by Rebecca King
“Hello,” he murmured.
Jess jumped and whirled to face him. She hadn’t realised she was no longer alone. It shocked her at just how stealthily this big man moved. Making a mental note to be a little warier when he was in the house, she nodded politely to him.
“Is my room ready yet?” Marcus asked without preamble.
He eyed the small tendrils of hair that had slipped out of the loose top-knot she wore and fought the urge to touch them. He suspected that if he did, she would scurry off like a frightened rabbit.
“This way,” Jessica replied briskly. “It isn’t up to our usual standards, you understand, but it is the best we can manage at short notice.”
It was clear from the tone of her voice that she still wasn’t happy at having to accommodate him. Marcus wondered if she was usually this surly with people, or whether it was just him.
Did she object to having a stranger in the house because she knew her brother had something to hide? Did she have something to hide? Or was it just that she was tired and incredibly worried about something?
Oh, you are most definitely worried, Marcus mused as he eyed the deep grove between her eyes her smile wasn’t able to erase.
His fingers itched to smooth it away. He wanted Jess to tell him about what was troubling her. It wasn’t that he could help her. In fact, he knew that he could very well prove to be the one person in the world who could make her life considerably worse. It was just that he knew she was carrying a heavy burden and, for the sake of his investigation, he needed to find out if it involved stolen jewels or not.
“This is it,” she said as she pushed open a door to a room at the back of the house.
Good, it affords you a good view of the woods her brother uses, Marcus thought as he stepped across the threshold and took a look around.
The bed was large, and located against the far wall, a few feet away from the window overlooking the back gardens. An aged but well-loved dresser sat opposite, the top of which contained a wash bowl and jug. There was very little in the way of décor. The walls had been whitewashed some time ago but had now turned a dark cream colour. The only spot of colour within the rather brown and white room was the small rug beside the bed, and the floral curtains clinging desperately to the window.
It was just like the rest of the house. Well worn, but clean.
Jess was desperately sad to leave her old room and turned her gaze away from it before she started to cry. She had left a candle lit inside. It bathed the room in a homely glow that made her want to lie down on the bed and rest for a while. But she couldn’t. Not only did she have chores to do, but this was not her room for the time being. It belonged to him.
“I have placed a bowl of fresh water on the dresser and found a nightgown that was my father’s from the attics. It is old, but it is clean, and should be serviceable enough until your luggage arrives. I meant to ask how long you will be staying.”
Marcus looked at her. At first, he wanted to apologise for kicking her out of her room. He had no doubt this was her bedroom. It reminded him of Jessica; gentle, soft, and fragrant yet feminine and homely. He rolled her name over in his mind as he wandered around the room.
“I don’t know yet. A couple of weeks, maybe longer,” he replied absently.
Night had already fallen. It was impossible to see much outside apart from his reflection, and that of the delightfully intriguing woman behind him. Marcus tried to remind himself that he was in the house for professional reasons, but it was difficult with such sweet temptation standing so alluringly behind him. Bathed in candlelight, she stood in a golden halo that emphasised her very feminine curves. She looked darkly mysterious, but also sultry and alluring. It was so tempting to turn around and uncover all of her secrets that Marcus had turned to face her without even realising he had moved.
Before he could speak, Jess took the opportunity to leave.
“I will say goodnight, Mr Cauldwell. There is plenty of ale in the jug downstairs if you get thirsty. Just help yourself. Breakfast will be at eight. Goodnight.”
Jess didn’t bother to wait for him to respond, and quietly let herself out into the darkened hallway with a sigh of relief. Without a candle, the shadows were darker, but she knew her way around well enough to be able to find her way back downstairs blindfolded if she had to.
“Maybe it was something I said,” Marcus muttered around a yawn as he eyed the closed door. He was tempted to rattle her a little, but the sweet temptation of the freshly laundered bed was too much for his tired old bones to resist. With another huge yawn, he lay down, still fully dressed, and promptly fell asleep.
Jess slammed her way into the kitchen and glared at Ben, who was still in the process of washing the dinner pots.
“How much did he pay you?” she demanded before he could speak.
Ben shrugged, dried his hands, and dug around in his pocket. Before he could answer, Jess’ attention was caught by a small package resting beside the hearth.
“What’s that?” She didn’t wait for him to reply and hurried over to it.
Ben didn’t speak as she unwrapped it, but he winced when she turned to glare accusingly at him.
“Please tell me that you purchased this from the butchers,” she pleaded as she held the package out. Her hands physically trembled as she wrapped it back up carefully and put it back where she found it before Ben could answer.
“I have,” Ben replied. “Well, not the butchers exactly, but this was from someone who won’t get me arrested.”
“Where did it come from?” Jess dropped the joint of beef back onto the hearth and stepped cautiously away from it as though it carried an infectious disease.
If the meat had been stolen, she was going to throw it into the fire and hope all trace of it vanished. In spite of her best intentions to ignore it, her stomach rumbled hungrily. Her mouth began to water at the thought of being able to eat roast beef for once. It had been so long since she had tasted any that she had forgotten what it tasted like. Still, her conscience wouldn’t allow a morsel to pass her lips if it was from the kitchens of the Priory, or something.
