“Thank you.” She cut the twine neatly and meticulously unwrapped the brown paper, obviously intending her neatness to demonstrate her indifference. She lifted the small book out, letting the paper drift to the floor, forgotten. “It’s a … journal?”

“An inventory, from about ten years after this house was built. I thought it might interest you.” He looked around the room. “Although it looks like most of the furnishings have been removed.”

“There are still a few pieces, here and there,” she said absently, opening the book and scanning the first page. “Where did you find this?”

“During my preliminary research. I interviewed the grandson of the man who bought the house from the de Boers—oh, you probably haven’t gotten that letter yet, he says his grandfather told him the ghost is a young man, an indentured servant who poisoned his master and was disemboweled by a local mob for the crime—and he found this tucked away in the family library.”

She shut the book sharply. “I wish you weren’t doing any research on this house, preliminary or otherwise, but I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“If it helps, think of the inventory as hush money.”

“I’m not that cheap to bribe,” she said. “Well. Thank you. I’m happy to accept your gift, so long as you understand this in no way constitutes permission to turn my house into a ghost-hunting laboratory.”

“I suspect a laboratory would be too stationary for ghost observation purposes,” he said. “Perhaps something on wheels. Hmm. You raise a very interesting point—”

“I absolutely did not. Now, if there is nothing else, I need to go find and possibly murder a foreman.”

She looked at him expectantly, her face a mask of restrained politeness. It was funny how much people relied on etiquette to order behavior—like manners were as immutable as Newton’s Laws of Motion. He smiled back at her and stayed exactly where he was. She narrowed her eyes. He smiled more. She huffed and crossed her arms again.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You’re the most impossible man I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not in the least impossible,” he said. “I’m not even improbable. What is improbable, though, is you miraculously appearing in town without a vehicle to take you there.” He’d noticed the lack of carriages when he’d pulled up in front. It was only the open front door that had hinted someone might be present.

Her glower told him she hadn’t considered that problem. “My coachman will be returning momentarily.” He doubted it. “And anyway, it’s hardly your concern.”

“But it would be my pleasure to escort you to town,” he said, prudently not mentioning his burning curiosity about why the workmen had abandoned their post. One step at a time, he thought.