A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,85

even have found a way, I suppose, to go through all of Catherine's papers. In that case, he may have taunted Ned with being excluded once again.”

“Alex did know about the counterfeiting scheme. He even threatened to come and tell you.” She then told him the rest of what Lem had revealed.

“I see,” said Longfellow with a frown. “So Ned is implicated in that, as well.” He escorted her to a stone seat behind the iron apparatus; there, warmth and a soft glow came from air vents in the iron box. She felt the encouraging pressure of his arm at her waist, until he politely moved it away.

“But we also have John Dudley to consider,” he said at last. “He went to the island, you say. And with the hatchet there at his feet—”

“But if he took the hatchet and used it, would he have taken the bag home, to draw our suspicions? Beyond that, when Mrs. Knowles fell into the fire, Richard, the constable was with you.”

“He seemed shaken at seeing the hatchet, when we were all in Rowe's parlor…”

“But that may have been no more than a fear of blood, which is fairly common,” she returned.

“Hmmm,” said Longfellow, disliking it himself.

“If I'm completely honest,” she admitted, “I would say I'm greatly interested to know what Ned was doing at the time of each death. Magdalene saw him on the island yesterday morning; I saw him return to his grandfather's house later, his hand burned. He said he'd had an accident while out hunting. But if someone pushed Catherine Knowles into her fire, that someone may have found he had to keep her there for some while—waiting for her wool skirts to burn,” she finished in a small, unhappy voice.

Longfellow grew concerned for the kind woman beside him, long his friend. She was struggling admirably to be impartial. From a knowledge of her heart he knew, too, that she would be slow to forgive herself, if her suspicions led to Ned Bigelow's downfall. He would miss the lad, he thought suddenly. It would be a shame to find him guilty—and especially hard on old Jonah. Lem would be deprived of a companion with a fine brain, and that was something rare enough in Bracebridge.

“But Carlotta,” he continued, putting his arm around her shoulder to warm her. She was shivering, he noted with new alarm. He drew her closer. “Though it looks as if Ned may have had opportunity, even reason, that doesn't mean he must be the only one. Let's give this thing time, before we say more. As to the shillings—”

“I did hear what Edmund said in the taproom,” she replied. “But what might Mr. Hutchinson do, if he hears of them? I'm afraid life has taught us that things have a way of changing.”

“For the good, very often,” he replied, moving back a strand of hair that had fallen across her worried face. “Take Edmund, for instance. Though once a staunch supporter of the rights of first sons, I believe he's reconsidered that faulty British tradition, and it may mean he'll give his future children, and Diana's, a more equal chance in life. In yet another case, someone else we know quite well seems to have turned a different corner…”

Was it time, at last, to admit his own fault? For weeks he'd suspected his unreasoning jealousy of his summer visitor, Gian Carlo Lahte, had been more than a little unfair. In the matter of courtship, he himself had been unable to act as he might have liked—would have liked. And so he'd nearly abandoned his neighbor, just when she should have been able to rely on his friendship, while she examined rekindled passions of her own.

What an ass he'd been!

Yet in some ways it was understandable. He knew Aaron Willett remained oddly alive in his wife's mind. He had liked Aaron—had even begun to love him as a brother, toward the end. With Aaron and Charlotte for neighbors, and her sister Eleanor his fiancée, he'd known for the first time the joys of a family. Certainly, life with his father and stepmother had lacked this kind of warmth and comfort. And then, his family had been sundered, leaving him alone with Charlotte, to mourn.

Now Diana had grown and married—and it seemed there were four again. Such an arrangement was almost too easy; it even felt as if it could have come at the expense of the other. He recalled how one day Charlotte and Aaron had laughed