The Heir of Thornfield Manor

by Ellie Thornton

  “Does that make me more attractive?” he asked.

  “I don’t see how a magazine article could make you more or less attractive than you actually are.”

  “I know some women who would disagree with you.”

  She shook her head. “Character must not be an important factor to them.”

  “But it is to you?”

  “What can I say? I prefer substance over beauty.”

  He tapped his foot, in its classy brown dress shoe, on the carpet. “I thought that about you when you caught me out of the tree. That was very heroic, by the way.”

  She scrunched up her face as she started to smile. Yeah, she was still embarrassed about that. If she’d known who he was, she would’ve treated the situation differently. Though, now that he’d brought it up, she wanted to know. “What were you really doing up that tree?”

  “Hiding.” He breathed out loudly and stood.

  She craned her neck back to look at him.

  “Now that I know your fondness for men of substance, I feel an urge to find Helen, apologize for my insensitivity, and tell her what a good job she’s doing.” He stopped in front of her. “Will that improve your opinion of me?”

  She chuckled. “Would you mean it if you did it? Like on a scale of one to ten, how sincere would this apology be?”

  “At least a six,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes but said, “It couldn’t hurt, especially if Helen believes it, Mr. Daley.”

  “It’s Patrick.” He winked at her, and it sent a thrill up her spine.

  Once he’d vacated the room, she shuddered. Then she immediately face-palmed. One little wink and she felt hot all over. She could not let this man get to her.

  Chapter Seven

  “He did a cold read on you, too, huh?” Finley asked on their Friday night check-in. “Not surprising. He does it to everyone.”

  Elizabeth moved her cell phone from one ear to the other and sank back in her propped-up pillows. She stared down at Dr. Newlin’s and Katelyn Daley’s case files. Every night she’d spent hours poring over the evidence, searching for the thread that connected the two, but so far she’d found nothing. She rubbed at her eyes and tried to focus on the conversation. “Yes, it was unnerving,” she said.

  “Daley’s such a show-off,” Finley said.

  That was an understatement. The man seemed to thrive on shock and awe. And every time he saw her, no matter how harmless the conversation, she knew he was delving into her psyche. She worried anytime now he’d figure out she was a cop, but so far he’d said nothing. She thought of telling Fin her concerns, but they’d decided it was safer for her cover to keep work conversations in person as much as possible, and she hadn’t seen him since the day she’d arrived. Between Helen and Daley, almost all of Elizabeth’s time had been fully occupied.

  Daley seemed to have taken a liking to her, and every day for the last week after work and dinner, he’d called her into the library for chats. It’d seemed a little odd at first, but she was here to keep an eye on him, so she wasn’t about to fight him over his demands on her time. Besides, all he seemed to want was to talk and listen. Since he’d first pried into her family life, he’d kept the conversations light.

  Today, he’d found her in the garden while she’d been working, and to her surprise he’d gotten down on his knees, in that blasted three-piece suit this time without the jacket, and started pulling weeds. They hadn’t talked about anything special then either; in fact they’d barely talked at all. But it had been companionable.

  After he’d gone back inside, she’d found a folded-up sheet of slick paper in her pocket—his eligible bachelor photo. The picture was horrible. His hair was slicked back and wet-looking, though she bet it wasn’t actually wet. He smoldered at the camera, and he wore a button-up that was undone down to his chest—that part actually made her blush a little. She much preferred his natural curly hair, his smirking face, and his several-layered-outfit look, but she could see why women might find the photo attractive.

  Across the top, in flowery handwriting, he’d left a note that said, “Does this change your opinion?” He’d signed it “P.” The note alone nearly gave her a stitch in her side from laughter. At dinner, the two of them could barely look at each other without snickering, and Alice had whacked them a couple times each, at least.

  “You still there?” Finley asked.

  She clenched her cell. “Yep, still here. You know, I thought he’d looked me up.” When Elizabeth had first talked to Daley in the library, his guesses had seemed to her more about curiosity than showing off, but he’d absolutely been showing off when he’d talked of Alice’s yellow-stained chicken curry fingers, and of Helen’s pulled muscle. She had a fairly good guess how it’d gone down when Daley had read Finley. Finley’s accusation and tone were all the evidence she needed to know Finley hadn’t been happy.

  “If he had, he’d have gotten the info we planted about you and nothing more.” Finley breathed deep. “But it’s doubtful he would. He’s twenty-nine but acts and dresses like he’s eighty. The man is a millionaire, and yet he drives that old car, has a flip phone, and balks at modern technology in general.”

  “Hey, that car is a classic.” Elizabeth held her phone between her ear and shoulder and started cleaning the mess of papers on her bed.

  “You like old cars?” Finley asked.

  “I like that old car, and Mustangs. Mustangs are my favorite.”

  When he spoke again, there was a smile in his tone. “I’d never have pegged you as a car girl.”

  “I’m not one. Not really,” she said. “My dad had a Porsche 911 just like it when he was growing up.”

  “And the Mustang?”

  She smirked. “Have you seen that car?” She loved nearly every model except for the 1980s one. How that piece of junk made it past the board, she had no clue.

