Brydie eyed the bread makings on the table.“I can start the dough, but it needs to rise.You’ll have to eat before that.Peel and slice those apples, and we can make a skillet bread.”
She heard Damien rummaging through the front room but didn’t feel guilty for not hunting for something she didn’t know to look for.He’d eventually remember that she didn’t take orders well.
“I haven’t made skillet cakes in years!I’ve let my meager kitchen skills go to waste while living in the lap of luxury.”Minerva grabbed a paring knife—then stared at it.“Was she killed with one of her own knives?”
“Not a paring knife, I assume.Was the weapon not in the room?”Brydie had experience at balancing death with practical reality.
“It was still in her,” Minerva muttered, returning to peeling, apparently also stifling emotion with action.“But the handle on the weapon was different.I suppose only in places like the manor do handles match.I need to think about anything but poor Mrs.Willoughby...”She peeled furiously while studying the room.“This kitchen is almost as large as the one at the manor.”
“Not quite, but years ago, the Bartletts hired a lot of people to help with the bakery, especially this time of year.They needed space.”Setting an iron skillet on the hot stove, Brydie mixed the apples and butter into it.“I assume they must have been reasonably wealthy during the earl’s time, maybe before.They weren’t a large family, if I remember rightly.The elder Bartletts gave up the bakery and moved away...ten, fifteen years ago, maybe?After their only child married.”
With the apples sliced and cooking, Minerva began opening and closing cabinets and peering at shelves of baking pans, continuing the search Brydie had abandoned.“Why would anyone kill a lonely widow who obviously had nothing?”
“Willa might have hoarded more blunt than in that tin.Who is the grumpy stranger?I hope Rafe is questioning him.”With the skillet bread cooking, Brydie began on the loaves.She set the yeast starter warming and began mixing flours.Willa apparently used the fine white flour sparingly since there wasn’t much of it on the table.
Brydie had been making bread since childhood and didn’t measure, but she’d like the recipe for those hot cross buns they used to buy, when they still had coin.She glanced around for a notebook—then remembered Willa couldn’t read.
From her perch on a chair, Minerva answered, “He says he’s a Geoffrey Cooper and a distant cousin who was in the area for a funeral.Gravesyde hasn’t had any lately, thank all the heavens, so it must have been elsewhere.He doesn’t seem to remember what happened.”
Damien reappeared in the doorway holding a thin sheet of stationery.“This appears to confirm his claim, unless he placed this here after he killed her.I doubt he could hit himself on the head though.”
With her hands coated in flour, Brydie let Minerva read the letter.
“It just says what he told me—he means to attend a funeral and might he stay the night.Curt, to the point of unkind.”
That sounded like the curmudgeon at the door.Brydie dismissed the letter.“Does it look as if someone searched the house?”
“The house is large and she’s stuffed it with everything she was ever given, found, or bought from the looks of it.Searching will take days, but it does appear as if drawers were opened.”Damien looked uncomfortable and left before he could be questioned more.
“He’s not telling us something,” Brydie said.“How did she buy anything on the price of a few loaves of bread?”
“Perhaps her late husband left her an annuity?”Setting aside the letter, Minerva climbed back on the chair to search the top of cabinets.
“I don’t think she ever actually married.We called her Willa when she was just a girl because her uncle called her Willoughby.I’m not even sure what her birth name is.Was.The title was just a politeness.”Brydie checked the skillet bread before starting on the loaves.
Minerva ran a long-handled spoon to the back of the top shelf and exclaimed in triumph as she snagged a thick book, nearly tumbling it onto her uncapped dark hair.
Brydie watched as the librarian opened the crumbling leather notebook with reverence, then wrinkled her nose.“Ancient recipes.The ink is faded to nearly illegible.”
“Hold it for me so I can see.”Working the flour mix, Brydie studied the tiny, spiky, hen-scratching on the stained pages.“I wonder if I could have someone copy it fresh?I’d love to have those old recipes.”
“I’ll ask around.Maybe there are some simple ones I might follow.”At a knock on the back door, Minerva set the book aside.
Rafe’s partner, the disturbingly large and grim Sgt-Major Fletcher Ferguson filled the doorway with his bulk and his frown.“I just heard.Something happened to Willa?”
At the sound of Fletch’s deep voice, Damien immediately returned to the kitchen to grab the former soldier and haul him back outside.
Minerva and Brydie exchanged looks, then as one, eased open the door and blatantly listened.
“It’s none of anyone’s damned business,” Fletch was protesting.
“A copper fine for cursing,” Minerva whispered.
Damien kept his voice lower and forced Fletch to do the same.A moment later, Fletch’s glare broke into sorrow.He shook his shaggy head in vigorous denial.
They couldn’t hear his reply.
Brydie closed the door.“Willa and Fletch?That seems an unlikely match, poor soul.”
