CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Gage was right. No sooner had we set off across the moor toward Lorna Galloway’s cottage than the rain began to fall in earnest. That wouldn’t have been so bad had the wind also not decided to kick up a fuss. Our range of vision swiftly deteriorated as the rain blurred the landscape, making it all too easy to become disoriented. Out of necessity, we were forced to slow the horses to a steady walk, bowing our heads against the periodic gusts that flung icy raindrops into our faces.

By the time Lorna’s cottage came into view, my cloak was thoroughly soaked and my cheeks stung with cold. We must have looked a sorry, bedraggled sight, and Lorna’s wide eyes as she emerged from her cottage with a shawl draped around her shoulders only confirmed it.

“Where’s Alfred?” Gage demanded to know as we drew our horses to a stop before her porch.

She blinked, glancing at me. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t seen him since he left with you yesterday.” Her skin appeared extremely pale in the dim light. “Why? Has something happened to him?”

But Gage was not so easily swayed. “We found your letter.”

“What letter?”

“The one you sent him today, telling him to meet you here. That you know where Rory is.”

Her mouth gaped slightly as she looked to me and each of the other men in turn. “I . . . I never sent him a letter. I’ve been here all day.”

“Is Alfred inside?”

“No!” Her voice grew agitated. “He’s not. But he could have been.” She glared at me and Gage. “You said he would be safe. You said nothing would happen to him while you were there to keep watch.”

Gage’s voice softened with concern. “He truly isn’t here?”

“No.” She shook her head, clutching her shawl tighter as she turned to stare out at the rain drumming down on her roof. I could almost hear her anxious thoughts, for this was not the sort of weather to be caught out on the moors.

“Well, we know he took a horse and set off in this direction.” Gage glanced around him. Even if Alfred was hiding inside, he couldn’t very well conceal a horse.

“Then where is he? I haven’t seen or spoken to a soul all day. Until you. And I haven’t heard the sound of a rider.” Her voice rippled with panic.

“I think the more important question is, who actually wrote that note luring him here?” I grunted, guiding my horse around, so that I could use the edge of the porch to dismount. “For if they elected to do so by falsely impersonating Miss Galloway, then I doubt their intentions were noble.” That was the gentlest way I could think of to phrase the fact that Alfred was in serious trouble.

Lorna’s eyes were stricken with alarm. So much so that she didn’t even balk at my offer of support as I draped an arm around her waist.

“If someone were going to . . . surprise one of your visitors coming from Langstone, where would they lie in wait?” Gage asked. “Near the river.”

She inhaled a deep breath, lowering her shoulders and smoothing the fear from her features. “You mean if they wished to ambush someone?” she replied, recovering her usual cool insouciance and insistence on calling a spade a spade. “Yes. I suppose the river would be best. Though I don’t know which path he took—the drier one that loops to the north or the boggier trail you used.”

“We’ll search both.” Gage’s eyes flicked to mine. “You’ll stay here with Miss Galloway?”

He was asking more than that simple question, but all I did was nod.

“Keep a sharp eye out,” he added before ordering Anderley to take two of the men to search the path on which we’d come for any signs of a struggle while he took the other servant and rode north to the shallow river crossing there.

As we watched them canter away, I was grateful for the solid weight of my pistol pressed against my side inside the pocket of my deep sapphire blue redingote lest we should encounter any trouble. Then Lorna and I turned as one to enter her cottage and escape the cold and damp.

She bustled forward to set a kettle of water over the fire while I tried my best to shake the damp from my outer garments. Though Gage’s unspoken urging had been clear, I didn’t expect to find Alfred inside the cottage. Lorna’s reaction had been too genuine, and far more pronounced than her almost taciturn answers to our questions during our first visit when she’d known all the while Alfred was hidden under her trapdoor. Even so, I glanced around for signs of his presence.

I thought my searching had been unobtrusive, but Lorna turned to face me with a resigned expression. “I suppose you need to see beneath the cottage.”

My lips curled into a humorless smile. “I’m sorry. But yes.”

