“Fascinating,” Grey said, a little disappointed that his working theory regarding Fanny’s presence here was being challenged. Hmm. But then, McGowan could be wrong. How well could he know her, after all? Very well. Grey frowned. “What do you know of the woman herself? What do you know of her history?”
McGowan didn’t bother to tear his gaze from the envelope in the case below. “Little enough,” he said. “But I am not one to pry. I believe her husband was under Colonel Chase’s command and died on foreign soil.”
“But as you, too, were in the colonel’s command, surely you knew Mr. Walcott?”
Ha! He had the slippery vixen. How could she have been so careless as to create an alias that could so easily be discredited? And by her one and only neighbor?
“I’m afraid not,” McGowan said. “I was attached to his battalion as a member of a sharpshooter corps for only a few months. I didn’t meet any of the regular army chaps.”
The soldiering made sense now. The precision with which McGowan spoke, the neatness of his nails, the extreme polish of his boots all indicated the sort of exacting nature required of a marksman.
And Fanny Walcott hadn’t made a blunder.
“Why do you ask after Mrs. Walcott? You don’t suspect her of wanting to harm Miss Chase?” McGowan said. “If you do, I won’t believe it.”
“Not at all,” Grey denied. “I’m a very uncomplicated man. When I see a handsome woman, I am interested in why she is unattached. And she is a very handsome woman.”
“She is in all ways admirable,” McGowan said softly.
Grey’s eyes narrowed. Practicality might insist that a chap set his sights on one matrimonial prize, but that didn’t preclude him from appreciating another. A sharp jolt of something—he wasn’t sure what, but he knew it wasn’t jealousy—lifted Grey’s lip in a curl of derision. Abruptly, he decided that they’d spoken enough about Mrs. Walcott.
“But enough about Mrs. Walcott. She is not the reason I am here.” Not the reason that brought me here, an inner voice amended. “Miss Chase and this threat against her are. I assume you would like to help me get to the bottom of this little mystery?”
McGowan nodded.
“Then let us deal in hypotheticals for a moment, shall we? Suppose someone were trying to harm Miss Chase. Who would it be?”
Bernard thought a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I can’t imagine.”
“What about the old woman?”
“Grammy Beadle? Harmless.”
“Anyone with an ax to grind or who bears Miss Chase, or Mrs. Walcott, a grudge?”
McGowan brooded. “Well, there is Vicar Oglethorpe. Admittedly, he is of a hellfire-and-brimstone mentality and can be rather alarming. But his parish is over thirty miles away, and he visits here only sporadically.”
“Perhaps in one of his more impassioned sermons he alarmed someone and they now feel obliged to send a warning?” Grey suggested.
McGowan shrugged.
“What about the money? If Miss Chase dies before she reaches her majority, what happens to the money that was to have been divided amongst the townspeople?” Of course, Grey already knew the answer; he wanted to see who else did. In particular the banker.
“Every cent goes to charity,” McGowan answered without pause. “The Benevolent Officers Fund for Military Orphans.”
Grey nodded. So there was no ostensible motive for anyone to want Amelie Chase dead.
“Do you think the threat is real?” McGowan asked, gnawing his lower lip.
“No. I suspect it was sent out of sincere, if misplaced, fear for Amelie Chase’s life,” Grey said. “Perhaps now, with just a few more years left before the terms of the will are met, an overly concerned citizen saw something dire in the recent illness Miss Chase told us about. Or someone overheard a bit of drunken bluster.”
“Doubtless you’re right,” the banker said, following Grey down the row of cabinets.
The matter having been handled to his satisfaction, Grey allowed his interest to be awoken. Not by the stamps, but by the sort of man who would collect them.
“Stamp collecting is more than a way of passing the long Highland winters for you, isn’t it?” he asked.
McGowan nodded, his face alighting with more animation than Grey had seen since they’d met. “Oh, yes. I admit I am a full-blown zealot. I’ve been collecting stamps since I was a boy. Truth to tell, I asked to be posted to the Indian frontier not because of the adventure, like the other lads, but because I saw it as an opportunity to come by some very rare stamps.”
