Jealous?
“I am quite certain, even if Christian’s seen me walking to the studio, he has zero interest in me.”
“And you can be quite certain of that because…?”
I walked right into that one.
“Just…a girl knows.”
“Mm.”
That was a very dubious hum.
He had reason to be dubious.
And I had reason to keep him thus.
“If I ask nicely, will you let it go?” I requested.
“Is that you asking nicely?”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes.”
I was relieved.
“For now,” he finished.
I stopped being relieved.
But, for now, I’d take what I could get.
We drove in silence for a few minutes before he said, “You dropped quite the bomb about the butler’s ledgers before you hung up on me Wednesday.”
“I didn’t hang up on you. We were done talking.”
“Did you say goodbye?”
I did not.
Mostly because I’d hung up on him.
I decided not to answer.
He let it go and asked, “You think two footmen were bribed?”
“They were given three hundred pounds in bonuses. Their annual salaries were forty pounds a year. Adjusted for inflation, those bonuses were ten thousand pounds. I did not peruse it in detail to the point I could memorize it, but I did it carefully, and I saw no other bonuses for any staff in that ledger. It covers years of expenditures. Not a single bonus. Except those. And they were recorded the day after Marie’s entry about something happening at The Downs.”
“That does seem suspicious.”
“My guess is, they saw what happened and were paid to keep their mouths shut.”
“What’s your course to see if you can find something out?”
“Go to the local newspaper and ask to see their stacks. Maybe something was reported around that time.”
“Are you going to go to the newspaper to ask to see their stacks?”
