“Not yet,” she replied, and was warmed by Piers’s grin.
In all, the afternoon passed most pleasantly, and April felt more like one of them than at any point since they had arrived.Piers, however, was a trifle distracted, and when they all went inside, she made a point of following him into the library, where they were, temporarily at least, alone.
“I spoke to Bert Godley,” Piers said, throwing himself into one of the armchairs.At home, April would have sat on the floor at his feet.Here, she contented herself with perching on the arm of his chair.Though she squashed a certain longing for home and the days when she had imagined there were no secrets between them.
“Was that why you bolted into the house before tea?”she asked.
“I saw someone rushing inside, so I followed.Found him bending over Edward with his fingers on his throat.”
April’s jaw dropped.“Thenhe’sour man?Afraid Edward wakes and blabs?”
“Perhaps.He must have been there a good few minutes ahead of me, but there wasn’t a mark on Edward.He’d exerted no pressure.”
“Trying to work himself up to it?”April suggested, frowning.“Or just seeing what it felt like?”
“The latter, I suspect. But there’s no denying his strong feelings, and his parents’ cottage, where he lives, is a bare ten minutes’ walk from where we found Edward.Oh, and Troy was in the inn on Saturday night until quite late.Drunk, apparently, as he often is.Might need to call on the innkeeper tonight or tomorrow.”
“It could be a night out for the gentlemen,” April allowed.
“What would you do if we went out?”
“Embroider and gossip,” April said flippantly.
***
MRS.HUBB DID EMBROIDER, very prettily, too.Meg’s needlework seemed to be of the more mundane variety—a basket full of mending that included a gown, a shawl and what looked like Mal’s stockings.
Should I be mending Piers’s stockings?she wondered.Mrs.Park, housekeeper of the London house, had once tried to teach her to sew.April had even embroidered a letter P on a handkerchief once.Piers had appeared touched, which made the effort worthwhile, but she wasn’t sorry to have left off those lessons and abandoned the sewing to someone else.Vaguely, she wondered who, but mostly, she felt uneasy about being a poor wife and having very little idea how to be a good one.
At least Claudia was not sewing.She was reading a book, like April, only Claudia’s was in Latin.
“What can be the attraction of a village inn?”Mrs.Hubb said suddenly.
“Male company, ale, and tobacco,” Claudia said.
“Darts,” April said, then blushed when they all looked at her in surprise.“They play darts in some London taverns.”
“How on earth do you know that?”Meg asked.
Because I was quite good at it when I practised at the Silver Jug.Hastily, she changed the subject.“What are you reading?”she asked Claudia.
“Julius Ceasar.What are you reading?”
April smiled apologetically.“Mrs.Radcliffe.”
Claudia smirked, though she said more kindly, “Most schools and governesses don’t teach Latin to girls.I was lucky to have my father.”
April, suddenly tired of pretending, said, “I was lucky to have Piers.I never went to school.”
Again, everyone looked at her, though she detected no malice, only surprise and curiosity.
“Piers teaches you?”Claudia asked.“Latin?”
“Whatever I ask him to, or whatever he thinks I need to know.Not Latin yet.Though I know some Portuguese.”
“Don’t you find that odd in a husband?”Mrs.Hubb asked.
“No.But then I’m quite an odd wife.In case you haven’t noticed.”
