Dominic tucked the button into his coat pocket again and made his way around to the kitchen gardens and staff entrance.
The burly young undergardener vigorously applied a garden tool to the weeds taking over the kitchen garden.
“Barlow, isn’t it?”
He lowered his hoe and straightened up. “Aye, milord.”
“You’ve been working on these beds during the last few days?”
“Oh, aye.”
“Seen anyone come to the house you didn’t know?”
He turned and gestured to an unruly, tall hedge in need of pruning. “Mister Pike came. He met the laundry mistress there, behind the hawthorn. Very friendly like, they were.”
Dominic tensed. “Pike?”
“Aye, milord. Wore his hat pulled low and his collar up, but I’d recognize him anywhere, skinny fellow that he his.” He flushed. “Pardon, milord. Perhaps I shouldna have said it.”
“You don’t like Pike?”
He shook his head. “Seen him in the taproom. He’s there every night ’til late. It’s a bully he is, treated the barmaid bad last time I was there. I’ll teach him a lesson if he does it again.”
Dominic eyed the set of the gardener’s shoulders. “I prefer my staff not resort to such means to settle an argument, Barlow.” The sturdy young Scot dropped his gaze to the hoe he held in his powerful hands. “It would be an unfair fight.”
Barlow glanced up, a twinkle in his brown eyes. “Aye, milord. I ken that.”
With a nod, Dominic walked on to the house.
He entered through the kitchen door.
Samuels turned from stirring the bubbling pots on the stove, filling the room with fragrant steam. “Milord?”
When on the way to Graves’s farm, Olivia refused to tell him what she knew about Samuels. He had asked Williams. Dominic knew the cook served in the navy, but it surprised him to learn he’d spent time in Newgate for a fraud.
“When the fellow, whose evidence put him behind bars died,” Williams had explained over breakfast, “he left a letter clearing Samuels of any wrongdoing. Wasn’t much use as he’d almost completed his sentence. I thought he deserved another chance.”
Dominic watched Samuels wipe his hands on a dishtowel, assessing his character. Olivia approved of him. “I wish to talk to you. Come to the library at three o’clock.”
The cook raised his shaggy eyebrows but didn’t question it. “Yes, milord.”
Back at his desk, Dominic opened his mail. A letter from Evelyn. He scanned it quickly, passing impatiently over details of parties and dinners and the vicar’s sermon, which had so annoyed Justin. He found what he looked for in the last two paragraphs written on the side of the page in small print.
I found an old letter from Uncle Alberic addressed to Mama. She was most dreadfully ill and passed away within two weeks of Papa, so it was overlooked. I have sent it to you under separate post. Dearest Dominic, I am so sorry I missed it. But it isn’t too late. You will still gain much from it. I shall say no more until you have read it.
Dominic searched fruitlessly through the rest of the mail, then sat back with a muttered curse. The letter wasn’t there.
Frustrated, he tugged at his neckcloth, one Cushing calledl’Orientale,which in his opinion resembled a noose. Why the devil he needed such a fancy arrangement in the wilds of the country eluded him. He tied it in a comfortable knot, which would have his valet in hysterics, and went to the window to stare bleakly out. He did not like to be on bad terms with Olivia. It bothered him far more than he thought possible. Once he’d cooled down, he admitted what a difficult position she was in, and his deep sympathy for her reasserted itself, along with the determination to solve the mystery surrounding her father.
For a startling moment, he thought he’d conjured Olivia up when she walked into sight along the path leading down to the lake. He’d allowed himself to envision them in the summerhouse together, away from prying eyes. A few cushions, some wine, kissing every inch of her.
An odd time for her to go for a stroll, when luncheon would soon be served, but there she was in her straw bonnet, hurrying as if she had some purpose in mind. Was it to meet someone? He took himself to task for his unreasonable jealousy as he went after her.
*
Olivia passed througha green archway on a path leading away from the house. Alone, she could face what had occurred. Her world had turned upside down. Redcliffe thought poorly of her. It was of little comfort to know he now knew the truth. After wiping her cheeks and blowing her nose, she’d forced herself to continue her hunt through Pike’s ledgers for evidence of her father’s innocence.
She’d had no luck to date. But it was difficult to be sure if the accounting during Pike’s time at Redcliffe Hall had been recorded accurately, or designed to hide his criminal activities.
