“I hail from Porthcurno,” he said, “where smuggling is a way of life—a life my mother, a former lady’s maid, wished me no part of. She made sure I knew how to live amongst the gentry. When I came of age, the local squire took me in as a hallboy, where I learned to serve in a fine house. I was trained in more delicate duties—how to carry a tray, wait a table, and address my betters. Enough to pass as a footman, which I aspired to. But my father never let me forget what stock I came from. Smugglers like a man who can slip between the cracks. So, I learned the hard way how to live in both worlds … until a deal went bad.”
Juliet tapped a finger to her lips. “A deal you knew about,” she murmured.
“It wasn’t me who peached to the revenue men, I swear it! But I got the blame all the same. And with a price on my head, I ran.”
“To Bedford,” she drawled, his situation becoming clear. “With whatever money you had in your pocket and some forged papers to present here at the manor.”
He nodded.
Rising, she circled the footstool, thinking hard. Cornwall was far away, and the man had already resided beneath Bedford Manor’s roof for nigh on three years. So, why such fear now?
She stopped, biting the inside of her cheek, as if she could chew through the problem itself.
Think. Think!
Maybe, like her, someone else had found out about this man’s past and threatened to tell his former associates where he was. Someone who could then use him as a pawn for their own nefarious deeds …
Unless, of course, Woodley was the tormentor.
She frowned. That didn’t ring true. He had run from trouble, not sought it. A man desperate to disappear wouldn’t stir up attention. And what would he stand to gain by prodding Charity away from her home?
Still, there was some sort of connection here. She could feel it in her belly. “What have you to do with Miss Russell’s tormentor?”
His face hardened. “I’m not going back, and she can’t—”
He clamped his jaw tight.
Juliet cocked her head. “She who?”
He took sudden interest in his shoes.
“Are you speaking of Mrs. Hamby?”
The name garnered no response. Of course it didn’t. If the housekeeper had known of the man’s past, she’d have sent him packing long ago.
Juliet paced away, something niggling at the back of her mind, an unease that’d been rattling around since she and Henry had discovered Clara’s bracelet in the woods. A wealthy woman like Miss Whitmore had no reason to be wandering that stretch of trees so far off the beaten path. And now here was Woodley, a man clearly dreading to name the woman he feared.
A woman with secrets and power.
He didn’t like this. Not one bit. Henry hovered near the open door of the sitting room, instinct urging him to go back in. But he stayed put.
Juliet’s voice carried—steady, sure.
He exhaled hard. Trusting her meant stepping back. Trusting God meant believing the Almighty could guard what he could not.
So he stayed. Silent. Still. Letting both of them do what only they could.
His father leaned against the paneling, fumbling about in his waistcoat pocket and finally producing a silver cheroot case. He flicked it open with ease, one eye on Henry. “Let me get this straight. Someone has been tormenting your sister in hopes of getting her to leave the country, then she took ill, and then someone poisoned her.”
Henry gritted his teeth. “Yes,” he ground out.
His father produced a single rolled cigar, running it beneath his nose as he tucked the case away. “Is there anything else I should know?”
Henry shook his head. “That is the whole of it, Father.”
“And your suspicions of this villain are …?”
“At first I thought it might be Edwin Parker, for he returned home around the time this all began. And you know he did not leave on good terms with her.”
