He’d needed to make a point.
Ha.He’dneededto make love with his wife. To show her exactly what she’d be missing if she followed through with her silly threat to spend the entire Season away from him.
He had not anticipated that response from her. He’d intuitively understood she’d be disgruntled by his claim that her presence here was precluding him from accomplishing his tasks. But he’d weighed the risks and opted for vexing her into compliance. Better that than the alternative, whereby she outright refused to go as she no doubt would if she knew the real reason he wanted her gone: to keep her safe.
So he’d insulted her into leaving, and she’d bared her claws. He’d anticipated that.
But hearing her blithely announce her intention to frolic for months in a spa town without him? No, he had not seen that coming.
Reaching Jack’s cottage, he reined in Zeus and dismounted, then tethered the animal to a work-yard railing a slight distance from where a second, smart looking horse stood, stamping his hooves into the dusty gravel. The magistrate, Mr. North’s horse, he guessed.
Good. He’d worried that he’d missed North, who would be privy to all the pertinent details concerning the guide’s suspicious death.
Before entering the cottage, he took a good look around. Two cottages to the left, a woman hung wash on the line, her back to him. As he watched, she flicked a glance over her shoulder at him.
To the immediate right, two men talked quietly as they hunched over some machinery they appeared to be repairing. Like the woman, they appeared to pay him no mind.
But they were not unaware of his presence. More likely, they monitored his every move. Before he left, he would question the lot of them.
He would use his rank, his wealth, and anything else in his arsenal to get to the bottom of this mystery.
And if necessary, he’d risk his wife’s annoyance a thousand times to keep her safe. But he would not allow her to flit about the countryside without him.
Spend the Season apart, indeed.
He made his way into the cottage.
Mr. North, the magistrate to whom he’d entrusted the body of Annabelle’s late maid, glanced up as he entered the small dwelling. “Lord Randall, I see you got my message. I thought perhaps Mr. Blackwell’s death would be of interest to you, since you shared his connection to the unfortunate woman who’d been murdered.”
“Indeed.” Sterling approached the short but burly man, arm extended for a shake. “I appreciate your timely notice and very much hope you can fill me in on the details.”
“Certainly, my lord. And any insight you have into this event will also be most welcome.”
Sterling nodded and scanned the cottage’s interior—an open chamber floor plan and small loft—with fresh eyes, though he’d been here once before.
A workable kitchen, with a wooden table and chairs took up half the ground floor. Dirty plates, cutlery, and random clothingitems were scattered on the counter and table, all of which Sterling had taken as evidence that the man had left in a hurry. The other half of the space functioned as the sitting room. He took in anew the braided rug, sofa, and small bookcase.
Though meager, all the items, including the dishware and furnishings were of decent quality and appeared to have been regularly tidied if not cleaned by someone.
As he’d noted on his previous visit, Jack Blackwell had not lived the life of a pauper, despite a notable lack of regular employment beyond his guide work.
Sterling fixed the magistrate with a steady eye. “I’ll go first, shall I? I originally sought out Blackwell to question him about the strangled maid who washed up on shore. My wife”—an unexpected grin curved his mouth, hearing the term aloud, and he quickly squelched the impulse—“had hired him as a guide to take her across the causeway from the mainland, and she wound up facing down men who held her at gunpoint while Blackwell fled the scene with the maid.”
Mr. North’s eyes narrowed. “Coincidence, or complicity?”
“That was my question,” Sterling replied, impressed with the man’s instincts. “It was certainly suspicious. More so when the maid wound up dead after he claimed to have delivered her to the train station from which she was supposed to have traveled back to London.”
“And then you came here and found indications that he’d fled,” Mr. North stated, glancing at the items left scattered about.
“Exactly. Now I have to wonder if he fled and then was murdered, or if he was simply killed to begin with. As to whether his death is related to that of the maid, barring any proof to state that it was, who can say? But I do not like the coincidence.”
“Nor do I.” North heaved a sigh. “He did not die by strangulation, but by blunt trauma to the head, after which hisbody was hidden in a byre, under feed sacks. In short, someone went to a lot of trouble to hide him, and he was only discovered because the owner of the shed had a dog who alerted him to the corpse’s presence. It would have required some strength to move the grain sacks and, more so, Blackwell’s body.”
“But two strong men could easily achieve this end,” Sterling stated.
“I would say so.”
He glanced up at the loft. “Have you done a thorough look ‘round?”