Good God. The man must be as mad as a March hare.
“But why?” Grey asked, sincerely puzzled. “What about these little squares of paper engenders such fascination?” He’d been about to say fanaticism, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to alienate the fellow.
McGowan regarded him with a touch of exasperation. “I don’t know. They just do. I suppose you find it ridiculous?”
Grey wasn’t going to lie. He hated liars and deceit in any form; it was the essence of his nature. “I find it incomprehensible.”
McGowan shook his head. “Why does anyone find anything fascinating? Why is a musician enthralled by a passage of music? Why does a horticulturist go into transports over a type of rose? Why does a man obsess over a certain woman?”
Because she is a mystery, and he had devoted his life to unraveling mysteries.
“It is because it is a passion with them,” McGowan said when Grey remained silent. “Passion is a gift, Lord Sheffield. It doesn’t matter what the object of that passion is. If we are lucky enough to find something that stirs and entrances, fascinates and beguiles us, we would be fools not to give ourselves wholly to the experience. It is how we know we are alive.”
Not merely mad, but mad north by northwest, with a great deal more insight into his own nature than most men had. Perhaps including Grey. Besides a devotion—some would say obsession—to bringing down frauds and cheats, what stirred Grey’s emotions, excited and captivated him?
An image flashed through his thoughts, startling him: dark eyed and black haired, an elegantly crafted face along with a slender, fine-boned form. He banished her.
“Lord Sheffield?” McGowan said. “Would you agree?”
“What? Oh. You are quite right, McGowan.” He was a private man who rarely confided in anyone. He kept to himself, presenting a face to the world that was urbane and indifferent. He always had. It had been his way of dealing with the ridicule arising from his father’s well-publicized ghost chasing.
They had moved along the line of cabinets as they spoke and stood in front of one devoted to stamps from the exotic East.
“Why have you left a place between these two stamps?” Grey asked.
McGowan brushed his fingers lightly over the glass surface protecting the empty sheet of paper.
“That’s where I hope to one day exhibit a Two-Hump Yellow Wrong-Kneed Camel. Should I do so, I would be the only collector in the world to have representatives of each color incarnation. It is accounted one of the rarest stamp runs in history.” McGowan’s eyes had taken on the dreamy look of a lover.
“Well, someday perhaps you’ll find one.”
McGowan laughed bitterly. “One doesn’t find a Two-Hump Yellow Wrong-Kneed Camel. One bids for it, buys it, steals it.” He laughed again. “Or inherits it. The fact is, one is reputed to be about to come on the market. Not that I stand a chance of getting it. It will go for far more than I could ever pay.”
McGowan ushered him to a single small cabinet set apart from the others in a place of honor. “Here. This is what it looks like. This is the Two-Hump Yellow Wrong-Kneed Camel. A facsimile, I’m afraid.”
Grey peered through the magnifying glass at a homely little mustard-colored stamp with a cartoonish-looking knock-kneed camel in its center. “I spent five thousand pounds for that, thinking I’d just acquired the greatest bargain in philatelist history,” McGowan said, without rancor. “It isn’t
worth the paper it’s printed on.”
Five thousand pounds on a swindle.
Grey felt a surge of pity for McGowan. His father had done the same thing time and again, the only difference being that he never had understood that what he’d purchased had been fake.
“Why do you have it here?” he asked curiously.
“I put it there to remind myself how easy it is to be duped into believing a counterfeit is real, especially when you want it very badly.”
Grey did not reply. His thoughts once again turned to his father and then, unaccountably, to Fanny Walcott. He feared he understood all too well.
Chapter 10
“You are quite sure I can’t escort you somewhere?” Bernard McGowan asked Amelie again, appearing in the doorway to the bank as she hurried past on her sixth circuit of Little Firkin’s main thoroughfare. He’d also peeked out on her third.
“Yes, quite sure,” Amelie answered brightly, wishing the banker would just go back inside. “I’m just enjoying a stroll.”
