Page 61 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
Shouting in frustration, Verity dashed after her, stumbling on the rough ground with her bad foot. “Stop her! Someone stop her!”
The black skirt swept out the gateway.
Verity practically wept upon rushing outside the wall to see the woman leap into the stream with booted feet. In relief, she heard Patience calling a question from the path.
“The thief is getting away!” Verity shouted as Patience came into view and Mrs. Holly hobbled out the gate in her hedge.
Behind her, she heard Rafe’s shouts and almost dropped in relief. “In back, she’s running away!”
Carrying shovel and spading fork in both arms like a loaded musket, he burst through the open gateway onto the narrow footpath, looking both frantic and furious. She pointed at the black skirt vanishing into the foliage on the rocky, nearly impassable side of the hill.
Rafe dropped the tools and took off, splashing through the low stream and crashing through brush without a second look back.
That could be the woman who had shot him before! Verity froze and watched them vanish around the bend.
Patience picked up Rafe’s tools to add to her own and stood at Verity’s side to watch them disappear in the distance. “There’s nothing over there but the river. Surely, she can’t go far.”
Mrs. Holly followed their gazes. “Old Gypsy camp,” she said. “Long way over. Ain’t had Gypsies about since the old days. River used to flood them out until the captain built that dam upstream.”
Gypsies? Furious at herself and everyone else, Verity limped back to the garden. “Patience, you need to warn your husband,ask if he can summon searchers. I’ll see who I can find. If there is a camp over there, Rafe could be in trouble.”
He’d been shot once. Despite his size and great strength, he couldn’t fight an entire encampment. Unlike her, the foolish man dashed into trouble without a second thought.
If only she’d confronted the thief... She despaired of ever being bold.
MONDAY
THIRTY-FIVE: RAFE
Settingout early the next morning, with Wolfie trotting beside his horse, Rafe returned to the caravan encampment he’d found yesterday, hoping his suspect had returned overnight.
The fire was cold. Maybe the old witch had fallen into the river. He could hope. His failure to locate one old woman infuriated him. He should have had Wolfie with him.
Yesterday, he’d had half the men in town scouring the hillside and fields around the caravan, without success. With nothing of the woman’s clothing to give the hounds for scent, they’d been useless.
He’d met the manor’s orchardist, Abe Bergstein, whose family land was across the highway from the camp. Abe claimed he only came down to visit when it was time to check the health of the new apple trees, and the manor folk verified it. He hadn’t noticed any caravan hidden behind the bend of the river and the trees, but he’d only just arrived.
Rafe had also talked to a pair of former soldiers camping among the boulders on the manor side of river and highway. Yesterday, they’d only acknowledged seeing the caravan, no more.
Today, in the mist of a cool dawn, without a pack of hounds around him, Rafe returned to question them again. At this hour,they’d had time to sleep off whatever they’d imbibed to knock themselves out the night before. He found them groggy and burning coffee grounds over a fire.
Dropping a sack of bread, cheese, and apples by the campfire, he swung down from his gelding and ordered Wolfie to stay. The hound obediently lay down in the grass and looked harmless.
“Old lady didn’t return last night?” Rafe asked as the soldiers dug into the bag.
“Not that we saw,” the grizzled older of the pair replied. He gestured in the direction of the caravan. “Can’t see her from here.”
Rafe crouched down, helping himself to an apple. He’d been a soldier recently enough to know how they communicated. “What’s she selling? Anything useful?”
The two shrugged and tore into the bread.
“Is her gin good? I almost miss the rotgut.”
The younger, with a missing arm, gulped his scalding coffee. “Better. She’s got a patent medicine takes away the pain. You gonna hang us for trading a coney or two?”
A patent medicine. Rafe’s internal claxons screamed an alarm. Miss Edgerton had ordered a patent medicine and warned others against taking elixirs. Could it be as simple as that? The teacher had threatened the Gypsy over bottled poison?
“Captain doesn’t hang people or shoot them either. We’re all old soldiers. Manor has an apothecary who can help with the pain.” Rafe gestured at his own injured arm. The bandage bulged under his old coat sleeve. “Just have to ask up there. No telling what the Gypsy puts in her medicines. Do you still have a bottle?”
