As I neared Great Bedwyn, the trees became larger and more evenly spaced, the terrain flattening somewhat. I began to pass boats drifting up from Great and Little Bedwyn, the bargemen and their families continuing their journey toward Reading and the Thames.
When I reached Great Bedwyn, I saw, on a flat path on the other side of the canal, the woman I'd seen in Hungerford, the one I'd mistaken for Marianne. She wore a bonnet, and her was head bent so that I could not see her face. The gathered curls at the back of her neck were bright yellow, and her dress was fine, too fine for muddy walks through the Wiltshire countryside.
At the next bridge, I turned the horse across the canal and urged him into a trot. The woman glanced over her shoulder and saw me. She hurried off the road and into a stand of trees.
Marianne or not, her mysterious behavior intrigued me. I slowed my horse and ducked under the trees. There were enough saplings and overgrown brush here to make going precarious. I quickly spied the woman, and she spied me. She broke into a run.
'Stop,' I called. 'You will injure yourself.'
She did stop. She stooped to the ground, dropping her basket. She came up, her hands full of mud and pebbles, and she flung them at me.
I swore. The horse, struck in the face, bucked and bolted. I strove to hold him, but my injured leg gave, too weak to help me. I lost my balance and fell heavily to the ground.
I found myself on my back, the wind knocked out of me. The horse trotted off, empty-saddled, my walking stick hanging from its pommel. As I struggled for breath, the woman loomed over me, her hands filthy, her eyes wide with alarm.
'For God's sake, Marianne,' I gasped.
Under the bonnet, Marianne Simmons' doll-like face was as sharp as ever, her pretty eyes wary. 'Lacey! What are you doing here?'
I pushed myself into a sitting position. My left leg throbbed and hurt. 'I ought to be asking you that. I have taken employment at Sudbury. Did you not know?'
'Yes,' she snapped. 'I have heard the full details from him. I thought that if I bought myself a deep bonnet and only went about in the small hours of the morning, I could avoid you. I might have known.'
'Why should you avoid me?' I demanded. 'And why should you be here at all?'
She looked away. 'I have told you so many times, Lacey, it is none of your business where I go and what I do.'
'At least assist me to rise, please. Else I'll have to crawl all the way back to Sudbury, to the ruination of my trousers.'
'They are already ruined,' she said, unsympathetic. But she reached down to help me stand.
Once I was on my feet she said, almost contrite, 'I would not have flung the mud if I'd known the horse would throw you. I thought I'd killed you for a moment.'
'He did not throw me,' I said. 'I fell off.'
'There is a difference?'
'Yes.'
Even a very good horseman could be thrown by an unruly horse; an incompetent one simply toppled off. The horse had not been that frightened.
'I will have to lean on you,' I said.
'Oh, very well.' She retrieved her basket and allowed me to drape my arm across her shoulders. Surprisingly, she snaked her arm about my waist, supporting me while I hobbled painfully out of the trees and back toward the path. My horse, sadly, was nowhere in sight.
'I suppose you will rush home and write to him of this,' Marianne said. Her words were muffled by the huge bonnet. 'And tell him where I am.'
'I do not report to Grenville,' I said. 'He will arrive in Sudbury soon in any case, because he wants to know all about the murder.'
'Yes, I heard of it, and of the arrest of the Romany. My landlady in Hungerford speaks of nothing else.'
'Things are not as straightforward as the landlady in Hungerford believes.' I glanced down at her. 'Did you walk all the way here from Hungerford? I must ask why.'
'To confuse you,' she said.
I professed myself confused. 'Grenville is worried about you. He is on the verge of hiring a Runner to look for you. He will likely choose Pomeroy, my former sergeant. Your fate is sealed if that is the case.'
She stopped walking, her eyes sparkling with anger. 'I will return to London and to him when my business is finished. Why can he not let me be?'
I tried to mollify her. 'I do agree that he should not try to keep you confined. But I must wonder, Marianne. He has been kind to you. In return, you treat him callously. He is a very powerful man, and he could make your life miserable if he chose.'
'He treats you kindly,' she said. 'And some days you can barely bring yourself to be polite to him.'
I had to acknowledge that. 'He does like to control people and events, I admit. But at least he is benevolent.'
'Is it benevolence?' she almost spat. 'To have me dragged back to London by Bow Street? What happens if he decides to bring suit against me-accuse me of stealing from him or-or perhaps he'll force me to pay for the house and the clothes and the meals he's given me.'
'I very much doubt that,' I began, then broke off. I'd seen Grenville angry only a few times. He was a man who held himself in check, hiding his emotions behind a cool facade. His sangfroid made him enviable, and even feared, among the haut ton — a gentleman could lose the respect of others forever at one quirk of Grenville's eyebrow. I held such power in disdain, but I could not deny that he had it.
'You see.' Marianne looked triumphant. 'You cannot be certain what he will do. You must help me.'
'Tell me what you are doing here.'
'Damnation, Lacey.'
My exasperation rose. 'My help has been begged in the past several days by people who refuse to tell me the truth. If I am to assist, I must have complete candor. That is my price.'
She glared at me. 'And I could simply leave you here to take root in this meadow.'
'Marianne, Grenville will hire a Runner, though I advised him not to. I imagine he has done so already.'
Marianne bit her lip. I had never seen her look so anguished, not even when I'd spoken to her in Grenville's house a few weeks ago, where he had more or less confined her and assigned a maid and a footman to dog her footsteps. She'd been angry then, but now, she looked frightened. 'I am not certain I can trust you.'
I hid a sigh. 'You will have to trust me. Who are you in Berkshire to meet? A man?'
'No. I've told you.'
I shook my head. 'You quite baffle me, Marianne. Any money Grenville has given you has disappeared with nothing to show for it. If you do not give it to a man, what becomes of it?'
She held up her hand. 'Stop. Cease questioning me. I am not certain what to do. I must think.'
She was trembling. I tried to conjure sympathy for her, and I really did wish to help her. Marianne struggled through life even more than I did. Grenville had offered to become her protector, to give her every luxury, but she fought him. Marianne loved her freedom, even if it brought her penury.
We walked for a while in silence. The path led behind the hedges and trees that screened us from the canal. I wished we could come upon a bridge over which to cross back to the towpath, which would be much easier to traverse. The track on this side was little used and often plunged right into undergrowth.
Marianne was lost in thought, and so was I, so neither of us at first heard the curious drone that came from behind a clump of brush. When I did hear it, I stopped, puzzled.
Marianne gave me an impatient look. I stepped away from her, walked a little off the track, and parted the grasses. I froze.
'Whatever is the matter, Lacey?' Marianne asked. I heard her behind me, then she peered past me, and gasped.
A horde of flies and other insects buzzed about a knife that was half-buried in the grass. It was long and serrated, the kind a butcher might use to cut up a carcass. The blade and the mud and grasses around it were caked with brown stains. The flies swarmed around it all.
