AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes?” I prompted.
“It’s helped to stay afloat from a very generous yearly donation from Duncroft. There’s not enough population for the NHS to operate that service in this area. But there are a lot of farmers and herders here. Some of them are even farther away and much more remote than we are, which makes the hospital dangerously far if something happened without at least paramedics to wade in. It was needed. Duncroft made it happen. Most of our staff is from the village. We have groundskeepers who work here and live there, and they earn a very good wage. In other words, people like us, and they might not depend on us, but this house is important to them. And it’s Duncroft. They have pride in it, even if it isn’t theirs.”
“You’re telling me this because?”
“I’m telling you this because Lady Jane Alcott is pissed as shit at Brittany, who’s from the village, and the girl I saw downstairs is scared out of her mind she’s going to be a pariah. And she’s right to be. Mum could make it impossible to live there if she had a mind to do it. And she’s of that mind right now.”
This made even less sense than the rest of it.
“Then why did she do it?”
“Because she didn’t think she’d get caught,” Ian told me. “She also thought we’d think you were crazy when you said you saw Dorothy. It isn’t like we’re immune to the ghost stories. But I’ve lived in this house for thirty-eight years, maybe not daily, but I’m no stranger. And I’ve never seen a single ghost or even had the minutest experience.”
At least that made me feel better. The house wasn’t actually haunted.
“You can’t arrest someone for scaring someone,” I pointed out.
“You can for blackmail.”
Whoa.
“Is Daniel okay with people knowing he was blackmailed? And how that could happen?”
With his hands at my waist, Ian started herding me to the bed, saying, “Dad’s not going to press charges. But he’s also not an idiot. She was being stubborn. The threat of police and Mum getting involved loosened her mouth.”
He pushed me carefully to sitting on the bed.
I looked up at him. “Do you think that was where Daniel was going that early morning? To tryst with her or talk to her or, I don’t know, maybe she made some other threat or demand, and he needed to bargain with her?”
Ian suddenly looked reticent.
Uh-oh.
“Ian?”
He crouched in front of me. “When Daniel admitted to getting her hired and why, I had that same thought. So I took him aside and asked him. He said he wasn’t outside that morning. He seemed sincerely confused by the question.” When I was sure my expression shared how much I didn’t like that, he quickly added, “It’s likely he’s lying. He can be a good liar when he needs to be, and he’s in hot water right now. He’s not about to make it worse by confessing to…whatever he might have to confess to.”
“So at least now we know why you thought Britany was off.”
“At least now we know that.”
After he said those words, unexpectedly, he cupped my jaw.
And then he rocked my world.
“Come home with me.”
“Wh-what?”
“We’ve both arranged to take the week. I’m working, but not full steam like normal. We can go back to London.” He smiled rakishly. “I have a big flat. I can’t say you’ll see much but the bedroom, but we can take the time we have left to get to know each other better and see where it goes from there.”
It was an amazing offer. And I was tempted.
That said.
“It wasn’t twenty-four hours ago you talked me into staying here.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
