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when they needed a bachelor to make up the numbers—another duty he’d
    inherited from Belmont—and they called on him only rarely, thank heavens, unless they had matters of a legal nature to discuss.
    “If Miss Hennessey can spare a moment,” Jack said, “I’ll happily listen to your concerns now.”
Happily
being
    gentlemanly hyperbole. McArdle was the local coal merchant, and had a successful businessman’s gift for jovial inanities.
    “I can walk the rest of the way,” Miss Hennessey offered, gathering her skirts as if to climb down.
    “No need for that, miss,” McArdle said. “Mrs. McArdle brought the matter to my notice, and if she mentions it to her quilting friends, it
    will soon be all over the shire.”
    “Say on, Mr. McArdle,” Jack said, “and I will offer whatever assistance I can.”
    McArdle glanced about, as if highwaymen were lurking behind the hedges, hoping to hear word of buried treasure.
    “The entire neighborhood relies on me to keep them in coal,” McArdle said, as if this state of affairs were an eleemosynary undertaking on his
    part. “I am conscientious about my duties, and always keep plenty of coal in my yard. Winter weather will pounce upon us any day, and nobody in this
    shire will suffer the cold because Hector McArdle let his inventory run low.”
    “We are all grateful for your sound business practices,” Jack said, because McArdle clearly expected praise for maintaining a supply of the
    only product he sold.
    Miss Hennessey admired the surrounding landscape. Beauregard swished his tail. Jack mentally cursed Axel Belmont for stepping down as magistrate, and
    Squire Rutland—the only other candidate for the magistrate’s job—for removing permanently to the coast.
    “Somebody has helped himself to my coal,” McArdle said. “Waltzed right up to my loading shed, and scooped up the loose bits left over
    from the week’s work.”
    Loose bits, given McArdle’s notions of tidiness about his yard, probably amounted to several hundred pounds of coal from the loading shed alone. But
    for the efforts of an enterprising thief, that coal would have sat about until it became too damp and disintegrated to properly burn.
    “I’ll come by and have a look as soon as Miss Hennessey’s effects have been unloaded at Teak House.”
    McArdle’s pale blue eyes darted from Jack to the woman sitting silently at his side.
    The quilting gatherings had nothing on the darts teams for spreading gossip. “Miss Hennessey will bide at Teak House in the capacity of companion to
    my mother, who should arrive from London forthwith.”
    “Your mother, you say?”
    “And my brother, Jeremy. Will you excuse us, McArdle? The sooner we’re on our way, the sooner I can inspect the scene of the crime.”
    Jack nodded, his hands being on the reins, and gave Beauregard the office to walk on. The cart was soon bouncing along, while McArdle sped off in the
    opposite direction.
    “Such are the criminal activities flung at the king’s tireless man,” Jack said. “But you know that, having dwelled at
    Candlewick.” She’d been
in service
at Candlewick, not quite the same thing.  
    “Mr. Belmont was only a substitute magistrate,” Miss Hennessey said, “and for the most part, the little crimes and pranks he investigated
    gave him a reason to leave the property and socialize, such as he’s able to socialize.”
    “Do I hear a criticism of the venerable Axel Belmont, Miss Hennessey? I thought he walked on water in the eyes of his staff and family.” Jack
    esteemed Belmont greatly as well—the man had prodigious common sense and was honorable to his bones.
    “Many a country squire grows lonely tending his acres, Sir John Dewey Fanning.”
    Belmont was more interested in tending to his roses—and his wife, from what Jack had seen. “My friends call me Jack, or Sir Jack.” He
    hadn’t been called plain Jack since he’d left India.
    Miss Hennessey maintained a pointed silence.
    “So what do you