Page 16 of The Case of the Curate

“Um… Who do you think could have done this to Dinah?”

Mrs. Thornfield shuddered. “Some passing madman, of course. We’ve had all sorts of vagrants and beggars in the village over the last few months, terrible, rough creatures. There’s one been hanging around the inn, I hear.”

Kate nodded thoughtfully and went into her room. She sat down at her desk, meaning to write to Gilbert—although was there really any point when she would see him tomorrow anyway?

The men were currently in conclave or plotting in smaller groups and probably would not decide anything important about the bill until this evening. She gazed around her room, tapping her fingers on the desk. Grissy had already tidied everything, so there was little enough to potter with.

In the end, she seized her hat, pelisse, and reticule and sallied forth with the intention of walking to the village. First, though, she would wander the house in search of Lewis the footman… She knew he was the particularly good-looking young man normally stationed by the drawing room. But no one stood there just now, since the ladies were about their own business at this hour of the day. One footman stood by the library where some of the gentlemen were no doubt gathered, and she found another downstairs by the front door, but neither was Lewis.

Kate wandered outside, just in time to see a livery coat vanish up the path toward the stables. With nothing better to do, she strolled after it.

A gaggle of grooms and coachmen were playing cards just inside the open doors of a large tack room. Beyond that was a carriage house, and a decent-sized cottage, outside which Lewis appeared to be haranguing the Chadbon coachman, a stocky, muscular man in his late thirties who didn’t look remotely intimidated.

Only when Lewis actually shoved him in the chest did the coachman react, swinging back his fist in a manner that was all too recognizable.

Time to intervene.

“You’re wanted at the house, Lewis,” she said, just loudly enough to penetrate their angry male skulls.

The coachman’s arm fell to his side, and the footman sprang to attention like a soldier before his general. She held Lewis’s gaze until he muttered, “Thank you, ma’am,” and took off at a run.

Kate turned to the coachman, who was already backing away to the cottage door. “What was that all about?”

“Boy’s upset,” the coachman said vaguely, adding as an afterthought, “my lady.”

“And you are head coachman here?”

“That’s right. Jack Irwin.”

“I thought I recognized you.” The Chadbons were frequent callers at the Ambrose house in London. “The indoor servants are all a little upset by last night’s…accident.”

Irwin nodded but said nothing.

“Did you know Dinah?” Kate asked mildly.

“Course I knew her.” Irwin couldn’t quite keep the scorn out of his voice, though she wasn’t sure how hard he bothered trying. “We eat with the indoor servants, you know.”

“How well did you know her?”

Irwin’s eyes fell. “Don’t know what Your Ladyship means. She was a housemaid, like the others.”

“Was she happy in her work?”

A quick upward glance of astonishment. “How would I know that?”

“Then what was Lewis quarreling about?”

“You’d have to ask—”

“I’m asking you.” Kate could be haughty when she wished. “To save your mistress—and the magistrate—the trouble.”

Irwin shuffled. “He liked the girl,” he muttered. “Seemed to think I was competition.”

“Were you?”

A strange, crooked smile. Impossible to tell if there was grief behind it or not. “No. Excuse me, my lady.”

Kate let him go.