Page 53 of Secrets of the Heart

Therefore, the next day, when she received a note from James Hobson stating that he planned to visit the footman that afternoon, she was able to send back a reply that she would come to his sister’s house at one o’clock. There would not, she told herself, be any chance of what had happened the other night happening again.

“How is your arm?” she asked James politely as he swung up into the hansom and settled in the seat across from her. Sternly she ignored the little leap of pleasure she had felt when she saw him.

“It’s all right,” he assured her, although she knew he was lying from the grimace of pain he made as he sat down in the carriage and from the awkward way in which he carried the arm. “Fortunately, it is my left arm, so it should not hamper me much.”

“Have you any better idea who did it? Or why?”

He shook his head. “Sir Robert went across the street and managed to get onto the roof. There is a handy place to hide and brace oneself behind the chimney, and the tiles there are scuffed and one broken. He thinks the assailant must have fired from there. It is of little help, however. Everyone we questioned in the buildings around here disclaimed all knowledge of the shooting or anything connected to it. There is little I can do to protect myself except resolve this mystery.”

“Or the others you are working on.”

“Yes. Or the others.”

His eyes swept over Rachel’s figure, and a faint smile touched his lips. “I see you must have raided your maid’s closet.”

Rachel had, indeed, worn a dress borrowed from her maid, a brown gabardine with a plain round collar and equally plain buttons all the way up the front to her throat. “Yes, and she clearly thought I was quite mad to ask her for it.”

He grinned, a twinkle in his eyes, as he said, “I liked the other one better.”

She colored at his reference to the much more revealing scarlet dress she had put on the other day, but she could not suppress an answering smile. Rachel had been afraid that things would be terribly awkward between them after their lustful kisses two days before, but his teasing remark had broken the ice. She could not help but wish that it was as simple to feel at ease around his brother.

It was not as difficult to find the footman’s address as it had been to find Martha’s the other day, and the hansom dropped them off almost in front of his door. His room lay around on the side of the building and up a narrow staircase, and he opened the door quickly at James’s knock.

It seemed as if he were expecting someone else, for he frowned when he saw the two of them standing on his doorstep. “’Ere now, ’oo are you?”

“My name is really not important,” Hobson said, putting his arm firmly against the door to prevent the man from closing it, then stepping into the room. Rachel followed right on his heels.

The other man glowered but stepped aside and allowed them to enter, closing the door after them. Rachel glanced around the room. It was dark, for there was but one window and its shutters were only partway open, but there was enough light to see that it was a fairly large room with a sturdy if small bed, as well as a table and two chairs, and a small oak chest of drawers. It was not, however, a clean room; it was clear the occupant had not dusted in weeks or swept the floor, either, and the bed was an untidy pile of bed linens.

Hobson pulled out one of the straight-back chairs for her to sit in, bending down first to dust it off with his handkerchief. She sat down, and he stood beside her, both of them turned to face the other man.

“Ben Hargreaves?” James asked.

“An’ wot if I was?” the other man retorted sullenly.

“Then you would be the man I was looking for,” James replied easily, reaching into his pocket and taking out a crown. Idly he flipped the gold coin in his hand, steadily watching Hargreaves.

Hargreaves looked from James to the coin and back. “I’m Hargreaves. Wot you want from me?”

“A little information, that’s all. I understand that you once worked for a Mr. Anthony Birkshaw. Is that correct?”

The other man stiffened and looked at James warily. “Aye—an’ if I did?”

“I also understand that you were working for him at the time that Mrs. Birkshaw took ill and died,” James went on.

“Aye.”

“And that you brought her food on a tray every day while she was ill.”

“Wot of it?” Hargreaves retorted somewhat defiantly.

“Nothing. I merely wanted to establish that you are the right man.”

“Wot are you talkin’ about?” the man growled. “The right man for wot?”

“For this gold coin,” James said, flipping the coin in the air and catching it neatly. “I want you to tell me about Mrs. Birkshaw’s death. How did it happen?”

“’Ow?” the former footman replied blankly. “She took sick, like, and died, that’s ’ow.”