Page 14 of A Strange Christmas Game

Chapter Nine

“You’d best eatslowly,” Mr. Lester had said to her, after Mr. Maclean had explained in brief her reason for being there all alone.

An hour after eating more than she had for days, she saw his point. It was either that she was full, or that she was warm. Her body felt vaguely ill.

She tried to retain straight posture as she and her newfound champions, Mr. Mason and Mr. Maclean, conversed in the inn’s sitting room. It offered a view of the little bay outside, but more rain obstructed the sight. On a clear day, it would have been beautiful.

“We have told you whywecame here,” said Nigel. His eyebrows rose. He was trying to lead her to tell her story. She now knew briefly of their family situation and had new sympathy for Mr. Mason, who sat to her left. Without wishing it to be obvious, she looked at him without turning her head.

She wondered if he took after his late father, for Mr. Maclean was pale with light hair and gray eyes. The differences in their statures was marked. Still, she saw similar ways of moving and speaking, although Mr. Mason had an accent amalgamated from where he’d settled. Perhaps he did not want to sound like he was from Glasgow.

Then there was the matter of what he had done for a living before he’d become a valet.

She would bet her eyeteeth that he was not the usual type—she had not spent time around any titled people, but she’d been around enough servants and hired staff to listen to those who had.

Valets simply did not look like Mr. Mason. They also did not carry themselves with the grace of…an assassin who is never caught,she thought.

“I will say,” she said to Mr. Maclean, “that it was not for a pleasant reason.”

“Well, that is clear,” he said.

She glowered.

“I think what my brother means to say is that we understand that you are desperate,” said Mr. Mason. He seemed used to playing the diplomat.

Far from mollified, but soothed, she said, “My village is not far from this one. I grew up in this area.” They were rapt upon every word she said. “When something… happened to me, I thought that I could hide in Ullinn House because it has a reputation. Even before it was empty, there were rumors of a ghost.” Florence did not wish to speak on that very much.

She did not believe it for an instant but, all the same, it was not respectful of the living to blether on about it.

“Then,” she said, “after Mr. Mason passed, I heard that no one was living there and that Mr. Mason’s man of business was struggling to locate his heir.”

“So you… deduced that it could still be a hiding place. Protected by superstition and circumstance,” said Nigel.

She nodded and perceived that the floor tilted a little with the movement of her head. She ignored the sensation. “Yes. I didn’t expect to be there for longer than a few days, but to tell the truth, I was… taken by… fear and… melancholy. I did not know what to do. I’ve no family to return to, and my bosom friend is still in our village, but she has a family of her own now. Times are rather bleak, as you may guess from the state of…” she glanced at the worn beams above their heads. “Well, everything. I dare not impose upon Mary.”

She did not add that Mary might face consequences for harboring her, even if it was worrying over how to feed her.

Mr. Mason listened. When she finished speaking, he said, “I shall help you. We shall.”

“How?” she asked. She did not mean to sound so brusque and rude. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I hardly think it’s somethingyou’vedone.”

The words were a quiet, protective reassurance that would have fit a lover rather than an acquaintance that looked so lost as her.

They made Mr. Maclean peer at his brother.

Florence could not quite tell what Mr. Maclean was thinking or what he saw in Mr. Mason’s face, but she gleaned that it was singular.

“Of course,” said Mr. Maclean. “The house. How long do you think it would take for someone to make it habitable?”

Mr. Mason deferred to her, of all people. “You have spent more time in it than me,” he said. “What’s the state of the place? Structurally, I mean. If it is sound, I’m sure we could ask Mr. Lester if he can recommend someone to clean at least a handful of the rooms.”

Stunned that he asked her, Florence said, “I did not make a full tour, but nothing seems compromised. There was no damp or rot that I saw.”

“Good, then I see no reason why we might not make use of it if we can. Failing that,” said Mr. Mason to Mr. Maclean, “we can stay here.”

With indignation supplanting her shock, Florence said, “Wait, you cannot expect that I shall reside with two men who are not family and still—”

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