Chapter 28
Twenty-eight
Grey
After their fascinating and uninformative discussion with the Comfreys about the house’s—cursed—history, Grey wished to debate the implications with his perspicacious assistant.
Instead, after their visitors departed, she wordlessly stalked upstairs to her worktable. Undaunted, he followed. She handed him neatly copied sheets for his perusal—not what he wanted.
Perhaps concentrating on the book was sensible, but his was not a narrow mind.
He needed intellectual stimulation, and Bradford House’s mystery had fired his imagination.
When she returned to work, Grey grudgingly carried the papers upstairs to his desk, holding off their discussion, apparently until a more appropriate moment.
By the time dinner was called, he was past ready to set aside work to discuss the latest developments.
Rather than let her escape to the end of the table again, he held a chair for Eleanor next to his and gestured for Andrew to take the seat opposite, on his left hand.
This was his household. He got to make the decisions.
“Has your sister told you of our most enlightening company this afternoon?” Grey reached for his wineglass and realized. . . he had a wineglass.
“El has said to ask you, that she is here merely to copy chicken scratching.” Andrew spooned his soup without concern. “I take it that means she was ignored. I don’t recommend that as a general policy.”
Grey tasted his wine, decided it was palatable, and attempted to translate what Andrew was telling him.
“I cannot imagine what more could have been said. The Bradford descendants are unfamiliar with the house. Mrs. Comfrey is the only one who lived here, and it appears she escaped Gravesyde young, to live with an aunt, shortly after her father’s death.
The father, we must assume was an abusive brute. ”
Eleanor sipped her wine, grimaced, and set it aside.
Grey tried not to snarl when Andrew hid a grin. Instead, he waited to see how long Eleanor could stay silent. Mrs. Comfrey’s revelations hadn’t been enlightening, but they were worth discussion.
Andrew took pity on him. “This is where you ask my sister for her opinion. As your employee and a female, El is properly holding her tongue until asked otherwise. I do not recommend allowing steam to build. She may explode.”
“That is absurd!” Grey protested, turning to his usually perceptive assistant. “In what way have I indicated you are too feeble of wit to be heard?”
Eleanor lifted her long-lashed eyes to him, but they were too narrowed to catch a glimpse of topaz. “One, you invited potential killers to the table without warning, indicating I am of as little value as those poor innocents in the cellar.”
Grey started to object, but Andrew tapped his hand in warning. He shut up and listened.
“Two, you offered me no opportunity to ask my own questions. As Andrew says, it would have been impolite, ungracious, and reason for dismissal to have done so without permission.”
Grey waited for three. There was always a three. The first two were ludicrous enough. He couldn’t wait for three.
“And lastly, you let them all leave without answering your question about the cellar’s contents. Mrs. Comfrey merely said the boys used to play there. That is no answer. Everyone knows we found skeletons. They blatantly avoided the fact.”
Fascinated, Grey finally grasped the point. With excessive care, he asked pointedly, “And what do you make of this avoidance?”
Glaring at him, she nibbled at her bread before answering, a very female tactic, Grey concluded. He wouldn’t call her on it. He rather liked his head on his shoulders.
“I believe they have more than skeletons to hide,” she finally conceded. “This house isn’t cursed, it has secrets. The Bradfords hid their secrets by letting the house go.”
“And what has this to do with skeletons in the cellar?” Although Grey’s imagination had begun to fill in a few blanks.
Eleanor frowned thoughtfully. “We must do mathematics to understand the order of events. According to the church records the Uptons provided, the possibly abusive merchant, Bertram, died about 1780. His six children were baptized between the years of 1750 and 1766. Mrs. Comfrey—Arabella— was the youngest, baptized in 1766 and married in 1787. Assuming the skeletons were two of the siblings we’ve not heard mentioned, they may have been deceased between 1750 and 1766, or when she was still an infant. ”
Andrew interrupted. “But didn’t you say Mrs. Comfrey looked guilty when the cellar was mentioned? Which makes it likely she knows something?”
“Quite possibly, but even if she recalls tales, she would protect her family name by keeping their secrets,” Eleanor agreed.
“It is doubtful skeletons from half a century ago are relevant to her son’s murder now.
More relevant might be how her older brothers kept the family fed after their father’s death.
You will recall that roughly corresponds with the period of deprivation when the manor was empty. ”
Grey couldn’t stay silent as she painted this grim picture leading to the obvious. “You are suggesting the brothers turned to lawlessness?”
“The father may have been more pirate than merchant,” Andrew warned. “All we know for fact is that one brother killed the other and was transported. Along with the murdered children, it does not speak of a civilized household.”
“None of this leads us to why George Comfrey was killed, accidentally or not.” Grey appreciated the tale they were concocting, but he wanted good reason to know they were safe in this accursed house.
