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“Oh for pity sake, I am not a caller. Now move out of my way, Harris, before I put some poison in your tea.” Her mother blustered past an indignant Harris who turned and left.
“Good morning, my lord, Mr. Blakesworth.”
“Good morning, Mother,” Mia said, offering her a seat. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“You’ve been away near a fortnight. I wanted to see my daughter.” A footman placed a cup of tea in front of her. “And I have a question for the earl.”
“Oh?” Simon said casually.
“What is your brother doing here?” Mother asked bluntly.
James looked taken aback. “I beg your pardon, madam, but that is hardly your concern.”
“Not you,” she said to James. “Charlie. He arrived almost as soon as you left and has been rifling through Mrs. Perkins’s garden for days.”
“The treasure,” Mia and Simon said together.
“I looked there yesterday and he wasn’t there,” Simon said with a frown.
“What treasure?” her mother asked.
Mia explained about the few trinkets she’d found over the past year. “He must think there is more. But after I discovered Hart’s financial situation, we searched for days and found nothing.”
“There are holes all over her garden. The poor woman can’t do anything about it either. She’s fretting about it and is going to make herself sick. At first she thought she had upset a garden troll. But one night she saw Charlie out there. She didn’t say anything at the beginning because she thought you had given him permission but then she noticed you never came out there.”
Simon scraped back his chair. “I will see to this.”
Mia started to rise but James shook his head at her. She widened her eyes at him and nodded in Simon’s direction. Again, he shook his head. Once Simon had left, she said, “Why aren’t you following him?”
“Mia, he is the earl. It is his decision what happens to Charlie.”
“Charlie is your brother too.”
“Yes, he is. And in about ten minutes, we will ride out to Mrs. Perkins’s house to see what is going on. That will give him enough time to confront him alone but not enough time to kill him.”
Mia stared at the clock on the wall until ten minutes had past. “Let’s be off.”
James stood up from his seat at the same time as her mother. Both James and Mia stared at her.
“There might be someone hurt,” her mother said. “I am going with you.”
“I can tend to the sick,” Mia said.
“I will go with you.” Her voice brooked no reply.
“Come along, both of you,” James said in an unusually rough tone.
Mia followed James out the door to the stables. Her irritation with her mother had returned even more quickly than normal. She knew it shouldn’t matter but it did. Her mother had never thought she was a good wise woman.
She jumped on the horse and then led the mare down the path to Mrs. Perkins’s house without waiting for James or her mother. She urged the horse to a run, determined to find out what was going on at the old woman’s garden. The sound of horses behind her meant she would not have much time alone.
Once she reached the house, she jumped off the mare and ran toward the garden. She stopped when she saw Simon filling in the holes that Charlie had left. No wonder Mrs. Perkins was so upset. The poor woman would have tripped if she came out here.
“Did you see him?” she asked.
“No.”
“He doesn’t come around until dark,” a feeble voice sounded.
