For now, he watched Carruthers disappear around the side of the house. He knew the landlady was a stickler for locking up the house at night. The magistrate wouldn’t get inside, no matter how hard he tried.
To the sounds of murmured conversation outside, the man quietly left the study and made his way up to his room. He had no intention of going to bed because he had work to do. He just needed to wait for the landlady to go to sleep, and the magistrate to leave the area.
Still fully dressed, Jess lay on the bed and listened to the low rumble of conversation below her window. The dull rap of someone knocking on what she suspected was the back door could now be heard. Thankfully, none of the guests made any attempt to answer it. Neither did Ben, but she wasn’t surprised about that. He had rather a lot to keep a secret right now. Not least of which was the rather juicy piece of beef now resting on the fireplace.
Quickly undressing, she slid beneath the covers and wriggled around on the unfamiliar bed until she found a comfortable spot. When she did, she found that sleep still eluded her. She was so tired that she could barely see straight but, now that she was lying down, and the house was quiet, her mind began to churn over all of the worries, doubts, fears, and problems, that faced her.
First and foremost of all was what on earth she was going to do about this strange attraction she had for the new lodger.
CHAPTER FIVE
Two weeks later
“It’s a bit early for you to be taking a stroll, isn’t it?” the magistrate murmured.
Marcus mentally swore and watched the man saunter out of the shadows. Lloyd ambled toward him with the air of someone who had all the time in the world on his hands. His patrician features etched in a sneer.
“I didn’t realise you had this village on lock-down overnight,” Marcus drawled unconcernedly. “Don’t you have anything better to do than skulk around in bushes?”
“Why are you not in bed asleep like decent people?”
“I am decent people, but suffer from insomnia,” Marcus lied. “I find my thoughts flow better in the quiet of the night. Why are you up and about at this time in the night? It is an odd time for a magistrate to be patrolling the streets, isn’t it? Maybe you should try it in the daytime. You are likely to catch more criminals that way.”
“This is my patch,” Lloyd declared pompously.
There was something so territorial in his eyes that Marcus wondered if he was going to mark his scent around the streets as dogs did.
“Well, I will leave you to your patch,” Marcus drawled.
He got no further than two steps away before the questions began.
“What’s your name?”
“Why? I have done nothing,” Marcus challenged.
“I make it my personal business to find out about all of the strangers in this village.”
“Oh, so that is why you keep popping up wherever I go. I thought you were the village stalker or something.”
Even through the darkness, Marcus knew the man’s face turned florid. He wanted to rile the man, just to see how honest a magistrate he was.
“I am the magistrate. I go wherever I want to go,” Lloyd bit out. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here at this time of night? Don’t think for a second that I believe this story that you are merely taking a walk. At four o’clock in the morning? Really?”
“I am the landlady’s fiancé,” Marcus declared with a dramatic sigh.
&n
bsp; He was aware that Joe was watching from several feet away, and could only hope that his colleague had not overheard what he had just said. He had no idea where on earth that particular ruse had come from, and absolutely no idea what he was going to do about it now. But something warned him that he had to get closer to Ben somehow, and it seemed that the best way of doing that was by firming up his association with the man’s sister.
“Jessica Parkinson is not engaged,” Lloyd declared flatly.
“Oh, you know everything about everyone’s private business as well, do you?” Marcus challenged. “I didn’t realise your services to the village were that personal.”
“I am not going to have anybody skulking around in the dead of night,” Lloyd snapped, swiftly changing the subject.
“Like you, you mean?” Marcus replied. “How many people live in Smothey? One hundred? Two?”
“One hundred and sixty two,” Lloyd bit out. “But what the blazes-”