Page 54 of Heir of Uncertain Magic

Chapter 12

November 16, 1846, Boston, Massachusetts

Merritt found himself playing with his pocket watch outside the kinetic tram station in Boston, opening and closing its cover, pinching his skin in its hinges, winding it slowly, one tick at a time. He’d just turned in two articles to a local paper, one opinion piece on static wages in the working class and another on his lessons with Mr.Gifford and the dreadful essays the man loved leaving him with after each appointment. Thereweresome interesting tidbits in those essays, and Merritt thought he might as well put them into modern words. He worried the bibliography of his citations might make the piece too long to publish, but he’d submitted it anyway.

He glanced up from his watch at just the right moment, for he spied Hulda through the bustling Monday crowd, coming his way, her strides longer than a woman of her height should be capable of, that familiar black bag slung over her shoulder. He straightened and smiled, then reached into his own satchel as she approached.

“How was work?” he asked.

She wiped perspiration from her forehead. It was cool outside, but nothing a brisk walk couldn’t thwart. “Rather congenial, actually. A certain colleague of mine was absent most of the day.”

“Most excellent.” He pulled a letter free and handed it to her. “You know, you needn’t send your mail to my box just for an excuse to see me.”

Instead of laughing, Hulda snatched the gray envelope from his hands and tore it open.

Merritt leaned closer. “Something important?”

“It’s from MissPearshold.” She pulled the letter free and turned her back to passersby.

Merritt waited while her eyes shifted back and forth. When she didn’t share, he asked, “Who is ...?”

“The maid”—she read further—“from Gorse End.”

Merritt stiffened. “You told me about Silas’s connection to Baillie. You failed to mention following up with your past coworkers.”

Her eyes lifted from the paper, her focus far off.

He stepped closer to her, almost touching. “What does it say?”

Her hazel gaze focused on him. “Not a lot,” she murmured. “She says she believes the estate is still run by Stanley Lidgett, and she hasn’t heard anything about Silas Hogwood’s death or a change in ownership.”

“This Lidgett fellow is his steward?” Merritt asked.

She nodded. “He was there, when they arrested him. Mr.Hogwood, I mean. Yet the only person he seemed disgusted with was me.” Her cheeks pinked slightly.

“I don’t suppose you want to write to him,” he tried.

She folded the letter. “No, I do not. I highly doubt he would respond, regardless.” She nodded to the tram; Merritt offered her his arm and escorted her aboard. Despite fiddling with his pocket watch, he hadn’t noticed the time. They were the last to board, and the tram took off only a minute afterward.

Hulda was deep in thought, so Merritt let her think as the vehicle rushed them into Portsmouth. By the time they stepped off, she said, “I don’t know what else to do about it. It’s likely nothing. And yet, when I thought that before, it proved an erroneous presumption.”

“Hmm.” He offered his arm again as they strode toward the docks. “Have you ever fallen down the well?”

She glanced at him. “Do many survive falling down a well?”

“I mean in research,” he amended. “Sometimes I go to the library to look up something for a story or an article, and while searching, I find some other nugget of information I hadn’t before considered, so I start researching that instead, which may lead me to a quite interesting fact that has nothing to do with my work. So then I read articles and books and the like on that, until I’ve spent all my time learning about something that isn’t actually useful to me in the long run.”

She studied his face. “Your point being?”

“Besides the fact that I know an awful lot about the mounding habits of gophers”—he smiled—“my point is that it may be better to focus on the immediate problem on hand.”

She sighed. “Mr.Baillie.” Paused. “Myra.”

Nodding, he added, “Silas Hogwood is dead.” He hesitated as a strange swirling sensation coursed through his gut. Quieter, he added, “I know that better than anyone.”

She beat the letter against her palm. “And itdoesseem unlikely that the steward of Gorse End would ask the head of BIKER for the dead body of his decade-previous master, especially five months after his recorded death. If the message is about Silas at all. Who knows how many secrets Myra was keeping.”

She reached for his hand and squeezed it, though when they strode past a sailor, she released it.

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