Page 37 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
The cigarette did wonders for my nerves. “Don’t you suspect people will talk, what with you storming into my room? It’s the stuff of gothic novels. They could think we’re… that… hmmm.” I wet my lips and snapped, “I have it! They’ll think I’ve used my devilish wiles to lure the great Pellar into temptation.”
He folded his arms, a mulish look on his face. “You mean, you’re concerned that they think we’re fucking?”
“Precisely. Oh, don’t look that way, Mr. Kivell.” I warmed to him a bit, the big hulk of a man, but he wasn’t threatening in the least. Big men never frightened me much. It was always the ones you least expected that did the greatest harm. “And don’t think you shock me either, Mr. Kivell, with your crass language. I’m an old hand at all that.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Besides, I plan to eventually leave this charming little murder-retreat and I don’t give a jot what anyone thinks about me. But you might have a mind toward your reputation. It’d be a pity if they thought you were ravished by a witch up here.”
“I’m the Pellar,” he said grimly. “And this is not the conversation I should be having with a respectable young woman.”
“Good thing I’m not respectable.” I finished my cigarette, stubbing it out in the bottom of a glass, and frowned. “So how long am I your prisoner?”
“You’re not.”
“I’m not?” I repeated in shock. The blasted man had all but forbidden me to leave. Not that I wanted to anymore. I had to admit I was puzzled by the goings-on here. And truth be told, Ihadpromised Tamsyn I’d protect her son and damn me for a fool, but I wasn’t as good at breaking my word as she was.
He cleared his throat. “But if I’m to prevent you from getting yourself killed, I’m going to have to keep you with me until we’ve figured it out. Now come here.”
“We?” I noticed the jar of salve in his hand. He gestured to the bed, and reluctantly I sat down on the mattress in front of him.
“Yes. I take it you’re too stubborn to let things alone while I figure it out, and if I leave you to your own devices, I may not be able to stitch you up a second time.” He unscrewed the lid and began applying a bit of the sweet-smelling salve to the stitcheson my brow. Immediately the skin tingled beneath the liniment. A hint of mint, perhaps some honey?
His hands were uncommonly warm, but not in an unpleasant way. “You have a point.”
He grinned at me. Bastard. “I know. But I need to get a better look at Edward’s body first.” He moved to the other bruises and scrapes along my face.
“Didn’t you see it good and well in the orchard?” I mumbled as he rubbed the top of my lip with it. “Personally, I’d rather not go there again.”For a variety of reasons.
“Tell me. Why were you talking to Nellie Smythe earlier?”
“Is there anything that happens in this town you don’t know of?”
He let out a low laugh.
Apparently not. He was very near now. Our knees brushing. “The real question is howyouknew about her…”
“Small town, Mr. Kivell. People talk.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. He gestured for me to turn around. Reluctantly, I did, and he began to work on the wounds on the back of my neck and head. We went along that way for several minutes. In a strange silence with only the crackling fire and scent of his little jar of salve between us.
“You’re clever,” he said at last. “Nellie hasn’t had an easy life. Not after getting thrown over by George, and then coming to Sir Edward’s attention. I pity her position. Seems she was always second in everyone’s list. Sweet enough girl, though. She deserves more than what life’s handed her.”
“But she didn’t kill him,” I said gravely.
“I never thought she did.”
And yet he didn’t suspect her, knowing that she had far more reason to kill Edward than anyone else in town. That boded well for me, I supposed. I blew out a breath of relief, still weighing whether to tell him the rest of it.
“You saw something that night, didn’t you? That’s what you’re so afraid of.”
I startled, turning around on the mattress to look into his unusual eyes. “How did you… Oh, never mind, I don’t care how you do that—yes. I did. When I woke up from the dream, I went to the window to get some air, and I saw a figure in white headed into the orchard.”
He paused, holding up a hand. “You saw a woman going into the orchard?”
“I didn’t say it was a woman. Itlookedlike a woman, but come to think of it I suppose it could have been a boy, or a slight man even.”
He swore beneath his breath.