“It didn’t come from the big house, did it?” she gasped in horror.
“No, it didn’t. You aren’t going to get arrested or stuck by lightening if you eat some,” Ben assured her. “We can cook it in the morning. For now, leave it there. I don’t know about you, but I am tired, and I need my bed.”
“Your bed, I hope,” she warned darkly.
Ben grinned at her. “I am not going there tonight,” he assured her, completely unrepentant at his less than holy association with the daughter of the church warden across the valley.
“You will panic if you get caught,” she worried. “If you don’t get up in jail, you will end up in front of the vicar. Either way, you are doomed. We can’t afford another mouth to feed.”
“I shudder at the thought,” Ben teased with a theatrical shudder. “Well, I am off to bed. Good night, sis.”
Jess watched the scullery door close behind him and sighed. The silence within the kitchen was deafening. Night-time was usually her favourite time of day. A time when her chores had been completed, and everyone in the house was well-fed. A time when she could close up the house, and retire to her room so she could return to being herself for a while. She didn’t have to worry about food and the endless round of chores that she had to do.
Today, though, not having her bedroom any more stung. She felt at a loss, especially given that she had a lot to mull over. She needed that sanctuary to think in because she suspected that Ben was up to something, and it wasn’t just stealing game from the local estate, or bedding the warden’s daughter. There was something else, something a little more sinister. She just wished she knew what that was.
In addition to that, the rather unusual mix of guests in the house at the moment was starting to give her the collywobbles. They were all odd in their own right and, while she usually didn’t have a problem with people’s individual eccent
ricities, there was something a little curious about them all. She had yet to be able to engage any of them in a full or meaningful conversation about, well, practically anything. Not only that but while all of them had a reason to be elsewhere throughout the day, their explanations about what they did all day didn’t fit their characteristics.
The birdwatcher appeared to be nearly blind. The accountant appeared to be poor sighted as well. But, he had been able to see a penny someone had dropped in the corner of the hallway the other day and had scooped it up like a hawk swooping on its prey.
Then there was the new guest.
“How stupid,” she whispered as she thought about the wild flurry of attraction she had felt at first seeing him. “He is a guest. Not only that but you have no idea why he is in a quiet, out-of-the-way place like this. What brought him to the village? You don’t know. Why is he here? You don’t know. Does he have connections in the area? You don’t have a clue.”
“Go to bed, Jessica,” Ben murmured.
Jessica gasped and whirled to face him. She hadn’t realised he was there but knew he had overheard her talking to herself. She shook her head at him.
“Do you know?” she asked as she studied the casual way he stood in the doorway.
While he had been in the room he had taken his shirt off, and how stood bare chested with one shoulder propped against the door jamb in an entirely masculine pose that made him look like a man rather than her little brother.
“I know as much about him as you do, Jess. We will find out, though, in the fullness of time. For now, stop worrying. Put the money away and get some sleep. The morning will be upon us soon enough. We can ask him what you want to know then,” Ben replied.
She eyed the beef curiously. Her brother seemed to sense she was going to ask where it had come from again. He suddenly pushed away from the door and turned toward his room.
“Goodnight,” he called and promptly shut the door.
Jess opened her mouth to call him back but suspected he would just ignore her. She turned toward the meat and glared at it accusingly before she turned away. If she had the will, she would throw the wretched thing into the fire, but she just couldn’t bring herself to let good food go to waste. It was something she could never afford to purchase.
Once it was cooked and eaten, who was to say where it had been found?
“You could also put the pheasant into a stew,” she whispered.
If she spun out the finances a little more this week and bought a pheasant from the market on Thursday, then she could feed everyone one or two meals, get rid of the other pheasants in the process, and nobody needs ever know anything untoward had happened.
“If only life is ever that simple,” she whispered.
Quickly closing up the kitchen, she ignored her aching head and blew out the candle. Once the bolt on the front door was across, she closed the shutters and made her way to the back of the house.
She got half way up the stairs when a rapid series of knocks rapped loudly on the door. Jess turned to study the wood. She knew who it was. There was only one person in the village – well, two – who had no regard for respect or decency, and would think nothing of calling by at this ungodly hour.
As if to reiterate her point, the clock on the mantle in the study chimed eleven times.
“Well, you can go to Hell,” she whispered with a sniff and ignored the second series of thumps as she climbed the stairs to her new bedroom.
Downstairs, a man dressed entirely in black watched her disappear out of sight at the top of the stairs. The sight of her rounded curves sashaying this way and that as she moseyed on up to bed was mesmerising, and had a predictable impact on his libido. Still, there was no time for that now. Peering through a crack in the shutter, he watched the magistrate step backwards to look up at the front façade of the house. Whatever he wanted, the scowl on his face warned of dire consequences for someone inside. It was clear that he wasn’t going to gain access to this house tonight, and that clearly didn’t sit well with the magistrate.
The man’s smile was mirthless.
