Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

I t said much about the enduring allure of Lady Frances Johnson that Evan's first thought, upon waiting in that roadside inn, was not of the answers that day was poised to provide.

Instead, the first thing he thought, as he blinked sleep from his eyes and found himself entangled in a cloud of red curls, was, I could do this always .

Then he pushed that thought right out the door, because he could not, actually. As it was, he was going to have a devil of a time stopping the Earl of Reed from shooting him, when he returned to London with Frances. He hoped that the Duchess of Hawkins was as open to scheming as Frances seemed to believe, otherwise Evan feared he'd be facing pistols at dawn.

All the more reason to get moving as quickly as possible, he reminded himself as he pushed up onto one arm. Dawn was beginning to break. It was time to go.

"Frances," he said, nudging her gently. She was curled up against him, pressing tightly against his warmth. "Frances, you have to wake."

"The sun is barely up," she mumbled, pressing her face against her pillow for a moment. Then she blinked, growing more alert. "The sun is coming up," she said again, this time far more clearly. "Right. We're to head off early."

Evan pressed his lips together against a smile. She sounded resigned and determined, but adorably so. Then his lips threatened to quirk into a frown, instead. He had no business thinking of Frances—or any woman—as adorable . Bad enough that he was having such an ill-advised liaison. He didn't need to go and get all tenderhearted about it.

"Quite," he said briskly, vaulting out of bed and quickly throwing on his shirt, then donning his trousers. "I'll go order us some breakfast down at the kitchens and see that the horses are saddled. Do you need help dressing?"

The look she gave him was scathing. "I'm not quite so helpless, thank you very much," she said archly.

And, damn it, his smile was back. He likely looked like a proper idiot as he went down to speak with Ollie, who was blearily tending to morning kitchen duty.

They were on the road again by the time the sun peeked out over the horizon, their bellies full of heartily spiced sausage rolls and warm milk. They'd been traveling for mere minutes before Frances dropped into a doze again—or pretended to.

Evan wondered if he had somehow erred that morning. He knew he had erred the night before, as spending the night wrapped around a naked, gently bred virgin had to be a mistake, no matter how much pleasure they'd both derived from the encounter.

But perhaps he ought to have…oh, he didn't know, coddled her this morning? Were there some sort of sweet nothings he was meant to murmur in her ear?

Frances certainly deserved those things, he thought as he watched the way she dozed, her pale lashes dusting her cheeks, her fist curled up under her face to keep herself comfortably propped. It was criminal, the way she seemed to consider herself unimpressive.

On second thought, perhaps he hoped the Earl of Reed did call him out over this whole incident. Evan wouldn't mind putting a bullet hole in the man for the way he'd so poorly treated his daughter. Not a fatal one, perhaps, but a man didn't really need two arms, did he?

He pleasantly distracted himself with the thought of pummeling Reed, which was a far preferable distraction to fretting over how he himself might have wronged Frances.

Though Frances woke as they changed horses and purchased some bread and cheese for luncheon, she remained quiet and contemplative as they traveled into the afternoon. Evan grew increasingly convinced, with each passing moment of her silence, that he had done something accidental and yet egregiously wrong.

"What will we do when we arrive?"

After they'd gone so long without speaking, her words surprised him.

"Sorry?" he asked, then rolled his eyes inwardly. How did this tiny slip of a girl manage to break through his composure so frequently?

"When we arrive at the village," she repeated, no censure in her eyes. That didn't mean anything, Evan reasoned. Frances was tricky like that. "What is our plan?"

He shrugged, the gesture belying how very not casual he felt. "Talk to people. See what they say. Ask if they've seen anything strange."

Frances looked like she was waiting for more. "And…that's it?"

He winced. He hoped she wasn't expecting more from this trip than she would receive. He was optimistic that they'd learn something—the appearance of Grace's handkerchief was too strange to be ignored. But he'd faced disappointments before, in the quest to find out what had truly happened to his sister. This was Frances' first endeavor into this snarling, hideous mystery.

"We might not learn anything," he warned in a low, quiet voice. "Or we might think we've learned something and realize we were wrong. I spent years thinking this was settled, after they killed the Duke of Hawkins."

The sting of anger lanced through him, as it always did when he thought about the complacency with which he'd accepted Hawkins' villainy. Over a year of potential answers, lost, because Evan hadn't been suspicious enough, hadn't uncovered every last stone.

But Frances didn't flinch away from this knowledge. Instead, she held his gaze steadily as she nodded.

"I know," she said firmly. "But there was a long time when I felt certain we would never know anything of the truth. So even part of the truth…it's better."

"Yes," he agreed, turning his gaze out the window. "It is better."

But, he privately reflected, he didn't think it would ever be enough . He didn't know how to move ahead in his life with these teasing, fractured hopes. Hope that he would get answers. Hope that Grace was…

Some hopes could not be put into words. Some hopes were too dangerous to even think.

