Some silences were hers.
That afternoon Richard entered without knocking.
He saw the fresh papers and smiled.
“Writing to old friends?”
Catherine covered the open ledger.
“I wanted to settle some household accounts.”
“You needn’t trouble yourself.”
“I’ve always kept the household accounts.”
“Then you know how much better things run when you leave the difficult business to me.”
He crossed to the window and looked at the courtyard.
Daniel was repairing a wagon axle beside the carriage house.
Richard followed his movements with narrowed eyes.
“I heard you asked for Carter again.”
“He moved the trunks.”
“I don’t like a man who imagines himself indispensable.”
“He has repaired everything you asked him to repair.”
Richard turned toward her.
“Is that why you called him alone?”
Catherine felt a flare of fear.
Then she recognized a calculation behind her husband’s question.
He was not jealous in the ordinary sense.
He wanted to know whether Daniel had discovered the trunk.
“Your question insults me,” she said.
“Then forgive me.”
His apology was smooth enough to sound practiced.
He kissed her forehead and left.
Catherine waited until his steps disappeared.
Only then did she take the first genuine letter and compare it with the copy he had kept.
At the bottom Margaret had written a sentence Catherine had overlooked.
“Do not trust the physician whose bill bears Richard’s mark.”
Catherine felt the room grow cold.
Her sister had supposedly died under the care of precisely that physician.
Chapter 9: Silas Rook Comes Calling
Silas Rook arrived at the carpentry shed before sunrise with a leather whip hanging from his belt and a smile that Daniel had never trusted.
He was a lean man with a damaged heel and a habit of checking windows before saying anything important.
The overseer called himself an agent of efficient management.
The people he watched knew that efficiency meant keeping them afraid.
“You’ve been asking questions,” Silas said.
Daniel continued measuring a plank.
“I ask about measurements every day.”
“Not those questions.”
Silas leaned against the bench.
“I hear you were at the old mill.”
Daniel kept his hands still.
“Who told you that?”
“An honest man doesn’t answer a question with another.”
“Then tell me what work you want done.”
Silas’s smile vanished.
“You are going to build two crates.”
“What size?”
“Large enough for a person to lie down.”
Daniel looked at him.
Silas seemed pleased by the reaction.
“The colonel has merchandise traveling west.”
