Grey
Saturday morning, their enthusiastic new cook—undaunted by blocked cellars—brought out pots of tea and toast the moment Grey reached the dining room. The rickety dining table sported cracked plates and mismatched utensils, presumably provided from the meager trunk of the twins.
Furnished, indeed. That would teach him to believe bankers.
After last night’s grim discovery, Grey had little interest in food. He needed to summon the good bailiff and men with shovels. Possibly the curate.
Gravesyde wasn’t just a name.
He told the eager cook the toast was fine, he didn’t need more, but he didn’t have time to escape before Miss Leonard walked in. She had dark circles under those all-too perceptive topaz eyes. Keeping her uninformed had not helped. He should have known she wouldn’t believe the story about mice. Wordlessly, she poured tea and glared at him.
Sharing meals in a private setting was too damned intimate. Grey shoved back his chair and stood. “Graves,” he informed her curtly. “Or buried treasure.” At least, the dead had utterly no relation to him, for a change.
She nodded wearily as he strode out. He didn’t know what kind of hell hole Thea had lured him into, but he regretted dragging the twins into it. He was an experienced traveler. They were not. They were essentially homeless, he realized, dependent on him. And he’d dragged them into a nightmare from which there was no easy escape.
Damn. He had good reason to hate accepting responsibility for others. And now he had an entire household of obligations. Italy couldn’t come soon enough.
Rafe wasn’t any happier with him when Grey arrived at the pub while he was eating breakfast. “Jumping to conclusions,” the bailiff warned. “Sit, eat, I’ll send up to the manor for diggers. Maybe fetch the curate, just in case. But Dr. Walker has an infant, and I’m not summoning her until we know.”
Grey sat reluctantly, ordering cider rather than the inn’s bad coffee or insipid tea. He’d have to teach his new cook how to make coffee—after he found beans and a grinder.
Paul Upton, the curate, entered before Rafe returned from the manor. “I thought we’d put Gravesyde’s grim past to rest. Graves? Are you certain?”
“Half a dozen sunken hollows laid out in lines in a dirt floor, behind a blocked door. I cannot imagine thieves being so precise with buried loot.”
Upton poured the cooling tea left on the table. “Have you ever seen Roman gravesites? They were plentiful around Oxford. Farmers find them in their fields when plows dig up shards.”
“I’ve only seen curated collections in private houses,” Grey admitted. “I am to tell my staff they are the graves of an ancient civilization?” A good idea, actually, if the twins didn’t decide to dig up the entire floor in search of artifacts. Intellectual curiosity created difficulties, as he knew painfully well.
“If the burial sites have already sunk in, then there will be naught but bones and rotted coffins. We can’t solve deaths from decades ago. It might even be a family cemetery, although the Priory one has been there for centuries.” The curate sipped his tea, obviously plotting theories—with more interest than Grey.
Curiosity really could kill the cat.
“Not feeling better about storing cheese over a graveyard.” Grey finished his cider as Rafe stomped in again.
“They’re gathering picks and shovels,” the bailiff reported. “Let’s get this done. I don’t suppose some great battle took place here?”
“Another good possibility,” Upton agreed. “While you’re digging, I’ll visit my grandfather. I meant to ask him about the previous owners of Bradford House anyway.”
“Ask him about Comfrey, as well, would you? Let me send some scones for the old gent.” Rafe retreated to his kitchen.
“Granda has a widow lady waiting on him,” Upton said with a wink as he rose from the table. “But they’re not averse to sharing Rafe’s scones.”
Small towns, Grey thought gloomily as he followed the men out. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, probably back to Roman times.
Back at the house, Andrew stood outside, greeting the gravediggers with some confusion. He brightened at Grey’s orders and cheerfully led the parade to the back of the house and the kitchen door. There was another who believed in the positive until proven otherwise. Maybe Grey needed to change his attitude, but he’d learned at a distressingly early age that life was one pitfall after another.
Inside, the daunting Miss Leonard led her small squad of staff in scrubbing and rearranging. Thankfully, the laundress had taken their wash, so they might expect to start fresh for Sunday service on the morrow, if the brisk breeze did not bring rain.
“Mr. Upton believes they’re Roman artifacts,” he told his assistant, to wipe her grim frown. He hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on her even temperament this past year.
He’d probably stayed at Harrowby longer than he should have because he hadn’t wanted to lose the best assistant he’d ever hired. And she was female. He ought to have a hard time with that, but oddly, it made crude sense. Women were managing sorts.
“Yes, let us call them that,” she agreed stiffly. “The staff are more likely to stay if they believe the house was built on a Roman fort.”
“And you? Would you prefer ancient graves?” Grey asked, watching emotion chase across her normally implacable features. Behind those high cheekbones, her long-lashed eyes were quite expressive when she allowed.
“I will admit, I left Edinburgh eager for new sights. Murder and graves are not precisely what I had in mind.” Remembering herself, she dipped a curtsy she’d never bothered with before—presumably for the sake of staff. “Do you have pages ready for me to copy? Or shall I set up your library shelves as before?”