Bernard looked at her quizzically, but was too much a gentleman to point out to her what everyone had noticed: that she had spent more time on the streets of Little Firkin in the last two days than she had in the last six months. She’d begun to feel a little silly window-shopping, particularly as there were only twelve windows to shop in. But if she wasn’t on the streets of Little Firkin, how else was she to “run into” Lord Hayden?
“Well,” Bernard said reluctantly, “if you are certain I can do no service for you…?” He brightened. “Perhaps you’d join me in a cool beverage at MacKee’s?”
Amelie caught back her start of surprise. Bernard had never asked her to accompany him anywhere without Fanny. Last week she would have been delighted. Today she had in mind another companion.
“Oh, no. No. But thank you for asking.”
“Then may I escort you back to Quod Lamia when you’ve finished your business here?” he asked hopefully.
“That won’t be necessary. Fanny has insisted Ploddy accompany me whenever I leave the house,” she said. Ploddy was Quod Lamia’s only real servant, an elderly gent who’d once served as her father’s batman. “I’m to fetch him from Mr. Davies’s establishment when I’m ready to go back.” She only hoped he wasn’t too inebriated at that time. Ploddy had something of a problem.
“I see,” Bernard said.
“Yes,” Amelie said. “I think it’s all a bit silly. But Fanny will not be gainsaid.”
“She is taking this letter seriously then?”
“She says not, but that we might as well not take unnecessary chances.”
“And you, Miss Chase?” Bernard gazed earnestly into her eyes. He was not so tall as Lord Hayden. “Are you worried?”
She shook her head, trying to sort out her feelings. “Not really. I suppose I ought to be, but it is hard to imagine someone would want to harm me, not when I am so valuable to everyone here, and all that value rests on my being, well, alive. I am most unhappy this has caused so much consternation for Fanny.”
His smile was tender. “You are precious to some for more than the reasons you outline.”
Oh, dear. Oh, no. She should have felt flattered, or at least a tiny bit pleased by his words. Instead, she only felt uncomfortable.
“Too kind,” she chirped, as if people told her she was precious on a daily basis. “Well, I’d best be on my way. Good day to you, Mr. McGowan.”
He looked disappointed, but smiled. “And to you, Miss Chase. I look forward to dining with you tomorrow.”
“And Fanny. And Lord Sheffield. And Lord Hayden,” she said.
“Of course.”
She sailed on, knowing full well that her walk was causing Bernard much speculation. She refused to feel ridiculous.
Besides Bernard, who was there to care? The locals were concerned only that she didn’t get herself killed before they collected their money. And that she didn’t conjure up something she couldn’t unconjure. She supposed in an odd way it was a testimony to their tolerance that soon after she’d moved here, a delegation of Little Firkians had arrived on their doorstep, pushing forward their ambassador, Donnie MacKee.
Her father had already been too ill to attend the little meeting on the porch, but Fanny had stood in for him. Hands clasped primly at her waist, she’d blocked the doorway as Amelie watched from behind her. Fanny had eyed the townspeople with clinical detachment, as though they were Gypsies pedaling suspect tin.
She greeted them in her most quelling tone. “Yes?”
Donnie cleared his throat. “I come to say what needs to be said.”
“Yes?”
“Aye.”
“And that is?” Her politeness was as formidable a weapon as any Donnie would have ever encountered.
“Now, then, missus, we don’t think as yer lass here be a bad lass. But a witch she be, and bad or good, a witch is trouble.”
“Really?”
Donnie nodded. “Aye. There’s a witch lives up Beadletown and she’s come over a right pest.”
“Amelie will not be a pest.”
“That’s good ’n’ all fer ye to say.” He hesitated. “But when ye come right down to the matter—”
“Please do.”
“When ye come down to the matter, we ain’t sure how bright a lass she be, and what with magik bein’ dangerous ’n’ all, well, we’re thinking it be best if she give up conjuring altogether.” He paused. “Leastways long as she’s here.”