The town where Grace's handkerchief had been found was the kind of spread-out, remote English agrarian hamlet that was more a series of individual buildings than a true town. This boded poorly for their investigation, Evan knew. Places like this had neighbors who could easily go a week or more without seeing one another—and had inhabitants who were likely to be suspicious of Londoners asking questions.

His hopes sank even further, when their driver—a local man who had accompanied the Runner to fetch Evan—brought them to the location where the scrap of embroidery had been discovered.

"This…is a field." Frances had her hands propped on her hips and was looking out over the expanse of land, an unimpressed purse to her lips.

"I did caution—" Evan began, but Frances cut him off with a wave of her arm.

"No, I know you did. But this doesn't even make any sense!" She turned in a complete revolution, taking in their surroundings.

There was a road, if it could be called that. Years of carriage and wagon wheels had carved furrows into the grass, even while the greenery tried its best to reclaim the territory. In the far distance one way, Evan could see a run-down mill. In another, a small building that could have been a hut—it was too far away to tell for sure. Down the road stood several unclear lumps that was, the driver had promised them, the village of Haverhill.

"It's not that Grace shouldn't be here, or Grace's handkerchief," Frances went on. "It's that nobody should be here. I can't even imagine why anyone would be walking this way. Anywhere close enough to walk is in another direction."

Evan looked at the relative locations of all the buildings, then considered the way they'd come. There had been nothing behind them for miles.

"Perhaps it blew this way on the wind?" he suggested.

Frances shook her head sharply. "Not unless the Runner is very accomplished at laundry, no. If the handkerchief spent time tumbling about, it would be more stained, marked with mud and dirt. It's a lady's handkerchief, meant to look delicate, not a sturdy thing actually used to clean up any kind of mess."

Evan frowned thoughtfully. He wasn't sure he would have thought of that himself. Perhaps Frances' presence—and her familiarity with ladies' accoutrements—was useful for this endeavor, after all.

"Then why is it here?" he asked, because Frances' mind seemed to be working ahead of his.

There was, evidently, a limit to her brilliance, however, because she let out an annoyed little snort.

"I don't know," she admitted. "There seems to be two possibilities: someone threw it out of the window of their carriage?—"

"Strange and unlikely, but not impossible," Evan murmured.

"—or someone put it here on purpose."

That was stranger and perhaps even more unlikely.

But it wasn't impossible.

And wasn't that the problem? So many things were possible in this unraveling mystery; so few things were likely. Even fewer still could be proven.

Rather than looking defeated, as he'd feared, however, Frances looked determined.

"Right," she said briskly. "Let's go, then."

And she began to walk up the path.

"Ah." Evan looked at the long walk ahead of them and then at Frances' diminutive form. "That's a rather long walk."

Her arched eyebrow spoke volumes. Evan felt this was not entirely fair, as he had been being gentlemanly not lazy.

"If there's anything else to learn, we're far more likely to see it on foot than in a carriage," she pointed out with excessive reasonableness. "Come along, then."

And though it should have rankled at his pride to be ordered about—by anyone, let alone this little slip of a girl—Evan found himself smiling as he followed her up the long, muddy road.

By the time they reached the Haverhill Tavern, so proclaimed by a weather-worn sign above its front door, Frances' skirts were damp to her shins, and the bottom inches of her frock would n ever be the same again.

Even so, her irritation was not due to her aching feet, nor a result of the faint sunburn she knew was forming on her nose.

No, it was because they'd walked and inspected, inspected and walked and still, they'd found not a single thing to give them more information about Grace.

They'd found nothing at all, actually, unless one counted dirt, rocks, or a handful of sheep, which Frances did not.

If one was going to drop a clue that offered insight into the murder of Frances' long-dead friend, she reckoned, one should be considerate enough to drop two clues.

Still, they'd arrived at the tavern now, which meant people, which meant possible new avenues of information.

The tavern also meant people , which had never been Frances' strong suit.

"You'll ask the questions, won't you?" she fretted as Evan guided them through the dimly lit room to a table.

He gave her an assessing look as he pulled out her chair.

"I can," he allowed. "Though in my experience, the best way is not to ask direct questions immediately. People relax more if you get them talking in general and then direct matters to what you want to know. I suspect you'd be quite good at that, actually."

"Really?" Not even Diana and Emily would claim that Frances was good in social situations, and they loved her intensely.

Evan gave her a softly playful smile at her surprise. "Really," he confirmed. "I thought you were playing games with people because you don't seem shy when they talk to you. You seem genuinely interested. I only thought it was a ploy because you'd let that manner slip with me. But whatever you do to avoid speaking about yourself? It lets others speak about themselves, and most people love to do that."

"Oh, well, if you think so," she demurred to hide the flicker of pleasure at the idea that something she'd always thought of as a flaw could be used for their benefit.

