Page 15 of The Tart’s Final Noel (Gravesyde Village Mysteries #3)

Thirteen

Rafe

Rising in the dark, Rafe brushed a kiss against his sleeping bride’s cheek, a rush of affection warming him as it always did in Verity’s presence.

A lady who had suffered at the hands of a greedy relation for all her adult life, she could have found better than an innkeeper’s son.

But starting out together, she’d fit into his world as if she’d always been there.

He might not be a religious man, but he never ceased to be amazed at the miracle.

He fretted about her recent sadness, fearing she thought she’d made a mistake by marrying him. But the orphans had lifted her spirits, which made him as protective of them as his wife.

He stopped in the adjoining bedchamber to check on them.

They were a cause for more concern than he meant to express.

Verity loved children. He knew that. She had tamed a schoolroom full of rambunctious brats of all ages and had them learning their numbers and letters without a single complaint.

But these two well-bred, educated youngsters.

. . didn’t belong in an impoverished inn.

Someone would come looking for them—and he feared they might not be the ones who should have them.

Sending young children out without their belongings, in that broken-down buggy, at night, with a drunken driver.

. . He suspected foul play. He didn’t grasp the reason, only the danger.

If Verity lost them like that. . . There would be no consoling her.

He’d posted the dead woman’s image in the lobby. At this point, she was the only clue he had.

The little girl had crawled into bed with her brother and slept clinging to her new rag doll. The kitten had abandoned his hearth bed, climbed in, and curled up with them.

Last night, Rafe had talked to Daniel a bit and learned Daphne used to talk.

Daniel didn’t know why she quit. He’d come home from school to be told his mother had died.

His sister hadn’t said a word since. Things like that simply did not happen in respectable households.

Rafe hoped and prayed the Uptons found Beanblossom and that it held people who knew the children.

He dressed and traversed the back hall to the kitchen, where he stirred the fire and heated water.

With years of experience, he had the yeast and tea ready at the same time.

He gulped a cup, then mixed the ingredients.

After he washed and shaved, he kneaded the dough.

He had bread in the oven and rashers and eggs fried as the servants straggled in to help.

He slapped his food on day-old toast and left the women to finish up.

They were capable of watching the bread bake while preparing breakfast.

Finishing his egg-bacon sandwich, he shrugged on his greatcoat, and stomped up the lane to Willa’s cottage.

He wished he’d had training in how to be a bailiff instead of making it all up on his own.

He was grateful for friends who gave him suggestions, but they didn’t know much more about the position than he.

They’d searched Willa’s stable and yard as well as her house, but not knowing what was out of place or missing, they didn’t learn anything. Fletch had only noticed her slow clock.

The aroma of bread baking permeated the chilly morning air. Brydie must have come in early.

Rafe studied the flagstone path as he traipsed to the back door.

Had the killer come in front or back? Had she known the villain?

Fletch had said she hid a key under a flagstone beside the kitchen door.

Any of her visitors might have known about it.

There had been no sign that anyone had battered in the door, so her killer must have known—or he’d followed Cooper inside.

Cooper hadn’t regained much memory of his arrival.

It seemed likely that he’d been hit when he’d walked through the door.

Meera had said the knife had caused a lot of splatter.

But Cooper hadn’t had a speck of blood on him, other than a few spots on his linen and around the bump on his head.

How did one go about searching for blood-splattered clothes?

They’d found nothing in the cottage. Rafe supposed clothes could have been thrown in those great ovens—which Brydie and Cooper had set alight.

Would they have noticed clothes? Not if they were already ashes.

Brydie was feeding the guard Captain Huntley had sent in the kitchen.

“Quiet night?” Rafe asked.

The man shrugged. “Except for Fletch’s snoring. He slept on the couch, Mr. Cooper, upstairs. We took turns patrolling, checking doors and whatnot. They stayed locked. No one rattled them. No one tried the windows. Any villain is long gone.”

That’s what Rafe feared.

Fletch sprawled on the sofa in the front room.

The mantel clock was back in place, chiming as Rafe walked in.

