Miss Cooke was crouched by the edge of the crypt with broom in one hand and pan in the other, sweeping up splintered bits of wood. She was wearing the same brown wool dress as usual, and without her bonnet her loose red hair shone brilliantly in the sunlight. At the sound of his voice she sprang up, sending wood and dust falling from her pan. “Caleb,” she said. “I mean, Mr. Bishop. What are you doing here?”
Caleb was more than a little pleased at the way she breathed his name as if it were the most precious word to ever cross her lips, and the strange news of his father’s body was momentarily forgotten. “What, is a man not allowed to pay his respects?”
She colored prettily at this, and he noticed that she had a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. “No, of course not, it’s only—”
He stopped her with an airy wave of his hand. “Don’t fret, I was only teasing.” She was easy to tease, and though there was a guardedness about her, there was also a sensitivity, and he realized he would have to be careful with this rare cemetery bird, lest she take flight and leave him there. Because even though there was no accounting for it, he realized that he very much wanted her to stay.
They stood in silence, staring into the violated tomb, the only sound the clip of horses on the cobblestone street and a breeze lifting from the harbor and filtering through the trees.
When she spoke her voice was small, hesitant. “I—I am very sorry about what happened to your father’s body. He...” She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but trailed off.
Caleb knew he ought to have been angrier about the robbery, but it was mostly just annoyance that it was one more unpleasant task on his endless list of obligations since his father died. The realization made him only loathe himself the more that he was such a vain creature, just as his father had always accused him of being. “I just hope the villains are brought to justice without too much fuss,” he finally said.
“I doubt the police will be of much help. They could hardly be bothered when it happened before.”
“You mean to say that this isn’t the first time?”
She nodded. “The night we met, actually. I wonder that you didn’t cross paths with them.”
He gave a low whistle. “Is that so?” Then an unexpected surge of anger ran through him. “I say, they didn’t bother you, did they?”
“No, they didn’t know I was there.”
A cemetery was no place for a little girl, even if her father was the caretaker. He wanted to ask her about how she had come to find herself there in the dead of night, but something told him he wouldn’t get an answer.
“Do you think they targeted him in particular? He wasn’t exactly well liked.”
Miss Cooke shook her head. “I doubt they knew or cared who he was. They probably just wanted someone recently buried.”
Caleb mused on this. “Do you know, my old man thought that a witch put a curse on him when he was a boy? Nothing was ever his fault. No matter that he was a bitter old drunk—if something went wrong, someone else always was to blame.” The story of the witch always came out when he was deep in his cups, an angry, incohesive rant that explained everything from Mr. Bishop’s lame leg to the bad luck that had plagued him throughout his sixty years. “It’s all nonsense, of course,” he continued. “Well, I hope wherever he is, he’s in better spirits.”
Miss Cooke hadn’t said anything in a while. He looked over at her and found that she was worrying at her lip, staring at the crypt. “Miss Cooke? Are you all right?”
If she heard him, she gave no indication. “Mr. Bishop, there’s something I need to tell you. I...”
He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t seem inclined to go on. “Yes?”
“I... That is...” Pausing, she darted a furtive glance at him, then took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “I spoke with your father.”
“You were acquainted with my father?” Caleb couldn’t help his incredulous tone. This young woman was really quite extraordinary. She dressed as if she were the poorest church mouse, never seemed to leave the cemetery, and yet she had somehow crossed paths with his old man, who had always been notoriously proud when it came to mixing with the lower classes.
She bit her lip and twisted her hands together. “Well, not exactly... That is...”
Caleb groaned, leaning back against a tree. “Oh, don’t tell me. You weren’t one of his...” At her wide-eyed expression, Caleb cleared his throat and straightened. “Of course you weren’t. I shouldn’t have even suggested such a thing. I apologize.”
Something in her seemed to shift, and her face shuttered. “It doesn’t matter how or when I spoke to him,” she said with a defensive bite in her voice. “He said that the ledgers are in a lockbox, behind a false panel in the bottom drawer of his desk. He knows that you aren’t good at balancing the numbers, but hopes that with time will come diligence.” With this, she crouched back down and resumed her cleaning.
This caught his attention. Drawing closer, he bent and took her by the arm. “How did you know about the lockbox?” he asked, raising her up. After he had gone home the other day, he had turned his father’s study upside down, and sure enough, the ledgers had been in the bottom drawer of the desk. As for balancing them, he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which his father had even a sliver of faith in him.
“Please,” she said, twisting out of his grasp, “it doesn’t matter how I know of them. I only wanted to help you, but now I see I shouldn’t have bothered.”
Her answer didn’t satisfy him, but as he took her by the shoulders, studying the bitter disappointment, the earnestness on her face, he realized that he really didn’t give a damn how she had found out. Someone had wanted to help him. For the first time since his father died, he didn’t feel so utterly adrift. In fact, he felt rather calm and drowsy with the thin wool of her dress under his fingertips, and the sunlight cradling them in a hazy embrace.
“Mr. Bishop?”
Her tremulous voice tugged him out of his thoughts and when he looked down, he realized that he was still grasping her by the shoulders. He relaxed his grip, but just a little. She was looking up at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes searching his. What did the world look like through those incredible eyes of hers? Did she see a foolish young man when she looked at him? Or something more? Did she feel the same inexplicable desire burning deep within her belly when they stood close?
Before he knew what he was doing, he murmured, “I think I will kiss you now.”
* * *
She surely hadn’t heard him right. Why on earth would he want to kiss her, here, now? His father’s body had been stolen, the grave violated. And never mind that he had already told her he was an engaged man. But then he was leaning in toward her, the trajectory of his lips unmistakable.