She immediately wished she had not divulged the last bit. He was getting too close. His intentions might be innocent enough, but she was suffocating under the weight of them. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
His dipped his head and raised his hands submissively. “Fair enough. We’ll say no more on that subject, but there is a matter, a serious matter, I wanted to discuss with you. But perhaps you are not up for it.”
Her patience was growing thin. “If you’ve something to disclose, then please do.”
“They arrested a suspect for the Longham murder.”
She lurched to a stop and faced him, squinting as the late-afternoon sunlight slid over the church’s roof. “What?”
He nodded. “As we all know there have been several attacks on mills and mill owners, and they suspect that Mr. Longham simply got caught in the crosshairs of one of these attacks. It seems Mr. Warrington’s new carding machines have caused quite a commotion among the workers, and that is why they were on Briarton Park property. It’s not common knowledge, not yet at least, but I thought you’d want to know.”
She started walking again, and he followed suit.
“There’s more. The man who was arrested was employed by Peter Clark.”
Peter Clark. The very name seemed to be haunting her, following her in every situation. “What evidence do they have against this man?”
“I don’t know exactly, but apparently something was found in his house that tied him to Mr. Longham. Something about documents. I can only surmise it was the documents from Mr. Longham’s satchel that you had told me were missing, but that’s merely an assumption.”
The documents.Herdocuments.
A little flame of hope flared.
With the documents missing and her mother refusing to acknowledge her, there would be no way to help her prove her identity. Cassandra could hardly push forward without any evidence whatsoever. But now, just maybe, there was a chance the documents would come to light and offer the support she needed.
Chapter 34
The afternoon was growing late when James returned to Briarton Park from Weyton Mill. He needed to speak with Miss Hale. Rumors that Shepard had arrested a man on the suspicion of murder were rampant, and he wanted to make sure she knew.
But as he entered the parlor, music echoed, and he found Rachel at the pianoforte. He stopped short. “I thought you were spending the afternoon with Miss Hale.”
The music halted and she turned to him. “I did.”
“Back so soon?” He popped open his watch. “I thought she said you wouldn’t be back until evening.”
“I thought so, too, but after our first call, Miss Hale said she had a headache and wasn’t feeling well, so we returned.”
He snapped the pocket watch closed and tucked it away. “Is she all right?”
“Well, I thought so, but then she left in a hustle on an errand. She said she’d return for the girls’ supper. I—I’m afraid I upset her.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Sensing she needed to talk, he dropped to the sofa next to the pianoforte, stretched one arm over the back of it, and crossed one leg over the other. “It is her free afternoon. Perhaps she really had errands.”
“You didn’t see her. She was not herself at all.” Rachel loweredher hands from the keys and shifted to face him. “Then Mr. North called, and when I went to tell her, she wasn’t in her room. I’m worried she is upset with me.”
Mr. North.
His visits were growing in frequency and duration. And how could James possibly tell a vicar to limit his calls, especially after what had transpired on the property?
He cleared his throat and returned his focus to his sister. “That seems unlikely. What could you possibly have asked that would upset her so?”
“I asked her a question about her past. It was too personal. I should’ve known better. She told me the very first day we met that she’d experienced a similar situation to what I had with Richard. She almost eloped with a young man but was stopped. She said she’d share the details of it with me one day, but she seemed upset after I brought it up.”
A disrupted elopement?
So Miss Hale did have a bit of a past.
No wonder she’d acted defensively on Rachel’s behalf.
