Legacy of Secrets. Sara Mitchell

innocent of any wrongdoing, or do you merely possess a misogynistic streak?”

      “I only enjoy intimidating devious women,” he whipped back without missing a beat. “Insults I save for conniving liars. As for an innocent woman, I can’t remember the last time I encountered one, age notwithstanding. So you might say my…ah…misogynistic streak developed over years of exposure to various members of your misnamed ‘gentler’ sex.”

      This time she stepped back as though he’d just sprayed her with venom, but at least she didn’t turn her back on him. “There’s no use trying to talk with you, is there?” she whispered, half to herself. “You’re just like Adrian…”

      Adrian? “Who’s Adri—”

      “Tell your aunt I wished her a good night,” Miss Shaw chirped in a voice women used with toddlers and small children. Without meeting his eyes she scuttled across the room to the door, where she delivered her parting shot. “I’d wish you the same, except I think you’ve forgotten how to have a good anything, which I find terribly sad.”

      The door opened and closed with a firm click. Gray stood, her words ringing in his ears. The desolation he’d been fighting for months pressed back around him, squeezing all the air out of his lungs.

      Neala Shaw…

      He closed his eyes, half lifted his hand as though reaching out for that dangling strand of hair. Eventually, moving as if he were fighting his way through thorns, he returned to the fireplace and sat down in the chair where Aunt Bella had been sitting. The faint scent of his aunt’s toilet water wafted through his nostrils.

      With a shuddering sigh Gray leaned his head back and tried not to think of anything at all.

      Chapter Six

      After completing morning chores, Neala grabbed her old corduroy jacket, a small writing tablet and a freshly sharpened pencil. As an afterthought, on the way out she retrieved a small magnifying glass from her desk. It was Saturday, and a brisk southwest wind carried the scent of rain and lilac through the windows. On her way downstairs, she debated whether or not to fetch an umbrella, decided the contraption would only be in the way and darted toward the back entrance off the kitchen, hoping nobody would stop her for a chat.

      Grayson Faulkner’s scowling image intruded into her mind as she scurried past the entrance to one of the school’s informal parlors. What an infuriating man! Rude, unpleasant—a bully, he was. And he had hurt her feelings, which infuriated her even more. How could a saintly soul like Miss Isabella be kin to Mr. Faulkner?

      Well, by the end of the day the rude bully of a man would be the recipient of a much-needed lesson. When Neala returned from her outing, she planned to be armed with enough proof of the hunter’s presence in the woods yesterday to satisfy an entire room of Pinkerton detectives, much less Miss Isabella’s nephew, who thought entirely too much of himself.

      A small voice tweaked her conscience. All right, Neala conceded the point. Grayson Faulkner might be rude, unpleasant and arrogant, but last night, in the parlor, she’d sensed an undercurrent of emotion that, for the flicker of an eyelash, had almost prompted her to…feel sorry for him?

      “Neala!” Judith Smithfield, her arms full of quilt scraps, interrupted the discomforting revelation. “We’re quilting in an hour. Join us this time?”

      “Not today, Judith.” She waved an arm and grinned. “I’m off on a mission. I’ll try to join the fun next Saturday.” She ducked into the kitchen, almost tripping over a half-full pail of sudsy water.

      “Oops, sorry, Neala!” Deborah McGarey sang out from beneath the huge island in the center of the kitchen. “I’m making pound cakes, but decided to break the eggs on the floor instead of the bowl.”

      Both of them laughed as Neala carried the pail closer. “Need help?” she asked reluctantly, relieved and guilty when Deborah shooed her on with a wry remark that only the guilty party should clean up smashed eggs.

      Now there was the manner in which congenial people engaged in conversation, Neala thought, tossing her head. Stride determined, she crossed the grounds toward the forest. Civil people did not assume the worst about perfect strangers. Civil people did not act as though you had just perpetrated a crime of Machiavellian proportions, or accuse you of lying. And certainly a man who rushed to the rescue of a damsel in distress did not react like a churl.

      The damp breeze swooped down, tugging several pins from Neala’s hastily bundled hair. When a handful of curls blew over her eyes, she glared upward, then stopped long enough to untie a large kerchief from around her neck. In a few ruthless movements she covered her hair and retied the ends beneath her chin. She looked like a gypsy washerwoman—but since there was nobody to see her but birds and other woodland critters, what did it matter how she looked?

      What mattered was unearthing evidence of the wayward hunter.

      Over an hour later, Neala was ready to concede that the general populace afforded scant appreciation to detectives and officers of the law. Not only could she not find the exact spot where she’d been when the first shot rang out, she could not find the tree she’d ducked behind, from which she’d hoped to extract a bullet, or at least mark as evidence of being struck by a bullet. Thoroughly out of sorts, she finally collapsed beneath a stumpy pine tree, yanked off the kerchief, and rubbed her face with it. The wind had blown the clouds away, leaving behind sunshine and a watery, pale blue sky. Much preferable to a rainstorm when one was playing detective.

      And playing detective was all she had accomplished, besides collecting dirt in her shoes and the remains of a spiderweb in her hair. On the other hand, the day had turned pleasantly warm, she was alone in one of God’s forest cathedrals, and nobody was clamoring for her attention. All in all, perhaps ’twas best to send both hunter and Mr. Grayson Faulkner the way of the clouds. Neala lifted her sturdy nickel brooch-style watch to check the time, made sure the whistle around her neck was still within instant reach, then with a contented sigh opened her notebook and began to write.

      Some time later, a flying pinecone landed smack on top of the notebook in her lap. Neala yelped in surprise and dropped her pencil. The pinecone scattered detritus along with her concentration as it rolled to a stop in the crease of her notebook. Neala gawked at the missile for a bemused moment, then leaned forward to retrieve her pencil. When she straightened, her eyes almost popped out of her head. Mr. Faulkner had materialized between the trees some twenty paces away. He strolled toward her, grinning like a mischievous boy while he tossed a second pinecone in his hand.

      “You were so lost in your girlish scribblings I probably could have jumped from behind the tree instead of lobbing a missile before you noticed.”

      Neala ignored the crack about girlish scribblings. Based on her scant acquaintance with the man, it was not an unexpected remark. “You’re fortunate I didn’t scream louder than this whistle—” she glanced at his holstered gun “—which I might have if you’d decided to gain my attention by firing a bullet over my head.”

      The smug look on his face deepened. “But you’re already accustomed to dodging bullets, aren’t you?” He extended a hand.

      Neala allowed him to help her up, but stepped back the instant she gained her feet. She ignored the strange squiggle that shivered through her from the firm warmth of his bare palm, focusing instead on irritation. “Mr. Faulkner, did you follow me just to bait me like you did yesterday?”

      The smugness on his face darkened to disapproval. “Absolutely. And for the last ninety-six minutes I followed, you never so much as glanced behind you.” One eyebrow lifted in a sardonic arch. “Too busy trying to scout out a likely spot to plant some evidence, I daresay.” The forest stilled—no rustling leaves or twittering birds or even a stray breeze, as though nature held its collective breath while Mr. Faulkner scratched his chin and contemplated Neala. “If I wanted to shoot you dead, you’d be stretched out on the ground, with nobody the wiser. Tell me, Miss Shaw, do you enjoy tempting fate, or do you merely have a wish to expire in the woods, like some fairy-tale maiden?”

      His