“I’ll return it when we get through it all. The servants are gone. Shouldn’t be too difficult. I saw a lease agreement. The house is rented through the month.”
Marietta nodded and grabbed the haphazard stack, shoving it into her bag.
“I want to look around, see if we can find anything else.”
Looking around only seemed to show that Abigail Winstead was fastidious and odd. Her strict sense of order with everything else in the house made it even stranger that her writing case would be so messy.
A peek into an armoire drawer showed a few things that a straitlaced woman would not possess. Various sized implements of different dimensions were nestled into clothing that a lady would never wear. Ladies that weren’t trying to free their brothers, she amended.
“If you want one of those ‘tools,’ I can find you one. But you are assuredly not taking hers,” his low voice whispered in her ear.
“I don’t even know what they are for.”
He turned her around and pulled her against him, her body connecting pleasurably with his. “We can easily change that.” He looked around and there was a dark light in his eyes. “But not here.”
“Well, that answers my question about what they might be used for. Are sexual pursuits always on your mind?” She whispered, though she didn’t know why. They were completely alone.
“Oh, most definitely.” He grinned darkly.
There was little else of consequence in the house. The overorganized feel was somehow more threatening than the spartan feel of their temporary house. Marietta was happy to leave. Gabriel picked up the key ring and the invitations and locked the door behind them. The birds were chirping discordantly as they walked down the path and back up the street.
“What do you think of Abigail Winstead?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She looked at him. “What do you?”
He stayed silent for a minute as they walked past brownstones and lovely brick facades, colorful flowers trailing from their pots and troughs.
“Single-minded.”
She tipped her shopgirl’s bonnet. “Yes, I think I agree. So she would have likely been single-minded about the man who was following her.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she might have gone after him?”
“Perhaps. But she was murdered on a corner far from her house. Far from this address as well.” He tapped the bag containing the papers they’d collected. “Why?”
She shook her head. “Perhaps we will find some clue in her papers.”
Marietta settled in with Abigail’s journal after dinner in the small drawing room on the first floor. Unlike the other rooms, it had a cozier feel, with two armchairs and a plush settee. Gabriel had stepped out, but she expected him back any minute. She’d had to retrieve the journal from his room. How it had ended up there, she didn’t know. She knew he thought the journal silly, but she couldn’t help seeking it out.
The journal unfolded like a story. Her eyes were glued to the elegant writing. It was fascinating and horrifying.
We have a new one. He is so delightful. We call him our little avenger. He is more prickly than our last, full of spirit—seems to think we are blackmailers! I laughed, for it is nothing but the truth. And yet we have so much to teach him. I see the way L.D. looks at him. How they all do. He is beautiful. A crown jewel.
A hand touched her shoulder, then drew along her throat, up under her chin to her cheek. She hadn’t even heard him walk up the stairs, she was so absorbed. She leaned into the touch, as she had for the past two days, and turned the page to the next entry, dated a week later.
He is more beautiful than anything we’ve seen. And defiant. I have never seen a more defiant servant. Must be his mother putting ideas in his head. Or the way the other servants dote on him. He acts above his station.
But there is something quite seductive in that. I doubt our little avenger would be as near to our hearts were he a beautiful face on a bland, eager package. There are so many of those and they can’t keep our interest for long. They don’t respond to the toys as well and their disgusting eagerness shows their breeding—like dogs.
Not like our little avenger. And the sweetest part is the look in his eyes. When reminded of his place and what will happen to his family if he doesn’t comply, they always so blazingly speak of retribution. Banked fire and eternal damnation. I find it amusing that he thinks he might hold the key to our downfall. That he would try to beat us at our own game.
The hand along her cheek stopped its movement. “What are you reading?” She was left staring at her hands as he plucked the book from her grasp. “Abigail Winstead’sjournal? Where did you get this?”
“From the stand insideyourroom. Speaking of which, I put that in my bag! How didyouget it?”
“You put all of the documents in your bag. I started going through them.”
