Chapter 14
Ahale fellow this was, tall, well-fed, his gray hair tied into an old-fashioned queue under his old-fashioned tricorne. He was well-dressed and well-shod also, in the woolens and high boots of a hunting squire. The maid curtsied and ran to tap him a tankard, his order unspoken. The murmuring started up again.
He was a regular, and welcome, but not a mate to any of these men. Rheumy eyes under bushy dark brows scanned the room and landed on Fox.
His gut, so rarely wrong, matched a name to the beefy red face. This was the local squire, Sir Richard Fenwick.
Not, he decided, a mere tolerant recipient of bribes. He was a partner to Scruggs in the free trade. Was he also a partner to Carvelle?
The man headed straight for Fox, the strong ale sloshing onto his sleeves, splashing his boots and the poorly-swept floor.
“Goodfellow, is it?”
Fenwick cast a glance at Davy and his friend. They lifted their hats, drained their tankards, and cleared out.
“Ah, boys, thank you, thank you. How’s your young Pip, Davy? Gaz, your mother? Join me, Goodfellow?” Without waiting for answers, he plopped on a chair.
Fox swallowed a frustrated sigh. Instead of asking questions, he’d be dodging them.
Fenwick got right to it. “How come you to take Shaldon’s cottage, Goodfellow? Friends of the family, eh?” He chugged a drink. “Oh, beg your pardon. I’m Richard Fenwick. Sir Richard. Baronet.” He grinned stiffly. “Minor, very minor compared to the Earl, isn’t it? But I get on well enough. Friend of the family, are you?”
“Not at all. I’m a simple tenant. Happy to make your acquaintance, Sir Richard.”
“Is that so? From these parts?”
“No. The Midlands and then elsewhere. My father was a factor for a large estate up north.” True enough, though his father hadn’t been in service—the estate was his own, andnorthwas inNorth America.
“In the same line of work, were you?”
“No. I worked as a secretary.” Also true; when he was sixteen.
“Indeed. For some great lord?”
The nosey lout. “No.”
“Here on holiday, are you?”
“You might say. I lost my employer and gained a small inheritance. And with the spectacle of the coronation, it’s a good time to be out of London.”
“You worked there?”
“Some of the time.”
Sir Richard considered that and grunted. “Detest the place, myself.” He called for another tankard. “Lonely up there at Gorse Cottage, are you?” His gaze went to the fireplace.
“I enjoy the solitude.”
Sir Richard did not immediately respond, caught up in some vision that made him frown more deeply.
Time for some probing of his own. “I understand from the estate agent it was a favorite haunt of the Earl’s wife.”
Sir Richard’s gaze came up flashing in what looked to be anger, quickly masked. “Foolish rumors.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rumors of hauntings.”
“Ghosts? I only meant—”
