But they’d arrived with nothing.Studying the sprawling inn, Brydie wanted to grab her family and run home.So very many places a killer could hide...
“I fear it is out of our hands,” Minerva admitted unhappily.“We must wait for letters from the Americas, from bishops, from Cooper’s unknown family...It is not quite the same as being useful.I may as well help the ladies plan a Christmas market.Am I expected to bring something to sell?”
“Do you have any wedding gifts you can’t use?Anything new or remotely fancy will be pounced upon.Christmas encourages generosity.”Brydie picked up her old woolen skirt and proceeded into the inn yard.It hadn’t rained recently, so the mud wasn’t too bad.And one of the stable boys was cleaning up after the horses.
She needed to return to her baking, but she’d like to see Damien first.Once she’d left Willa’s, he’d left for his new law office.Not that anyone in Gravesyde could afford a lawyer, but he was trying to settle down for her sake.At the grand old age of thirty, she didn’t have the same giddy illusions of romantic love she’d had when they were younger, but she still loved him for many excellent reasons, despite his trying to make her into the fragile lady she was not.
Apparently tired of his own company, Cooper sprawled in a leather armchair that hadn’t been in the lobby yesterday, while Damien, Paul, and the blacksmith examined Rafe’s damaged counter.A middling sort of man in expensive attire, Cooper folded his hands over his waistcoat and watched.
Damien’s worried frown disappeared at sight of Brydie.“More bread baking?”
“I’ve sold the first loaves.The others are rising.This isn’t market day, so I needn’t do much.How did the thief break into Rafe’s cash box?And where did the chair come from?”Brydie cast a glare at Cooper, who belatedly dragged himself upright to bow a greeting.His fashionably cut hair fell in a neat curl over his unmarred brow.
“I’ll have to start locking up my shed,” the carpenter-curate admitted ruefully.
Damien came around the counter to press a discreet kiss to her temple.“Our thief slammed the lock open with an awl and hammer from the workshop.Cash box is still here but the lock is worthless now.And the chair is an ugly castoff from my father’s unused study.Whoever guards the lobby ought to have a place to rest.”
“I thought you meant to use that chair in your office.”Brydie squeezed his hand, then skirted around the counter to see what the blacksmith was doing.
“I cannot bear using a chair he may have sat in even occasionally,” Damien admitted, unapologetically.“Thea said she’d find a good chair for me next time she goes hunting for the manor.It’s a shame we can’t ask her about safes.”
The ethereal heiress knew about ghosts, art, and old furniture.Safes were definitely not her expertise.If fairies disliked iron...Brydie shook off that silly thought.
“Has there been any sighting of Mr.Elton?”Minerva perched on the now unoccupied chair, giving it a bounce, leaving Cooper standing about awkwardly.
“Now that I am here, Rafe is gathering men to search vacant cottages.He assigned Parsons to go through the inn’s empty rooms and search the stables.One wouldn’t think Elton could go far at night, on foot.Even the soldiers have quit sleeping rough in this cold.”Damien offered the young blacksmith a coin but he waved it off and wandered off to return to his own work.
Rafe could be heard from the stable yard, barking orders like a good sergeant should.
“If Elton came here to claim the orphans, then wouldn’t he be looking for them?”Cooper suggested.“Have they been taken somewhere safe?”
Brydie frowned, trying to remember when or if Cooper had heard about the children, but she supposed everyone knew by now.Verity had chosen a good hiding place if even he didn’t know where they were.Of course, he was a stranger and ignorant of the manor inhabitants and their generosity.
“They have.”Kate came down the stairs with her sewing basket and addressed Damien.“Will Mr.Cooper be watching the front desk?I’d like to set the staff to preparing tonight’s meal.”
Her sister was losing much needed income by helping Rafe at the inn instead of finishing her piecework.They needed to resolve this mystery soon.
Assured that they could do naught else, Brydie accepted Damien’s escort to the bakery, leaving Kate bossing everyone at the inn, including the lazy Mr.Cooper.She’d straighten him out soon enough.
With a list of her own tasks to accomplish, Minerva waved them off and hurried down the path to the parsonage.
Brydie and Damien hadn’t gone out of earshot before they heard Minerva scream.
Twenty-three
Rafe
“Stop pacing.You’ll turn me into a complete bedlamite if you don’t sit down and tell me exactly what is wrong.”Rafe hated looming over the curate’s petite, blond—exceptionally educated—wife.He hated worse that the lady seemed volatile enough to explode like gunpowder.
Minerva’s screams had brought him and her husband running, as well as Brydie and Damien, but her person seemed in its usual immaculate state.Except she wouldn’t sit down.
Furiously biting her lip, Minerva pointed at the open drawers in the study and the contents of the ladies’ writing desk dumped and smashed on the worn carpet.Rafe had seen those.Unless she told him the desks contained gold or jewels, he couldn’t grasp her rage.He wanted to ask if the thief had insulted her person but couldn’t find the right words.
Paul Upton cradled his ball of fire in his arms, preventing her from turning into the wrath of God.Rafe knew anger when he saw it.The lady wasn’t frightened.She meant to murder.He briefly wondered if a curate’s wife might kill the village tart for Biblical reasons, but Minerva didn’t appear to be the fire and brimstone sort.
Rafe had ordered Brydie away to stand guard with Kate at the inn.Damien had gone out to search the parsonage grounds, with Rafe’s wolfhound at his heels.
Returning, Damien’s grim expression indicated what Rafe had expected.He’d found nothing.Too many people trampled the grounds for a dog to follow a scent.
