Fergal’s sideways glance was dry. ‘And what else did you liberate?’
‘Only the mutton. ’Twas all I could carry.’
Daniel, lounging comfortably within the doorway, asked, ‘And who now has gone hungry by your hand?’
‘None but a lazy merchant who was fool enough to leave his wagon unattended while he slept.’
‘You’ll try your luck one time too often,’ was his brother’s comment. ‘You are fortunate you did not meet the constable upon the road. He would have had you taken for a thief.’
Jack shrugged. ‘I am well liked by juries in these parts, they would have voted me my freedom. And in any case, the constable had other things to occupy his time.’ His tone had sobered. ‘He was here. He searched the house.’
I saw the narrowing of Daniel’s eyes as Fergal, who’d been tearing off small chunks of mutton, tasting what I’d done with it, turned round with sudden fierceness. ‘Christ’s blood, Jack, and did you never think to stop him?’
‘I had not the opportunity, he came and went before I did arrive. Your sister could not tell me what occurred, of course, but it appears she faced him on her own, and even had she had a voice she would have had no chance of stopping him herself. He must have been in a rare temper, from the treatment he did give that cupboard standing in the scullery.’
While Fergal went to check the cupboard, Daniel studied me with quiet calm, the kind of calm that sometimes silences the winds before the weather takes a turning for the worse, and it appeared to be a warning sign to Jack who quickly said, ‘I asked her if the blackguard used her ill, and she assured me in her way that he did not.’
Daniel said nothing, but his eyes moved briefly past me as behind me Fergal stepped out of the scullery and said, ‘He used the axe.’
The calm of Daniel’s face grew deeper, settling over his whole frame, and Fergal said, ‘Jack, come and help me take a look around the stables, will you? God alone knows what he might have done out there.’
‘But—’
‘Shift yer arse.’ The terse instruction left no room for argument, and Jack made none.
Daniel moved from the doorway to let them go past, but he waited until they’d gone out to the yard and the back door had swung shut behind them and they had moved well out of hearing before he asked quietly, ‘Are you all right?’
‘He didn’t lay a hand on me.’
‘That was not what I asked.’
‘I’m fine.’ I half-turned away from those steady eyes that I suspected saw more than I wanted them to. ‘It rattled me a bit, that’s all. I mean, I’d just come back and all of you were gone, and it was raining, and I couldn’t start a fire, and then I turned around and there he was …’
‘You did not let him in?’
‘He let himself in. I don’t think he expected to find anybody here. He seemed to know you were away.’ I paused, and glanced back. ‘Were you off on your ship?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t elaborate. ‘What did he do when he found you at home?’
What I told him was an edited account of what had happened, from the constable’s starting the fire to his smashing the lock on the cabinet and going to search the upstairs. ‘I’m fairly sure he didn’t find what he was looking for,’ I finished.
‘No more would he. There was nothing here for him to find.’ From his tone I could tell that he wasn’t protesting his innocence, only saying he had better sense than to leave any evidence lying around. ‘So he came back downstairs. And what then did he do?’
‘Nothing, really. He drank some of the wine that I’d brought him,’ I said very carefully, ‘and then he left.’
‘And only that.’
I nodded, and I saw a flickering of warmth behind his eyes. ‘You must ask Jack to school you in the art of telling lies, for plainly you have not yet learnt the trick of it.’
I raised my chin. ‘It’s not a lie. He didn’t touch me.’
‘I am close enough acquainted with the constable to know that he has other means of doing harm.’ He didn’t press the point. Instead he said, as though he meant it, ‘I am sorry that I was not here.’
‘It’s just as well you weren’t. You might be up now on a charge of murder.’
‘Yes, I might at that.’ And with his smile the deadly calm that had been hanging round him broke and fell away. ‘And do I have to call my brother out, or has he been behaving like a gentleman?’
‘He’s been behaving.’ Mostly, I suspected, because of where he had discovered me, in Daniel’s bed. Jack Butler might be reckless, but that didn’t make him fool enough to trespass on what he would have believed was ground belonging to his brother.
‘I would find that most unlikely,’ Daniel said. ‘And you forget I have the evidence of my own ears against it.’
I’d forgotten what he’d overheard as he came in – Jack’s offer to escort me up to bed. And Daniel’s answer. I surprised myself by blushing. I had lived so long in Hollywood I’d thought that there was nothing any more that could embarrass me. I covered it by saying it had only been a joke. ‘He was no more serious than you were.’
‘Was he not?’ The smile held, and in that moment while he looked at me I swore that I could feel the air between us as though it had come alive. Perhaps it had.