AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Miss Hotchkiss?”
She swallowed and found her voice. “Yes?”
“I hope I am not making you uncomfortable by seeking you out.”
“Not at all,” she squeaked.
“Good,” James said with a smile. “It is merely that I did not know to whom else to turn.” He glanced over at her. Her cheeks were stained delightfully pink.
They said nothing as their steps took them through the stone arch that led into the rose garden. James steered her to the right, past Danbury House’s famous Scarlet Scotch Roses, which bloomed in a brilliant display of pink and yellow. He leaned down to smell one, stalling for time while he figured out how best to proceed from here.
He had thought about her all night and well into the morning. She was clever, and she was definitely up to something. He had spent enough time ferreting out secret plots to know when a person was acting suspiciously. And his every instinct told him that Miss Hotchkiss had been behaving out of character the day before.
At first it had seemed odd that she should be the blackmailer. After all, she couldn’t be very much older than twenty. She certainly wasn’t older than Melissa, who was nearly thirty-two. So she couldn’t have any firsthand knowledge of Lady Danbury’s extramarital affair.
But she had lived her entire life in the region; she had said so herself. Perhaps her parents had passed on a confidence. Secrets had a way of lingering in small towns for years.
Not to mention that Miss Hotchkiss had free run of Danbury House. If Aunt Agatha had left any incriminating evidence about, no one was more likely to come across it than her companion.
No matter which way he turned, he was led back to Miss Elizabeth Hotchkiss.
But if he wanted to learn her secrets, he had to make her trust him. Or at the very least, lower her guard enough so that she might let the occasional confidence slip through those delectable pink lips of hers. It seemed to him that the best way to do this was to ask for her assistance. Her sort of woman was polite to a fault. There was no way she would say no if he asked her to help him acquaint himself with the neighborhood. Even if she was the blackmailer—and thus selfish to the core—she had appearances to maintain. Miss Elizabeth Hotchkiss, companion to the Countess of Danbury, could not afford to be seen as anything less than gracious and kind.
“Perhaps you realize that I am new to the area,” he began.
She nodded slowly, her eyes wary.
“And you told me yesterday that you have lived in this village your entire life.”
“Yes…”
He smiled warmly. “I find myself in need of a guide of sorts. Someone to show me the sights. Or, at the very least, to tell me about them.”
She blinked. “You want to see the sights? What sights?”
Damn. She had him there. It wasn’t as if the village were brimming with culture and history. “Perhaps ‘sights’ isn’t the best choice of words,” he improvised. “But each village has its own little quirks, and if I am to be effective as manager of the largest estate in the district, I need to be aware of such things.”
“That’s true,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “Of course, I’m not certain what precisely you would need to know, as I’ve never managed an estate. And one would think that you, also, would be at a loss, since you have never managed an estate before, either.”
He looked at her sharply. “I never said that.”
She stopped walking. “Didn’t you? Yesterday, when you said you were from London.”
“I said I hadn’t been managing estates in London. I did not say that I had not done so prior to that.”
“I see.” She turned her head to the side and looked at him assessingly. “And where were you managing estates, if not in London?”
She was testing him, the damnable chit. Why, he wasn’t certain, but she was definitely testing him. But he wasn’t about to let her trip him up. James Sidwell had immersed himself in disguise more times than he could count, and he had never slipped. “Buckinghamshire,” he said. “That is where I grew up.”
“I have heard it is beautiful there,” she said politely. “Why did you leave?”
“The usual reasons.”
“Which are?”
“Why are you so curious?”
She shrugged. “I’m always curious. Ask anyone.”
