toward the living room fireplace as she reached the bottom of the stairs, “and upstairs.” I knew she meant the fireplace in the bedroom. “I’ve put your things away, mended a tear in one of your scarves, and stocked the kitchen with your favorite things. I would require perhaps half an hour to finish? Or I could come back later?”
I supposed I’d never met a person who took their job so seriously. I was a little gobsmacked by the idea of a person being that dedicated to my service. Life hadn’t just taken a turn. It had done an about-face.
I smiled and held out my hand. “Olivia, I’m Rita.”
“Yes, Magistrate.”
She shook my hand softly, and I could tell she was struggling to suppress a curtsey. Perhaps Molly was right. My intuition might be attempting a debut. I let the ‘Magistrate’ go. If for some reason she felt more comfortable with formality, who was I to impose my customs on her?
“That was a really comprehensive list,” I said. “Thank you for taking care of that.” Turning to Maggie, I said, “Thanks, Maggie. I’ve got this.”
“Oh! Aye! Very well, I’ll be off then.”
After hearing the door close, I said, “Lochlan says you can tell me where to find the safe.”
Olivia nodded. “It’s upstairs.” There was no conspicuous clue that it was a question, but there was definitely a question written on her face.
“Will you show me?”
“Of course,” she said, already climbing the stairs as she spoke.
She went straight to the bank of four triple armoires that occupied most of one wall and stopped at the second from the end. It looked no different from the other three impressive pieces until Olivia opened the door and took hold of a brass pull. The entire section pulled away from the unit and rolled toward me with impressively quiet and well-disguised wheels.
I looked at the floor to see if repeated rolling had left a telltale track, but the armoires sat partially on an extremely low pile, tightly woven Persian rug; the value of which would surely exceed my net worth. The rug was fine enough to withstand hundreds, if not thousands, of trips to the safe without giving up evidence.
The wall behind the now-vacant section of armoire revealed an embedded safe a little taller than I am.
Without looking at Olivia, I said, “That’s incredibly clever.”
“Yes, madam.” She nodded.
I turned to her. “So. Do you live around here?”
“In the mill house. With my brother.”
Her eyes were just as arresting as Dolan’s. Curious to see what she looked like without the red shoes, I stepped out of them. She looked the same except for human-shaped pupils and it was amazing what a difference that one detail made.
“Do you like it here?”
I could see that she was dumbfounded by the question and my approach to social interactions, which was American-casual. After a couple of beats, her face broke into a grin. The sort of smile I was sure Dolan was incapable of.
“Yes, madam. I like it here.”
“Do you like doing this kind of work?”
“Oh, yes. Very much. It doesn’t take long to do daily upkeep. I’ll always be available for whatever you need. I’m good at cooking. If you want lunches at home, just leave me a note the day before. Same for dinner. My brother is good with all kinds of repairs. Even electronics.”
“I don’t know what more I could ask for.” That sentence echoed in my head a few times. So why was I delaying a decision? Oh yeah. Due diligence. “This is a big surprise for me. A wonderful surprise. But until an hour ago I had no idea that you work here.”
“For you,” she corrected.
“Pardon?”
“I work for you. If you decided to live someplace else, I would take care of that place instead.”
“I see. But I haven’t definitely decided to stay.”
“You haven’t?” she said as if that was incomprehensible.
“I’m close, but I want to review some journals of past magistrates. That’s the only way I can see to get a real feel for the job. That’s why I’m here.” I looked at the safe.
Her eyes drifted that direction. “The bath?”
“Yes. Go ahead and finish up. Oh. And about cooking. I had thought that, if I stay, I’d eat two meals a day at the pub. The food there is…”
I noticed Olivia was smirking. “Adequate.”
I was going to say delicious, scrumptious, marvelous, out-of-this-world or something of that sort. I was definitely not going to say ‘adequate’. I wondered if there was some rivalry with Molly