Deciding he ought to investigate the maid’s room, just in case she was hiding gold and diamonds or extortion notes—he’d seen a little bit of everything this past year—he wended his way through the maze of abandoned trunks and broken furniture in the old manor’s storage attics. The household had done an amazing job of emptying the attics of what had once been centuries of unwanted furniture and refuse. What remained should probably be cast on a bonfire, like the moldering stuffed animal heads they’d found in the tower. But ornately carved, heavy wardrobes and bedsteads would have to be hacked apart before they could be carried anywhere.
He emerged from the storage area of the original medieval fortress into the more open corridor connecting the Georgian rear wings where the servants had their quarters. He felt like a bull in a china shop entering the floor for female servants, but he could hear Fletch and Kate down the narrow hall.
Most of the doors to the shared bedrooms were closed. He found an open one and saw Kate sitting on a narrow cot, studying a stack of letters. Of course, her cousin would read and write. The Calhoun family once had wealth and education. Kate and Brydie had been the ones to teach Kate’s children while the village had no teacher.
Fletch examined walls and floorboards and studiously ignored the weeping woman on the bed.
“Anything useful?” Rafe inquired.
Kate wiped her eyes and held up the letters. “She has a son working in Birmingham and a daughter, newly wed, who has apparently taken over the family business. Ana Marie wasn’t ready to retire to a rocking chair. I’ll have to write.”
“Tell him the rest,” Fletch ordered. “I’m going back to my clock.” He stalked off.
Rafe waited.
Kate looked puzzled but held out the letters. “It’s not anything relevant. Ana Marie was apparently a good seamstress who owned a shop in Worcester, where she refurbished hats and women’s clothing. These are only the replies to her letters, so I don’t know what she said to her daughter to make her think Lavender might hire her. As far as I’m aware, she never applied for dressmaking.”
Taking the paper to the window, Rafe read through the letters. The daughter encouraged her mother to apply again.
The last one contained an oddly urgent comment. Ignore her, can’t you? You’re better than she is.
Better than who? Rafe despised the shiver down his spine.
Four
Kate
The sun was setting by the time Kate walked down the manor drive with the other seamstresses. She hadn’t left work, as everyone had urged. She not only needed the money but the warmth of company. Going home to a cold, dark house bereft of her eldest son and her newly-wed sister, would not ease her anguish.
Attending a good school, Arthur had a chance to be the learned gentleman he was meant to be. Brydie had married well and was living the life she should have had years ago. Kate couldn’t regret their departure, except for herself.
She only became aware of Major Fletcher behind her when she waved the last of her fellow workers off and turned toward the bakery where Brydie kept Rob and Lynly after school. She halted and glared at him. “Are you following me?”
“What could you do if I was?” he asked with a shrug of broad shoulders encased in a tailored, wool, soldier’s coat. He’d removed any insignia but hadn’t repaired the tears no doubt rendered by bayonets.
She rolled her eyes at his surly reply and hurried toward the gate of the baker’s cottage where her sister and her new husband had recently taken up residence. “Ask Damien. He and his brother taught Brydie and me how to take care of ourselves.”
He grunted and followed her up the newly cleared walk. Aware that Fletch had a history with the woman who once lived here, Kate didn’t say more. In the twilight, she admired the work Brydie and the neighbors had done to clear the wilderness of a yard. Rhododendrons spilled their frilly blooms and daffodil heads bounced in the breeze. Green shoots promised beauty for months to come.
She took the pathway back to the kitchen, where she’d find her sister and the children. Fletch diverted to the front with the new plaque announcing Damien Sutter, Esquire, solicitor. This new office was the reason the parlor at the inn was now available.
Rob waved at her from the chicken coop. It had made sense to move the chickens here so Kate needn’t worry about them when she worked late. It seemed unfair to impose children on newlyweds, but Brydie and Damien treated Rob and Lynly as their own. Brydie had, after all, helped raise them from infancy. She’d miss them as much as they’d miss their aunt if they didn’t have these few after-school hours together.
Standing on a stool beside the sink, Lynly was up to her ears in biscuit dough when Kate entered the kitchen. She grinned and waved floury hands. Lyn and Rob both had birthdays in another week. Kate needed to come up with gifts. She had no idea how or what.
The enormous kitchen smelled of baking bread, even though the fires had been banked for the evening. Something delicious bubbled on the fire. On this gray spring day, Brydie had set the table in the kitchen, where it was warm. Because the front room had been turned into an office, she and Damien had set up a small dining area for themselves in the sitting room upstairs. They really ought to be allowed their privacy, but the kitchen table had been set for all of them tonight.
“You shouldn’t have to go home and fix a meal after a day like this.” Nearly a head taller than Kate, her unruly auburn curls escaping a cap, Brydie gestured for Kate to fill glasses. “And I understand we’ll need to arrange the funeral? I wish we’d had time to know her.”
“We really didn’t meet until we happened to run into each other on the drive a few weeks back. We knew nothing of each other.” But the physical similarities had caused them to laugh and stop to talk. “And finding hours when neither of us was working. . . I thought we’d have more time.”
Damien entered on those words. Taller than Brydie, his wheat-colored hair falling across a wide brow, his jaw stubbled at this hour, he was better looking now than he had been as a gangly boy. He briefly hugged Kate. “There is never enough time. I learned that the hard way. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, trying to tell herself it was better that they hadn’t been close to Mrs. Marie. “I need to sit down and write her family. The son is in Birmingham. Now that the bridge is open again, he might have time to come down for a funeral.”
She had the nosy urge to ask why Fletch had visited, but she refrained.
Not until supper was done and cleared away did she receive even a hint.
