Danger in a Red Dress by Christina Dodd

. . . but he didn’t. He was a man of logic. All the evidence pointed to Hannah’s perfidy. And Gabriel had spent too long looking for his family, for his blood kin, and he had them at last. Four brothers, good men, all of them.
    So he believed his brother Carrick.

TEN
    The next day, after breakfast, as if the previous day’s tantrum hadn’t even occurred, Hannah moved Mrs. Manly into the foyer, and asked the question she always asked. “Before we work on the party, shall we go for a walk?”
    “Yes.”
    Hannah almost tripped on her own feet. Although she always hung the walker on the back of the chair, it had never been used, for Mrs. Manly never wanted to go out. Tentatively, she said, “Shall we go outside?”
    “Where else would we take a walk? In the corridor? Of course we have to go outside.” Mrs. Manly sat like a lump, waiting, while Hannah tried to figure out what had changed. Because Mrs. Manly hadn’t been outside the entire time Hannah had been here, and if Carrick was to be believed, Mrs. Manly hadn’t been outside for fifteen years.
    “What’s the matter, girl?” Mrs. Manly gestured with her ring-covered hands. “Push me.”
    Hannah grasped the handles of the wheelchair and headed toward the entrance.
    “Open the door,” she said to the butler.
    “Miss Grey?” Nelson hovered indecisively.
    Hannah’s voice sharpened. “Open the door and bring two hearty men to help me get Mrs. Manly down to the walk.”
    “I can’t do that. Mrs. Manly doesn’t go outside,” he said.
    Mrs. Manly lunged forward in the chair. With slow, precise words, she said, “Mrs. Manly does as she pleases. Mrs. Manly is the owner of this house, and if, within the next two minutes, you don’t get someone here to help Miss Grey, Mrs. Manly will fire you, and by the time my son hears of it, do not mistake me, you will be long gone, never to return.”
    As her voice rose and the steel of her personality made itself clear, a slow red heat climbed up the butler ’s face. He stiffened and bowed. “Yes, Mrs. Manly.” He strode out.
    “Insolent pup,” Mrs. Manly muttered. “Carrick hired him, but I pay him. He has lessons to learn.”
    In seconds, Nelson returned with two young men dressed in denim overalls, with smudges on their hands. “My apologies for their appearance,” Nelson said. “They’re gardeners.”
    Mrs. Manly waved his explanation away. “Just get me outside.”
    “I’ll push her through the door. You boys help her down the ramp and . . . where would you like to go, Mrs. Manly?” Hannah asked.
    “Take me to the top of the cliff,” she said.
    Nelson looked at Hannah so alarmed that Hannah wondered what Carrick had told him. As Hannah pushed her out the door, she said, “You heard Mrs. Manly. The top of the cliff.”
    It wasn’t really as wild a place as it sounded; every day, Hannah ran along the top of the cliff. A paved path looped up in a long, slow curve to a tumble of huge, smooth granite boulders, and then down toward a sliver of beach, and then up again to the boundary of Balfour land. In the summer, tourists and locals strolled along the walk, trespassing with the Balfours’ tacit permission. Yet the climb was steep, and the two young men were sweating heavily by the time they reached the top.
    Hannah set the brake on the wheelchair.
    Mrs. Manly raised her hand imperiously. “That will do. Return for us in an hour.”
    The two young men stood there, uncertain. Then one of them bobbed his head, and they hurried back down the path.
    Mrs. Manly shook her head. “No one knows the rudiments of courtesy nowadays.”
    Hannah stifled her grin. “You have to give them points for trying.”
    “Points for trying.” Mrs. Manly snorted. “Give me a hand.”
    Hannah hurried forward and took her arm. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m walking.”
    “But . . . you . . .” Now, up here, where there was no one to help in case she fell, Mrs. Manly wanted to walk ?
    “For God’s sake, girl. If I