Page 23 of The Villain’s Fatal Plot (Gravesyde Village Mystery #1)
TWENTY-THREE: RAFE
Rafe wanted to shoot someone, or beat them up, or anything to release his rage. He’d probably have to start with ducking Verity in a pond.
She still wasn’t telling them the whole truth.
“We should take these up to the manor.” Minerva began wrapping up the papers. “If the thief decides it’s easier to burn down the cottage than find them, they’ll be safe. For what little use they are.”
Had someone really killed Miss Edgerton to steal these scraps of nothing? And why now? Considering Verity claimed the painting depicted her father... The story had more holes than a sieve.
“You’ll have to bend them enough to hide in a basket. The cottage may be watched. I’ll go up with you.” The curate stood and helped his intended to rise.
“I don’t want to put anyone in danger,” Verity whispered miserably. “I should leave. I just don’t know where to go.”
“If you’re dead, no one is looking for you,” Rafe said callously, trudging down the stairs. What the devil did she mean, she was dead? She was alive and looking like all the temptresses in Hades, even in those damned demure widow’s weeds .
Which she’d probably worn for ten years, since her father’s death . Was she even widowed? No husband had been mentioned. The lady was a consummate liar.
And apparently, dead .
In the kitchen, he whacked off a slice of ham. He needed his own place. Why was he hovering, worried, over a lying, conniving... dead person?
Discussing hiding places, Paul and Minerva departed with the painting hidden in a basket of dirty linen. Fine, maybe the manor’s laundress would wash them.
Verity didn’t come down. Mrs. Underhill clucked and ladled broth from a kettle she’d started earlier. “You shouted at the poor thing. Hasn’t she been through enough?”
“What has she been through?” he demanded, cutting ham into the broth. “Has she told you?”
“Why, her friend was murdered before her eyes! Now she’s all alone in the world and that lawyer will sell the cottage right from under her. Men move on, but women want a home.” She carried the bowl up the stairs.
Rafe slurped the broth and went looking for heartier fare. He was here for the food, he reminded himself. They’d eaten almost everything. “If you want supper, we have to go to market,” he shouted up the stairs. She must keep coins on her person for the thief to merely steal a hat.
Where did dead women get money? From a bank. She’d arrived with Bosworth. Did the banker know her? He should question the next time the man stopped in. Rafe had a poor opinion of money men but he might enjoy a lowly soldier like him having the authority to question a banker.
“I don’t have a hat.” She descended the stairs much quieter than he had, looking defeated but still willing to help.
“Dead people don’t need hats.” He slammed on his tattered bicorne. “We’ll see what Lavender has. Aren’t you supposed to visit her? ”
Clasping her hands, eyes downcast, she nodded and drifted, hatless, toward the back door.
He felt like an ogre. Either she was an exceedingly good actress—or she was a victim of some sort. Right now, she definitely behaved like a victim, and his stupid Sir Galahad inclination kicked in. He really needed to stifle that antiquated proclivity.
“Is it safe for Mrs. Underhill to stay here?” she asked as he held the door for her.
No, it damned well was not. It wasn’t safe for any of them to stay here while a killer believed they harbored evidence, if that’s what this was all about. He was just a lowly soldier who took orders, not a general who understood strategic planning.
He returned to the stairs and shouted up them. “Mrs. Underhill, would you like to go to market for us? I’m taking Mrs. Porter up to the manor for a fitting.”
She slowly emerged from the loft, carrying her soup bowl, a cloak, and a bonnet. “Has Mrs. Porter eaten?”
“I’ll eat when we return,” she promised, sounding a little stronger in her reassurances. “I arranged for Mr. Oswald to keep track of our accounts, so if you would be so kind as to do the shopping, they’ll give the receipts to him.”
“Mutton or pork, if they have it. I’ll go fishing later. We have carrots and potatoes and greens, so pick up anything that catches your fancy,” Rafe advised, pushing the little widow out the door. “We need more flour, if Oswald will have it delivered.”
She’d arranged for the mercantile to keep her accounts? She’d been here less than a week and she’d already made herself at home. Rafe supposed money would do that. It wasn’t as if he had the experience.
“Mr. Upton gave me stakes for labeling the herbs,” Verity murmured as they traipsed through the back garden. “I can use Miss Edgerton’s paints to write on them. I just need to identify them.”
“The basic plants are right there by the kitchen door. They’re probably in her books. The others... even I may not know what they are. You’ll have to ask Mrs. Walker.” He was still furious and spoke curtly.
“I have no family other than my uncle,” she said softly, irrelevantly.
Rafe held an overhanging branch out of her way until she stepped past. It was a gray September day and the noon sun didn’t add much warmth, but it was pleasant walking along the brook toward the main footpath up to the manor. He studied on what she was telling him until he gathered all the ramifications. He didn’t like the result.
“You are hiding from your uncle? The one who inherited everything? Why?”
She shrugged. The dim light through the leaves darkened her caramel hair to a streaked brown she wore in a tight knot. “He is a drunk and not a nice man. It makes both our lives easier if he believes me dead.”
Did he want to know more? Men could beat wives without the law interfering. Penniless nieces... probably didn’t count for much either. Except she didn’t seem penniless, which might even be worse if the uncle wanted her blunt.
“You think he may have pushed your father under a carriage?” He had to ask, because it very much affected them now.
“I never would have thought so. My father was a generous man. My uncle worked for him in some capacity. I was confined to the schoolroom and paid no heed. Without the company, I shouldn’t imagine my father’s estate was worth much. So my uncle essentially lost his position when the business closed and had to start his own.”
But a child knew nothing of business, and those scraps of paper Minerva had read... Rafe reserved judgment. “If he thinks you dead, then there would be no point in following you here,” he agreed. “Or any reason to harm Miss Edgerton?”
“That’s what puzzles me,” she said as they reached the manor drive. “My father has been dead these ten years or more. No one cared what happened to me after my mother died. Why would they care now that I am dead to the world? It makes no sense.”
“Unless Miss Edgerton has more under her floors than that one packet. Perhaps we should have kept looking. If she was in the habit of painting incriminating scenes...”
“They might be in any of the illustrations we’ve already found and we didn’t notice. Or buried in the medical records we gave to Mrs. Walker. Or perhaps we’re looking at this wrong and someone simply hated her and decided to kill her for reasons known only to them.”
“And searched the cottage for what? No, someone believes she hid something. They may be wrong, but they’re searching, and it’s dangerous. Are you certain they are not searching for you?” Rafe took her arm as they approached the manor’s weathered wooden front doors.
Captain Huntley had workmen crawling all over the tower, rebuilding the interior for the expanding Reid family enterprises. Apparently replacing moldering panels wasn’t high on his list of repairs. Rafe was relieved when the knocker didn’t bring the door down.
Verity was quiet as they waited for someone to answer.
Miss Edgerton had died after Verity had arrived. After discovering the painting under the cottage floors, it was difficult for Rafe to believe it had nothing to do with the widow—who might not really be a widow.
If he was lusting after an innocent miss, he might as well shoot himself now.
Whoever had thought war was difficult? Civilization was an endless swamp in comparison.