Page 14 of The Tart’s Final Noel (Gravesyde Village Mysteries #3)

Twelve

Brydie

Brydie tied up the last batch of buns with brown paper and string and added them to her basket.

She peered into Willa’s front room, where Damien had organized neat stacks of papers from all over the house, holding them down with whatever heavy objects came to hand.

She’d heard no cries of success and assumed he’d located nothing to tell them who owned the cottage.

She didn’t know where Cooper had gone. He was supposed to be sorting Willa’s belongings for his family.

Sgt-Major Fletcher Ferguson, as she knew the tall, surly soldier was properly called, sat on the aging sofa, bending over a square case clock that had been on the mantel.

She’d noted earlier that it was running slow.

Damien had taken a flask away from him and handed him the clock—a successful ploy, apparently.

Brydie was still wary of the major, but he was much too large to be the man from the henhouse.

Judging by his grim visage, he’d have snapped her neck in one try.

She shivered. Having a killer lurking about was enough to make one stay in bed.

. . well, no, that hadn’t helped poor Willa.

“I would like to deliver these buns to the neighbors now,” she told the men. “If you’re busy, you needn’t accompany me.” She fully intended to bribe the neighbors into talking.

Damien grunted in exasperation and unfolded himself from the stacks of paper on the floor.

“Fletch, we’re leaving you guarding the house.

” He picked up the coat and hat he’d flung over a chair and handed Brydie her cloak.

“Wear your shawl under that flimsy wrap or you’ll freeze.

It’s almost too dark to do this. Can’t interrogating the neighbors wait until morning? ”

“I have to be at the market,” she reminded him. “I cannot rest until I. . .” She stopped, casting a glance at Fletch, who might or might not be listening since he’d done no more than grunt at them. He was grieving. She didn’t want to send him back to his flask again.

Damien nodded and followed her into the kitchen, donning his outer garments. “I understand. I just don’t think you ought to be the one investigating.”

“You can read legal documents. I can bake and talk. Rafe can chase egg thieves. Division of duties. If Minerva were here, I’d have her go with me. The curate’s wife is supposed to visit the parish.” Brydie donned a shawl and tugged on her gloves.

Damien threw her cloak around her. “We’ll only traipse about until dark. Kate has no doubt taken the children home already. You should be with them.”

She patted his stubbled cheek, enjoying his masculine familiarity. “I have been walking these lanes in the dark since childhood. You cannot change my ways now that you’ve decided to return here.” She hoped this wasn’t an argument they must repeat for a lifetime.

He brushed a kiss against her hair before pulling up her hood. “If you love me, you won’t give me any more attacks of the heart. I’m an old, old man and cannot take much more.”

She snorted inelegantly and cast him a sideways glance. “Yes, old and doddering, I see that now. I shall knit you a shawl for Christmas.”

Her beloved stood nearly a head taller than she. Well-muscled, although not as broad as Fletch and Rafe, he’d once lifted her as if she were a sack of flour. Definitely doddering. And intent on having his own way. She hoped he enjoyed fighting.

They strode through the shadows of the winter hedges as the sun lowered behind the manor hill, outlining the Priory towers rising above the trees.

Most of the small cottages along the lane had been abandoned decades ago, their thatch rotted and fallen in, their yards a bramble of overgrown weeds and shrubs.

Mrs. Essex lived in the one nearest Willa. Smoke drifted from her chimney. They’d already talked to her. She no doubt knew by now that Willa was dead and she wouldn’t be receiving more free bread. Brydie strode on.

“There’s smoke coming from that chimney.” Damien nodded to a house further down and across the lane. “Shall we just stop where there are signs of life?”

The task was daunting enough that Brydie agreed. “Winter is a very bad time for investigating, but I suppose the holiday is good excuse for being neighborly.”

This house appeared as abandoned as the others, with an overgrown yard and rotting thatch, although the roof did appear to be in one piece, with no obvious holes.

Little more than a shepherd’s stone croft, it probably hadn’t been improved since it was built a century ago.

A horse whickered in back. Someone was home.

