“Like the actors Brydie says you’re considering? When I’m that desperate, I’ll let you know. Is it even possible to open that door so you might go home?” She eyed the key and bolt that locked her in as much as it locked out intruders.
Damien unfastened the lock on the bolt, pushed it up, and used her key to unlock the door, checking it’s stability. “We’d all sleep better if you were in town.”
“It’s not a town,” she reminded him. “It’s a rubbish heap of deteriorating hovels and old people. You and Rafe do not a village make. Go home, Damien. I am not you. My life and all I love are here. I’m staying. Maybe I’ll have Jacques and his thespian friends to dinner.” Someday. When she had food.
Kate saw him out, and because she knew Fletch would only do it if she did not, she locked and bolted the door after him.
Inhaling to calm herself, she crossed to the room where she’d nursed her husband and parents and saw them laid out after their deaths. This past year, she’d preferred closing the door on it.
Broad and strong and very much alive, Fletch had deposited his clockworks on the formal walnut table and now studied the small cot she had never removed.
She spoke to his back. “After we eat, I’ll boil water if you’ll carry the tub out of the shed. A good soak will help those bruises. And if it’s large enough, that cot might serve as a better bed than the sofa cushions.” She swept out to see what Rafe had packed them for dinner, leaving Fletch speechless.
Speechless, she might manage.
More laughter. . . And she wouldn’t be accountable for her actions.
Fifteen
Rafe
That evening, furious with himself and the world, Rafe slammed on the fancy top hat Verity had insisted he wear and set out to locate the cottages of Lavender’s seamstresses, the ones who had been on the drive when Kate almost died. Widows and spinsters, for the most part, he learned a number of them lived together. But when the mules broke loose, they all claimed to have been at the bottom of the hill, talking and not looking back. No one had seen what had set off the animals.
Just one more mysterious accident.
Discouraged, he stopped at Henri’s tavern in search of the manor’s field steward or any of the stable hands he hadn’t already interviewed. People gathered at the tavern after work, so it was always a good source of information.
Under Henri’s watchful supervision, Miss Vivien had taken Patience’s place singing at the bar. Rafe hadn’t realized that. He ought to get out more, but with a wife and children and a pub to mind, he didn’t have time for carousing.
Removing his hat, he accepted an ale and studied the room while the pretty seamstress flirted with the customers and collected their coins. She didn’t have the angelic voice of Henri’s wife, and Rafe was quite certain she didn’t divide the coins between Henri and the church, as Patience had done, but that wasn’t his concern.
Rafe located Tim Cooper, the manor’s field steward, at a table in the corner, talking to a few of the stable hands. He was terrible at this interrogation bit and wished they had more privacy. Tapping Cooper on the shoulder, Rafe nodded at an empty table. An intelligent man, even if not well educated, Tim got up and followed him to the quiet corner.
“Has anyone given you any idea what set off those mules?” Rafe asked, more angrily than he liked.
Older and skinnier than Rafe, Cooper didn’t flinch at his tone. He sipped his ale, wrinkled his brow, and gave the matter due consideration. “Old Ned’s been delivering feed with them mules for as long as I been here, which, mind you, isn’t even a year.”
“That makes most of us. That cart was a disaster waiting to happen, but the mules seem well treated.” As if Rafe knew aught of mules, but he recognized untended animals well enough.
Tim nodded. “Never seen them behave like that. Mayhap a wasp stung one. We’ve had trouble with wasps now the weather is summat warmer. Been a cold old winter and it’s not warming up like it ought. Miss Patience—Mrs. Lavigne—is that worried about the apple blossoms.”
Rafe knew it was impossible to talk to a farmer without discussing the weather. It had been a nasty winter and the spring had been unusually gloomy. That didn’t explain runaway mules. “Do wasps normally bother mules?”
Cooper shrugged. “Not so’s I noticed. I was in the stable, watching them stack the feed. You might ask some of the boys what they saw. They were flirtin’ with that bit of muslin over there.” He nodded at Miss Vivien. “She’s trouble, if you ask me.”
“She’s young and full of herself,” Rafe agreed. “Was her sister with her?”
“I reckon. She been followin’ her about lately, though she ain’t here tonight.” The steward glanced around to be certain she hadn’t slipped in.
“I suspect Miss Vivien earns more coins off the lads without big sister glaring.” Rafe had grown up in an inn and had learned not to judge. Human nature hadn’t changed much while he was at war. “Does that mean the two of them were still at the top of the drive and might have been near the stable when the mules ran? I haven’t talked to them yet.”
“Heard female voices. Reckon they were. None of the others loiter about.”
The Jamesons were new to the village. It made sense that they hadn’t become part of the closed local society of female workers yet.
“Speak to the lads for me, will you? Ask if they know why the mules bolted? They might tell you more than me. And if you can, ask the cart driver to take a look at his mules for wasp stings.” Rafe pushed up from his seat. He knew his size and position intimidated. Even if no wrong had been done, farmhands shied away from outsiders and kept their thoughts to themselves.
“You be thinking someone deliberately scared them?” Cooper asked, rising with him and frowning.
