Free Murder at Merisham Lodge: Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate: Book 1 by Celina Grace

my life that I spent in this kitchen, the hard work that I put in…it seemed as if none of that counted against five minutes’ tardiness. I reached for a clean apron, trying to think of something else apologetic to say that would get past the block of resentment that currently sat in my throat.
    “Well, get on with your work and we’ll say no more about it,” Mrs Watling said, in a slightly more mollified voice. Perhaps she was thinking what I was thinking.
    “Thank you,” I said, trying to sound sincere. I looked up at the menu board where Mrs Watling wrote up the meals for the day in chalk. Tonight, the family were having tomato and olive soup, followed by pork cutlets dressed with dill and cucumber, fried potatoes, honeyed carrots and parsnips, and then home-made vanilla ice-cream for pudding. As was usual, I marvelled at the decadent amount of food, the sheer excess of it all. Just one of the meals that the gentry had eaten today would have filled the bellies of five or six of the poor families in the village. Such a frivolous waste of money…but then, it was keeping me in a job, so what right did I have to complain? I took down a chopping board, collected the bowl of tomatoes, and began chopping up the fruits in a dim sort of mood.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    I didn’t get a chance to talk to Verity until the next morning, when we were washing and dressing in our room. She’d had to accompany Dorothy out the night before and hadn’t got back until the small hours, when I was fast asleep. She was heavy-eyed that morning, yawning frequently. I helped her do her hair and make-up.
    “Thank you, Joanie,” she said, tipping her head back and closing her eyes as I brushed her hair.
    “So, how did you get on with the inspector?”
    That made her sit up and open her eyes. “Well, I told him about the gloves. I said I was absolutely certain that they weren’t there first thing in the morning and that they must have been put there during the morning, while Peter was with Dorothy.”
    I carefully slid the pins into her hair, smoothing it under my fingers. “So did you actually say that someone else must have put them there?”
    Verity made a face. “Not exactly that. I mean, it would have looked as though I was trying to tell him his job, wouldn’t it?” I had to agree. “He’s not stupid, Joan. He’ll come to that conclusion by himself.”
    I slid the last pin into place. “There, done. Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” I glanced over at the little alarm clock that stood on our bedside table. “Lord, we’re going to be late; it’ll have to be later. Come on, V.”
    We found out something else after breakfast. Apparently the post mortem had been performed on her ladyship, and, in the usual manner of servants’ gossip, the facts about it were already circulating, despite Mr Fenwick and Mrs Anstell’s attempts to stop it.
    “There were splinters ,” Maggie whispered to me in the pantry as we gathered the ingredients for the minestrone planned for that day’s lunch. “In her head .”
    “How horrible,” I said with distaste. “Don’t let Mrs Watling catch you talking about it, mind.”
    “Yes, but Joan, think about it. Doesn’t that mean someone must have hit her with one of the logs in the library fireplace?”
    “I suppose so.” I hurried her over to the kitchen table and started her chopping the onions. “Don’t let’s talk about it anymore, all right?”
    Maggie crimped up her mouth, clearly longing to pick over the grisly facts a bit longer. I began seasoning the lamb, which was going to be the main course for luncheon, thinking about what Maggie had told me. Her supposition that the murder weapon had to have been one of the library logs seemed accurate. Did that mean the murder was not premeditated? Surely using a lump of wood as a weapon meant that the murderer clearly hadn’t planned to do it? Didn’t it?
    I shook my head in