“Will they let us leave?” Andrew asked. “Are we not suspects?”
Grey barked a laugh. “Can’t make us stay. Captain Huntley is a Puritan intent on ridding the world of evil, but he has no power beyond the estate, and even that’s questionable. I like the man, but I don’t let the wishes of others hamper me.”
“Then why are you asking our wishes?” El asked, not deterred by his sense of privilege. Grey was a decent man, but living alone, he tended to be self-absorbed.
“Because I am undecided. I was hoping for an anonymous, peaceful setting to finish my work. Bath isn’t it, but appallingly, neither is Gravesyde. Even though the manor has a rather tempting library—the inhabitants have bats in their belfries. And the art gallery has attracted a wrong crowd. Entertaining but not peaceful.”
“You would be bored beyond redemption with peaceful,” El corrected. “You enjoy exercising your wits against others. Without students, you need other challenges. . . and that is not Andrew and me. How will you like living in a house with a ghost-haunted well?”
He folded his arms over the back of the chair and regarded her with a frown. “Do not invite my cousin to sprinkle herbs and chant over ghosts. She’s lunatic enough already. If we stay, I’ll hire people to scrub the place, top to bottom, inside and out. I have a place in Bath. I can have decent furnishings sent up. Bradford House, as it stands, is execrable. And the sum the bank is asking for the hovel, outrageous.”
El hid her smile. His saber was already rattling. “I’ve been told Miss Talbot is paying a ridiculous rent for the gallery, and that the bank is asking intolerable sums for all their properties. You could take up arms against them.”
“I shall, if we stay. Why leave perfectly good properties abandoned because the bank does not wish to maintain them?” He ordered cider.
The village had apple orchards, El had learned, and their cider was well known.
The dark-haired bartender with the convict tattoo eagerly pulled a mug. The pub wasn’t booming. The village wasn’t exactly on a well-traveled highway.
“It seems the manor occupants have already enlisted you in their cause. And the fact that there appears to be a killer roaming the streets?” El prodded him into a decision.
Eleanor knew she was mad to encourage him, but she had to make a stand somewhere. She really liked this quaint village that had survived time nearly intact.
“Gravesyde apparently has a fairly good record of catching miscreants.” Grey sipped his drink. “If we put our most excellent heads together, the villain should be found in no time.”
As if they had any clue how to find cold-blooded killers. Or corpse defilers. But that ought to keep Greybourne busy long enough to settle in, if the bank let them the house. A village struggling to revive should provide him with any number of outlets for his excessive energy and brilliant brain.
Even as she was congratulating herself on her perceptivity, a band of the ruffian artists stumbled into the tavern, shouting for pitchers of ale. At sight of the professor, several of them staggered toward their table.
Greybourne instantly stood, just as the convict behind the bar vanished into the kitchen. Uneasily, El prepared to slip away. She may have become accustomed to male habits, but that did not mean she appreciated all of them. Drunken brawling was childish.
Andrew also braced for confrontation.
“Heard you murdered a banker, Greybourne,” the squat artist who’d been thrown out of the gallery earlier crowed. “Congratulations! Let’s buy you a round!”
El doubted they had the funds to buy their own drink. She’d lived on the poorer end of town and recognized bullies when she saw them.
“We’ve any number of other people you might murder.” Hat apparently lost, linen unfastened, the dirty-blond reporter swaggered over to join them. “You aristocrats regularly get away with murder, might as well steer you in the right direction.”
Grey picked up his fashionable topper and offered his arm to Eleanor. “Gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, it’s a pleasure, but we’re calling it an evening.”
Before he could shove his way past the gathering ruffians, a ginger-haired giant arrived in the doorway and roared, “Pub closed, gents! When Henri tosses you out, you can’t roll in here to irritate my guests. Out!”
Apparently bearing some grudge El did not comprehend, the drunks did not immediately retreat but bunched their fingers.
Grey tensed. Andrew clenched his fists and Mr. Russell stormed toward the miscreants. They might resolve the matter, but not without considerable damage.
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” she muttered. Holding the back of her hand to her brow, she clung to Grey’s arm with the other and gracefully proceeded to fold into a faint.
Nine
Grey
“This is the outside of enough!” Wednesday morning, Grey stormed through the disorder of the trunk room, inspecting the damage. Their boxes had been emptied. The twins’ old rubbish was scattered about and his own carefully packed attire had been tossed like so much flotsam. His rage knew no bounds. “I want the culprits hanged!”
“Was anything stolen, my lord?” the innkeeper’s lady wife asked anxiously. “We always keep this room locked. I cannot imagine how this happened!”
Apparently the bailiff was already out and about in search of a killer. Or a goat thief. Who knew? Grey stalked the room, looking for clues to the intruder.
