the floor. The point, he gathered, was not to look at each other.
Dolores had remained in town after the infamous solicitor meeting, to campaign for her views on the matter. Twice she had written to him, demanding that he cajole Nicholas to see reason. Both times his response had been polite but firm. Nicholas already saw reason, and it was for Dolores to alter her opinion.
Now, however, he had requested this meeting and called on both aunts. Although similar in height, dark hair, and the tendency to be harpies, they differed in significant ways. Agnes’s face showed a softness that might lead one to conclude erroneously that the rest of her was soft too. Dolores’s possessed a sharpness in features and gaze that gave fair warning of what one had in her. Their figures followed similar forms. Agnes’s thickness made her height twice as formidable. Dolores’s extreme thinness gave her a frail appearance, even if the woman was anything but that.
It was Dolores who greeted him. “Sit, Chase. It is so rare to have you alone.”
That sounded ominous.
“Have you been enjoying town?” he asked her.
“Not much. I prefer the country, as you know. I miss my little cottage in Kent.”
“Little cottage, ha!” Agnes muttered.
Dolores’s little cottage had at least fifteen chambers.
“Do you intend to remain much longer?”
“Yes, Dolores, do you intend to remain much longer?” Agnes roused herself to snap.
Dolores’s eyes narrowed. “Until the matter at hand is settled.”
“If you handle it the way you want, that will be years. Decades. You will die here,” Agnes said. “As I said before Chase arrived, nothing that you do here can’t be done by post. If your presence is needed, your little cottage is barely a day away by coach.”
He had interrupted a row, it seemed, and asked the one question sure to have it continue.
“As I explained, I will not impose much longer.” Dolores’s throaty tone carried an edge of steel. “I will avail myself of my nephew’s hospitality, if you prefer. I am sure Nicholas will not mind if I visit for a few days.”
Chase heard that with alarm. Nicholas would have his head if he allowed this notion to stand. “Aunt Dolores, I am sure he would not mind, but I fear that you would. The household is still disrupted. New servants only slowly are being engaged. I hear a new housekeeper just took up her duties, so it will get worse before it gets better. It would embarrass Nicholas to offer you such poor attendance.”
Dolores just stared at him. Agnes looked at her with smug satisfaction.
“If you want to remain in town for a few weeks or more, why not let a house? There are many available this time of year,” Chase said.
“Why not indeed,” Agnes said. “My thought exactly.” She gave Chase an ally-to-ally look.
“As I explained, it is too costly. Under the circumstances that my brother left me in, I must count my pennies.”
“So you stay here and eat my pennies instead. How convenient. A few days is one thing. Several weeks is another. Now it sounds as if you intend to live here permanently.”
“Only until matters are settled.”
“Heaven give me patience.” Agnes turned to Chase for help, pleading with her gaze. “She met with a solicitor about challenging the will’s provisions. Don’t feign shock with me, Sister. Yes, I know about it and, yes, I am telling Chase so maybe he can talk sense into you.”
“I had hoped Nicholas had done that already,” Chase said.
“At her age, what does the threat of being cut out of his will matter?”
The two of them continued bickering. Chase suffered it for five minutes, then stood. “I am inclined to take my leave and return another day, so this meeting can start on a different topic. I asked to see you, Dolores, for a reason other than your living arrangements.”
“I thought it was a social call,” Agnes said, looking perplexed.
“Not exactly.”
They both looked at him, then at each other. “Please sit, Chase. We will keep our sisterly arguments to ourselves,” Agnes said.
“Then with your permission I will get to it. I have been conducting inquiries into Uncle Frederick’s death. I went down to Melton Park, and learned some things there. I would like to ask you some questions.”
“Her or me?” Agnes said.
“Both of you at first. Then only her.”
Dolores stiffened. “Bold of you.”
“You don’t even know what the questions are yet,” Agnes said.
Chase decided to ignore all asides and commentary. “Were either one of you at Melton Park the