Fletch unburied himself from his greatcoat cover and rubbed his unshaven jaw, grumbling.

He must have spent at least part of the night fixing the clock.

It chimed seven times. Rafe didn’t have a watch but he’d surmise that was about right.

Apparently drawn by the smell of breakfast, Cooper staggered down the dark stairs, holding the rail instead of lighting a lamp.

He scrubbed a hand over his rumpled hair and glared at Rafe.

“This is senseless, you realize. One of Willa’s customers took it on himself to rid the world of her, and you’ll never find him. ”

Fletch growled, but he wasn’t one to talk much in the morning—or at all. He staggered into the kitchen. The backdoor slammed, so he was on his way to the privy.

“Someone searched her desk,” Rafe reminded him. “They sought something. I’m going to take her trinkets down to Oswald. He buys, sells, and pawns bits and pieces. Maybe he’ll recognize one of them.” He’d come up with that idea while staring sleeplessly at the ceiling last night.

He hated the idea of a killer running free, but he’d be relieved if he knew the town wasn’t under any threat.

Fletch returned while Rafe gathered the trinkets they’d collected so far. Holding out the box of rings and spoons and pins, he asked, “Any of these belong to you?”

His friend didn’t even look. “Nah. I gave her coin. There’s a silver spoon in there comes from up the manor, though. Recognized it yesterday.”

“Quincy wouldn’t steal spoons. He’s in charge of them, isn’t he?

” Rafe suspected the portly ex-fighter butler was sweet on the housekeeper.

It was doubtful if he’d jeopardize that relationship visiting Willa.

Besides, an ex-boxer like Quincy would have been noticed anytime he stepped off the manor grounds.

“Footmen set the table. Kitchen help washes. Anyone could slip a spoon into a pocket. Quincy usually counts them. You might ask if any went missing and when. But even if one of the footmen stole it, it proves nothing.” Fletch pulled a stone from the fireplace and reached in, producing another small bundle.

“She hid these things all over, for her old age, she said.”

So Willa had trusted Fletch with her secrets. Or he’d discovered them and questioned. Interesting.

Fletch hid his grief well, but it was there, in the angry rumble of his voice as he handed over the cloth-wrapped bundle.

“She showed you where she hid these?” Rafe opened the cloth, finding a tiny pearl stickpin, a gold watch fob, silver coins, and silver needles.

“Nah, I noticed the stone was loose when I was reaching for the clock. She’d stashed a few coins in the clock as well. I left them on the desk. Ought to be enough to pay for a decent burial, shouldn’t there?” He looked uncomfortable asking.

“I’m pretty sure the curate intends to see her respectably buried. The woman from the buggy. . .” Rafe added the fob and stickpin to his collection for taking to Oswald. “Had coins enough for tolls, not coffins. Did Willa ever talk of family?”

“We didn’t spend much time talking. I didn’t even know about Cooper. I thought she was all alone.” Looking uncomfortable, Fletch returned to the kitchen.

Rafe searched the rest of the house while he waited for Oswald’s mercantile to open, turning up several more small hoards tucked away in fairly obvious hiding places. It would take a thief a while to gather them all. But if anything had been stolen, Rafe had no way of knowing.

He heard Brydie scolding the men in the kitchen just as the clock chimed eight. The market would be opening. Wrapping the small box of gewgaws in his handkerchief and shoving it into his pocket, he trotted back downstairs.

Brydie tucked bread and buns into baskets and scowled at Rafe’s approach. “These oafs are eating up profits. We should charge them.”

“I’ll add it to the expense sheet I send to Hunt.” Amused, Rafe helped her prepare her market basket. “Guarding a house against a killer ought to earn something.”

She rolled her eyes. “So the captain ends up paying them double for guarding and eating, paying the curate for a funeral, and offering a free coffin and burial site on the manor grounds, plus your services. This does not sound like a reasonable means of running a village.”

“Alternative is taxing everyone and having a village treasurer pay the bills.” Rafe helped himself to one of the buns the others had left. It was pretty decent, if he did say so himself. He’d have added a spoon of sugar.

