Page 74 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
Lady Elsa was there ahead of them. She had rounded up the stable lads—including Luther—and every weapon they could carry. Verity didn’t think her uncle’s former footman a wise idea.
“Unless you want to use him as a target, I suggest locking Luther in a stall,” she said dryly as the new coach driver stumbled down the stairs from his room in stocking feet.
“A lure,” Minerva cried happily. “Exactly what we need. If Mr. Palmer is anywhere about, he’ll be certain to seek someone he knows for aid.”
Luther protested volubly. One of the other stable men ran upstairs for Luther’s boots.
“You’ll be well guarded, sir,” Lady Elsa said happily. “No one wants to harm you. Just stroll down the drive, make yourself visible.”
Verity thought she might choke holding back laughter. This was deadly serious business, but the ladies... were fearless. And quite insane. She left Luther cowering in a corner, protesting.
Instead of guardinginsidethe manor as she’d proposed, the ladies were apparently slipping like shadows through the gardens and yard and around hedges, protecting the perimeter. Verity didn’t think if they sang the entire Messiah, there would be enough hallelujahs to reach all ears, but she was glad she’d aroused awareness.
With a riding crop in her apron band, cane in one hand, sword in the other, she followed the row of trees lining the drive, keeping an eye on shadows.
She didn’t know her uncle well, at all, she realized. She’d known he was a drunkard, a mean miser, and accustomed to city streets and servants to do his bidding. She supposed that might make him hideously uncomfortable in a country setting, more so than she had been. He couldn’t ride about in a carriage and wouldn’t appreciate taking dark lanes on foot.
Rafe was correct. If he was here, Uncle Warren had most likely hidden in the inn. But if he was the man who had pushed her, he’d escaped on a horse earlier. Would he return? He had to go back to London soon if he was to protect his alibi—but riding at night was treacherous.
Minerva drifted toward the orchard, on the east side of the hill. She probably knew footpaths that Verity didn’t. She stayed with the drive that she could see rather than get lost.
There, further down the drive, the evergreens moved. There was no wind. Minerva couldn’t see the movement from the path she’d taken. This could simply be one of the men keeping watch or going home for the evening. Well, she had no other plan. She might as well watch and follow too.
The overgrown grass muffled her feet as the distant shadow took a footpath away from the drive and down the hill. This concealed path seemed to lead in the direction of the chapel and inn, but that meant little, if Rafe had him guarding the inn.
Surrounded as it was by trees, the path couldn’t be seen unless one was on it. She swallowed hard and hoped that wasn’t her uncle, although the silhouette appeared the right height. A cloakprevented seeing more. Except for Mr. Upton, most of the gentlemen were taller than this, but she didn’t know all the servants.
She heard a muffled curse and splashing. A brook ran along the manor property, she recalled, one that rushed down to the river on the other side of the hill. She’d been told the captain had recently built a new bridge on the carriage drive but apparently not for this path. Apparently the shadow wasn’t as familiar with the path as she’d thought.
Her target squelched up the opposite bank. She carefully chose rocks to cross on. It hadn’t rained recently, so the water was low.
As they crossed the field toward the chapel, the inn loomed large against the clear night sky. She knew Rafe and Mr. Upton had hoped to lure her uncle here, but if this were he... had he seen them going down the drive and simply took a different route?
As she watched, lamplight illuminated one of the inn’s upper guestrooms. She held her breath, watching the window. The silhouette passing in front of it seemed large enough to be Rafe, and her heart pounded a little faster. He’d arrived safely. Clenching her weapons, she waited. A moment later, a light appeared in the kitchen window. She covered her mouth to smother a laugh at the silhouette of a stiff figure in a bonnet and what appeared to be a shawl. The curate? Did they really think that a shawl and bonnet resembledher?
The shadow she’d been following hesitated, then crouching down, scurried toward the crumbling wall around the inn. She caught her breath. That silly silhouette had caught his attention? Surely not...
He crossed at a broken place and slipped into the inn yard. Concealing himself like that could not mean anything good.
Where were the others? She didn’t want to sound an alarm and have everyone rushing in and ruining the trap if this wasn’t the killer.
She froze as the demons of uncertainty circled. Rafe wasrisking his life for her! She had to decide and actnow. Not ten long years later.
Setting her jaw, she approached the wall and shouted, “Uncle Warren!”
To her utter shock, the cloaked figure swung around and blackened the air with familiar curses. “You! You never did stay where you belonged!”
... as if she were the one at fault for making him come out here!
Instead of cowering like simple Faith, Verity drew on years of suppressed rage. There was only one reason for the reprehensible villain who had killed her father and destroyed her home to be in Gravesyde—to kill her too!
Without thinking twice, Verity sang “Hallelujah, hallelujah,” at the top of her lungs. Forgetting her broken foot and clumsiness, swinging her cane with the vigor of the song, she ran toward the man who wielded death and destruction.
He opened his lantern and a torch abruptly illuminated the dusty yard.
A torch. Recalling a fiery inferno emblazoned against a night sky... Sheer terror ripped through Verity.
FORTY-THREE: RAFE
