Read Online The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) by Harriet Smart - Free Book Online Page B

that he really ought to move away. “I see.”
    “Please, Mr Carswell, do not be afraid. I am not my mother. I am not looking for a husband. Just for a little interesting talk – talk that does not involve the Christianisation of the savages or the impudence of dissenters.”
    Felix burst out laughing and found that everyone else in the room was looking at them.
    “Now we have given them something to talk about,” he said.
    “Good,” said Miss Pritchard, meeting his eyes with a warm, disarming smile. She really was a charming girl, he thought, and in other circumstances he felt he would have been in all the danger that Lord Rothborough had predicted. But pleasant though it might be to stand and talk like this, it was nothing to the feelings that Mrs Morgan had produced in him. He had never felt anything like that for a woman before, not even for Isabella. That was something new to him.
    “You are a mischief maker,” he said.
    “No, no, I am not,” she said. “It is a distraction for them. To see us talking like this and draw all their conclusions – well, we do good by our actions. We are entertaining them.”
    “No, I think it was pure mischief on your part,” he said, grinning. “And you know I find that far more amusing.” It occurred to him that if he were seen to flirt with Miss Pritchard, a report of it would inevitably find its way to Lord Rothborough. It would be an excellent way to ruffle his feathers.
    “Oh, do you?” she said, in such a manner that he realised that she perhaps also wished to be seen flirting with him.
    He did not understand why she wished this, but it was clear they had begun to play a game, and one which he found diverting. So he took a half step closer to her and said, “I like to think you are not a paragon.”
    “I should, of course, be insulted.”
    “You should – but you are not. Which proves my point.”
    She smiled and said, “Come and admire these watercolours, Mr Carswell. There is nothing much to admire in them, but we will be able to stand with our backs to everyone.”
    So they moved away from the piano.
    “This is positively scandalous,” he said, as they went and stood in front of a pair of landscapes.
    “Our alliance will be the talk of Northminster. They will be choosing wedding bonnets.”
    “They will have to be disappointed,” said Felix. “I thought we would elope to Gretna. That would upset the apple cart, wouldn’t it?”
    “Oh yes, it would,” she said. “Now, will we be rehabilitated in time, or shall we die in penniless squalor, never having been received in polite society again, exiled from all those we love?”
    “It depends what sort of a novel you are reading,” Felix said, and glanced at her. She suddenly looked rather grave.
    “This is not really anything to joke about,” she said.
    “I think we might be forgiven,” Felix said as lightly as he could. “Almost certainly we would be.”
    “ We might be, yes,” she said, with something in her voice that sounded like bitterness. “I think, Mr Carswell, that we had better circulate after all.” And she walked away and went to talk to an old lady about her embroidery.

Chapter Ten
    The party broke shortly after that and on leaving the Deanery, Felix turned his steps towards Avonside Row. He had decided that he would walk the long way home down Jacob’s ladder, retracing the route they had taken that morning. That this walk took him under Mrs Morgan’s windows was a fact he chose not to dwell on.
    As he came up on Avonside Row he saw Constable Eakins was walking towards him.
    “Anything to report?” he asked when they met.
    “Next door has had a few callers, but no one here, sir.”
    “And Mrs Morgan came home safely with Mr Watkins?” said Felix.
    “Mr Watkins? The gent that conducts the minster choir?”
    “The Master of Music, yes.”
    “Well, he brought her home, but he left her at the front gate. She went in alone. Why do you ask, sir?”
    “No particular