Page 38 of Corpse in the Canal

It might have been true. She chose to accept it as such. “There is no need to apologize. You are welcome. Perhaps you should bring the soldiers inside, Clarence. Although the sun is out, it’s not exactly warm.”

“Can we set them up in the parlor?” Clarence asked eagerly.

“At one side, where no one will fall over them by accident.”

David crouched again and helped put the soldiers back in the tin. Adelaide found herself watching his hands—quick, deft, practical. They looked rougher than Solomon’s, calloused like a laborer’s or a seaman’s. She wondered what his paintings were like.

Irrelevant.

Inside the parlor, he focused on Clarence’s game, setting up opposing forces on the hill—David’s hat—and behind the farmhouse—a footstool. Adelaide found herself smiling, for David made it fun, causing Clarence to laugh. Especially when David charged his cavalry down the hill and had them slide and bounce over the hat brim.

“He was looking for you,” Adelaide said.

A quick glance at her, then back to the battlefield. “He found me.”

“And are you part of this inquiry business from which he makes his living?”

A faint quirk of the lips as his cavalry barged through Clarence’s. “No, though I have occasionally joined in to watch his back.”

“Then the business does not thrive?”

“It seems to. They are much in demand.”

“And successful?” Her heartbeat skipped.

“I can’t recall them ever failing.” His gaze shifted to hers, while Clarence rallied his cavalry, and brought his infantry sneaking out from behind the farmhouse. “Why do you ask?”

Because I don’t want anyone prying in my affairs, least of all him. Least of all anyone who would find out… She gave a nonchalant shrug. “It seems a-a small way to earn his bread, for the great entrepreneur of Jamaica who had ideas too big for the island.”

David smiled properly this time, and she saw that he wasn’t really like Solomon at all. “Oh, he doesn’t earn his living from Silver and Grey. His living was earned long before and is what enabled him to embark on this hobby.”

“Hobby,” she pounced. “Then he is not serious?”

Much to Clarence’s delight, David’s infantry fell in droves to the barrage of rifle shots, and enthusiastic hand-to-hand fighting ensued.

“Oh, they are very serious,” David said, allowing two of his soldiers to be overcome, “and very good.”

“At prying?” she snapped.

“At justice,” David said mildly, and perhaps that was scariest of all. He was bringing his cavalry back into play, galloping them around to come on Clarence’s infantry from behind.

“You will excuse me one moment while I see about tea,” Adelaide said, rising to her feet.

She needed to be alone to compose herself, but she was not in the habit of leaving her son alone with strangers. It shocked her slightly that she was doing it, though she took only long enough to issue orders for tea to the kitchen.

When she returned to the parlor, David was still sprawled out on the carpet, moving his cavalrymen slowly back up to the top of the hat. Clarence joined in, limping his own men back behind the farmhouse. They both smiled at her, which took her unaccountably by surprise.

“What now?” Clarence demanded.

“Now we regroup and treat the wounded, ready to fight another day.”

“Why?”

“Because you still want my hill, and I still want your farmhouse.”

“How long do we have to wait?”

Jenny the parlor maid opened the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Grey, ma’am.”