They took their picnic into the lower floor of the barn, the space set aside for animals. At Val’s direction, it had recently been scrubbed, whitewashed, and the floors recobbled to the point where it was as clean as many a dwelling—for the present.
“I like this barn.” Nick looked around approvingly. “The ceiling isn’t too low. What’s for lunch?”
Darius passed each man a sandwich and watched while Nick took a long pull from the whiskey bottle.
“Save me a taste, if you please.” Darius snatched the bottle back, leaving Nick to wipe his mouth and grin.
“Damned good,” Nick allowed, leaning back to rest against a stout support beam running from floor to ceiling.
The beam shifted, and that small sound was followed by an instant’s silence. Nick’s quietly urgent “You two get the hell out” collided with Val’s equally insistent “Dare, get the team.”
Val darted to Nick’s side and added his weight to Nick’s, holding the beam in place.
Dare got the team into the barn and wrapped a stout chain around the upper portion of the beam. While the horses held it in place—no mean feat, given the delicate balance required—Val and Nick fetched trusses to provide the needed support.
When they were all outside the barn, the horses once again munching their oats, Val turned to frown at the structure.
“Somebody was very busy with a saw on Sunday,” Val murmured. “I thought you were over here much of Sunday, Dare?”
“Sunday morning.” Darius scrubbed a hand over his chin while he eyed the barn. “Sunday afternoon I accompanied Bragdoll’s sons to help clear some trees off the other tenant farms.”
“So the hay barn became an accessible target. Who knew we’d be restoring the roof so soon?”
“Bragdolls for sure,” Nick said. “What they didn’t know was you’d be stuffing all the rest of the first cutting into the barn this week, as well. Without that added weight, the center beam might have held until some unsuspecting bullock tried to give itself a good scratch.”
“More sabotage,” Val muttered, grimacing. “I wasn’t planning on moving animals in here until fall.”
“So perhaps,” Darius said slowly, “the idea was to let the thing collapse once the new roof was on, thus imperiling your entire hay crop and the lives of the animals inside the barn.”
“Another bad hay year,” Nick said, “and you’d lose your tenants.”
“If our culprit is Freddy Markham,” Val said, and there was little
“A treasure,” Nick said. “A real treasure, and you think he’s been plaguing you all along?”
“I do, though I want to know why. He was hardly likely to invest anything in this estate, and he walked away with half a sizeable kitty instead.”
“All this drama has worked up my appetite.” Nick sauntered back into the barn, retrieved the food and the bottle, and passed it to Darius. “Let’s take this to some safe, shady tree and finish our meal in peace. But where do you go from here, Val?”
“I’ve already sent an invitation to Freddy to join me as my first house guest at my country retreat.” They settled in the grass, Val’s back resting against the tree. “I’ve warned Sir Dewey what I’m about, and he doesn’t endorse it, but neither can he stop me.”
“Did you tell him what happened to Ellen’s cottage?” Darius asked.
“Sent the note yesterday, and we should expect Freddy to call next Wednesday.”
“When Ellen’s at market,” Darius said. “You won’t tell her he’s visiting? Are you going to tell her the bastard almost dropped a barn on the three of us and two splendid horses?”
“Here, here,” Nick chimed in around a bite of sandwich.
“I will tell her about the barn, and I think we need to tell the heathen, as well,” Val said, “but she isn’t to know Freddy’s coming.”
“I can take her to Kent,” Nick reminded Val, “or to the London town house, or even to Candlewick.”
“She’ll know something’s afoot,” Val countered. “And if she bolts, that might tip my hand to Freddy. The gossip mill in Little Weldon turns on a greased wheel, and I’m convinced somebody is feeding Freddy information.”
“And they may not even know they’re passing along anything of merit,” Darius said, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“I’ll tell you something of merit.” Nick lay back and rested his head on Val’s thigh. “A nap is very meritorious right now, but maybe another medicinal tot of that bottle first, Dare.” He waggled long fingers, closed his eyes, and took a swig.
“Right.” Darius stretched out, using the food sack as his pillow. “A nap is just the thing.”
Val sat between them, Nick’s head weighting his thigh, an odd warmth blooming in his chest. They’d just risked their
Hawthorne Bragdoll sat in his favorite thinking tree and considered the scene he’d just witnessed at the hay barn. The damned building had all but collapsed, held up only by the blond giant—a bloody earl, that one—and Mr. Windham. Windham was big, and gone all ropey and lean with muscle, but that blond fellow—he was something out of a traveling circus, a strong man or a giant, maybe. He put Thorn in mind of Vikings, for all the man did smile.
Especially at women.
Neal had been in a swivet when that tart of his, Louise, had smiled back at the giant. Poor Neal didn’t know Louise Hackett’s mouth did much worse than smile at the occasional handsome, well-heeled fellow, but Thorn didn’t begrudge her the extra coin. Times were hard, and for serving maids and yeomen, they were always going to be hard. Still, coin for services was a long way from this bloody-minded mischief.
Intent on avoiding all the clearing work to be done on Sunday, Thorne had repaired to his second favorite thinking tree in the home wood, only to see a gangling, pot-gutted, nattering dandy strutting around a half-fallen tree right beside Mrs. FitzEngle’s cottage. While Thorn watched in horrified amazement, the dandy had ordered Hiram Hackett and his dimwitted brother Dervid to saw the tree so it fell on the widow’s cottage.
A few weeks earlier, Thorn had seen Hiram and Dervid making trip after trip into the manor house, each time carrying a load of lumber scraps and other tinder. They’d hauled in a couple cans of lamp oil too, and Thorn had been sure he was about to be treated to the sight of the biggest bonfire since the burning of London.
He’d kept his peace, as the house was empty, and Windham was not his friend or his family. But purposely crashing a tree into the widow’s only home…
That, Thorn concluded, was just rotten, even by his very tolerant standards. Mrs. Fitz was an outcast, like Thorn, and he sensed she was a cut above her neighbors, something that won her Thorn’s limited sympathy. Thorn had no sisters, but he had a mother, and someday, given his pa’s fondness for the bottle, his mother would likely be widowed.
And if anybody had dropped a damned tree on his mother’s house… Thorn clenched his fists in imagined rage and then settled back into his tree to do some more thinking.
“Now this is interesting.” Freddy Markham picked up the sole epistle gracing the salver in the breakfast parlor of his London town house. The bills and duns were carefully separated out before he came down each morning, leaving the invitations, or invitation, as the case was, for his perusal over tea, while the less-appetizing correspondence awaited his eventual displeasure in the library.
“My lord?” Stanwick’s tone was deferential, though his eyes were full of a long-suffering, probably related to the tardiness of his wages. The man had no grasp of the strictures of a gentlemanly existence.
“I am invited to be the luncheon guest of Lord Valentine Windham that I might see what progress he’s made with the old estate out by Little Weldon.” Freddy kept the glee from his voice—it didn’t do to show emotion before the lower orders.
