Page 118 of Courting the Country Miss

The Runner clarified, “Mrs. Tallier sent a message to the magistrate demanding his assistance. Only Bow Street would do for her. It seems the magistrate, Lord Birnie, and Mrs. Tallier go way back.”

Tristan said, “I’m here on behalf of Mrs. Tallier’s niece. She’s a…friend.” No need to get into the details of what Leticia was, or was not, to him.

The Runner stuck out a hand. “Conner Jackson, at your service.”

“Tristan Barrett.” Tristan shook his hand and jabbed a thumb behind him. “The kitchen shows signs of a fight and there is a little blood but no body in the main floor or lower level.”

Jackson nodded. “Show me.” The Runner showed no deference to Tristan’s higher rank, which suited Tristan just fine.

He led the constable to the kitchen and then showed Jackson around the school. They checked the upper floor, finding no intruder in any of the attic rooms, one of which they had set up for the teacher’s bedchamber before she moved into Mrs. Tallier’s house.

“There should be a caretaker,” Tristan said. “Perhaps he went out.”

Jackson pursed his lips. “I need to question the two people involved. A teacher and a footman, I hear?”

Tristan nodded. “They are at Mrs. Tallier’s house. Share a hackney back?”

Jackson agreed and went to hail a hackney while Tristan locked the doors.

“Sir?” a child’s voice called timidly from behind him.

Tristan located a girl of perhaps twelve standing in the street as if she were too frightened to draw near but couldn’t make herself leave.

He peered at her. “You’re one of the students here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Her mouth quirked in a shy smile. “You ’elped me learn ’ow to dance.”

He nodded.

She sobered. “Is Mrs. ’arper…? Is she ’urt?”

“Do you know what happened?” Tristan knelt to get eye level with the child.

The girl shook her head. “I only ’eard someone say that there was screamin’ an’ a fight and that the man wot loves Mrs. ’arper carried her out b’cause she were ’urt.”

“Do you know who hurt her?”

She stared at the ground. “I think I ’eard tell it were Molly’s father.”

“I see. Do you happen to know where they live?”

She shook her head. “No, sir.”

Tristan fished a shilling out of his pocket. “Thank you.”

She took the coin and studied it as if she had never seen anything of its kind. Looking up, she turned beseeching eyes on him. “Are they goin’ to close the school?”

“Not a chance.”

Fisting her hand around the shilling, she nodded. “I sure ’ope not.” She looked up at him, gave him a quick smile, and disappeared around the building.

A hackney pulled up and Jackson spoke to the jarvey. Tristan joined him as they both climbed in the carriage. At Mrs. Tallier’s house, Jackson got out, but Tristan bade him farewell and took the hackney home. The last thing he wanted to do was see Leticia right now.

What would he say to her? Demand to know her intentions?

Had he been wrong about her all along and she was as faithless as he feared all women were, or had he only thought she’d pledged herself to him because that’s what he wanted to hear, while instead, she was trying to tell him that she wanted Lord Bradbury instead?

He stood at a junction. He could step back and let her have the better man, a lord of unimpeachable character, a man she liked well enough to kiss. If Tristan loved her, that’s what he should do.