Page 14 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
“I know we’d like to give her a sleeping aid or something, but I am very hesitant to attach a patient to those. They have many qualities that worry me. I would recommend lavender tea instead, and I will give you a small vial of frankincense. Apply the frankincense every few hours to her wrists, her nostrils, the base of her ears and throat.”
“And what will that do?” Millie breathed.
“It will help calm her,” Perliett interjected. She would have suggested it herself, but she felt so awful for the grieving mother that heroin seemed far more merciful than the oil derived from dried tree sap.
George muttered a few more instructions, with the young woman nodding in agreement. Within moments, Perliett found herself ushered from the room, George carrying both his bag and her now-closed box. They passed Mr. Withers on the stairs. The man gave George a nod and a grumble of thanks, completely ignoring Perliett, his shoulder nudging hers as he passed her on the staircase.
“Your cloak?” George looked around the front room.
“I am perfectly capable of donning my cloak.” Perliett tilted her nose up. She didn’t want to match the man’s arrogance with her own, but he was so vexing! She snatched her cloak from where it hung over the back of a chair. Draping it around her shoulders, she fastened the button at the neck. A black button with a delicately braided rope to attach it to the garment. She was proud of this cloak. Even if it was black.
“I will see you home.” George opened the front door, apparently accepting that none of the Withers were in any frame of mind to bid them farewell or think of offering transport back to her home. Their farmhand had long since disappeared, probably already tucked into his bed.
Perliett eased past George and onto the Withers frontporch. Crickets sang in the bushes that pressed against the porch rail. A tin bucket—probably used by Mr. Withers as a spittoon—reflected what little moonlight was in the sky. The barn loomed large across the drive. A dark shadow against an equally dark sky where only slight, puffed edges of clouds could be seen. Starlight had been snuffed by the oppressive blanket of dew in the air now that the ferocity of the storm had passed.
She took the porch stairs with confidence, even as Perliett eyed the driveway, the road, and the copious miles of cornfields that bordered the sides. It was a mere two-mile walk to her house. The sky spat a bit of drizzle, but wetness didn’t cause her to melt.
“I’m quite capable of walking home.” It was a late opposition to George’s high-handed declaration, probably meant with the intent of a gentleman. Perliett reached out to take her apothecary chest.
He held it hostage, and the darkness did nothing to enhance his already-stern features.
“And what otherremediesdo you have in here?”
Perliett took a step toward him, reaching for her belonging. “I have frankincense.”
“Mmm.”
“Among other things,” she added unnecessarily.
“Let’s see you home.” He refused to relinquish her case.
“My house is not far. The walk will do me good.” Perliett gave the yard a nervous scan. As much as she disliked the man, there was something to be said about riding in his buggy versus hiking down a deserted road lined with corn higher than her head in the middle of the night.
George started for his buggy, which instigated her to follow since he still had her apothecary chest in hand. “A week ago, you and I spent time together—”
It irritated Perliett that she could feel herself blushing.
He was still talking. “—over a dead woman’s corpse.Brutally murdered, and you yourself counted eight stab wounds. This tells me that the killer was very aggressive or very angry.”
“Why?” Perliett danced around to his left side, where her box swung from his grip.
George didn’t bother to offer her any looks at all but fixed his gaze on the darkness beyond and the outline of his horse and buggy. “Because one stab to her aortic artery and she would have bled out. It hardly required seven more thrusts.”
“But if the killer knew nothing about the artery...” She let her words hang as she moved to take her box from him.
George tugged it away. “Even if he didn’t, why so many wounds? Why not a gunshot? Poison? Something less personal?”
“For heaven’s sakes, I don’t know.” Perliett leaped forward to retrieve her supplies as George hoisted the chest onto the seat of his buggy. She pulled it toward herself, banging it into her thigh. “And I will walk.”
This time, George’s hand settled on her wrist.
“Unhand me!” she protested.
There was irony in his voice. “Unhand you? How very Shakespearean of you. Perliett, use that head of yours that you’re so proud of and consider the fact that there is someone still walking free who has more than once plunged a knife into a woman’s midsection.”
He used too many words.
Perliett allowed herself the privilege of a delicate snort. “There’s a killer who stabbed a woman. I comprehend this.”