Amelie could still see the twinkle flashing into Fanny’s eyes and the irrepressible twitch at the corner of her mouth. Fanny had had to look away a moment, but when she turned back, she had regained her composure.
“Fear not. She’s a bright girl.”
“That may be, but still…” Donnie waggled his red brows suggestively.
Fanny capitulated. “I promise you, you have nothing to worry about.”
It seemed to have appeased them, for no one bothered them after that. No one really bothered with them, either. Except to make deliveries and the usual daily sorts of business exchanges. If her father had chosen a place for its population’s placidity, he couldn’t have chosen better than Little Firkin.
The townspeople were by nature sedentary, by temperament lazy. Which was why to a man (and woman) they were content to sit around and wait for her to grow up and move away, rather than endeavor to make something of Little Firkin, with industry and businesses and a future that did not depend on a girl reaching her twenty-first year.
Lord, she would be happy when she was finally free to leave here. If she’d voiced that desire once, she’d voiced it a hundred times. Unfortunately, as Fanny pointed out just as often, no good came of complaining. Certainly nothing but polite refusals and inquiries as to her health had come of the letters she’d written the senior Lord Collier. No. There was nothing for it. Her father had determined that until she reached the age of twenty-one, one way or another, she would be attended twenty-four hours a day, be it by Lord Collier (who had already made clear his unwillingness to assume the task), Little Firkin, or a husband. A husband… She smiled, her good mood restored.
“Miss Chase!”
At the sound of Lord Hayden’s voice, Amelie twirled around. Finally, she’d managed to orchestrate a chance encounter with the elusive young gentleman.
“Miss Chase!”
He trotted out of the post office, hat in hand. As soon as he made her side, he swept a hand though his golden locks and donned his hat. “How are you?”
“Very well, Lord Hayden. Thank you. And yourself?”
“Very well,” he said, beaming down at her. He glanced around. “Very well, indeed. Is Mrs. Walcott with you?”
“Oh, no,” Amelie said. “She is more likely fishing or bicycle riding or lofting golf balls into the loch. She’s a rather solitary lady.”
“But don’t say you are unattended!”
“Why, yes. Well, not completely. Ploddy walked with me here and shall walk me back. But until then I am
completely on my own,” she said. Too late, Amelie recalled that unmarried ladies in society did not leave their homes without a chaperone. What rubbish. For the first time it dawned on Amelie that the society she longed to know might not be everything she liked. “Do you disapprove?”
He looked taken aback by her question. Had she made another faux pas?
“You oughtn’t,” she said, a little stung by his continued silence. “Who is supposed to attend me when Fanny is unavailable, and what purpose would they provide? I do not require a keeper, Lord Hayden. I am not a toddler.”
He continued to regard her with slack-mouthed wonder. Was she so very odd then?
“Please say something, Lord Hayden.”
He blinked, coming out of whatever trance held him. “Excuse me. You’re just so…”
She braced herself to hear the word unpolished or worse.
“…refreshing!”
She relaxed, her face blooming in a wide smile. “Refreshing?”
“Yes.” He nodded vigorously. “I am sorry you could think I was such an old fogey. I could never disapprove of a young lady I only wish to impress favorably.”
He wished to impress her favorably? How utterly lovely! “Really?”
His boyish smile took on a more debonair cast as he looked deeply into her eyes. “Really.”
She blushed.
He offered her his arm. “May I accompany you to wherever it is you are going?”
Oh, blast. What to say now? They could go to Donnie’s tavern, but she doubted even the most relaxed gentleman would like to think a young lady passed her free time in a pub. Then she recalled that Johnston had recently installed a liquid carbonic tank in his inn. Surely an inn wasn’t the same as a tavern, even an inn that was in actuality a tavern (seeing how no one but the very incidental traveler ever stayed there).
“I was shopping, but I find I am quite thirsty. I don’t dare go into a tavern by myself.” She glanced sideways to see if he was impressed by this show of maidenly modesty. “But the inn has recently had a soda fountain installed.” She let the implication dangle.
“You’ve never had a soda drink?” he asked.
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