Damien knocked on the cracked wooden door. Brydie held her breath, expecting the leather hinges to fall in.

No one immediately answered but the aroma of roasting meat carried through the cool air.

“Vagabond?” Brydie offered.

She shouldn’t have said anything. Damien’s expression grew grim and he pounded harder.

Eventually, they heard a rustling in the front room, followed by muttering and rattling on the other side of the door. It dragged open with a loud creak of swollen wood. An unshaven man with untrimmed dark hair peered warily through the crack. “What d’ya want?”

Trying not to be too suspicious, Brydie beamed and held up one of her packages.

“Merry Christmas, sir! We are trying to meet the neighbors before the holiday, invite everyone to chapel services. We’ll have a choir and spiced cider.

I’m Brydie Calhoun and this is Damien Sutter.

He’s just returned to Gravesyde.” She bobbed a curtsy.

Damien removed his hat and bowed. “Have you lived here long?”

The man accepted the package of buns still warm from the oven. They smelled delicious and Brydie’s stomach rumbled. She didn’t eat while baking. Perhaps she should have.

Reluctantly, the man muttered, “Ralph Parsons, just moved in. Place belonged to my granny. Thank ye, kindly.” He started to close the door.

Damien inserted his boot. “Do you know any of the other neighbors? It’s late, and we don’t want to stop at every house if they’re empty.”

“Just got here, I said.” He eyed Damien with suspicion. “Don’t know nobody.”

“Well, come down to the tavern later and you’ll find good company. I don’t suppose you knew the lady across the lane?”

“Don’t know no one. People been back and forth all day. Got supper cooking. Need to get back to it.” He tried to shut the door again.

“Did you notice anyone last night?” Brydie asked cheerfully. “We’re trying to find her family.”

Parsons eyes narrowed. “Didn’t notice nothing. Her family lost?”

Damien returned his tall hat to his head. “That’s what we’re trying to ascertain. Good evening to you, sir, hope to see you in church.” He tugged Brydie’s elbow to turn her back to the lane.

“I suppose it’s not polite to punch the neighbors,” she said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I can wish that the uncleaned chimney burns the house down around him.”

He glared down at her. “You burn down houses for rudeness?”

She could practically feel his glare through her hood. “He’s our hen thief. He’s the right size, I remember the beard, and he’s roasting chicken.”

Damien swung his glare to the ramshackle cottage. “A vagabond thief who assaults women, charming. I’ll send Rafe out in the morning. But we have no proof of anything.”

“We could ask to see his shins, see if they’re bruised.

” Brydie was too tired to go back and punch him.

The fellow had probably been hungry and she’d interrupted his breakfast. He must know these lanes if he escaped Fletch.

The sergeant-major was unfamiliar with much of the village.

“Is Fletch guarding Willa’s tonight? If Parsons is the killer, he’s likely to break in again and be gone by morning. ”

Brydie started up the walk of the next house showing smoke in the chimney.

“Fletch, Cooper, and another of the captain’s ex-soldiers, one who swore off drink, are guarding it.

But unless the killer is after Willa’s trinkets, I can’t see that there’s anything there to be found besides a trunk full of letters from family.

A hen thief and a killer aren’t necessarily the same. ”

“Which is what I’ve been saying all along,” she sniffed. “How does anyone ever catch wrongdoers?”

“Not easily,” he concluded wearily.

They repeated their performance at a few more houses without any more success, although the older inhabitants were far more hospitable than Mr. Parsons. They all had tales to tell of Willa but none added to their limited knowledge beyond reminiscences of the Bartletts and buns.

“We’re halfway home,” Brydie noted as they emerged from the last cottage on the lane. “Do you need to go back to the inn to fetch your horse? I’ll be fine walking on.” She had one bundle of buns left she thought she’d earned after this day’s work.

“The horse will be fine with Rafe. Chicken thieves and killers roam the night. We need to find a horse for you.” Damien took her arm and led her over a stile to the footpath that connected with the carriage road, proving he hadn’t forgotten his way around in his years of absence.

