burn if we leave it unprotected.”
Devil take it, he should probably be setting guards around the perimeter. How much was the captain willing to pay to protect a cottage that didn’t belong to the estate?
“What if...?” She stared down at the front yard while pondering.
Rafe waited. It wasn’t as if he had any idea what to do beyond guard the premises. He needed a general to give him orders. There was a sad lack of generals in Gravesyde. Well, there werethe women, as previously noted. He didn’t know about taking orders from women who had never seen combat.
“Comte Lavigne is an artist, isn’t he? Do you think, if I paid him, he might duplicate the coach painting? I’d ask for a few of the plant sketches, too, but I cannot fathom how they are worth killing over, so don’t know which to copy.”
“Arnaud?” Rafe wouldn’t approach the nobility in a thousand years. “We almost got the cottage burned with our last trap. Are you planning another so you can get yourselfkilled?”
He couldn’t see much of her expression in the loft’s shadows, but he thought he heard desperation in her reply. “What if we hung the duplicate in your inn where everyone could see it?”
THIRTY-ONE: PAUL
Carrying newly-repairedbedframes into the crowded inn lobby, Paul leaned them against the guest desk. For having no guests, the inn was a hive of activity this afternoon. He accepted the mug Rafe handed him, sipped, and wrinkled his nose. “What is this?”
“I’m experimenting with the raw apple juice and some of the manor’s smuggled brandy and a few spices. Is it too strong?” Rafe gestured at the pitcher on a shelf behind the desk.
“Not more than punch, I suppose. What are we doing?” Paul gestured to indicate the company.
Thea, the ghost-talking heiress, and Arnaud, impoverished artist and French nobility, had deigned to leave the manor to study the monstrous painting of a murder and the crumbling lobby walls. Such horror would make a dreadful adornment for a welcoming inn.
Sitting on a bench, Verity anxiously kept an eye on the artwork, while trying to repair an old quilt.
“We are looking to have the inn burned down,” Rafe replied gruffly, before picking up the bedframes and lugging them upstairs.
