Ten
She had to keep herself from throwing her coffee at him within the first ten minutes. Mrs. Johnson she was not--and he should be glad, too, because the woman boiled everything. David had run out after five minutes; his father "dismissed" him, and she had never seen a child who didn't even do anything wrong and wasn't in trouble want to get away from a parent that quickly. Chris Jennings looked just as uncomfortable, probably wishing that he could spend the rest of the night with the Collins Family numbers. He just stared into his coffee, probably watching the whorls the white cream made in the dark liquid.
Daphne was tired of holding her tongue. It hurt from having to bite into it to keep from talking--no, yelling.
"Why didn't she call me and tell me she wanted to leave?" Mr. Collins asked, his ice blue eyes boring deep into her.
Boring so deep into her that she wanted to cower in her chair, but she forced some steel into her backbone. "Because she was scared you'd say no," Daphne said succinctly. There. She had said it, and she had no qualms about it.
Jennings stared at her in shock. She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. "It's the truth," she said, turning back to Quentin Collins. "I thought that lying to you when we just met wouldn't be a tactical error."
Mr. Collins looked at her in surprise and then set his cup on the table. "Good strategy, Miss Harridge," he said gruffly. "Hopefully that was the only mistake Elizabeth made, and I won't have to replace anyone."
Daphne closed her eyes, counted to twenty, and opened them. When she did, she saw Mr. Collins still staring at her, and Jennings was back to staring at his coffee. "Maybe I should get David ready for bed," she suggested.
He turned back around and waved her off. "Oh, and be sure to clean this up when you are finished with him."
"Yes, sir," she said dryly as she stood up. "I'll make sure I do that."
Eleven
Around ten she was finished with her chores and was alone. She sat in front of her mirror and brushed her hair. *Why am I doing this?* she thought. She didn't know why she had to ask; she knew the answer to that. She had made a promise to her sister to find out what happened, and Collinwood was the key to the mystery. The job was the perfect cover; she was right where the accident happened and where the people where.
But as she researched her sister's death, it was as if it never happened. They found Joanna at the bottom of Widow's Hill, apparently a suicide. That she was on Collins property didn't matter; the authorities used the excuse that many willingly lost their lives by jumping off the cliff, and most of them weren't directly related to the Collinses.
The more she thought about it, the more she thought that the man Joanna had been having an affair with was no other than Mr. Quentin Charles Collins, and that had set into motion a horrible chain of events, which, Daphne would later realize, only began with the death of Angelique Collins.
Twelve
At seven o'clock the next morning, he saw Mrs. Johnson's old marroon Buick climb up the gravel driveway and turn off towards the carport. He still employed her not because he loved her cooking--he didn't--but because she was a fixture in the house and had been around since he was a child. If he remembered correctly--and how could he forget?--she boiled everything, from bread products and pastries to meats and vegetables. Food was boiled to a point where it was tasteless and bland; she would be perfect at a retirement center, but the retirement center wouldn't even pay her half the salary he gave her now.
Quentin left his room and walked down to his study. It could use a bit of dusting and a vacuuming,but he let it slide this one time. Mrs. Johnson probably still didn't know that he had returned from London and the house was rather large after all. As he picked up a couple of files that Jennings left on the corner of the desk last night, he happened to glance out the window. Someone was walking across the back lawn, towards the abandoned poolhouse. He pulled the curtains back and saw that it was that governess, Miss Harridge. Now what would she be doing outside at seven in the morning? he thought to himself. What was so interesting out there? Why would she go outside and leave David by himself upstairs?
His son. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that she went outside looking for David. The child always had a propensity of going where he wasn't supposed to and doing the opposite of what he was told. Miss Harridge knew that he wasn't allowed there--Quentin had left specific conditions on that--and that she allowed him to go there angered him. What good was a governess if she didn't do her job?
He met them at the kitchen door. Daphne had her hand on David's shoulder. The boy looked sullen, but that was nothing new; if he wasn't being difficult, then it was news to Quentin.
Daphne looked up at Quentin; she could see the daggers in his eyes and wondered what he could be so mad about. She didn't understand him yet; she had only met him less than twelve hours earlier, and had only been in his presence for less than an hour. Most of that hour was spent listening to Jennings and Quentin talk about the business; she didn't learn a thing about his personality other than that he was difficult and she would have to treat him with kid gloves.
"Why don't you go up to your room, David, and get ready for your lessons?" Daphne suggested. One look at his father and David quickly obeyed her, hightailing it up to his room via the servant's stairs.
"Well, Miss Harridge?" Quentin said irritably. "How are you going to explain yourself?"
Daphne walked over the coffee maker and started a new pot. "Explain myself, Mr. Collins? What do I have to explain?" she asked as she replaced the filter.
He held in his anger at her insolence. "Why did you let David go to the pool house?"
"Why did I let him go?" Daphne asked as she poured the water in the machine. "I can't help what he does while I'm asleep, Mr. Collins. Our day starts at nine; I give him some free time in the morning to do with as he will."
"But you know he's not allowed to go to the poolhouse," he reiterated. He didn't understand what was so difficult about this. That she didn't say "No, Mr. Collins, sorry, Mr. Collins," rather unnerved him.
The coffee started dripping into the decanter. "I realize that. David realizes that. I have said it to have numerous times, as well as your aunt. I'm sure before that he has heard it from you, as well. Beyond that, there is nothing that I can do to prevent him from going there. I can retrieve him, make him spend the day in his room, but that is all. I can't physically detain him, know where he is twenty-four hours a day. He needs his privacy."
Quentin sighed. This was going nowhere; he had a feeling that he wasn't getting an apology and a promise to try better next time, and he didn't like the feeling of defeat. He didn't know how to concede defeat, and compromise was not in his vocabulary.
She pulled two mugs out of the cupboards and poured the coffee out; she had made a perfect two cups. "If it makes you feel better," she said, handing him a mug, "I will try keep a closer eye on him and still give him his privacy. But it's a moot point. As long as those places are forbidden to him and hold that attraction, he'll continue to go there. He has a vivid imagination, as I'm sure you're aware, and these places--the poolhouse, the Old House, the green house--all feed his imagination. He has no one his age to play with. Once he goes back to school and meets kids his own age, he won't have a need for those places, or for his imaginary friends."
That his son had imaginary friends
stunned him into silence; a
Collins surely had never had to revert
to that. This gave Daphne the getaway she needed. The less she came
into contact with that foul
man, the happier everyone would be.
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