Humor restored at that ridiculous notion, Brydie laughed. “If we could collect taxes in the form of cabbages and carrots, that might almost work.”

“Since the church hasn’t even been able to collect that much in tithes, I’m guessing you’ll need a tax collector with a big stick. Are you walking? I’m going that way and can help you carry the load.” Rafe picked up several of her baskets. “You really need a cart to set up in.”

“Arthur delivered Lyn and Rob to your place. He’ll water the pony and leave the cart for me. What can we do for Verity to make up for all the time she’s spending watching Kate’s children?” Brydie hauled the rest of the bread baskets out after him.

“I’m not helping her much either.” Rafe sighed at the pleasant image he’d once imagined of the two of them running the inn side-by-side. “I need to hire more staff.”

“Well, we met a Mr. Ralph Parsons in one of the cottages up the lane, says it belonged to his granny. I’m thinking he’s the chicken thief. He might be looking for work.” Brydie sounded half-amused, half-worried.

“Just what we need, more scoundrels. You recognize him?” Rafe carried the baskets to the pony cart waiting in the inn yard. The mercantile wasn’t that far away. She just needed a place to display the bread out of the dust of the road.

“I wouldn’t want to testify in front of a judge, but I’m pretty sure he’s the one who grabbed me.

He was roasting chicken when we stopped by.

Has a horse too. He could be another ex-soldier come home to roost. Check to see if his shins are bruised if you go out there.

” She climbed into the cart and grinned at him.

Rafe really didn’t want this job.

Walking beside Brydie’s cart, he studied the women selling their goods in front of Oswald’s store.

Gravesyde was inhabited by widows and a few young women who, like Brydie, never married because the men all left for war or employment in the city.

Rafe knew there were farmers still around, but they didn’t do the shopping.

He’d be better off hunting killers at the tavern. Not a pleasant thought.

He waited until Oswald’s customers had left before stepping up to the counter with his box. “These are from Willa’s house. Do you recognize any of them?”

A gray-haired, wizened man of diminutive size, the postmaster and mercantile owner also acted as a pawn shop. He poked through the boxes and held up the stickpin. “Willa sometimes brought this in when she was short on blunt. Said it was her father’s. She always bought it back.”

“Nothing else look familiar?” Rafe hadn’t expected much, but he had to do everything he could think of, which obviously wasn’t enough.

“Spoon belongs to the manor.” Oswald shrugged. “All the rest are pretty common. Nothing worth more than a few shillings.”

“Thank you.” Rafe tucked the box back in his pocket. “Did Willa have you read her correspondence?”

Oswald nodded. “She could barely write her name. She had me write her answers. She didn’t really have no one to write though.”

What a sad small life the poor woman had lived. The men who visited had probably been her only glimpse of the outside world. “Do you remember what letters she received recently? And her replies?”

The merchant puckered up his nose beneath his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Few months back, she had a note saying Margie was ill and asking if she’d come visit. Margie was about the only one ever wrote her. They grew up together.”

“Did Willa reply?” Rafe remembered being told the baker’s daughter was named Margery, so that was most likely the Margie. “Do you remember the address?”

Oswald wrinkled his brow trying to recall the replies. “I think it came from Stratford, but that’s where most everything comes from, so I could be mistaken. Willa paid me by the word, so she was terse, just said she had no way of traveling, but she had room if they wanted to come to her.”

“They? As in the ill woman?” Rafe tried to puzzle that out, but the minds of women escaped his understanding.

Oswald frowned more. “I think the exact wording was something like ‘The place is yours. They can come any time.’ Or maybe she said ‘You can come.’ It’s been a few months. But far’s I know, no one ever came.”

Until the other night, when someone killed her. Rafe’s gut churned, but his mind could make no sense of any of it. “No letter from Mr. Cooper?”

“Not that I recall, but I was down with the catarrh for a few days and my wife gave out the mail.”

Rafe had seen the letter, so he knew it existed. He’d have to question the wife. And then the ugly thought occurred—was Willa’s only correspondent the cousin whose funeral Cooper was to attend?