The landlady’s hatred of what farcically constituted as the authorities around these parts worked in his favour as well, but she would never know it. As long as she continued to thwart Lloyd’s rather determined efforts to pry into the lives of the guests, then he would remain a paying guest. Should the magistrate step inside, and proceed to pester anybody for details about why they were there then he would have to take matters into his hands.
If someone ended up dead then so be it.
For now, he watched Carruthers disappear around the side of the house. He knew the landlady was a stickler for locking up the house at night. The magistrate wouldn’t get inside, no matter how hard he tried.
To the sounds of murmured conversation outside, the man quietly left the study and made his way up to his room. He had no intention of going to bed because he had work to do. He just needed to wait for the landlady to go to sleep, and the magistrate to leave the area.
Still fully dressed, Jess lay on the bed and listened to the low rumble of conversation below her window. The dull rap of someone knocking on what she suspected was the back door could now be heard. Thankfully, none of the guests made any attempt to answer it. Neither did Ben, but she wasn’t surprised about that. He had rather a lot to keep a secret right now. Not least of which was the rather juicy piece of beef now resting on the fireplace.
Quickly undressing, she slid beneath the covers and wriggled around on the unfamiliar bed until she found a comfortable spot. When she did, she found that sleep still eluded her. She was so tired that she could barely see straight but, now that she was lying down, and the house was quiet, her mind began to churn over all of the worries, doubts, fears, and problems, that faced her.
First and foremost of all was what on earth she was going to do about this strange attraction she had for the new lodger.
CHAPTER FIVE
Two weeks later
“It’s a bit early for you to be taking a stroll, isn’t it?” the magistrate murmured.
Marcus mentally swore and watched the man saunter out of the shadows. Lloyd ambled toward him with the air of someone who had all the time in the world on his hands. His patrician features etched in a sneer.
“I didn’t realise you had this village on lock-down overnight,” Marcus drawled unconcernedly. “Don’t you have anything better to do than skulk around in bushes?”
“Why are you not in bed asleep like decent people?”
“I am decent people, but suffer from insomnia,” Marcus lied. “I find my thoughts flow better in the quiet of the night. Why are you up and about at this time in the night? It is an odd time for a magistrate to be patrolling the streets, isn’t it? Maybe you should try it in the daytime. You are likely to catch more criminals that way.”
“This is my patch,” Lloyd declared pompously.
There was something so territorial in his eyes that Marcus wondered if he was going to mark his scent around the streets as dogs did.
“Well, I will leave you to your patch,” Marcus drawled.
He got no further than two steps away before the questions began.
“What’s your name?”
“Why? I have done nothing,” Marcus challenged.
“I make it my personal business to find out about all of the strangers in this village.”
“Oh, so that is why you keep popping up wherever I go. I thought you were the village stalker or something.”
Even through the darkness, Marcus knew the man’s face turned florid. He wanted to rile the man, just to see how honest a magistrate he was.
“I am the magistrate. I go wherever I want to go,” Lloyd bit out. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here at this time of night? Don’t think for a second that I believe this story that you are merely taking a walk. At four o’clock in the morning? Really?”
“I am the landlady’s fiancé,” Marcus declared with a dramatic sigh.
&n
bsp; He was aware that Joe was watching from several feet away, and could only hope that his colleague had not overheard what he had just said. He had no idea where on earth that particular ruse had come from, and absolutely no idea what he was going to do about it now. But something warned him that he had to get closer to Ben somehow, and it seemed that the best way of doing that was by firming up his association with the man’s sister.
“Jessica Parkinson is not engaged,” Lloyd declared flatly.
“Oh, you know everything about everyone’s private business as well, do you?” Marcus challenged. “I didn’t realise your services to the village were that personal.”
“I am not going to have anybody skulking around in the dead of night,” Lloyd snapped, swiftly changing the subject.
“Like you, you mean?” Marcus replied. “How many people live in Smothey? One hundred? Two?”
“One hundred and sixty two,” Lloyd bit out. “But what the blazes-”
“I can assure you that the Parkinsons are not answering your questions purely because they tend to be a little protective of their privacy. I am sure you understand. You are a very dedicated man, Lloyd, especially if you are providing this level protection for everyone in the village. You have a lot of work on your hands. I will let you get on with it. I am sure you will eventually capture your – pheasants – was it?” Marcus guffawed. “Goodnight.”
He didn’t give the magistrate time to say anything else, and continued his journey toward the end of the road, this time without interruption. Although Lloyd didn’t approach again, he was aware that Carruthers followed him all the way to the lodging house.
Once safely inside, he locked the door behind him and pocketed the key. Rather than go to his room, he took a detour to the kitchen and began to search the cupboards. It was clear that the brother, Ben, was sleeping down here somewhere because all of the rooms upstairs were now taken. Careful not to alert the lad to his activities, Marcus worked his way steadily through the dresser, the cupboard under the stairs, the sitting room, and study cupboards and all of the shelves and drawers, but came up empty handed. It was unsurprising, really, given that there wasn’t much to search. In fact, the personal belongings in the house were so sparse that most of the contents of the drawers could fit into one of the dressers.
