Page 10 of Haunted
“Long walk to the village,” Bill observed with blatant insolence.
“Which makes me wonder what brings you here,” she retorted. “Be so good as to release my cat. He clearly does want to be held.”
“Unlike the lady of the house,” Jack said slyly.
Francesca’s face flamed with anger. “You will keep a civil tongue in your head when you address me.”
This was where, in the past, they would laugh, as if it was just a joke, and then they would slouch off, snorting and cackling, making other half-heard comments that she always chose to ignore. But it seemed they had grown bolder.
Bill did not release the cat. Neither of them laughed. Instead, Jack took a step closer, meeting her gaze with open insolence.
“Or what?” he sneered.
Her fingers curled hard on the handles of her pails. She fought the urge to bring them up and crash them into his head, for in doing so, she would lose what was left of her dignity, admit they could hurt her. In truth, there was nothing she coulddo, and she could think of nothing to say. She had never felt so helpless in her life.
And they knew it. They saw it.
“Well?” Bill said. He came closer, too, the cat still in his grasp. Jack’s grin broadened. “Whatareyou going to do?”
“Ma’am,” said an unexpected male voice, causing Francesca and the men to jerk their heads around in surprise.
Sir Arthur Astley, George to his friends, dismounted from the back of a strange horse at the stable door and, abandoning it, strolled toward the well. Francesca’s heart thudded with relief to have an ally, or at least a distraction.
“What?” Bill said, clearly confused, if not quite frightened.
“What are you going to do,ma’am,” George corrected him with apparent patience. “One treats a lady with courtesy.”
He continued toward them, a distinguished figure, although Francesca would never have called him an imposing one—until now. He held the attention of both the other men. The cat, taking advantage of Bill’s distraction, lashed out suddenly with her claws and broke free with a yowl, shooting back toward the safety of the stable.
“Alady,” Jack muttered, not quite beneath his breath. Clearly, he did not respect George either, which infuriated Francesca.
“Yes, alady,” George snapped, holding his gaze. “And what the lady does is none of your business unless she chooses to tell you. What you do, on her property, however,isMrs. Hazel’s business. And I believe she requested your immediate absence.”
As he walked past the men, not quite brushing against Jack, Francesca found herself holding her breath. But no one tripped or jostled him. His manner was too authoritative. He stopped beside Francesca, facing them.
Jack and Bill exchanged glances, and seemed to take courage from it, for Jack sneered openly once more. “So the question is foryou? What areyougoing to do about it? Whatcanyou do?”
“In the short term, I really don’t advise you to find out. In the longer term, I suspect a consultation with my old friend Mr. Paston will be productive.”
Mr. Paston was the local magistrate, though how George had discovered it was beyond Francesca’s current ability to imagine.
Again, Jack laughed. “What are you going to charge me with? Stealing a bucket of water?”
“How could I?” George replied. “There is no water in the bucket. I was thinking more along the lines of attempted murder.”
Francesca set down her pails. Jack and Bill stared at him open-mouthed.
“What were you planning?” George asked. “To put the poor cat in the bucket and lower it into the well so that it cried and frightened the household for Hallowe’en? And if the creature drowned, the well would be poisoned.”
The idiots had clearly not thought of that. For the first time in their encounters, the fear was on their side, not hers.
“Rot!” Jack said aggressively. “I was just having a drink!”
“From an empty bucket?” George inquired. He turned his gaze on Bill. “And you?”
Bill swallowed. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek where the kitten had scratched him. “I like cats,” he said lamely.
“They clearly don’t like you,” George observed with apparent amusement. “You may go, and do not return without invitation.”
