Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-eight
Fletch
That night, after everyone had retired, Fletch found saddle blankets and prepared a bed on a stack of straw. He ought to go across the lane and tell those fribbles to post a guard all night and shoot at first sight—
The popinjays probably wouldn’t hesitate to target practice at midnight, but Rafe might object to dead bodies. Damnation.
If he left the barn doors slightly open, Kate’s hen house was almost in sight. He should have brought Rafe’s wolfhound with him. If Fletch had a place like this, he’d own a pack of hounds. . .
He’d never have a place like this. Once all the lights went out in the house, he settled into his new bed and slept with his weapons in reach. War had taught him to sleep with one eye open.
No lunatic disturbed him until an ungodly hour before dawn, when he heard Brydie let herself out of the house.
Since he’d slept in his clothes, he was on his feet in an instant.
He hadn’t forgotten that she was the village baker and had to start her ov ens.
His former mistress had taught him a baker’s hours.
He led the pony from the barn and was hitching it to the cart before she realized he was out here.
“What are you doing?” She petted the old pony. “I can walk. It’s less than two miles across the field.”
“With a lunatic behind every bush, for all we know. Damien would shoot me if he knew I let you walk alone.” He hadn’t had to explain his actions so much since he was a youngster at home. Women simply demanded explanations with their existence. Men understood without need of talk.
“You’ll leave Kate unguarded.” Brydie didn’t look happy that he meant to do something responsible for a change.
He nodded his head toward the road. “I warned Jacques to station guards. He likes working at night. You’ll see his light on when we reach the road. He’s over there sipping that black filth he calls tea and watching the road.”
“You’ll drive them into the village later?” she asked, not completely happy with his plotting.
He simply glared at the stupidity of that question. She brightened. Apparently, glares worked better than words.
“We can’t let people keep talking,” Brydie warned, continuing their argument from the prior evening. “They think Kate is replacing your Willa.”
“People are fools. Kate is a lady. Willa never was and made no secret of it.” He assisted her into the cart, not that she needed it.
“Nevertheless, if your plot doesn’t work, we need to do something about the gossip. Kate needs to find a husband to run this place so they don’t live on the brink of starvation forever.”
“She needs to move into town,” he retorted, climbing up beside her.
The Viking sister gave him a pointed glare that should have paralyzed. “You’ve lived here the better part of a week and haven’t realized that this house is Kate’s shell? Like a turtle or a snail, she can’t survive without it.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s a house. There are houses in the village. Maybe not as nice but safer, for now. Or she could take rooms at the inn.” And drive him insane there, but at least he’d be out from under her feet.
Brydie sighed with what sounded like exasperation.
“Kate was born here. Our parents raised and loved us here. Her children grew up here. Every piece of furniture, every wall, harbors fond memories and love. The one time she ventured out on her own was disastrous. I’m proud that she’s learned to take herself out to work during the day.
But she needs to come home each night to restore herself for the next day. ”
Disastrous? Fletch winced, recalling the story. He’d only heard the tale indirectly and preferred not to believe gossip, but Brydie was telling him some part of it was true. Kate’s eldest son had been a product of rape.
“She’s been married, had children, gone to work. She’s a grown woman,” he argued, not wanting to believe the delighted hostess who’d charmed a troupe of actors—and him, sort of—lived in fear. “A night or two out of the house won’t hurt.”
“Quit living inside your own head and observe!” Brydie ordered sharply.
“Kate’s husband was a farm laborer our father persuaded to marry her to give Arthur a name.
George slept with the sheep. This house has always been hers, not mine, not his.
She does whatever it takes to bring up her children in the same love and security our parents gave us.
Hugh Morgan is destroying that sanctuary. ”
Slept with the sheep? Her husband had that gorgeous, intelligent, warm-hearted lady, and he slept with the sheep?
Nope, not possible—unless George Morgan was a lunatic like his brother.
“She has children,” Fletch said dryly, watching the road and not Kate’s wild-haired, obstreperous sister.
