“Then you think it was Miss Fernie? Really?”
“I know she is the same age as Miss Mortimer, but she’s fit and strong. And angry.”
“And dangerous, it would appear. Why on earth would she push you? Because she feared you suspected her of writing the letters?”
“I wondered that, but no. I think she recognized my name and made her judgment.”
“A fallen woman,” Solomon said slowly.
“It still counts if you’re pushed.”
“Don’t,” he said painfully, resting his forehead against hers, closing his arms around her. “Howdareshe?”
“There is some kind of bond between her and Miss Mortimer. Bonds of childhood and shared experience. Thinned and evenbetrayed at some points—Miss Mortimer did remove her from her school post, after all—but still there. In Miss Fernie’s eyes I insulted Miss Mortimer with my presence, with pretending to be respectable.”
She shrugged. “I’m guessing. But it makes sense. Think about it. Miss Fernie is a vicar’s daughter, related to a powerful, aristocratic family who gave her Seasons in London. She still visits them occasionally, and writes, which must be how she heard my name—and, I think, passed it on to Mortimer so that he would tell his aunt. Judging by our conversation yesterday, he has certainly learned something against me and wishes to forbid me from his aunt’s presence.”
There was no point and no time to voice his outrage, because Constance didn’t pause for breath, so eager was she to share her theory.
“Miss Fernie’s family has been generous to her, yet she lives alone in Sutton May, in a little cottage, as if she is no more than an ordinary village schoolteacher. Why? Why has she no companion, like Miss Mortimer has Hannah Jenson? Why does she not live with her family?”
“Because she doesn’t want to be a poor relation? Because she is unpleasant and they don’t like her?”
“Both of those, probably. They are happy enough to write to her at a distance, even have her to stay for a week or two, but I’ll bet they lock up their silver and jewels while she’s there.”
Solomon blinked. “You believe she is the thief that no one in Sutton May acknowledges? Is that not rather a leap without evidence?”
“Possibly, but I’ll bet the evidence is there. We already know that she embezzled from the school.” Her eyes gleamed, and he wondered irrelevantly if she had any idea how beautiful she was, so animated, with her red-gold hair tumbling around her naked shoulders. “She was in the Keatons’ shop when theshawl vanished. She must have had many opportunities to steal Miss Mortimer’s bracelet. She visits Mavis Cartwright and could easily have taken her pretty box—she might even regard that theft as just punishment for Mavis’s committing adultery with Miss Mortimer’s father. She is on all the church committees and visits the vicarage frequently. She must have had many opportunities to take the vicar’s prayer book.”
“I allow all that to be true,” Solomon said, “but it could be equally true of anyone. We have never even met half the people in the village.”
“Ifeelit is her,” Constance said stubbornly. “Remember also when we spoke to the children, they said she chased them out of her garden,furious mad. Would not their old teacher handle such incursions better? Even be pleased to see the children? She doesn’t want anyone near her house.”
“Then no one calls on her?”
“Inside the house, she can control where they go. Keep doors shut. Keep things out of sight. But people peering in windows? Who knows what they might see?”
Solomon regarded her with some unease. “Pure speculation. And no, I will not creep about her garden, spying through her cottage windows.”
Constance grinned and totally disarmed him by kissing his lips. “Yes, you will. We’ll go together.”
Chapter Sixteen
Constance strolled thevillage streets with her arm in Solomon’s. She could hardly believe the difference in her mood since he had returned. From feeling unsafe and oppressed by the village atmosphere and desperately uncertain both about the case and her future with Solomon, she was suddenly lighthearted and confident.
Because they had stopped overthinking and over-considering each other and returned to instinct, to the basic fact of love, physical and otherwise. This intimacy, this closeness, made her both deliriously happy and determined.
Solomon’s doubts did not upset her. She enjoyed his challenges, his arguments, because they helped clarify her thoughts, and even if he didn’t quite agree—yet—he was listening. He always listened.
They walked past the school, empty of children because it was Saturday, though someone was working in the garden behind the house. Ogden. And some feet away, a woman kneeling on the grass. Sophie, no doubt.
“We don’t know whether she is at home or not,” Solomon pointed out as they came to Miss Fernie’s neat little cottage.
“Which is why we have to wait until we see her leave.”
“If she is so unhinged, she could have written the letters too. She lives alone and would have had every opportunity.”
Constance shook her head. “They’re too…polite.”
