She chuckled. “Bad mood, eh?”
“The worst.”
“Care to share why?”
“Not if you had a gun pointed at my heart.”
That caused her to raise her brows. “You should know better than to raise my curiosity like that, James.”
He smiled at her humorlessly and sat down in a chair opposite her. Malcolm followed and settled at his feet. “Did you need something, Agatha?” James asked.
“The pleasure of your company isn’t enough?”
He wasn’t in the mood to play games, so he stood back up. “If that’s all, then I’ll be going. I have duties I must carry out as your erstwhile estate manager.”
“Sit!”
He sat. He always obeyed his aunt when she used that tone of voice. Some habits were very hard to break.
Agatha cleared her throat—never a good sign. James resigned himself to a long lecture.
“My companion has been acting very oddly of late,” she said.
“
Oh?”
She tapped the pads of her fingertips together. “Yes, quite unlike herself. Have you noticed?”
There was no way he was explaining the events of the past few days to his aunt. No way in hell. “I cannot say that I know Miss Hotchkiss very well,” he replied, “so I cannot offer an opinion.”
“Really?” she asked, her tone suspiciously casual. “I had thought the two of you had developed a friendship of sorts.”
“We have. Of sorts. She’s a most amiable young lady.” The tips of his ears started to feel hot. If the blush spread to his cheeks, he decided, he’d have to leave the country. He hadn’t blushed in a decade.
But then again, he hadn’t been interrogated by his aunt in nearly that long.
“However,” he continued, shaking his head slightly so that his hair would cover his ears, “it has been only a few days. Certainly not long enough to make a judgment on her behavior.”
“Hmmph.” There was an interminable moment of silence, and then Agatha’s expression made an abrupt change and she asked, “How is your investigation proceeding?”
James blinked only once. He was well used to his aunt’s sudden changes of subject. “It’s not,” he said bluntly. “There’s little I can do until the blackmailer makes another demand. I’ve already spoken to you about your servants, and you assure me that they are all either too loyal or too illiterate to have hatched this scheme.”
Her icy blue eyes narrowed. “You don’t still hold Miss Hotchkiss in question, do you?”
“You will be happy to learn that I have eliminated her as a suspect.”
“What else have you done?”
“Nothing,” James admitted. “There is nothing to do. As I said, I’m afraid the next move is the blackmailer’s.”
Lady Danbury tapped the ends of her fingers together. “So what you’re telling me is that you’re forced to remain here at Danbury House until the blackmailer makes another demand?”
James nodded.
“I see.” She settled deeper into her chair. “Then it seems all you can do is stay busy as my estate manager so no one guesses your true identity.”
“Agatha,” he said in a forbidding voice, “you didn’t lure me here just to get an estate manager for free?” At her offended look, he added, “I know how tightfisted you can be.”