Page 34 of The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady
“I have sent her to her room. I had her followed to see that she got there. She went obediently enough. I could have her brought here if you wish it.”
“Not just yet. I would first do a more thorough examination of the room,” he said, thinking hard.
The woman bobbed a curtsey. “As you wish, Your Grace.” She turned to go.
“Wait…” Jacob held up a hand to stop her as something else occurred to him. “How was it you found her? I am under the impression that the door is kept closed when I am not here. She had perhaps made some noise to alert you as to her presence?”
“I was in the kitchen, Your Grace,” Mistress Forget-Me-Not answered primly. “I was informed that a rather unkempt individual was seen leaving the room through the window. I had not believed it, thinking someone perhaps saw a gardener working on the terrae nearby, but went to investigate all the same.”
“You went yourself?” he asked sharply.
“I thought it prudent at the time,” she said sharply, though her eyes evaded his.
Interesting. She seems to be hiding something, he thought, and waved her on, bidding her continue.
“She was there, behind the desk when I entered. There can’t have been more than a few minutes between the report I was given and my discovering the girl within the room.” The woman seemed to be on more certain ground now, speaking with a grim self-satisfaction.
“And the man? I expect you likewise had someone look for the intruder?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he thought this through.
“I asked one of the men to look but they saw nothing.”
She answered too quickly. Another lie. “Your conclusions?” he asked sharply.
“I expect it was one of the stable hands. There is a man, new here, that this particular maid has been seen in rather…intimate…conversation. I expect that what was seen was nothing more than an assignation of a romantic nature.”
Jacob drew back as if slapped.Romantic! “And how do you surmise that?” he asked, his expression grim.
“The man was carrying nothing when he left the room, hence whatever thievery the girl intended hadn’t been carried out yet.”
Her explanation seemed reasonable, but there was still something about her words that didn’t quite ring true. “Which stable hand?”
The woman’s lips drew back in a sneer. “A rather common sort. Edwards…no, something else. Elias. Elias Moore. He is from the same village as the girl. I expect they came into this together as part of some plot to rob the family, Your Grace.”
There was a churning in the pit of the Duke’s stomach. The meal he had so recently enjoyed had soured, and for a moment he thought he might be ill. “Thank you. You may go.”
The woman bobbed another curtsey. She left quickly, there one moment, gone the next, the tray from his noon meal disappearing right along with her; quite a feat for a woman so large. Jacob sank again into his chair realizing he’d never once asked the name of the maid.
He hadn’t needed to.
His hands were fisted. He stared at them, forcing each finger to relax. He pictured the girl, seeing Alicia’s amber eyes, wide and innocent. That smile she tried so hard to hide.
He pictured her in the arms of a stable hand, and felt the fool.
Without conscious thought he found himself at the door, his hat in hand, checking for his pistol which he had taken to carrying again.
He needed to have a talk with this Elias Moore.
Chapter 25
“Your Grace, if I might have a minute.”
Jacob had the strangest sense of having been here before. Not to mention, he had already given up one minute, and look where that had gotten him. “Now is not a good time, Tom,” Jacob muttered, brushing past the group of earnest young men who were lying in wait just outside his door.
“You have not seen her.” Tom grasped Jacob’s coat sleeve, bringing him into the group. Jacob looked up in surprise, noting which of the officers had deigned to confront him thus, seeing every man from the first mate on down ranged about him in somber defiance.
“Is this mutiny, then?” he asked, giving a significant look at Tom’s hand which he reluctantly removed from his sleeve.
“It can hardly be a mutiny when we are standing upon solid ground,” spoke Lieutenant Harris, a man Jacob knew well for his keen wits and the ability to use them under fire.