  Aside from the rustling of papers as she cleaned up, there was silence for a moment.

  “There’s a car show here tomorrow, in the parking lot behind City Hall,” Finley said. “We should go.”

  Elizabeth stopped breathing. Her hand froze above the case file, papers clutched in her fingers.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That must have sounded like I was—”

  “Asking me on a date?” She set the papers down and tugged at the hem of her New England Patriots sleeping jersey.

  He cleared his throat. “People think we’re friends, and we want to keep up that illusion.”

  Right. They should be seen together. “All right, what time?”

  “Starts at four.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “It’s a date.” They went quiet again, and then Finley hastily added, “You don’t need to worry about him looking you up.”

  “What about guessing I’m a cop?”

  He coughed. “He won’t.” Finley didn’t sound so sure.

  “Any progress on Newlin’s case?” What was the connection between him and Katelyn? It was driving her crazy.

  “Not much. The gun that shot Katelyn was the same as the one that killed Newlin, but that’s it. Whoever killed him seems to have vanished off the face of the planet—taking his gun with him.” He sighed.

  “We’ll get him, Fin,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He hesitated, and she realized where she’d gone wrong. This wasn’t her case. She was just helping keep Daley safe. So it surprised her when he said, “You’re right, Shea. We will.”

  She smiled, grateful that he chose to include her. Finley really was such a nice guy. A door slammed somewhere down the hall, and a chill shot through her. She crawled under her covers.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you go. Sweet dreams, and see you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  A soft laugh roused Elizabeth from her sleep. She blinked and stared up at the canopy above her. It was still dark outside. The light fabric wafted in a breeze—a paper from her file drifted by her face. Elizabeth stretched, then froze. Why was there a
breeze? She glanced toward her bedroom window. It was all the way open. She’d never touched her windows, and they’d been closed since she’d taken this room. She remembered the laugh and sat bolt upright, pulling her covers up around her chest. She glanced around her room. No one was there.

  Her file sat open by her feet. Several papers were scattered on the floor near the edge of her bed. She swung her legs out from under her covers, gathered the papers, and put them back in the file.

  Laughter, feminine and disembodied, pushed its way under the crack beneath her door, getting more distant as its owner moved away from her room. Was it Alice? Had she come in and opened her window? Elizabeth grabbed her Mag flashlight from her bedside table, rushed to the door, and yanked it open. She peered up and down the hall, finding no one. She stepped out, her bare feet sinking slightly into the soft hall rug, and listened. There was no sound, and goose bumps rose over her skin.

  The laughter came again from around the corner.

  The hall was almost too dark to see in. “Alice?”

  No one answered. She almost turned the flashlight on, but decided it’d be too bright. She made her way to the end and peered around. There was no one there. She kept going, remembering that Alice’s room was on the first floor and this hall led to a stairwell going to the third floor. She kept a steady pace down the hall. She reached the stairs and hurried up, pausing once for a moment as a step creaked under her foot.

  On the third-floor landing, she glanced around. Another dark, empty hall, and nothing else. Had she imagined things? She was sure she’d heard something. Halfway down the hall, she almost turned to go back when a pungent smell of kerosene surrounded her.

  Gas!

  Rushing to the door where the smell was coming from, she pushed it open and released a billow of pungent air. A hissing from the fireplace alerted her to the direction of the leak. She rushed into the room and passed a bed on the way to the fireplace. She glanced over to find Patrick Daley fast asleep.

  “Mr. Daley!” she yelled at the same time she dropped to her knees, tossed her light, and reached for the lever to the gas main in the fireplace. It was jammed tight, so she gripped it with her other hand. “Daley, wake up!”

  She grunted as she twisted, her hands sliding over the metal, starting to sweat. She used the hem of her jersey and managed to turn it a little. Even though she hadn’t heard him move, Daley dropped to his knees beside her. He reached for the handle, and she skirted to the side as he yanked it closed.

  Elizabeth pulled her collar over her mouth and rushed to one of his three large windows, throwing it open. He followed and opened the other two. She stuck her head out and took a deep breath; then large firm hands grabbed her shoulders.

  “We have to get out of here.” Daley ushered her to the door and out of his room. He slammed the door behind him. “The room will air out.”

  “You didn’t have a fire, did you?”

  He furrowed his blond brow, his barrel curls hanging loose and messy and marvelous. “It’s eighty degrees outside. Of course I didn’t.” He started pacing, and she almost reached out to him but stopped when she saw what he was wearing—not much. His cotton pajama bottoms hung low on his hips, he had no shirt on, and his feet were bare. She could understand now why he’d looked so svelte in his three-piece suits. She bit her lip and looked down, suddenly horrified to realize that she was only wearing her jersey, which barely came to her knees.

  A door slammed in the corridor and their gazes flew down the hall toward the stairs.

  “What was that?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Wait here,” he ordered, and it was very much an order. He darted down the hall before she gathered her thoughts.

  She blinked after him, then, “Screw that!” She ran after him, but by the time she caught up with him on the second hall landing, he’d come to a halt.