It was always difficult to tell a person you genuinely liked, whom you wanted to believe, that you didn’t entirely trust them. But such was the lot of an inquiry agent. However, perhaps more distressing than people’s usual annoyance or outrage was Lorna’s easy acceptance of the matter. It was clear she was used to others’ mistrust, and that made me squirm with remorse.

I looked around the bedroom and peered underneath the cottage in the small space revealed by the trapdoor, though I didn’t go down inside. That seemed excessive. In any case, Alfred would’ve had to squeeze up into the joists located below where we were standing and lift his feet for me not to see him.

Lorna closed the trapdoor and spread her rug back over it before joining me back in the main room, where the water in the kettle had begun to boil. She busied herself with the tea things, moving to and fro and fretting over small details. It was so unlike her that I knew she was mulling over something troubling.

“What is it?” I finally asked.

She looked up at me blankly.

“What’s put that furious furrow between your eyebrows?” I reiterated, letting her know I wasn’t fooled.

She glanced down, her mouth working as if she didn’t know how to voice the thoughts inside her. Or perhaps she sensed what significance she would give them by actually putting them into words. “Do . . . do you think Alfred might have gone missing on his own?”

I considered her words. “You mean, that he forged that note and left it for someone to find?”

She nodded, her eyes stark with dread.

The suggestion had some merit. After all, he’d only ripped it into quarters—tears that were easily mended—and thrown it into a cold hearth. He might have even known the maid who handled such tasks was nearby and likely to visit his rooms soon. But more pertinent was the implication.

“So that he could avoid all the difficulties, avoid his . . .” my gaze dropped to her abdomen “. . . responsibilities.”

She lifted a hand to timidly touch her still-flat stomach. If she was surprised I knew, she didn’t show it. But then again, she’d told Alfred I would figure it out. “Yes. I . . . I don’t want to think it. Not after everything. But . . .”

“But this is Alfred.” The man didn’t exactly have the most dependable history.

She sighed. “Yes.”

I deliberated over the last time he’d “vanished,” the spontaneity of it, and about my conversation with him the previous day. He didn’t tend to plan for things. He did them when he thought of them. And the looming decision he had to make, whether to give in to his grandfather’s wishes and wed Lady Julianna or defy him and choose Lorna, definitely troubled him. Troubled him enough that he might decide avoidance was a better option. But I highly doubted he would pause to forge a letter from Lorna—one he must know would swiftly be proven false—and then tear it up, hoping it would be brought to our attention.

I glanced at the rain-splattered window as another gust of wind flung the icy pellets at it. “No, I don’t believe this time Alfred vanished by choice.”

Lorna nodded, and although her shoulders lowered I could still see a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes.

We both sat straighter at the sound of a horse’s hooves striking the earth. Rising to our feet, I followed Lorna toward the door, taking my redingote and the pistol tucked in its pocket with me. However, we discovered it was only Gage hunched inside his sodden greatcoat. He reined in just short of the porch, and Lorna opened the door wider.

“There are signs of a scuffle just to the north, near a large outcropping of exposed granite,” he shouted. “Do you know the place?”

Lorna nodded.

“If I were planning an ambush, that wouldn’t be a bad place to choose. There are horse tracks leading from that spot in several directions, so we’re going to split up and follow them. You’re certain you would have heard someone ride by your cottage?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I suppose a pounding downpour might drown out the sound, but while the rain has been steady, it hasn’t been falling that hard. Nor has the wind been gusting continuously enough.”

“Then we can rule out this trail.” His gaze flicked to meet mine. “Are you going to remain here with Miss Galloway?”

I knew what he wanted my answer to be, though I appreciated the fact he was allowing me to make the decision. At least ostensibly. Fortunately, this time I was in complete agreement. “Yes, I think that would be best.”

“Stay together, and stay inside the cottage.” He glanced toward where my horse stood, tethered to the porch. “If, for whatever reason, you should you have to depart, leave us a note.”

If the situation weren’t so serious, and water weren’t dripping from the brim of his hat, emphasizing how miserable he must feel, I might have found the tense mixture of both insistence and restraint he exhibited amusing. If our past inquiries had taught us anything, trouble had a way of finding us, no matter how much care and caution we took. Gage had learned he couldn’t swaddle me in cotton padding, and I had accepted that the nature of our exploits often placed him in dangerous circumstances.