“Money,” his intrepid assistant concluded.
“Ezekial, the heir, was paying off the bank, feeding his younger siblings somehow. As Andrew says, evidence indicates river piracy might have been their mainstay. Pirates are not known for investing their funds in legitimate enterprises. If Mr. Bradford is to be believed, his father left a large sum of money to pay off the bank. Which was never paid.”
“And because the family has a habit of burying valuables, you think he buried the money in the cellar, possibly with other stolen goods?” Andrew asked. “But we found nothing and apparently no one else has either.”
Taking it a step further, Grey bit back a curse. “One brother dead, another in prison, leaving the sisters in charge of making the payment our Australian fishmonger insists would have left the house free and clear. One must ask, did the killer have time to tell his sisters where to find the money?”
“Depends on how quickly the law caught up with him, doesn’t it?” Andrew suggested. “The sisters were in Bath, but servants may have seen or heard the fight. Ezekial would have fled as quickly as possible—leaving the coins behind?”
His twin nodded, finally giving up her snit.
“Fled, with or without the money, which evidently had not yet been applied to the loan. We need to know who was present at the time and where he was caught. I cannot imagine, though, that a reasonably intelligent man, running from the law, would head to the bank to pay off the mortgage.”
“We can’t know if he had the funds on him, hid them, or if he never took them out of their hiding place,” Andrew said in frustration.
“If he hid them, anyone present might have seen him do so,” Grey concluded.
“Without knowing who was there at the time of the fight or even if it happened in the house, we’re right back where we started, except we have a little more insight on why George Comfrey may have been murdered, and it has nothing to do with us. ” Grey dug into his meal, satisfied.
“So, we are not in any danger unless we stand between the killer and the coins?” Andrew did not appear to be happy with this non-solution.
“Exactly. They have to know by now that there is nothing to be found in the house or Comfrey would have found it.” Grey wanted to stay until he finished his book. He was enjoying the company. As long as they were in no danger. . .
“If you believe Mr. Comfrey and his killer were after the missing money, why were they only now searching for it, after all these years?” Eleanor asked demurely.
Grey glared at her. “That is why men believe women should be seen and not heard.”
Her full lips turned upward, and she finally looked straight at him. “Because we ask questions that disturb your complacence?”
“That, too.” Disgruntled, he tore into his meal, not knowing what he was eating. Or saying, apparently. He was considered quite erudite by the men of his world. He was a popular lecturer. But this female with her blunt intelligence had him off balance.
Andrew finished chewing before answering his sister. “Because women ask questions, chucklehead. It’s most annoying. Greybourne is unaccustomed to being questioned by anyone, least of all by a female. He’s smarter than anyone he knows. One assumes he is told that frequently.”
“That, too,” Grey grumbled. “Besides, I don’t want you to have an excuse to flee in terror.”
Eleanor chuckled. “Your comfort is the more likely reason. I’ve asked questions before and you haven’t complained. This one is uncomfortable.” She narrowed those oblong eyes again. “Or was I permitted to ask before because I was dressed as a gentleman?”
“Excellent question.” Grey thought about it. “No, I’m pretty sure I objected to this particular question about killers and their money because I don’t wish to contemplate us being murdered in our beds for a bank payment.”
“The only one of today’s company who appears capable of murder is the Australian. Even little Silas scared off Mr. Percival,” she reminded him.
Grey frowned. “Percy is not physically imposing, but he is clever. That he did not disclose any connection to Bradford House until his aunt revealed him is suspicious. But how would he know of the missing money?”
His astute assistant gazed at him in incredulity. “Is that not obvious? You say his mother married into gentry within a year of her eldest brother’s transportation? Surely you must have some notion as to how difficult it is to move in that society without proper introductions and a dowry?”
Grey squirmed his broad shoulders in discomfort. “None at all. I don’t move in society. I only visit London for the art and history. You are saying. . .”
“You heard Mrs. Comfrey call the place cursed. She does not like this house any better than her brother. Isn’t it likely that the sisters, or at least one of them, knew how to find the money or any stolen goods?
And the sisters were like their murdered brother and had no desire to waste funds on a house of horror in a dying village they never wished to see again?
One assumes they found the money and used it as dowries.
It is hard to say how much of their mothers’ tales Percy and Comfrey knew, but they may have heard enough to believe they might find more of their family’s hidden assets.
” Eleanor set down her silverware. “Shall I return to work now?”
“No, devil take it! Next time we have guests, pretend you’re wearing trousers and ask questions!” Grey threw down his serviette.
Andrew stood to assist his sister in rising. “Well, at least we needn’t worry about anyone else digging for treasure if they have already ransacked the place and now know it’s gone.”
Gloomily, Grey poured another glass of wine. “You want to convince Blackbeard Bradford of that?”