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SOPHIE’S CONFESSION STUCK with me no matter how hard I tried to ignore it so I’d found myself avoiding her and only talking to her over the radio. She’d sanctioned the night-vision cameras but not the installation so I’d grabbed Jake and we’d done it ourselves.
I secured the remaining camera to the wall and leaned my elbows on the top of my ladder to steady myself. The north east side of the perimeter wall sat next to the moors. It already had barbed wire fixings running along it so I’d used some new brackets to attach to the already present securing brackets for the wire. I was certain Sophie should be okay with that as I wasn’t damaging ancient stone.
“We’ll need to check the feed,” I said to Jake who was holding the ladder while eating his way through a chocolate bar I’d bribed him to silence with. I’d say handing over my chocolate was the reason I was the fittest I’d ever been and looked it but it was more to do with the fact I ran the entire perimeter so to avoid the Willow-Blossom and the urge to let Sophie catch me under it.
“I don’t get why you didn’t let Sophie get normal cameras,” Jake mumbled through his chocolate. “They would have done the job just fine.”
“Because . . .” Yes, why hadn’t I employed the company to do all the work for the cameras that were half the price? “It’s my job to keep the estate secure. It’s not secure if I can’t see if someone is trying to break in at night.”
“Yeah, but Sophie pays you to do it, she doesn’t pay you to install stuff too.” He finished off his chocolate and tucked the wrapper in the pocket of his country jacket—the kind with leather elbows.
“Technically she doesn’t pay me at all yet.” And wouldn’t for another three months but then she didn’t have to, because I loved it at Hayefield as odd as that might sound. I loved working out in the fresh air, running the shifts, training the guards—work in progress, don’t ask—dodging Raquel’s sex topics and stick attacks; dodging Bob and Fiona who wanted more than brief text messages and had threatened to camp outside the gate; dodging the fact I fancied Sophie to the point I felt myself tense up when I spotted her, playing the doting fiancé with Trin when I still couldn’t figure out why I didn’t trust her, and, yeah, if you hadn’t guessed, I was trying to figure out if Sophie really had killed Eugenie and if I’d missed something and she had killed Salisbury and Bunion too.
All the above was exhausting and stressful, please don’t try it at home.
And Jake was studying me. “You’re eager on sticking around then, huh?” He rubbed his eye behind his tinted lenses. “Guess you’re keen on the place.”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?” It was a beautiful place, a calming place—in the daytime.
Jake beamed at me like I’d said something profound and beautiful. “Why don’t you want to tell Sophie that you got the higher-spec cameras and installed them yourself then?”
“Oh no.” That would lead to questions like why I wanted to put myself through negotiating barbed wire . . . for her. “Lady Haye doesn’t need to listen to my boring business. All she needs to know is that the cameras are up and I’m on the lookout for intruders.”
Jake grunted. “Me too.”
“Jake?” Sophie oozed from somewhere nearby.
Jake jumped, I jumped, and clung onto the wall as the ladder wobbled.
“Ma’am?” he mumbled.
“I need your assistance.” Sophie gave me a smug smile—she loved to creep up on me and make me jump . . . a lot. Even more since I was trying to avoid her. My heart had a workout around her as it was. She had on figure caressing jeans, boots, and her shirt had the collar up again. How anyone could make such simple clothes look so sexy, I didn’t know, but, oh wow was she enough to make anyone drool. “That’s if Morgan has finished?”
“Yes.” I managed it like I wasn’t at all shaken. “I need to check that it’s all hooked up and I can do that myself.” I clambered down the ladder, which wobbled and I stumbled off the bottom.
Sophie pressed her hand to the small of my back and fixed on Jake. “I’m amazed how you found a company who would provide them and install them all around the perimeter.” Which was my story. I’d said they’d installed all but the north east wall—because that was the part Sophie could see from her office.
Jake stared at his feet. “Ma’am.”
Sophie’s charcoal eyes filled with suspicion.