Instead, I simply offered him a word of loving caution. “Be careful. We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

His pale blue eyes stared into mine for a long moment of silent affection and solidarity. “We will.”

We watched him ride away, though this time it wasn’t long before the rainy mist that had descended swallowed him up. A shiver trembled through my frame. One I wanted to attribute to the chill wind and not a yawning sense of foreboding.

To ease her anxieties, Lorna pottered around the cottage doing small tasks, cleaning things that didn’t need cleaning, while I paced fretfully about the small space and tried to stay out of her way. Our tea sat cold and untouched on the table. I couldn’t stomach the idea of even that panacea, though I wasn’t certain why my nerves were so raw. Alfred was the one in imminent danger, and I knew Gage was highly capable and vigilant. But I couldn’t shake the sense that something was very wrong.

Lorna seemed to feel it, too, for she would glance up at me from time to time as if she had something to say and then resume whatever chore she’d begun. Finally the silence became too much for her. She threw down the cloth in her hand and planted her fists on her hips.

“Who could have done this?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” I admitted with a frown of genuine frustration. “But I keep returning to the question of whether Rory is truly another victim or the villain of this whole piece.”

She sank down on a stool. “What do you mean? You don’t believe he’s missing?”

I shrugged. “He could be. Or he could be hiding like Alfred did before. But if so, the question is where? And why? It’s not as if he’s here, and we’ve searched the usual other places. As for why . . .” I sighed, turning to stare out at the rain-soaked moor, at least the small portion I could see that wasn’t shrouded in mist. “I can only think of two options. Either he felt he was in danger like Alfred, or . . .”

“Or he suspected the truth about Alfred’s ‘disappearance,’ and vanished himself in an attempt to draw his brother out,” she finished for me.

I nodded grimly. Neither scenario was good.

“If the latter is true, then . . .” She gasped. “Then forging that note from me could have been his final ploy to lure Alfred somewhere secluded and . . . and finish him off.”

“Yes.”

Her shock turned to outrage. “Ooh, I knew there was a reason I never liked him.”

I held up my hands. “Hold on. We don’t know yet that that scenario is true.”

“Yes, well, the more I think about it, the more I believe it.” She picked up her cloth and began wiping the surface of a table again. “He was lurking around my cottage during the days before he ‘vanished.’ Alfred had to remain inside much of the time, lest he be found out. Said he saw Rory following you about the one day.”

“I must admit, his actions have been suspicious. I suppose you could say I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s behind it all. But until we have proof . . .”

She scoffed. “I don’t know how much more you could need.”

Worry tightened her voice, and I knew she was speaking more from fear than anything else. However, she did have a point. If not Rory, then who else could it be?

I resumed my pacing, watching an hour tick by on the clock and then another. Gage and the other men could be gone until nightfall, and I was beginning to feel I might go mad before then. Meanwhile, Lorna continued to clean and shuffle items about the cottage, finding it as impossible as I did to sit still. Having tired of dusting and organizing her already perfectly ordered shelves of herbs and tinctures, she turned to the cabinet near the door and tugged open the top drawer. Then she unceremoniously dumped the contents on the table behind her and began sorting through what appeared to be mostly a stack of correspondence.

I cast a disinterested glance over the papers as I pivoted, but then something caught my eye as Lorna lifted the top page to crumple it into a ball. I reached out to grab her arm, preventing her from hurling it toward where the cat lay curled up on the rug before the hearth. Her eyes widened in surprise as I took the paper from her hand.

“What is this?” I asked as I unfolded the paper and smoothed it out.

“A letter I received yesterday.”

My back stiffened as I read over the contents. “And it didn’t alarm you?”

She shrugged. “No more than the others I’ve gotten.”

“You’ve received more than one?”

Her mouth twisted wryly. “One gets delivered to my door every few weeks or so to remind me they know I’m a witch, an abomination. And warn me that someday I’ll get what’s coming to me.”

