Forty
Fletch
Monday morning, still a little unnerved at how easy it had been to fall back into the Morgan family’s routine, Fletch entered Priory Manor after dropping off Kate and the children. He handed the horses to the manor’s grooms, not wanting to stink of horse on his first day of new respectability.
He hadn’t thought of alcohol once in the past few days. . . probably because all he could think about was Kate: angry Kate, laughing Kate, curvy. . . He doubted that she felt the same way. He didn’t know how other men brought a female around to thinking of fornication.
The clock would keep his mind occupied with more practical pursuits. He gave the footman his hat as if he were a gentleman and not a clockmaker’s son. At the marble landing, he heard Rafe and Hunt arguing in the old study across the hall. He wanted no part of interrogating prisoners.
Sliding the newly cleaned and mended mechanisms into position soothed his soul and kept his hands and mind well occupied. The weight of the pendulums still worried him. His calculations showed they shouldn’t work. Taking them apart, however. . .
To his relief, the tutor and his students traipsed down the stairs before he reached that point.
The barely verbal prodigies interested him, probably because he sympathized with their lack of words. He waited to see what they had learned from his drawings.
Oliver, Clare Huntley’s nephew, returned the drawings to him, along with pages of mathematical formulas and some advanced graphs probably beyond Fletch’s limited education.
“May we open the weights?” Davy asked. Heir to a fortune and Miss Talbott’s younger brother, he was the more talkative of the duo.
Fletch glanced up to the tutor. “Do we have permission? I cannot promise they will go back together as they were wrought. It’s a very delicate balance.”
“They are wrong,” Oliver declared firmly, quite astoundingly for the silent boy.
“I agree that their weight is wrong,” Fletch said more precisely. “But I cannot destroy a valuable timepiece without permission, and Captain Huntley is busy.”
Mr. Birdwhistle lifted his arm, and as if summoned by an invisible signal, Quincy, the butler appeared. “Are Mrs. Huntley or Miss Talbott available? Major Fletcher requires their approval for the final repairs.”
Quincy bowed and strode down the main corridor. Fletch wondered how a mere tutor learned that level of command. He had given up pondering a household in which the women took charge.
“Can you explain your conclusions to the major?” The tutor laid a hand on Oliver’s shoulder encouraging him.
“The earl liked puzzles,” the boy replied solemnly.
Fletch had heard about that. He thought the Reid family might be as demented as Hugh, but the earls had been wealthy. That made their madness eccentric.
“And the drawing on the pendulums are puzzles?” Fletch asked.
Both boys nodded.
Davy spoke. Slightly older and a lot chubbier than Oliver, he chose words with more care. “One design is a puzzle revealing the correct weight and orientation of the pendulum.” He showed Fletch a neatly detailed page of calculations.
“The other. . .” Oliver held out the graphs. “Is a map.”
A map? This was worse than pulling teeth. Fletch vowed to use his words more. Before he could question, a cry from the rear of the main corridor distracted them.
“The prisoner has escaped!” a footman shouted.
Which prisoner? Didn’t matter, they had all been out to harm Kate.
Leaving the tutor to hustle his young charges upstairs to the safety of the schoolroom, Fletch raced for the sewing workshop and Kate.
The librarian popped out of the library, an ornamental sword in hand. Fletch pointed her back to the library. “Lock it.”
He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed orders. A footman emerged from the front entrance. Fletch pointed him back to the double set of doors. “Lock all of them. Let no one but family in or out.”
That included him. No matter. He burst into the bustling ballroom. Women glanced up from their sewing to stare as he threw the ornate ballroom doors closed. He didn’t possess keys. He stacked crates in front of them.
With a look of terror, Kate glanced up to see what he was doing.