"I do," he said. "And I'll prove it to you. Excuse me, sir!" He called this last part to a middle-aged man with the look of a prosperous farmer who was passing nearby. "Are you a local, by any chance? The missus and I are having a bit of a wedding tour, and we're trying to learn about all the places we go. Might we buy you a drink and learn what you have to offer?"

If the man's face had brightened at being addressed, it lit up like the sun at the words might we buy you a drink . Evan had let some of his plummy aristocratic accent soften, framing him as more a well-to-do merchant or other professional man than an outright member of Society.

Their dishevelment, Frances thought wryly, could only add to this. She knew several debutantes who would faint outright if they saw the state of Frances' hem.

"Oh, with an offer like that, who could refuse," the man chuckled. "I'm Eamon Creedy, nice to meet ye both. Whereabouts are you from, then?"

"Chelmsford," Evan said smoothly, naming a city northeast of London. "And I'm Evan Miller, and this is my wife, Frances. This is our first time up North."

"And ye've come to our merry little village," Mr. Creedy said happily. "I think it won't surprise ye to hear that we don't see that every day. Not such a wee place as this."

"Surely, you get some travelers," Frances said politely. "After all, it is such beautiful country."

And, just as Evan had predicted, her words made Mr. Creedy beam even more broadly. Evan signaled to one of the serving girls to give them a round of drinks while the farmer began speaking.

"Some, aye, but not many," he confirmed. "Some on their way North, like the two of ye. Plus, the odd peddlers and the like. Most just passing through, but they do tell you their stories, don't they? Give us a bit of news from hither and yon."

Evan smacked the table jovially. "Now that sounds like you've a story there. Do tell us, Mr. Creedy."

The serving girl brought them drinks, and Frances looked down in shocked delight at the tankard of ale that had been set before her. She'd never been served beer in her life. She took a curious sip and hastily put the tankard back down again.

Well. That was…very strongly flavored. She turned her attention back to the farmer and ignored the knowing look Evan cast her out of the corner of his eye.

"Ah, let me see." Mr. Creedy took a long pull from his drink. "Well, there was that wee French fellow with the curious creature…what did he call it? Great large scaly thing. A guana, perhaps? Anyway, this here fellow had traveled all about and won the strange creature in a card game…"

Their conversation meandered for a while, Mr. Creedy providing a litany of stories that were, Frances had to admit, far more entertaining than anything she'd ever heard in a ballroom or at a garden party. It was not, however, useful to their investigation until he said, musingly, "Then there was that whole mess with the mill, of course."

Frances tried not to let her jolt of recognition show. There had been a mill in the distance at the place where the handkerchief had been found.

"Oh?" she probed delicately, trying to catch Evan's eye.

"Ach, t'was strange, it was," Mr. Creedy allowed, taking a sip from his second tankard. "The thing is, place like this, everybody knows one another, ye ken? Even if we're spread out a bit, neighbors are neighbors. That's my girl there, what married the fellow who owns this place," he added, jerking his thumb toward a woman who stood behind the tavern's main counter. "And I've known his parents since they were wee, too. But them mill folks…" He trailed off, shaking his head.

Frances held her breath, afraid to probe too hard, afraid of seeming too interested.

But Evan gave a perfectly pitched laugh. "Oh, come on, my new friend," he urged. "You cannot leave us in suspense."

Mr. Creedy's contemplative look faced, replaced by his usual smile. "It's just that it isn't so much a good story as the others," he said apologetically. "That mill stood empty for, oh, I don't know, twenty years or more? And then one day, we see people are living there. So the wife and I, we go over, say hello, as we would for any neighbor. But they sent us away. And then word in town is that anyone else who extended a hand of friendship was also turned out on their heel."

He gave Frances and Evan a pointed look, as if to punctuate his disdain for unfriendly people.

Then he shrugged, sipped his ale again, and continued. "And they've more or less stayed that way ever since," he explained. "Never comin' to town, not to shop, not to visit, nothing. Sometimes some dressed-up lookin' fellow came to see ‘em, but he were always gone as soon as he came, and we haven't seen him in a year or more. Lord only knows where they're getting their flour and cloth and whatnot—because they surely aren't running the mill." He tsk ed. "Like I said. Mighty strange, but none too exciting."

On this last point, Frances and Mr. Creedy would have to disagree. Because a mysterious building, aloof residents, and a well-dressed visitor? Those were the kind of things that could maybe, just maybe, explain why a dead noblewoman's handkerchief would be found at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

Frances was impressed with Evan's nonchalant tone when he spoke. "How bizarre! How long has that been going on?"

A faint flicker of surprise crossed Mr. Creedy's face at the question, but no unease or suspicion. "Hm, well it's been a bit of time… Yes, I'd say the strangers showed up out of the blue about three years gone."