“So, I should check the feed.” I thumbed over my shoulder. Come on, Jakey-boy, keep up the story. “I provide chocolate to hard workers.”
Hint, hint and all that.
Jake grinned, then shrugged as Sophie raised her dark eyebrow.
I hurried off before I could stare, drool, or incriminate myself and went through the track around the side of the house, which took in the uppermost corner of the forest. I eyed the path, trying not to envision angry adders.
“Have you seen Jake?” Edwina called to me as I reached the lawn. “I have a new clothing order to put in.”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “With Lady Haye.”
“Which has you worried?” Edwina liked to scour over me like I’d forgotten to do my homework.
“Oh . . . right . . . no.” I felt guilty. Why did I feel guilty? “I just . . .” I was sure she’d laugh at me if I mentioned adders so I motioned to the trees. “Just . . . um . . . hungry?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You still need more warning?” She sighed and fell into step with me like she was going to escort me all the way to manor. “Sophie even warns you herself and you still don’t listen.”
How did she get that from being hungry?
“Lady Haye is lovely,” I said, sounding more Welshy than I had in years. It even came out “luh-vell-lee” in a sing-song way.
“Is that why you drank yourself into stupor after meeting her in the wing?” Edwina tutted, her long brown skirt swishing as she walked. “She is dangerous . . . It would be best to observe the upmost caution.”
“Why?” I stopped and fixed on her. “I understand she wasn’t a model teenager and you all miss her brother and father but Bunion’s gossip has no substance to it, does it?”
“Yes, it does.” Edwina glanced back at the forest. “She wounded Henry badly. He needed a lot of medical attention after she left and I don’t think he ever truly recovered.”
“So what did he do that provoked it?” I didn’t have siblings but Trin did, and I could imagine some of them attacking each other if they could get away with it.
“Trying to defend himself and get to the fiancé she’d hacked down.” Edwina blurted it like it had been bursting to get free. “But his wounds overcame him.”
“Hacked down?” That was harder to ignore.
“With a sword.” Edwina held my gaze. “Sound familiar.”
“Then why did you ask me to investigate her if you think she hacks people down with swords?” I tried to keep my voice neutral and calm but I was rerunning Sophie knowing Bunion had been killed by a sabre . . . and her confession . . . and the fact I’d had her de-arrested.
“Haven’t you read the book?” Edwina motioned to the gatehouse. “She lured Eugenie into having an affair and when it went sour, she killed her and ran but she didn’t lure Salisbury or Bunion anywhere.” She sighed. “As you would say, it is not her M.O. but she is not innocent.”
“If she murdered someone, forget the bodies, she needs to be held accountable.” I was half-whispering, half-hissing and it made me think of adders again.
“If she goes to prison, this estate becomes a block of housing.” Edwina frowned. “Do you want that?”
“No.” I sighed. “Are you certain she killed Eugenie?”
Edwina shook her head. “Which is why I wish you to be careful. The only people who know what happened were Eugenie, Henry, and Sophie. Why run if you aren’t guilty?”
“If you’re scared. If you think people will think you’re guilty no matter what you say; if you’re wounded yourself.” I could think of a lot of reasons.
“Ask her yourself,” Edwina said then fussed over her skirt.
“Morgan,” Malcom, my youngest guard, said mid-yawn. “There’s some bloke called Bob who is here with his wife, Fiona.”
I grinned and Edwina matched it. “We’ll come and escort them now.”
“Fiona, dear, you’re not meant to link yourself to the estate,” Edwina muttered into her radio with the warmest smile on her face.
“No, Aunt Edwina, but Morgan needs a team talk,” Fiona shot back mid-chuckle. “And Bob wants to see where I grew up.”
Edwina rolled her eyes. “If your mother was still alive, she’d have him buried in the flowerbed.” She pursed her lips and turned to me as we strode along. “On the first date . . . to think, she grew up here and she let the first man outside the walls get her pregnant.”
“No one else was going to have him, were they?” I squeezed her shoulder and headed toward the gatehouse. “Who dates someone who does school liaison?”