Page 95 of Corpse in the Canal

“That you might want to marry Mrs. Jenkins,” Constance said.

Everett jerked to his feet and swung away from them, his shoulders rigid. But she didn’t need to see his face to sense the struggle waging within him. He was a proud and private man and their probing was intolerable.

There was silence, save for a buzzing fly somewhere in the room. No one looked for it.

“I might,” Everett ground out at last, “if she ever showed me the remotest encouragement.”

“Penelope does,” Constance said.

“What?” Everett forgot to protect his expression, turning back to them with a frown of incomprehension.

“Penelope,” Constance repeated. “She does show you encouragement.”

“Don’t be foolish. She’s Owens’s daughter!”

“She is only a few years younger than Mrs. Jenkins.”

Everett looked genuinely baffled.

“Perhaps she is beneath the squire,” Constance mused.

“There is no need to be offensive,” Everett snapped, “about either of us. Penelope is a young lady and my friend’s daughter.”

“Then you were never aware of her interest in you?” Solomon asked.

Everett opened his mouth, then closed it again, perhaps remembering past interactions. “I never thought of her in such a way,” he said at last. “And I fail to see that it’s relevant.”

“Someone shot me,” Solomon said mildly, “and tried to implicate Mrs. Jenkins. This may well be the same person who murdered Percy, or it may be a foolish effort to divert our suspicion from you. At Mrs. Jenkins’s expense.”

“Oh, no. I cannot believe such a thing of Penelope—”

“Which thing?” Constance interposed. “Protecting you? Or murdering Percy?”

“Both! All of it. It must be nonsense.”

“Then there was never any kind of understanding between you and Penelope?” Solomon asked.

“None. To be honest, I never even thought of marrying again until I met Mrs. Jenkins.”

“But she isn’t suitable to be Lady Everett, is she?” Solomon asked. “No one in England knows her family, and the Harveys at least suspect her of descent from slaves.”

“Like you?” Everett lashed out.

“Yes. Like me,” Solomon said mildly.

Everett looked faintly ashamed. “Such things matter nothing to me. They wouldn’t matter to the Harveys either if Percy hadn’t pursued Adelaide so blatantly.”

“Did you ever try to speak to Percy about that?” Constance asked.

“I told him off several times. He laughed at me. He laughed at the vicar when he tried. I don’t believe he ever intended anything honorable by her. That was why I tried to keep an eye on Dare Hall.”

“Did anyone else?” Solomon asked. “Was anyone else trying to protect her?”

A frown tugged at Everett’s brow. “Such as who?”

Solomon shrugged. “I don’t know. Dr. Owens, perhaps? He too is a widower, and when his daughter marries he will be in need of someone to do all the things for him that she currently does. And Mrs. Jenkins is a very attractive woman.”

Everett stared at him. “Even if she isn’t out of the top drawer?” he said in blatant mockery.