Haymarket Field, Melksham.
Avon Acres, Bradford Leigh.
Brokerwood, Frome.
“What is that?” Owen asked. She turned the paper and proffered it towards him, urging him to take it. He glanced towards the door another time, clearly nervous of being seen here. “Eat, please.”
“You do look after me,” she said as she picked up the fork and stabbed part of a boiled egg, lifting it to her mouth.
“I find I always want to.” His confession made her body turn warm, despite the coldness of the winter day. He turned the scrap of paper over in his hand, reading it.
“What do you make of it?”
“It is a list of place names.”
“It is a list of place names where two of which have just had a fire.” She gestured towards it with her fork.
“Well, that is a coincidence.”
“What if it isn’t a coincidence?” she said, waiting as Owen looked up at her from the paper.
“What … you think the third place on here is due a fire?”
“Well, it will be horrific if there will be one, will it not?” she said. “I found that in here.” She turned to the drawer to open it again, but it was firmly locked, and the key was not in its usual hiding place. “That’s odd.”
“Are you saying this was written by your husband? It certainly looks like his handwriting.” He moved her back to the breakfast plate, silently telling her to eat with a gentle touch to her back.
“You are insistent.”
“I like to think of it as protective,” he whispered gently to her. She ate more of the breakfast as together they looked at the scrap of paper. “This could mean nothing. It could just be a coincidence.”
“Haymarket belonged to Gilbert. They were his tenants.” She pointed towards the paper with her fork. “I wonder if the others are as well.”
“You could ask him?”
“No … he wouldn’t like that.” She hung her head forward before feeling a gentle tap to her chin, urging her to look up again. She found Owen looking at her, with gentleness in that gaze.
“You never need to hide like that with me.”
She smiled another time, wondering how many times this man before her could say things that would make her body turn warmer.
“That note worries me, Owen,” she said quietly, pointing at it another time. “What if there is a fire at that third place?”
“I still say it could be just a coincidence, but if you’re concerned, leave it with me.” He folded up the note and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
“What are you going to do?”
“I have my sources at finding things out in this household. Now, are you going to go back to the dining room or sit here to eat your breakfast?”
“If I sit here, will you simply bring more food to me?”
“Most likely.”
“Then I best return to the dining room and make the task easier for you.”
They laughed together as they walked back to the dining room, but once they were there, Diana could still not settle and repeatedly picked up the newspaper to read the article again.
It is too much to be a coincidence.
