Page 86 of The Meaning of Love
The horse blew out a noisy breath and shook his head.
Julian and Melissa did much the same.
Stunned, they looked at each other. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded. “You?”
“Unhurt, but…” Still holding the reins and seated as if driving along, he turned and surveyed the wreckage strewn along the track behind them. “I’m not sure I believe this.”
He rose and stepped out of the gig, the baseboard of which now sat on the track. He watched as Melissa carefully stood and stepped free of the gig on the other side. While she looked around in stunned amazement, he walked to the horse’s head. He murmured to the gelding, soothing the uncertain beast, then stepped across the narrow verge and tied the reins to the nearest tree.
When he turned, Melissa had walked back along the track.
He joined her as she stood frowning at the two largest pieces of the wrecked wheels—the hubs from which most of the spokes and rim had snapped off. The hubs lay more or less flat on opposite sides of the track, having fallen that way when the axle—an old wooden one—had snapped.
Still frowning, Melissa glanced at him. “Is it normal for wheels to fall off like this?”
He shook his head and crouched to examine the ruined wheel closer to him. “Axles don’t normally snap like that, meaning without cause.” He examined the end of the obviously roughly snapped axle that still protruded from the hub, then looked at the piece that remained in the other wheel hub at her feet. “There’s a good section of the axle missing.”
He rose and walked along the track, scanning the litter of shattered spokes and rims.
Melissa followed, surveying the detritus on the track’s other side. “Here’s a piece!” She bent and picked up a section of axle that had fallen in the longer grass of the verge.
“And here’s the rest.” He bent and picked up another section. He studied the ends, then frowning more definitely, walked to where Melissa waited, holding her find. He took it and brought the two pieces together. “Let’s see…”
Set end to end, the pieces fitted snugly—and it was evident that the axle had been sawn through for more than half its thickness.
Melissa sucked in a slow breath, then looked back along the track. “When we hit those ruts…”
“Exactly. Whoever did this left enough strength in the axle so no one would immediately guess that anything was wrong and we would drive away from the castle, but once we hit the rougher tracks, it would only be a matter of time before the axle snapped.”
She met his eyes, confusion in hers. “But why?” She gestured to the gig’s seat, resting on the track. “While the experience was a shock, it was hardly life-threatening.”
He looked at the pieces of axle in his hands, then assessingly at the carriage. Eyes narrowing, he replied, “Wheels do sometimes fall off carriages, usually because of some weakness where the wheel connects with the axle. In such a case, only one wheel gives way, and usually, that’s at high speed and the occupants are thrown. Sometimes, they die. Carriage accidents of that sort aren’t infrequent. But”—he looked at the pieces of axle he held—“in this case, someone made the mistake of weakening the axle in the center of its span, so when it snapped, with similar weight on either side of the carriage and on a straight stretch of track, both wheels fell off at more or less the same time.”
Melissa had turned to survey the gig’s body. “So while we were dumped down and ended riding along the road, we weren’t tipped sideways and flung out of the carriage.”
After tossing the pieces of axle to the ground, he waved at the gig. “That’s what happened.”
She looked at him. “Your mother and Frederick used the gig yesterday afternoon to go into Wirksworth. When did you ask for it to be made ready for us?”
He grimaced. “I mentioned it to Phelps last night, before we retired. He would have sent the message straight on to the stable.”
“So someone had to have got to the gig sometime between late last night and this morning—very early this morning, because they couldn’t have risked being caught sawing at an axle.”
Voice hardening, he said, “Hockey has been locking the stable and carriage barn at night, but one of the grooms or stablemen could have hidden and remained inside.” He paused, then added, “I can’t imagine anyone else being able to—the Phelpses would have noticed if any of the indoor staff weren’t in their rooms when they locked up for the night.”
Melissa hauled out the list she’d stuffed into her pocket and consulted it. “That means our prime suspects are Mitchell, Biggins, and Walter.”
Grimly, he nodded. “All the rest of the stable staff have been with us for years if not decades.” He turned and looked back along the track.
She noticed. “What?”
“I was just thinking about what you said earlier, about this not being a life-threatening accident. Even if they’d sabotaged the axle more effectively, chances are good that at least one of us would have survived, possibly both of us, although we would have been almost certainly injured and incapacitated. So”—he blew out a breath—“if their aim is to kill me…I assume someone will be along shortly.”
She swung to look in the same direction. “They’ll have followed us out, intending to finish us off?”
“I can’t see how this attempt was otherwise supposed to work.” He studied the woods, then looked the other way, and almost smiled in satisfaction. “However, I believe we shouldn’t wait openly in the lane.”
