“Tell me again.Where were you?” Lucy addressed her question to a lanky, half-grown boy drinking lemonade in her kitchen. His reports of a stranger on Willowbrook had Lucy’s full attention.
“Andy, and me went to see about the badgers like you told us to,” John Thatcher told her. “We thought we might check the rocks around Limestone Ridge where it meets Caulfield land. So, we come up the meadow, crossed the stream, and started up hill. When we came around the stand of maples, we saw him.”
“Go on. Tell me exactly.”
John shrugged. “Not much to tell. He walked around. Kept looking up the hill.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Skinny looking. Shiny pate.”
“Shiny? Balding? Did he have red hair?”
“What he had were brown, I know that fer sure, but mostly he’s losing it,” John snickered. “Dint look dangerous.”
Not a Caulfield bastard or imposter,Lucy thought. “Well dressed or poorly?”
“Well, sort of. Town clothes.”
“What the devil was he doing?” she murmured. “You say he just walked around?”
“Aye. Slowly, and stopped a lot. Like he were studying something.”
A rocky outcrop lined Willowbrook’s border with Caulfield Hall, more of it on the Caulfield side. When her sister lived, and David had the care of the place, Lucy liked to climb up and enjoy the view. Now she had no time to spend on a spot useless for crops or foraging, and she largely ignored it.
“Did he have anything with him?” she asked.
The boy scrunched up his forehead as if thinking hurt. “Pulled something out o’ a pouch once and aimed it up the hill,” John recalled.
“A weapon?”Poachers we can manage, she thought.
“Don’t think so. It were round,” he said, and then he sat up straighter. “I remember Andy said it was funny for a watch to have handles, and I said it was too big to be a watch. Won’t fit in a waistcoat. Is that important?”
“Perhaps.” The stranger sounded like a surveyor of some sort.Is David checking the boundary? Maybe Sir Robert wants to make sure he gets everything coming to him.Lucy leaned her elbow on the table, chin on her fingers, and considered the possibilities. John, pleased with his contribution, polished off his lemonade.
The door came open with a bang when Agnes bustled in. “This came from the Willow,” she announced, handing Lucy a message. She glared at John’s avid curiosity until he took the hint.
“Are we finished then, Miss Lucy?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you, John,” she murmured absently, reading the message over again. She waved a hand as if to shoo him away.
Agnes sank down onto the vacated chair. “Well?” she demanded, making no effort to pretend any discretion.
Lucy folded the missive. “The Thatcher boys caught some stranger studying the limestone ridge. No red hair on that one.”
“Not that. What about the message. It isn’t Emma Corbin’s writing.”
No, it is not.The bold script slashed across the paper was as impertinent as the man who wrote it.
“The heir wants an accounting.” She handed it to Agnes.No point in trying to keep it from her anyway.
“That one doesn’t waste words, does he?” Agnes scanned the message twice.
“Doesn’t bother with manners either,” Lucy replied.
“He wants to see the books. They in order?”
Lucy flashed Agnes a scathing glance. “Of course.”