“What?! Someone actually writes such things to you?”

“Oh, yes.” She sighed. “And worse.”

I glanced down at the stack of papers. “Where are the others?”

“I usually burn them as soon as they arrive.” She frowned down at the letter. “But I kept this one for some reason.”

Whatever the cause, I was glad she had. “Are they usually addressed this way?”

She stepped closer to peer over my shoulder at the offending missive. “Well, no,” she replied uncertainly. “I suppose I didn’t pay much heed to the contents, simply wanting it out of sight.”

I grimaced in commiseration. “Take a closer look now and see if anything leaps out at you.”

Vixen,

You and yours will get what’s coming to you. A short, swift drop.

Lorna inhaled sharply, grasping the same implication I had. An implication that would not have been so clear the day before. “You and yours.”

“Precisely. What did you think they meant by ‘a short, swift drop’?”

“I . . . I suppose hanging or some other witch trial. I tried not to give it much consideration.”

I couldn’t blame her. Not if her receipt of these letters was a common occurrence. Not when there was nothing she could do about them. I would want to ignore them, too.

“And what do you make of the fact they addressed you as ‘Vixen’?” I asked, curious if she would come to the same sneaking conclusion I had.

She began to shake her head and then stopped. “Wait. Are they referring to that witch Vixana?”

“I’ve heard the legend and I wondered . . .” I let my words die away as I saw the light of comprehension in Lorna’s face. “What is it?”

“Rory has been very vocal in calling me a witch.”

“Yes? I’ve heard him say so. But—”

“And he’s accused me more than once of being the descendant of Vixana.”

I turned to face her. “You think Rory wrote this?”

She scowled. “Who else?”

I had to admit, I could think of no one. And Rory had a history of using notes to carry out his mischief, given the fact he’d instructed his valet to poison my tea with a note. Then I recalled something else Bree had mentioned in her retelling of the legend. “Isn’t there a tor named after her?”

“Yes. Vixen Tor. It lies a few miles south of here.” Her eyes widened. “And there’s rumored to be a small cave below it, though I’ve never visited to see if that’s true. Do you think . . . ?”

I understood what she was asking even without her saying the words. “I think that if there is a cave there, that might be an excellent spot to hide. So long as one isn’t afraid Vixana’s spirit haunts it.”

“Rory would believe himself immune to such things.”

I suspected she might be right about that.

“We need to go there,” she insisted, grabbing her boots from beside the door and sitting down on one of the benches to remove her slippers.

“Hold on.” I glanced at the window, where outside the rain fell and the mist swirled unabated. “I understand your urgency, but in this weather? I’ve been told over and over how dangerous the moor can be even with fair skies.” I gestured toward the door. “These conditions are far from favorable.”

“Yes, but you forget I’ve lived out on these moors all my life. I’ve traveled to Merrivale many times, even if I’ve never gone beyond to Vixen Tor. All we have to do is follow the river. We can’t get lost if we do that.”

I deliberated over what she’d said, not doubting what she claimed, but still hesitant to go. Was this a risk worth taking? Particularly when we didn’t know what sort of threat we faced at the other end, and with Gage and Anderley miles away. Alfred could already be dead.

And if he wasn’t and I didn’t try to go to his aid? Could I live with that? Could Gage?

“Please.” Lorna sat up. Her eyes pleaded with me. “We can’t just let Rory kill him.”

I inhaled, still torn about what to do.

Her eyes hardened. “I’m going whether you will or not. And short of tying me up, you won’t stop me from taking your horse.”

She’d called my bluff. I wasn’t very well going to tackle her. I could aim my pistol at her, but I suspected she knew I wouldn’t pull the trigger. And I certainly wasn’t going to let her go alone. “Very well,” I relented. “Give me a sheet of foolscap and a pencil to write my husband a message. And pack us some food and water. We may have need of it.”

Minutes later, we both mounted my horse and set off down the trail to follow the River Walkham southward. Before descending the hill, I glanced behind us to see the cottage swallowed up by the haze of mist and falling rain. I could only hope it wasn’t the last human habitation we would ever see, and that we weren’t riding into a trap.