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“You won’t find him this house,” she added for good measure.
The magistrate suddenly glared at her. There was something in that direct look that warned Jess the man knew more but wasn’t telling her. It left her to wonder if either Lloyd or Carruthers had seen Ben with the pheasants.
Determined not to lose her freedom, Jess tipped her chin up and gave the man her most withering glare. She refused to be cowed but struggled to keep her dismay from her face when his warm, damp hand captured her chilled fingers.
The silence thickened as she watched him lift her hand to his lips. The moist kiss he placed on the back of the soft skin lingered far longer than was polite, but when she tried to pull her hand away, his fingers tightened. All the while his lips rested on her skin, his gaze remained locked on hers. She couldn’t quite make out of he was trying to be intimate or was threatening her. Either way, it was repulsive.
“Let me know if you hear of anything,” Lloyd murmured quietly.
Jess yanked her hand out of his grasp before he had lifted his head. Wiping it on the back of her skirts, she sidled around him and hurried into the hallway. Thankfully, without holding a sit-in protest, both men had to accept their direction to leave.
“I have to be getting on with dinner,” she declared in a loud voice as she moved toward the door.
She had never been so eager to get rid of anybody in her life and wished now she had never answered the door in the first place.
“Where is your brother?” Lloyd asked as he teetered on the doorstep.
Jessica stood beside the door. Now that several feet were between them she felt infinitely safer, especially with the door at her back. Although there had never been any rumours to support her theory, Jess suspected the magistrate wasn’t above flouting the law to get what he wanted. She just hoped he didn’t want her.
“He is out at the moment,” she replied carefully. “He has gone to the tavern for a drink.”
She sent a silent prayer that Ben had overheard everything. If he had, and understood the magistrate was on to him, then she hadn’t suffered without reason this afternoon. After the last ten minutes, as far as she was concerned, Ben needed to suffer a little as well. He needed to be the one to feel the stark emotions flowing through her right now.
She felt battered; all alone, and lost at sea. In a world of doubt, insecurity, fear, and worry, there was nothing holding a lifeline of hope. While it wasn’t all Ben’s fault, he hadn’t helped matters either. He could have come out to speak to the magistrate himself, but he hadn’t.
“Tell him we have called and want to talk to him,” Lloyd drawled.
“He won’t be able to help you. He has been here, helping me with the house,” Jess informed him briskly.
Rather than leave, Lloyd stepped forward and leaned toward her. Jess leaned back and kept her gaze averted, but could feel his fetid breath brush her cheek as he inched closer to her ear. She shuddered with revulsion.
“It is a big house for a young woman to run alone,” Lloyd murmured silkily. He glanced uninterestedly outside before he turned his lecherous gaze back to her.
“I am not alone. I have Ben,” she replied.
She began to suspect that his predatory interest in her was the reason why Lloyd wanted Ben out of the house. The thought of being at the mercy of such an odious toad as the magistrate made her feel sick.
It wasn’t that he was old, or overweight, or suffering from offensive looks. At some point in his life, he might once have been considered a handsome man. Not now, though. Years of excess hadn’t taken their toll on his pock-marked skin. Together with his thinning hair and rather stooped build, and the fact that he was at least twenty years older than her, he was about as attractive to Jess as the dead pheasants hanging in the scullery.
“I also have the guests,” she added desperately. “See? I am not alone.”
“I hope your services don’t go further than providing board and the occasional meal,” Lloyd drawled as his gaze slid down the length of her. “It would be a shame to see youth tainted by such sordid endeavours, especially with your lodgers.”
“How dare you suggest such a thing?” she demanded, outraged at the notion.
“I am not saying you are,” he smirked; pleased at the response his baiting earned him.
She mentally cursed when she realised he had gotten the response he had wanted – to prod her until she snapped. Determined not to let him get the better of her, she glared balefully at him and sucked in a calming breath.
“You would know more about sordid endeavours than I,” she snapped.
The immediate flash of anger on the magistrate’s face warned her that she had gone too far.
“Seeing as you deal with criminals and all,” she added snidely in a rather vague attempt to take the sting out of her snipe.
The magistrate nodded his appreciation of her play on words and smirked as he turned to study the road in front of the house.
“I will return when your brother is home,” he warned.
