Page 45 of Needs Must
‘Thank you, Miriam.’ Donna yawned behind her hand. ‘Let’s hope that Mr Bagshott agrees with you. Anyway, we will be assured of privacy at the gatehouse.’
‘Why do we need so much privacy?’ Miriam scowled. ‘What are you not telling me, lass?’
Donna could no longer put off explaining about Aykroyd and did so in a few words, attempting to play the risk down. She went on to explain that Aykroyd had been to the vicar, spreading rumours about Jonathan’s death and her supposed part in it.
‘Blimey! How did he find us so quick?’ Miriam looked flustered, which made Donna anxious. Her maid seldom allowed anything to overset her. Her rolling pin was the answer to any threat levelled against Donna. She suspected that Aykroyd unsettled Miriam almost as much as he did her, but she would never admit it, not for ten shillings.
‘I have not spent much time dwelling upon how he found us, but I have given the possibility of him and Ian now working together considerable thought.’
Miriam nodded. ‘That would make sense,’ she said, as she unpinned Donna’s hair and ran a brush through it. ‘Thieves make uncomfortable bedfellows, but your husband’s death has forced them together. Ian may have stolen what was yours, but I’ll wager that Aykroyd knew all about it, so Ian would be wise to keep him on his side.’
‘Precisely.’
‘He’s had ample opportunities to grab you since arriving here. Thank the Lord that he did not, but why wouldn’t he?’
‘That,’ Donna replied, slipping between the sheets and feeling the bed dip when Miriam hauled her bulk into its other side, ‘is what I would very much like to know.’ She yawned. ‘Perhaps tomorrow will bring us the answers we seek. Good night, Miriam.’
‘Good night, lamb.’ Miriam blew out the candle. ‘Sweet dreams.’
Chapter Thirteen
Cal avoided a fresh verbal assault from his mother and sister the following morning by leaving Arndale Hall at first light. He knew that he had not heard the last of his decision to evict the Daventrys and that his mother would employ every form of persuasion in her arsenal to force him to reconsider.
The prospect of the upcoming battle made him feel weary before it had even started, but he would not relent. Not this time. Celia had pushed him too far by treating Donna with disdain when the ladies had withdrawn, and Cal hadn’t been there to curb his sister’s vicious tongue. Celia and his mother had always treated their servants as inanimate objects. They seldom stopped to consider that they had eyes and ears. Little escaped their notice and they were unswervingly loyal to Cal, which is how he knew precisely what had been said between the ladies and by whom.
Cal spent several hours in consultation with his steward, riding the boundary walls to ensure that they were in good order prior to the onset of winter. He also gave instructions to increase patrols on the stretch of woodland that abutted Bagshott’s land.
‘Any poachers caught on this part of the estate are to be apprehended and brought to me for questioning,’ he said, leaning his hands on the pommel of his saddle and glancing at the stretch of land in question.
His steward raised his brow at such an unorthodox approach to a perennial problem that Cal seldom because personally involved with.
‘As you wish, my lord,’ he replied.
Cal saw no reason to return to the house once his duties had been discharged and instead made his way directly to the gatehouse on the western border. Jules awaited him there.
‘No sign of Bagshott or the ladies?’ Cal asked.
‘Not as yet. We’re a little early.’
Cal dismounted and tied Emperor’s reins to the gatepost. ‘Let’s wait inside,’ Cal said, when a sharp northerly wind picked up and almost lifted the hat from his head.
‘I received word from the Shipthat a cove answering Aykroyd’s description was seen loitering in the mews when Mrs Harte left for the hall in your carriage last night.’
Cal nodded, his expression grim, although he wasn’t surprised to hear it. ‘Then I am glad that he knew where she was bound for. That ought to give him pause for thought.’
‘He spent the evening in the taproom, flirting with Betty, but was in the mews again when your carriage returned. My man thinks he intended to accost Mrs Harte, but his plan was foiled when your footman conducted her to the door of her chamber.’
‘Do we know where he’s residing?’
‘No. If I had to guess then I’d say that he’s dossing down in a barn somewhere. He certainly hasn’t taken a room in the village and keeps himself to himself when he’s in the taproom, but for Betty.’ Jules spread his hands. ‘It’s possible that he comes and goes from Chichester, but if he does then I’ve no idea how he manages it. He has not left a horse at the Ship.’
‘It’s an oddity, Jules. Keep a weather eye on him. I have a feeling that we will become acquainted with the cove sooner rather than later.’
The sound of someone’s heavy tread on the flint path had both men looking through the window.
‘Bagshott,’ Jules said, opening the door to him.
‘Gentlemen.’ Bagshott removed his hat, scattering raindrops from its brim. ‘The weather’s on the turn again.’ Bagshott took a chair and looked expectantly up at Cal. ‘You have something of a delicate nature to impart, presumably, given the isolated location of this cottage.’
