Page 1 of A Captain, a Corpse, and Miss Bridges
CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS NOTHINGlike unexpectedly inheriting a fortune to make one see lifelong acquaintances through new eyes.
Miss Flora Bridges—now Miss Florence Gardiner—had recently inherited land, money, and a name from a grandfather who had never acknowledged her in life.
This new name—along, she guessed, with the fortune—meant that villagers who had ignored her all her life now stopped her in the street to say hello.
Case in point: Mrs Canards.
As the village tabby cornered her for a chat, Flora decided that coming into money was not nearly so lucky a thing as some might think.
“Miss Gardiner,” Mrs Canards cooed, as Flora halted on her way down the main street of Plumpton village. “Will you be attending the next meeting of the Parish Ladies’ Society?”
“I hadn’t planned to, Mrs Canards,” Flora answered truthfully.
“But you must, now that you are living at Brackenfield,” Mrs Canards insisted.
To an outsider Mrs Canards’ words might have sounded warm and inviting, but Flora could read the subtext well enough. In Mrs Canards’ eyes, now that she was no longer a maid—but instead a member of the landed gentry—she was finally worthy of joining the Ladies’ Society.
“Thank you, Mrs Canards, I will think about it,” Flora answered, tilting her chin.
Mrs Canards’ eyes narrowed with annoyance. She had obviously expected her benevolent invitation to be met with gratitude.
Flora hastily bid her goodbye before she had a chance to retort, and continued on her journey through the village.
Discovering she had a new identity after twenty years of believing she was simply Flora Bridges, the orphaned granddaughter of Plumpton’s herbalist was difficult enough to grapple with, without also having to suffer Mrs Canards’ feigned overtures of friendship.
Flora almost missed the anonymity that her maid’s mob-cap had afforded her, not to mention the routine that had accompanied her life of cleaning at Crabb Hall.
Which was why, today, she was marching with some determination to the home of her fortune’s trustee, Sir Ambrose Brocklehurst, who resided in a yellow-stone cottage near the bridge.
Her estranged grandfather, Mr Gardiner, had been great friends with Sir Ambrose, and had appointed him as guardian of her fortune until she reached her majority. Flora had never known her grandfather, but if she were to judge his character by the company he kept, she rather doubted that she would have liked him.
For Sir Ambrose was vain, snobbish, frequently rude, and dismissive of any opinion that was not his own—especially if voiced by a woman.
Unfortunately, as he held the strings to Flora’s purse for the next year, she was forced to ask his permission anytime she required funds outside of her meagre quarterly allowance.
Flora closed her eyes and took a steadying breath before pushing open the garden gate to the cottage. As she stepped through, she heard the unmistakable sound of an argument from within the house.
At first, she assumed it must be Sir Ambrose and his housekeeper, Mrs Fitzhenry. A wiry older woman who possessed all the same charms as her employer.
But the voices were both male. Flora froze, hesitating halfway through the gate.
She hovered, torn between the urge to intervene—Sir Ambrose was, after all, an elderly man—and the risk of barging into what might be a private disagreement. Intruding would be mortifying, and Sir Ambrose would be certain to ensure she knew it.
“Are you planning to go in, Miss Gardiner, or just think about it all day?”
Flora startled as Mrs Fitzhenry appeared behind her, her eyes narrowed and her expression pinched. The housekeeper stepped neatly around her without waiting for an answer, and rapped sharply on the door before she pushed it open.
As the arrival of Mrs Fitzhenry had taken the decision from her hands, Flora meekly followed her inside.
Sir Ambrose emerged from the parlour room to meet the two ladies in the hall. The sound of a door slamming from the back of the house caused the housekeeper to glance at her master curiously.
“Is someone here?” she queried, to which Sir Ambrose shook his head.
“I expect you left the kitchen door open again, Agatha,” he sighed. “And let all the heat escape. I’m not made of money, you know.”
“Oh, I well know it,” the housekeeper grumbled in turn, nonplussed by his scolding. “But it wasn’t I who left the door open. You must have forgotten to close it, same as you forgot to inform me you were expecting a visitor.”
