Page 22 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
CHAPTER4
Astride Tamerlane, as the evening waned, Nicholas rode west beside Adriana, who was mounted on a fine chestnut. They were following the lane linking Aisby with the town of Grantham along which he had traveled back and forth over the past two days.
Suddenly frowning, Adriana turned to him. “If we’re right and the thief took this road, he should have passed you while you were returning to the Grange after lunch.”
Nicholas grimaced. “I didn’t go back to Grantham. I stopped at the tavern in Aisby for a bite.” The houses of Aisby village clustered a little way south of the crossroads. “He must have gone past while I was down there.”
“Ah.” Somewhat glumly, she faced forward, and they rode on.
The lane was bordered by dense hedgerows, with gently undulating fields stretching away to either side. They’d passed through two tiny hamlets, and the sightings they’d discovered—two farmworkers just outside Aisby and three laborers mending a gate in the last hamlet—had been clear and definite, keeping them trotting quickly along the Grantham lane.
Adriana grumbled, “While admittedly The Barbarian is eye-catching, it would have been helpful if even one of those workers had looked more closely at the man leading the horse.”
Nicholas huffed in agreement. While the men had waxed lyrical about The Barbarian, all they’d been able to tell them of the rider was that he’d been neatly dressed—“a gentleman, most like”—dark-haired, wearing a hat, and had been riding a chestnut smaller than The Barbarian.
As most riding horses were smaller than The Barbarian, not even that point helped a great deal in identifying the rider.
They rounded a curve, and Nicholas glanced back along the line of their company. Young Gillies and Adriana’s groom, Rory, were pacing their mounts on either side of the mare on whose back Sally, Adriana’s redheaded maid, was perched. Behind that trio rode two not-so-young stablemen, Jed and Mike. Both had experience working with The Barbarian and knew the local lanes well.
Counting Adriana, that made six in their party who could help with handling the likely-to-be-difficult horse once they caught up with him. Facing forward and resettling in his saddle, Nicholas felt confident that their number and collective experience would be enough to meet any challenge the pursuit and retrieval of the stallion threw at them.
Acting on Nicholas’s orders, Young Gillies had packed all their things, paid off the innkeeper at the Angel Inn, and brought their bags with him to Aisby Grange. With the leather bag lashed to his saddle providing a comforting weight at his back, Nicholas felt ready to ride wherever their pursuit of The Barbarian led them. He sensed the others in their group felt the same.
Ahead, a wooden bridge spanned a small river. As they approached the structure, Adriana called, “This is the river Witham.”
They clattered across and, shortly thereafter, arrived at the spot where the lane met the larger road that, in that area, was the main route between Grantham, which lay to the south, and Lincoln, which was a good long way to the north.
They reined in at the edge of the road. Planted in the bank directly opposite was a signpost with two arms, the one to the left labeled “Grantham” and the one to the right labeled “Lincoln.”
Their company halted, crowding behind them.
Nicholas looked left and right. “Which way?”
Adriana shook her head. “He could have gone in either direction, but if he’d intended to make for Lincoln, it would have been quicker and easier to take the lane north from the village.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, my lady,” Rory put in from behind them. “But he couldn’t be heading for Lincoln now, not with The Barbarian.”
One of the stablemen—Jed—snorted. “Too right. The beast will expect to be fed and watered, and if he’s not to be turned out into a nice paddock, to be put up in a nice, comfy stable, too.”
Nicholas glanced at Adriana to find her nodding in agreement.
“That’s true.” She caught Nicholas’s eye. “Sadly, The Barbarian is nothing if not spoilt. So”—she looked south—“given the time, that means the thief must have headed for Grantham.”
“There’s really nowhere else he would find a suitable place to stay,” Rory said. “Leastways, nowhere he could reach before nightfall.”
“And there’ll be no moon tonight,” Mike, the other stableman, put in. “I wouldn’t want to be trying to lead a difficult and unfamiliar stallion over lanes I didn’t know in the pitch dark.”
Nicholas looked toward Lincoln. “Surely, where he might expect to reach will depend on what time he came through here.”
“I don’t think he can be all that far ahead of us.” Adriana arched her brows consideringly. “A few hours at most. Definitely not enough time to reach anywhere else.”
Nicholas didn’t feel they could be sure of that. Although they’d questioned the workers who’d sighted the thief about how long ago the rider had passed, their answers had been vague, and outdoor workers were notoriously poor at estimating time. On top of that, he and the others hadn’t thought to ask if the rider had been merely trotting or had been riding more rapidly along.
“Lincoln is more than a day away, but Grantham”—Addie pointed down the road—“is right there.” She gathered her reins and turned Nickleby, her horse, that way. “The rider will have gone into Grantham.” She tapped her heel to Nickleby’s sleek side, and the horse obediently stepped out. “With any luck,” she called over her shoulder, “we’ll find the blackguard in Grantham and have The Barbarian back in our hands by nightfall.”
A momentary hesitation followed, but no one argued, and the company fell in beside and behind her.
She pushed Nickleby into a canter, and soon, the roofs of Grantham rose before them.
