And she might well have shoved me down the stairs. “Yes… But can you imagine her defending the ignorant Nell Dickie by writing to the Keatons? Or telling Nolan off for scolding the rowdy children in his shop?”
“She might feel scolding the children is her business alone,” Solomon said. “And I suppose it’s possible her letter to the Keatons was about something else entirely. We only suspect it was to do with Nell Dickie.”
“I should have another talk with Mrs. Keaton, too.”
“I feel I am leaving you in the lurch here with everything still to do,” Solomon said. “Why don’t I wait another day? We might even solve this tomorrow, and we can return to London together.”
Constance sighed and rested her cheek against his arm. “That would be good. But your mind would be on David. I could come with you to London.”
“In the middle of the case? Would that be fair?”
“No,” Constance said, slightly miffed that he had argued so swiftly against it, even though he was quite right. “You need to make sure David is still safe, while I try to penetrate this village soup of gossip and accusation. Do you think Mortimer is a violent man?”
“Violent?” Solomon sounded startled, and uneasy. “I could more easily imagine his lashing out in temper than troubling to compose anonymous letters that he would surely find ridiculous.”
“What if that was the point? Some kind of joke that he began just to annoy his aunt, who keeps him on some kind of financial leash?”
“And the other letters are just covering fire, as it were? That we have been reading too much into?” Solomon rubbed his chin. “You might have something there, only I don’t see what his letter to his aunt has achieved for him.”
“Neither do I,” Constance admitted. “So why did he keep sending them to others? Did Mrs. Chadwick annoy him by thrusting her daughter under his nose?”
“It hardly appears to annoy him,” Solomon said dryly.
The village was quiet, with only a few lights still showing behind curtains and shutters. In the long nights of winter, Constance supposed, a person could probably flit more easily between houses, pushing malicious notes under doors. No one would see, concerned as they were with keeping themselves and their homes warm and dry.
Even the Goose taproom, though it still had a light, was quiet. The innkeeper came through to lock the main door behind them, and they made their way up to bed. Constance felt suddenly very tired, and her arm throbbed.
“Knock on my door before you leave in the morning,” she said.
Was that disappointment in his gaze? More than anything, she wanted the comfort, the sweetness of his embrace, but in such intimacy she would never be able to hide the pain in her arm or the bruising that had no doubt formed colorfully by now. And if he knew, he would not go to David as he needed to do.
He halted at her door and took her into his arms. His lips felt cold on hers, and then warm, almost burning. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Chapter Twelve
Constance woke beforehe even touched her bedchamber door. It was not yet fully light, and her arm protested sharply enough to make her wince as she threw herself out of bed and staggered toward the door, which she wrenched open at the first brush of his fingers.
Without hesitation, she cupped his cheek and kissed his mouth. “Safe journey,” she whispered. “Write if you cannot come back.”
“Of course.”
Even in the gray gloom of the morning, she could see in his eyes that he did not want to go. That made her ache and rejoice.
“Let’s get married, Solomon,” she blurted, and his face lightened like sunrise.
He kissed her back and then he was gone, leaving her to slip back into her room before the inn staff caught her in her nightgown.
For some reason, her heart felt bright and hopeful. She washed in cold water and dressed before opening the shutters and letting in the lightening gloom. She imagined she heard the train puffing its way out of the village, carrying Solomon to London.
Fetching her notes on the case from the desk drawer, she spread them out across the bed and updated them with what they had learned last night—including the fact that someone, probably either Miss Fernie or Peregrine Mortimer, had pushedher down the stairs. She would tell Solomon when he returned. And in the meantime, she would take more care.
She reread the letters that had survived, along with what they had been told about the others. Had they been properly written by hand, or even spoken face to face, they could hardly be called spiteful or nasty. In fact, they were almost polite, except for theyou will paybits at the end, which had a certain element of parental warning about it. Likeit won’t get better if you pick itordon’t make faces because if the wind changes, you’ll stay like that.
A parental-style warning to adults? Or children reflecting their words back at them? Kindness. Responsibility. The injustice of false accusation. There was nothing inherently wrong in any of that, so why communicate it in such a way?
Someone with no power, as Mr. Raeburn had said, or someone who feared the consequences of speaking out? Against the lady of the manor, the local shopkeepers, the blacksmith, the doctor’s wife. What on earth did they have in common? Who had somehow been wronged by all of them? Or at least witnessed their wronging of someone else?
