Edilean was left standing in the parlor door, with James’s dead body on the floor not ten feet from her. But she was in much more shock from what Malcolm had just said than she was at James’s death. What had she done to make him or anyone else think that she’d prosecute Harriet? Harriet had taken care of her for years. Harriet had—
Edilean refused to think any more about what had been said to her. Right now, the most important question was what to do about the dead man lying in her parlor. She slowly walked into the room and looked down at him. The light was dim, but she could see that James wasn’t nearly as handsome as he used to be. Or was it that she had become used to American men, who spent their lives out of doors and worked hard in their lives? By comparison, James looked pale and weak.
Whatever it was, she wondered what she’d ever seen in him.
“Miss Edilean?”
She turned to see Malcolm standing in the doorway, and she couldn’t help her cold expression when she looked at him. “Is Harriet all right?”
“Much better, thank you,” Malcolm said, his voice contrite. “I said some things to you that were uncalled for. It was in the heat of the moment, and I want to apologize. I know that Harriet has been nearly driven insane by that... that man.” He sneered at James’s body sprawled on the floor.
“I understand,” Edilean said, but she was lying. She was hurt that he could even think she would prosecute Harriet. “I would never do anything bad to her.”
“I know that, but she worries so.”
“But now she has you to take care of her.” Edilean raised her hand when he started to speak. “I think that all this can be hashed out later. Right now we need to do something about this man’s body.”
“You mean to call the sheriff?”
“So he can give Prudence a medal?”
Malcolm blinked a couple of times, then smiled. “That’s the way we all feel, but I wondered, since you once...” He shrugged.
“Loved him? Maybe I did. But I was a schoolgirl and he was beautiful. I can be forgiven that idiocy, can’t I?”
“I think you should be forgiven everything.”
“Now that that’s settled, what do we do with him? My floor is going to be ruined.”
Malcolm laughed. “Between shots fired into it and now blood on it, I think you might have to have this floor replaced. Unless there are more men in your life and we should expect cannon fire at any moment.”
Edilean laughed too, and plopped down onto a chair. “What are we going to do with this body?”
“You have to ask Angus.”
Edilean thought he was making a joke. “So he can dress it up as an Indian and blame them for this? I tell you that these Americans blame the poor Indians for everything. Only last week—” She broke off when she looked at Malcolm’s face. He wasn’t joking.
“All right,” she said at last. “Go get him. And while you’re gone, I’ll pack and get out of here. I may move to that farm in Connecticut permanently.”
“No,” Malcolm said, moving to stand on the other side of James’s body. “You have to go get him.”
“Me? Did you forget that I’m the one who tried to kill him in this very room just three weeks ago? If you can’t go, send Tam. Angus adores his young cousin.”
“Angus is, well... He’s a bit angry at us right now and won’t speak to us.”
“What did you do to him? No, on second thought, don’t tell me.”
“We didn’t tell him all of the truth about why we came to America.”
“There’s more than about my uncle dying?”
“It was Miss Prudence who paid our way here, and she hired us to find her husband.”
Edilean stared at him for a moment. “I don’t know the law that well, but I think you three could be considered an accessory to murder.”
Malcolm shrugged.
“So Angus is angry at your participation in this? Since when did he become a champion of James Harcourt?”