Dara and Michael followed her down a narrow hall and up the stairs. She led them to a bedroom with simple furnishings. The room she had shared with her husband.
She closed the door. “Last night, my sister andI prepared Thomas for burial. I’d put it off. I was having a hard time seeing him the way he was. You know, the marks of his murder. However, it had to be done and I’d not let anyone else touch him. He was mine.”
Dara could empathize with the woman. Tears stung her own eyes. She now understood what it meant to love someone so completely as to feel bonded to them even after death.
Mrs. Ferrell knelt on the floor and pulled up a board. It was a hiding spot.
“We found these papers on Thomas.” There were three pages folded in half. She held them up to Michael. “He had them hidden in his jacket. He’d pulled a seam open in the lining to create a secret pocket. And then I remembered I’d caught him replacing this board one day and had sensed he was hiding something he hadn’t wanted me to know about. We wives have a canny sense about these matters.”
She reached down again and pulled out a thick packet of the same sort of paper. This, too, she offered to Michael. She replaced the floorboard.
He looked at what she’d given him, at the writing, the column of numbers, and then he said in amazement, “Oh, Ferrell, you brilliant man.”
“What are they?” Dara asked.
“These are copies of the requisitions and ledger entries Ferrell had been tracking.” He helped Mrs. Ferrell up. “It is all here. He laboriouslycopied the documents we needed and put explanations for how these accounts were compromised.”
“Will this help you catch whoever did this to my husband? Will it give me justice?”
“Most certainly,” Michael promised.
Chapter Twenty
While wives should try to be obedient, their husbands should treat them as their dearest friends.
The Rules (according to Dara)
An obedient wife is a dull one.
Tweedie’s belief
I agree with you.
Michael’s response
Michael found Holsworthy at his usual post, the side room at Brooks’s. The hour was eleven in the morning. The club was not busy other than a few tables in the Subscription Room.
At Michael’s entrance, his great-uncle scowled, an expression that gave him the appearance of a dissatisfied toad. His gouty foot was again propped on a stool. His jacket coat was open and his wig slightly askew. He held a full glass of port.
“Have you come crawling to beg my forgiveness?” he asked Michael. “You won’t receive it. I told you not to marry the Lanscarr chit. You did it. You have cast your own fate.”
“You don’t look well, my lord,” Michael replied in greeting.
“I’m healthy enough,andI should tell you that I no longer consider myself your uncle. You arenokin to me. Now turn yourself around and go.” He circled a finger in the air to demonstrate his instruction—except the circle was more like a zigzag.
Michael took the chair opposite his. “No one has ever credited me for being obedient.”
“The bankers have been instructed to cut you off. Your family will not have one shilling of mywealth.”
“My family doesn’t want a shilling from you. However, there is something we should discuss.”
“I have nothing to say to you. If I could withhold the title from you, I would. I tried. There is no way around it.”
“It isn’t that good a title,” Michael pointed out pleasantly.
Holsworthy reacted as if he had slapped him. “I should call you out.”
“Possibly,” Michael agreed, “but if you do, let’s make it for something important.” He leaned forward. “Ferrell left notes.”