“Horses cost much too much: to buy, to feed, to care for. With Arthur leaving for school, we’ll have no one to tend the stable. Rob can manage the pony before school, but no more than that. I have two good feet.” Brydie tried not to shiver inside her cloak.

Just because Damien thought he ought to take care of her didn’t mean she ought to allow him to do so. She’d seen what had happened when Kate had been left a widow with three young children. She’d been helpless to handle the farm. They both had been. They were only just now finding their feet.

“I’ve savings set aside.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders to pull her against his warmth. “I won’t let you go hungry if the court can’t return my mother’s investments. We won’t need much to live on since the property is free and clear.”

“Good thing, since we won’t earn much by living in Gravesyde,” she replied with tired humor. “Once Jacques has his shoe business set up, do you think he might rent the house from you? Then we could live closer to where we work.”

“You’re thinking about Willa’s bakery, aren’t you? Do you really want to be a baker?”

He knew her too well. “I’d never given it a thought before, but I like baking. Only, buying her house is about as likely as Verity adopting those children. The real owners will come along sooner or later. I was thinking more of the inn and your office.”

“Willa’s family might not want a house where a member died so violently. And Willa’s reputation. . . I’m expecting men to come knocking at her door any time now. Fletch says he wasn’t her only. . . visitor.” Damien spoke frankly.

Brydie tried to puzzle out what he was telling her, but her mind was on baking.

“I cannot imagine Willa knew many men. She went to bed early to get up and bake bread, so she didn’t spend time at the tavern.

Or church, now that I think of it. I suppose the former soldiers up at the manor might hunt bread for some reason. You don’t think one of them. . . ?”

Damien sighed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t talk about such things with you.”

“You should talk about everything with me,” she cried. “We cannot have secrets.”

“I don’t know how,” he complained. “We’re not married. You’re an innocent lady who should not have even known Willa. I would be far more comfortable if you baked bread at home or the inn. I don’t know how Willa found her male customers, and I fear no woman is safe there.”

Brydie stopped in the middle of the dark lane with bare tree branches scratching in the wind above their heads.

She’d grown up in a small community, but she hadn’t buried her head in the mud.

She simply had to get past her shock to grasp what he wasn’t telling her.

She ought to punch him again. “Mrs. Essex told us someone offered a king’s shilling for Saturday night. What does that mean to you?”

Damien tried to drag her on. She planted her feet and refused to move.

“To take the king’s shilling generally means to join the army,” he said. “It may have meant something else to Willa. She did not live on just selling bread. Must I say more?”

Brydie thought about it. “Most of the soldiers who camped on manor land are gone. Hunt hired the few remaining. Are you saying. . . ?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say it.

“I am saying nothing except Willa had male friends.” Damien dragged her on.

Male friends—puzzle pieces clicked. Willa had been a barque of frailty? Here? In Gravesyde?

This time she followed—because he was talking.

“The captain and his friends are making discreet inquiries of manor employees and guests who may have visited Willa. But why would any of them kill her? She had next to nothing, and we can’t see that anything has been stolen.”

“If there were documents in that desk, they’re gone,” she reminded him.

“That may be all the killer sought. In which case, I doubt it was one of the soldiers. Most of them are illiterate. Verity has been talking about an evening school to teach them, but there are only so many hours in the day.” She was much more comfortable talking about schools.

“I won’t rest easy until we find who did it.” Damien stopped outside Brydie’s home and held her close. “Which means we must be suspicious of every man in town. Don’t go anywhere without me.”

He was her reality now. Forgetting Willa, Brydie hugged his neck and kissed him boldly, then stepped away.

“I might as well tell you not to go anywhere without me. Women can kill, too, and a jealous wife— Perhaps the Uptons or the mail will bring us news in the morning. I trust they’ll be picking the post up before they return home. ”

He winced at mention of a jealous wife and stuck to a safer topic. “Fletch said he’d take our post in the morning, but it could be after Christmas before we hear anything. Go knit gloves for the children and stay home!”

Brydie hurried toward the warm kitchen but threw over her shoulder, “Shawl! I’m knitting you a shawl, old man!”