Page 64 of The Housekeeper's Secret

‘Now, now, my dear Mrs Furniss, there’s no need to be so unfriendly. Since the two of us find ourselves here together, there’s no need to hurry back.’

Kate heard the click and rasp of a lighter flint, and Henderson held the small flame aloft. ‘I must say, you’ve got this place looking better. One can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but it’s cleaned up nicely. I daresay it could be quite homely with a fire in the grate and some lamps lit. For an unmarried woman, it seems you have a knack for creating a home.’

‘I must be getting back.’

Henderson went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Marriage has been on my mind rather a lot of late, understandably. A wedding gives one pause for thought, doesn’t it? Were you never tempted to take the path of matrimony, Mrs Furniss? A woman with your… advantages must have had plenty of offers.’

‘I’m perfectly satisfied with my life as it is, thank you, Mr Henderson.’

‘I can understand that. You have your independence—the Pankhurst woman would applaud you. But the life of a housekeeper is essentially solitary, is it not? This is the closest you’ll get’—he swung the wavering flame around—‘to making a home. The warmth of the hearth and the blessing of children… The companionship of marriage. You must once have hoped for those things?’

A fleeting vision of the cottage she had imagined flashed into her mind, and she shoved it away. She would not allow Henderson to insinuate himself into her dream and sully it.

‘If you’ll excuse me—’

‘The thing is, I sense that you’re a woman who needs that sort of companionship, Mrs Furniss. The… physical sort, if you get my meaning.’ His voice thickened. ‘You and I—’

‘I need to go.’

She forced her legs to carry her towards the door, groping for her chatelaine and clutching helplessly at the empty folds of her skirt.

‘Not yet.’ His hand shot out, his fingers closing around her arm. ‘You haven’t shown me upstairs yet.’

‘Mr Henderson, please—’

She heard the rising panic in her voice in the moment before his body slammed against hers, knocking the breath from her, pushing her back against the door. He wasn’t tall, but he was solid, strong. Though she twisted and thrashed she couldn’t shift him, and the scuffle of feet was loud in the small room, his hot breath gusting across her face.

‘You can pretend you don’t want it,’ he rasped, close to her ear, ‘but I know you do. I can smell it on you. This is what you came here for, isn’t it?’

His knee drove into her crotch, forcing her legs apart. His arm was across her neck. And then suddenly there was a juddering blow and they were knocked sideways. It took her a moment to realise that someone had rammed the door open, catapulting them away from it.

Henderson’s laugh was cruel and jagged. ‘Well, look who’s here. The village idiot. What do you want, boy?’

The moon had cast off its veils of cloud. Davy Wells was clearly visible as he stood by the table, shoulders hunched, face screwed up so that he looked like he might be about to cry. He was carrying a stick—one of the sturdy branches he collected on his wanderings through the woods and stripped of its bark, honing it to a sort of staff. Breathing hard, he raised it, preparing to strike.

Henderson swung round to face him properly, smoothing his hair and straightening his clothing. Kate stumbled past him, moving to the other side of the room with the table between them.

‘I know you’re not very bright,’ Henderson growled through clenched teeth, all traces of laughter gone. ‘But even I didn’t think you were this stupid.’

Davy’s chest was rising and falling quickly, the stick still held aloft. His face was a mask of anguish and rage.

‘It’s all right, Davy.’ Kate straightened her dress and cleared her aching throat. ‘Good boy—you can put the stick down. Mr Henderson was just leaving.’

Slowly, his eyes darting between Kate and Henderson, Davy lowered his arm, though his fingers remained tightly clenched around the stick. His whole body bristled, like an animal facing a predator.

‘Are you a good boy, Davy?’ Henderson queried softly. ‘Or are you a liability, to Coldwell and to your poor old mother? Where will she go, I wonder, when she loses the home that she’s been living in all these years on Sir Randolph’s generosity? So hard for a widow to manage… especially with an idiot son. Luckily there are places… institutions… that take people like you, Davy. That lock them up, so their violent rages aren’t a danger to the rest of us.’

‘Leave him alone!’

A flare of protective fury fizzed through Kate’s body. Davy shrank back and hissed in a breath as Henderson took a step towards him, but he made no move to touch him.

‘Let’s just check, shall we? Open your mouth,’ he said softly. ‘Say ahhh…’

It was how a doctor might speak to a child. Kate was confused, but Davy did as he was told, his eyes wide with terror.

‘Still there, I see,’ Henderson murmured. ‘For now.’

He clapped Davy on the shoulder, almost avuncular, and without so much as a glance at Kate, slipped out into the dark.

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