Ellen walked into Nicholson’s bookshop behind Gray. Mungo had gone home to tell her family where she was, and Ellen had every expectation of one of them appearing soon. Leo did not trust Gray, but he did now at least have an uneasy truce with him.
Ellen and Gray had taken tea together after he’d kissed her. And what a kiss. She’d literally melted in his arms and had definitely wanted more. Men had kissed her before. Brief and chaste, and she’d felt nothing. Gray’s kiss had been different. But what had it meant to him?
He’d also been angry with her when she’d told him she’d had a small confrontation with that member of the Baddon Boys gang. In fact, it had infuriated him.
“I’m locking this door, so then no one can enter, and you can’t walk out and find trouble,” Gray said.
“Very amusing, but I will remind you again that everything I’ve given you has helped you with your case, so you should thank me.”
“Perhaps I should just take you home and explain to your family what you’ve been up to?”
“I am not frightened of my brothers.”
“No, I doubt there is much that frightens you,” he muttered. “This entire case is getting more confusing by the day,” Gray added. “Until you Nightingales entered the scene, I could work through things and let them reach their logical conclusion. I would then arrest the guilty person.”
“Look at this as having consultants to assist you,” Ellen said. She was now behind the counter, inspecting what lay beneath.
“Thank you, but I have no wish for consultants. I work alone,” he said.
“So far, we have a dead person, poor George,” Ellen said, ignoring what he’d just said. “We have the tattoos, which we know the Baddon Boys’s gang have on their forearms.” She rose from behind the counter.
“Think we know they have,” Gray added. “I’m sure there are others about London who have that mark on them and are not part of the gang.”
“Why were the Nicholson siblings arguing and Olivia crying? Further to that, why did I get a vision directly after of the naked man?”
“There are too many loose threads,” Gray said.
Something had changed between Gray and Ellen after they’d confronted their past together. They were closer. He was not so formal, and they seemed comfortable with each other. However, there was also that hum of tension from the kiss too. She felt his eyes on her.
Ellen had vowed not to fall in love with a man ever. She had a feeling Grayson Fletcher might test that.
“You say this book, according to your aunt and uncle, could have been extremely expensive if it was the only volume ever written of theBlackstead Bestiary?” Gray asked after. “If it is that book.”
“Yes. I’m not sure what it’s about, but Uncle Bram said it was very expensive and sought after by some.”
“I know that a bestiary is a collection of descriptions about different animals, and birds, real or imaginary,” Gray said. “But that’s the limit to my knowledge.”
“Would someone kill over something like that?” Ellen wondered. “And how does it all tie together? The tattoos, the Baddon Boys, and the Nicholsons, plus the book.”
“If they are connected, but you’re right. How,” Gray said, “if someone wanted that book badly enough, would they kill or perhaps hire a person to do that,” he added. “Which could be where the Baddon Boys come in.”
“Do you mean they could have been hired to do the killing?”
“Yes. I have checked on this Michael Dunston, who Mr. Nicholson said was angry when he could not buy the shop and George got it. He now lives in Wales, so it couldn’t be him who was the murderer.”
“Drat. He was the perfect suspect,” Ellen said.
“There is no such thing as a perfect suspect, Ellen, and sometimes the most obvious is not the guilty party.”
“How annoying.”
They walked around the shop examining shelves.
“We have been through here extensively but found no clues on who killed George Nicholson,” Gray said. “Do you know where you were standing when you saw yourself holding the book?”
Ellen turned on her heel, searching. A knock on the door had them both looking. A man was bent and peering in through the glass. Before she could speak, Gray had opened it.
“What are you doing here, Ramsey?”