  He caught her arm as she ran by.

  “What are you doing? They’ll get away.”

  “There’s no one to get away.”

  She stared down the stairs.

  “Ms. Shea,” he said, suddenly respecting her desire to be called by her last name.

  She glanced up at him, and he nodded down the hall to an open window with its shutters swinging on their hinges, clattering against the wall.

  “It was just the window,” he said.

  She huffed but nodded. “We need to call the police.” She headed for her bedroom door.

  “No!” he barked. “There’s no need for that.”

  She turned on him and rested her hands on her hips. “You could’ve died.” Not to mention whoever had turned on the gas main had likely come into her room and opened her window. The threat was clear. Someone was sending a message to Daley, yes, but also to her, letting her know that she was just as vulnerable.

  He ran a hand through his curls and breathed out. “But you saved my life …” He grinned again. “Again.”

  She shook her head and marched into her room, with him padding after her. “I’m calling the police.” Or Finley.

  He caught up to her, grabbed her arm, and spun her around to face him. “That would be redundant.”

  They were close, too close. Despite the stench of the gas from moments ago, he smelled strongly of soap and something deliciously musky. She swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  He gave her a small smile. “You are the police, and might I say doing a fine job of protecting me.”

  She pulled her arm from his grasp. “How long have you known?”

  “I suspected when you yelled at me in that tree,” he said. “Your tone is very authoritative.”

  She gritted her teeth. Great. Just fantastic!

  He grinned. “Plus your posture, the way you speak, and the fact that you’re the only ‘friend’ Agent Finley has ever had visit him in the six months he’s been here. Not to mention you show up shortly after I did for the first time in months and get this job with Finley’s recommendation to Helen. Helen may be a quiet person with most people in town, but she talks to me. And she’s not likely to leave a recommendation from Finley out of her narrative.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me to leave? If you knew who I was—”

  “Sending you away would’ve been rude after you caught me falling out of that tree,” he said, and took a step closer to her.

  She flushed, but kept her posture stiff. “You were being hospitable? That’s what you’re going with?”

  He chuckled, and it rankled. How could he be amused at a time like this?

  She was annoyed to no end, and he should be too. He’d almost died! “You fell out of that tree because I yelled at you.”

  He nodded. “Fine. If you leave, they’ll send someone else, and I like you. They think they have me fooled with you, and I don’t want them to try again. It’d be a big, long cycle of them trying and failing, and a waste of everyone’s time. Frankly, the idea is exhausting.”

  She rubbed at her brow and breathed out.

  “I know the Feds have a renewed interest in my wife’s case because of my meeting with that doctor in San Francisco. They’re smart too.”

  She looked up.

  He rested his hands on his finely chiseled hips.

  She closed her eyes and turned from him. “For the love …” She went to her wardrobe and yanked out her gray cardigan-esque robe, then came back and pushed it at him. “Put this on, please.”

  A smile spread across his annoying, handsome face, but he took the robe and put it on, cinching the belt at his waist. “Better?”

  Only marginally. It was too small for him, and therefore V’d wider than she’d like down to the center of his chest—not unlike his eligible bachelor photo. Also, it bulged in the sleeves. His muscles were going to ruin her robe. Jeez!

  “Why are they smart to have a ‘renewed’ interest in your wife’s case?”

  “Because the murderer is here, and I’m going to find out who it is.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, what?”

  He stepp
ed closer to her again, and though she wanted to step back, she refused. She wasn’t going to let him think that his closeness was affecting her. Because it wasn’t.

  “You want to find out who killed my wife and arrest them, right?”

  She nodded.

  “If you leave, I won’t let another Fed get within a hundred feet of me. So, as far as I can tell, you have two options. You can leave, or you can stay and keep an eye on me. And since an eye on me is what they want, you’d be wise to pick option two.”

  “Do you think the killer turned the gas on in your room?” His answer would be a huge deciding factor for her.

  “For all we know, it could have broken.” He chuckled. “Or it could be the ghost.”

  She scoffed. “Oh, please. The ghost?”

  “You don’t believe in ghosts?”

  She frowned as she thought. “I believe in an afterlife.” That was as much as she could say.

  “It’s widely believed the place is haunted,” he said. “Ask around.”

  Yeah, she was going to do that. It’d be at the top of her list.

  He breathed out. “I’m a light sleeper. I don’t think anyone came into my room. So what’s it going to be? Are you going or staying?”

  If his life was in danger, she’d be remiss to leave, no matter what he said about the gas leak. She shook her head, passed him, and went to her door. “I need to think about it and talk to Finley—I’m meeting him at the car show later today.” She rested her hand on the knob. “Good night.”

  “I understand.” He looked her up and down as if he was seeing her right now for the first time since she’d gone into his room. His eyes rested on her bare legs a little longer than she thought necessary. He crossed to the door, stopping directly in front of her, and with only a small space between them.

  She had to crook her neck back to look at him.

  His gaze held hers as his expression sobered. “Ms. Shea, you saved my life tonight. I owe you.” He took her hand.