Page 54 of Sinfully Mine
He blamed Hester’s annoying solicitor, Godwick.
The solicitor reminded Drew quite a bit of King George in his strutting about, although he found Godwick far less useful than the rooster. He didn’t bother to hide his pleasure at Drew’s announcement that he was giving Blackbird Heath to Hester and leaving Lincolnshire.
Glee, not pleasure. Godwick wasgleeful. An emotion one usually associated with a young girl, for instance. So strange to see it on the face of a well-respected solicitor. Especially one who had recently lost his wife to a mysterious ailment. There was also the possessive way Godwick spoke of Hester while assuring Drew he would file the papers for Blackbird Heath on her behalf.
And, he’d called her Hester.NotMrs. Black.
The strangeness of that conversation gnawed away at Drew the second he strode out of Godwick’s office. At the time, Drew had still been furious at Hester. She hadn’t even denied trying to murder him.
Drew frowned.
Well, she hadn’t denied it enough.
Now, looking back at the conversation with Martin Godwick, the solicitor’s obvious affection for Hester far exceeded mere friendship.
Once he’d returned to London Drew found he could no longer sleep past dawn—something he might never forgive King George for—which left him a great deal of time to review a handful of pertinent facts.
If Hester had truly wanted Drew dead, she would have come up with a foolproof means of ending his life. She was not a woman who lacked determination or intelligence. The grass snake she’d put in his bedcouldhave been an adder had she wished it to be. Hiring a trio of assailants didn’t strike Drew as something Hester would waste her coin on. Poison was easier and less costly. Mrs. Ebersole could have served him toadstools in a butter sauce with some fish and Drew would have dropped dead before figuring out he’d been murdered.
She wore her emotions on her face, blushing at the slightest innuendo. Which meant Hester was unlikely to pretend affection or passion. Her skin flushed with arousal for Drew at every turn.
A vision of Hester, sleeping next to him, her small, reddened work-worn palm placed firmly over his heart flashed before him.
I’m such a bloody idiot.
“There you go again, Drew.” Jordan took his arm and pulled him away from the others. “What happened in Lincolnshire that you are so determined to stay there?”
“How did you know, Jordan.” Drew lifted his glass in the direction of his brother’s wife, a slip of a thing with honey brown hair. “That it should be Odessa?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. But even when she was parading about looking like a troll, I felt a pull in her direction. She’s clever and odd. Funny. Devoted,” Jordan murmured, love shining from his eyes as he watched Odessa laugh at something Patchahoo said. “And,” he shrugged. “She made her case to me while riding through the park in a closed carriage.”
Hester was clever. Brave. Determined. Passionate. Horribly stubborn and full of pride. Her anger towards him wasn’t denial, but because of Drew’s accusations. And he’d been too stubborn himself to see it.
He missed Hester desperately. So much so, Drew didn’t want to spend another second away from her. “I need to leave for Horncastle at once. There is something I need to do there, something I’ve neglected. I know it’s late. I know—”
“Go.” Jordan plucked the glass of whiskey from Drew’s fingers with a knowing look. “Try to get everything resolved before the wedding. Tamsin will want you here.” He nodded in the direction of their sister who was dangling from Ware’s arm. “I’ll make your excuses.”
*
Drew traveled throughthe night, carrying only a small valise with a change of clothes. The sense of urgency over Hester had grown into full blown panic, since he’d unceremoniously slipped from Emerson House. When finally, travel-weary and covered in dust, he rode up to the door of Blackbird Heath, Drew knew the second his feet touched the ground that Hester wasn’t here. The entire farm seemed to ache from her absence.
Leaping up the steps, he raised his hand to knock, realized how stupid that was, and reached for the knob only to have the door wrenched open. Mrs. Ebersole, dour and in an ill humor as usual, greeted him, but there was also profound relief in her craggy features as she saw him.
“Mr. Sinclair.”
“Where is she?” he asked, walking into the house. Mud fell from his boots and dust from his coat. The unease inside him grew stronger.
The housekeeper trailed him. “She’s gone. I’m—nearly two days ago, Mrs. Black left a note in the parlor. Said she was going to Lincoln on holiday.”
“Lincoln?” Drew stopped at the base of the stairs. “Why would she go to Lincoln?” The rising panic increased to a torrent. “Mrs. Black went on holiday,” he said in disbelief. “While the sugar beets were being harvested? And the bloody cabbages?”
“I wasn’t here, Mr. Sinclair.” Mrs. Ebersole took a step back. “Mary’s sister had an accident. Nearly crushed by a cart outside of Horncastle. I—well, Mrs. Black was with her bees at the time, and I didn’t want to bother her. I expected to return shortly, well before supper. I went to help. Poor girl was sorely injured. We don’t know how—”
“Mrs. Ebersole, I’m truly sorry for Mary’s sister. But where is Mrs. Black?”
“I don’t know,” she choked out. “We returned to Blackbird Heath late and I didn’t even see Mrs. Black’s note or realize she was gone until the following morning, when Dobbins came looking for her. I checked her room, but all her things are still there. She didn’t take a horse or anything else. Did she go to Lincoln in her work clothes and boots? Why wouldn’t she take that lovely olive gown?” She bit her lip. “Mrs. Black has never been further than Horncastle her whole life, Mr. Sinclair. She would never venture to Lincoln on her own. Nor abandon the farm for so long.”
“Agreed, Mrs. Ebersole.”
