Page 15 of The Villain’s Fatal Plot (Gravesyde Village Mystery #1)
FIFTEEN: RAFE
As they searched the parlor after supper, Rafe forgot his irritation at the widow for avoiding his question about who she was. Mrs.—Verity—was industrious in her search for her friend’s killer. Ignoring her skirts, she sat on the floor to work through the books on the bottom shelves, while he scoured the top. He wasn’t much of a student, so he passed his volumes on to Mrs. Underhill for further inspection. And to keep her occupied.
“Oh, she has children’s stories! Look at the lovely illustrations. I wonder who did this? It’s hand painted.” Pushing the curious kitten aside, Verity flipped through the sturdy pages.
She had said she’d wanted to be a teacher, he reminded himself. Teachers were harmless.
Miss Edgerton apparently hadn’t been.
“These books on top seem to be about plants and herbs. Do you think she was a self-taught herbalist? And these drawings look hand drawn as well.” He handed down a watercolor illustrated portfolio.
“Miss Edgerton always had a talent for art. I wonder if she did these herself?” Verity took the portfolio to admire.
“She had fancy friends visit,” Mrs. Underhill said. “Come in carriages, bringing baskets. Reckon that’s where she got some of these. But her ma and grandma started the garden. They knew a little of everything. She’d of learned from them.”
He’d known he should have been talking to old ladies. Trying to look nonchalant, Rafe put a volume back in its place. “Of course, this cottage belonged to her family. I’d forgotten that. How did she become a governess at a fancy boarding school?”
“Her grandma worked for the old earl that was. When he left the manor to his son, he took his own staff to one of his fancier estates. She married above herself, sent her children to school. Anne’s mother married well and so forth.” The elderly lady went back to holding books under the lamp.
“But they always returned here to visit?” Verity suggested, drawing out their companion.
“Aye, more than visit. Men always manage to get themselves killed, don’t they? At least they had a place of their own to go to.” Finding a book to her liking, she got up and trundled off to bed.
“There’s a story there,” Verity murmured.
“Women don’t often own property—another story.” Rafe started on the next shelf. So, women kept secrets. He almost understood. He’d wager some former Wycliffe had given Miss Edgerton’s female ancestors possession of this cottage for a reason. “I haven’t heard your story yet.”
Verity hesitated, flipping pages of the book she was perusing. He waited.
“My father wasn’t gentry but earned his fortune,” she finally said in a low voice he almost missed. “My mother... was disowned for marrying below her station, even though my father was quite well off. I am their only child. I had every expectation of marrying well, which is why they hired Miss Edgerton.”
She was being deliberately circumspect, hiding her identity and that of her parents—but giving him a glimpse of who she was: well-educated and related to gentry. Since she didn’t offer, he didn’t press to learn what happened. Yet. Obviously, her family no longer had wealth. Or she was running away .
“I was rude,” he admitted. “I know you didn’t kill Miss Edgerton. I have no right to ask more.”
“For what little it’s worth, we are living together. We should trust each other. I just don’t have much experience at it.” She added another book to a small stack growing beside her, then cuddled the kitten for comfort.
He’d rather she turned to him for comfort, but that was currently out of the question.
“I’m afraid there’s not much to be known about me,” Rafe offered in return. “I grew up the son of an innkeeper, expecting to follow in his footsteps. Except Parliament macadamized the road to London and allowed the lords who owned land along that route to connect a new toll road into Norwich. The lords built a new inn on the new road. All the traffic went around us, our business failed, my father borrowed money he couldn’t repay, and we lost it all for far less than it was worth. I went to be a soldier to earn my keep.”
“And because you felt like murdering a lord or two?” she asked with that hint of amusement he occasionally detected. She set the kitten down and checked the next book.
Bent over an illustration, hair the color of rich caramel gleaming in the lamplight, she gave the appearance of an ignorant miss, but those glimpses of astuteness were revealing. He’d definitely felt like killing. “Probably. I was only seventeen. My parents now live on my uncle’s farm. What happened to your parents?” Now that she was opening up a little, he tried again.
She hesitated as she flipped through pages. Inventing a story?
“My mother developed a lung ailment. London is not the most salubrious place for an invalid, but she refused to leave us for the country, and my father’s business required that he stay.” She paused to wipe a tear with the back of her hand. “He was killed in the street when I was fifteen. My mother only lived another year.”
It sounded truthful, not that he was any kind of judge. She’d been orphaned young. That seldom went well. “And so the governess had to go? ”
Straightening, she briskly started on the next book. “After my father’s death, any money that might come to me was in my uncle’s hands. We did not get along. So, that is who I am—nobody.”
An educated nobody who did her own shopping in the dirty street markets, buying meat pies. He suspected that left a gap of some years after Miss Edgerton’s departure. Inquiring how Verity supported herself during that time would be truly rude. He’d hope the uncle had provided a roof over his young niece’s head.
“ Soldiers are nobodies, mere cannon fodder. It’s a struggle for anyone to become somebody.” He’d had to do it over the backs of the men above him who had died. And with hard work and an education that gave him an advantage over others.
“Do not discount good fortune in surviving, although in my experience, bad fortune comes more often, and it’s what you make of it that matters.” She took down a heavy tome she nearly dropped. “As adolescents, we were forced to make decisions for which we were not prepared.”
“And lacked the wisdom to think them through. I liked the scarlet uniform that turned girls’ heads, plus the promise of a full belly.”
She didn’t reply. Rafe glanced down. In the lamplight, he could discern a few strands of copper gleaming among the light brown of her chignon. Her nape looked very frail. “Found something?”
When she didn’t reply, he put his book on the shelf and crouched down in front of her.
She slammed the book shut and stared at him wildly. The placid lady did not terrify easily. He held out his hand.
She studied the book, studied his hand, then reluctantly placed one in the other. “She was keeping medical records. For her own use,” she hastened to add. “To learn from experience.”
He opened the ledger and scanned the fine handwriting. The lady had named names. And procedures. And dates.
“Evidence for extortion,” he concluded angrily .
“And possible reason for murder?” she whispered, staring at the unassuming ledger in horror.
“And reason for the killer to return. This goes to the manor in the morning. Meanwhile, I’m sleeping by the kitchen door and Wolfie will sleep by the front.” He stood and looked for a better hiding place than a bookshelf.
“The shelves are the best concealment,” she offered. “Look how long it took us to find it. And you should have a better bed than the floor. I know the one in the kitchen is too small. Can you not push the sofas together? Then Wolfie can lay across the kitchen door.”
He raised his eyebrows but she’d returned to working her way through the shelves as if she hadn’t just invited a complete stranger to sleep inside her house, with no more than an old woman as protection.
The woman had utterly no sense of personal safety—which was why she’d traveled here without even a maid as companion. Fearlessly stupid... He hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of her depths. And shouldn’t want to.
But as he studied the furniture arrangement and thought about sleeping under a roof, with actual cushions under him, a long-suppressed longing for a real home niggled its way through the bedrock of his soldiering years.
He’d never meant to be a bailiff, but protecting people like the widow had been what he’d been doing for most of his life. He simply had to learn to do it within the confines of civilization. Cannon wouldn’t catch a killer.