Actually, he had no goddamn idea what plants did. His family had made a fortune cutting down trees, not growing them.
“Maddy!” Another woman’s voice, calm, but commanding, interrupted them from somewhere nearby. “For heaven’s sakes, let him up.”
Her call drew the banshee’s attention. Even though it made no sense at all, Beau found himself oddly deprived of her attentions, which was ridiculous given she still had him pinned to the ground.
“It’s quite all right,” he called out, which instantly snapped her attentions back to him. He let his gaze wander for a moment from her face down to her generous bosom. Then he lowered his voice and locked his gaze right on her. “I’m enjoying the view.”
Beau had always lived dangerously. But as her grip on his shoulders tightened and a look that was half befuddlement and half fury crossed her face, he had to wonder if his mouth had finally done in him. Maybe this red-haired siren would save a Saint John hangman the trouble.
Instead, he found himself hauled up to his feet. Righted, Beau was able to take in the woman who’d dropped him to the ground. This was not the same demure creature he’d met in the bookshop. Her fair skin was flushed and freckled from the sun, and her hair had come lose from its pins, a fiery crown on an impossibly lush but strong body.
Two women approached them, and for a moment Beau wasn’t certain if he was in the middle of some bizarre Greek play with a female chorus about to judge him for his sins. Except these two at least didn’t seem particularly eager to tear his limbs from body. Indeed, they seemed rather welcoming in comparison. One of them, the fairest of the three, he remembered being at the bookshop.
“Welcome to Everwell, Mr. Da Silva,” the eldest of the ladies said warmly. “I am Mrs. Phillipa Hartley. This is Mrs. Elouise Ashe. I believe you have met her husband, Dominic.”
Mrs. Hartley, a handsome woman with fair skin and keen eyes spoke with a calm but unmistakable authority. He shook hands with her, and then Mrs. Ashe, before Mrs. Hartley gestured to his attacker.
“And I believe you have already met Miss Madeline Murray,” she concluded with the understatement of the year. “We should go to the house. There is much to discuss.”
He brushed the grass off his sleeves, eyeing the women carefully. He shot a smile at the minotaur in the maze, who’d stalked off to retrieve a bucket and — dear Lord— a pair of pruning scissors she must have dropped before she tackled him.
“My apologies,” he repeated. “I have been trapped inside since the newspapers made the rounds. I needed fresh air and to stretch my legs.”
Beau’s next thought was interrupted Dominic Ashe, who approached the ladies with a friendly, unstudied air. The American didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by Miss Murray and her death stare, which made Beau pause.
“What are you all doing out here?” Dominic asked. “Mrs. Turnbull and the others are waiting.”
“Yes, please get him out of my garden,” Miss Murray said, turning to Dominic, arms crossed. “He took one of the Duc de Cambridge damasks.”
Dominic turned to Beau with a look of simultaneous shock and amusement. “You didn’t.”
“My apologies,” he said, then turned to Miss Murray. “I have a soft spot for beautiful things.”
That line would have worked on any number of women, but Miss Murray, apparently, was not one of them. Indeed, from the taut line across her brow, it had made her more angry.
“Just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean you can just help yourself to it,” she said. “That bush is full of blackspot. It’s a fungus. Handle it too much and you could spread it.”
There was an edge to her words. Anger to be sure, but Beau knew enough about anger that often behind it, was another emotion. Generally, it was fear.
“Congratulations da Silva,” Dominic said, nodding to him with undisguised amusement. “That’s the most I’ve heard Madeline Murray voluntarily speak since the day I met her.”
“I’m not sure what prize I’ve won,” he muttered under his breath.
Dominic laughed before returning his attention to Miss Murray, his voice warm. He clearly liked the red-haired hellion.
“This will all be worth it in the end, I promise you,” Dominic said.
“It better be,” she challenged, giving Beau a look of disdain so sharp Frank da Silva himself would have been proud. Madeline Murray was stunning, yes, but for all the intoxicating beauty of her soft body, there was a hardness there he was in no mood to tangle with.
Beau parried her disgust with an empty smile, a defence he’d honed early in life to spare himself the worst of the pain from a thousand cutting remarks courtesy of the man for whose measure, despite Beau’s near six feet, he could never quite reach.
“After you,” Dominic said, gesturing to Beau, who fell into step alongside him.
Aunt Vee wished to have a private conversation with the ladies of The Everwell Society, so Dominic took him to his home, which bordered the Everwell property. Not long after their arrival, they were met by Mr. Benjamin Miller, a local journalist who, according to the detective, had good connections across the region. Miller was a squarely built man with a hawkish nose and short reddish hair. His complexion was fair, save for the ink stains on two of his fingers. Beau got the impression that this man knew more secrets about the city than anyone would comfortably admit. The three men settled in the front parlour over a pot of strong coffee as Beau relayed as many details as he could think of about his father’s business, his associates, and where he was the night his father was shot. Beau had gone to his favourite club but left early to prepare for his trip to Halifax the following morning.
“And you don’t have a single person who can account for your whereabouts?” Miller asked.
There was something about the question that grated, for reasons Beau didn’t care to examine. If Beau were to throw a party, half the town would have been at the door. He’d once joked that he probably paid the salary of one of the columnists at the Saint John Tribune who felt the need to report on every party he attended and all the affairs Beau had been rumoured to be involved in. But at a time when he needed to be publicly seen, no one had come forward to support him. In fact, it appeared to be quite the opposite.