They obviously took after different parents. “He did not sleep in the barn.”
She smacked his bad shoulder. “There is a reason Rob and Lyn have birthdays only a few days apart. She married George in July. They got drunk on their anniversary. Kate likes children.”
After delivering Brydie safely to her bakery, Fletch did calculations he didn’t want to do. Drunk in July, a babe by April. A physical man, he couldn’t imagine sleeping with the sheep when a beautiful wife was at hand. Good thing he wasn’t thinking of. . . well, yeah, he’d thought of it.
This was why he stayed away from people. He couldn’t handle his own problems. Clocks made sense. People did not.
He was back at the farm in time to patrol the grounds before breakfast. Lynly was puzzled by her aunt’s absence but Kate sorted her out without Fletch having to say a word.
He had his newly-cleaned and repaired clockworks wrapped up and ready to take back to the manor by the time everyone was ready to leave.
Kate eyed the horse he tied to the back of the barouche, then the roll of mechanical parts. “You are returning to the inn?”
“We’ll see.” Fletch climbed in beside Rob, letting the lad handle the team on his own. With his older brother at school, the boy would have to step up and be the man of the house.
Seemed a shame. Boy ought to have a childhood. If his uncle hadn’t been a madman. . .
Holding the shotgun, Fletch kept a wary eye on the hedgerows as they passed, but he noticed nothing untoward. Could Kate be right and her brother-in-law was simply a deluded wretch incapable of more than occupying an empty space? If so, what had inspired him to come here?
“I don’t suppose there is any way of learning where Hugh worked last?” he asked before they stopped to pick up Vivien.
“No, he doesn’t write. George never knew when he’d turn up. I was surprised that he learned of the funeral. He must have heard that George was ill and wasn’t too far away.” They stopped at the manor drive, and Kate made room for Vivien and her walking stick in the back seat.
Fletch swiveled his head, watching for anyone emerging from the hedges.
“When does the shop open?” Vivien asked eagerly as she climbed in, without any other greeting.
“I don’t believe Miss Marlowe has said. She was to order a few things, I believe.”
Fletch heard the wariness in Kate’s reply. He was learning that she was reserved with people who weren’t friends or family. Yet she had smiled at her eccentric neighbors, while holding her fellow worker at a distance.
Maybe he should start studying human nature, or at least, Kate’s. She was more interesting than the usual run of clodpolls.
“I need to know so I’ll wear my best dress that day,” the girl chattered excitedly. “I’ve added more flounces at the hem and embroidered a pink handkerchief for the neck so it does not look so unfashionable. I’m told pink works well with my black hair.” She tossed said tresses so the curls bounced.
“Oh, Miss Marlowe has said you will be working the shop, then?” Kate asked, her voice dropping another degree to frost.
“Odila is my only competition, and she makes hats. Besides, she’s short and freckled and no one will pay attention to her.”
Even Fletch wanted to smack the chit, and he didn’t know this Odila.
Fortunately, the drive was short. Keeping an eye out for madmen, he helped the ladies out while the children leaped down and ran up the stairs to school, swinging their books and slates.
“Shall I fetch someone to hold the team while you unload your clock parts?” Kate asked at his elbow, startling Fletch from his observations.
Damien normally turned the team around and left, so the usual assortment of stableboys had not run out.
“Thank you. Just send the footman. He can help me unload.” He tried not to admire her handsome figure or notice the gleam of light on her burnished hair when she released her bonnet, but he wasn’t accustomed to people asking if he needed assistance.
He had to study her to be certain she wasn’t poking fun in some way.
“Is your shoulder better?” She nodded at the sling he’d loosely knotted to rest his aching arm. “You seem to be favoring it.”
He grimaced. “Can’t fix a clock with one hand. I’ll live.”
“You could be crippling yourself so you can never work again without pain. Talk to Dr. Walker.” She lifted her hem and entered the manor without a glance back.
Did that mean she wanted him to stay and had just offered an excuse to do so? Because he had no intention of abandoning her until Hugh was found.
He just wanted it to look like he had.