Chapter 25

"Morning, Miss Garfield," I called as I spotted her entering the lane. Whenever she strolled, she glided along as if her feet never touched the ground. At least, that was how I imagined her moving, like an angel, like liquid gold, smooth and beautiful. This morning, however, she moved with alacrity. Her small feet took brisk, purposeful steps. She hardly took the time to return my greeting.

"Mr. Beckett," she said over her shoulder.

I tried hard not to feel hurt by the unusually short greeting. Immediately, I played our last few interactions in my mind. Had I said or done something to offend her? While I was quite good at doing both, I was always on my best behavior with Kat. For the very reason I concerned myself with now. I could find nothing in the past that would have caused her anger, so I decided to catch up to her.

It never did me any good to stay mounted on my saddle and stare down at her. I climbed down from my horse and led him by the reins. My long stride easily shortened the distance between us.

"Forgive me for saying so," I said, "but you seem to be in a particular hurry this morning. Or perhaps, I said something to offend you." My usual confidence, the one my father had tried so often to break, always failed me when I was near Kat. If only my father had discovered it just took the right woman, an incredible woman, to douse my obstinate, self-assured nature. Though, I doubted there existed even one woman amongst the ton who could have rendered me as helpless as Kat Garfield.

"If you'd given offense," Kat said while still staring straight ahead. "I would have told you so in no uncertain terms." She finally turned her beautiful face my direction. The smile she added did not disappoint. "I happen to be on my way to the village. Gregory Fielding came to the house just ten minutes ago to let me know there's been an unfortunate incident in town."

"Ah, yet again, the townsfolk must rely on you to solve their problems. What is it this time? A chicken attacked by a neighbor's cat?" I rarely gave myself permission to touch her, but she was walking so fast, it made for a difficult conversation. My hand took hold of hers. I held it for far longer than necessary to slow her down and make my point. "Why don't you let the lot of them solve their own problems for a change? Why must it always be you?"

"First of all, what I do in my spare time is not your concern. And this time it happens to be something much more important than an injured chicken. I must make haste before the whole town is up in arms. Then I'll have even more problems to solve." She continued walking at her brisk pace.

The horse and I kept up. Arrow attempted to meander off the road to eat grass. I tugged him along. "If this is something more important then let the constable handle it."

Kat laughed. "Yes, of course. I'd be better off allowing feeble old Megan on Grover's Lane to take over. We both know the constable is as helpful as a splinter in the forefinger."

We reached town. As Kat predicted, everyone was up in arms. People were running to-and-fro between cottages and shops speaking in harried tones. When two of the women spotted Kat, they rustled toward her in their layers of long skirts.

"Kathy, oh, Kathy, thank goodness you're here," the woman with the straw bonnet said. "It's just awful. Just awful. Winifred is dead." She gulped air as if merely saying it had taken the wind from her. "I can't believe it. Margaret and I were just taking tea with her yesterday afternoon." She turned to her friend who had been nodding along in agreement. "She was perfect as a peach, happy, rosy-cheeked. My Harold told me it can happen, a person can just keel over dead without any warning. Is that true, Kathy?" she asked as they continued on toward what I could only assume was Winifred's house. "Can someone simply fall down dead?"

"I've seen a cow do it." It was Margaret's first contribution to the hysteria. Her friend shot her a glower. "Well, it's true, Verity. I saw it with my own eyes."

Verity wasn't impressed. "I don't see what that has to do with Winifred falling over dead. It's entirely different." She looked at Kat. "Right, Katherine?"

I marveled at how patient Kat was. Kat shot an amused smile my direction. It caught Verity's attention. It seemed she had just noticed that a tall Englishman and his horse were following along.

"It is true that someone with a bad heart or some other serious ailment can fall down dead. Although, there is generally some kind of warning, a pain or dizziness, but if, as you said, Winifred seemed in good health yesterday, then maybe it was an accident. Or maybe she's just fainted."

We reached a stone cottage with gray trim and a vegetable garden. The front door was open and several of the townsfolk were huddled around, staring in through the open door but not daring to go inside.

"It's Kathy," someone said. "Let Kathy through. She'll know what to do." The huddle of people parted. They all looked with admiration as Kathy walked through.

A young boy stood nearby. I handed him a halfpenny and told him to hang on to my horse. Then I followed Kathy into the house. Far less admiration was showered my direction. In fact, suspicions, skepticism and a touch of grumpiness came my way instead. I didn't care.

Kat was crouched down next to a woman. She was wearing an apron and a wooden spoon was clutched in her hand. The rest of her body was as limp as wilted lettuce.

Kat didn't look up. "If I didn't know any better, Mr. Beckett, I'd think you were following me."

"You can think it all you want. I am following you. I was worried about you walking into a house where a woman was lying dead."

Kat looked up at me. It was a face I could see a thousand times and still feel as if I was looking at her for the first time. "You were worried about me?" she asked quietly.

"No, maybe, possibly." To avoid making a further fool of myself, I changed the subject. "What is your opinion?" I asked. "Is she dead?"

"As a doornail, I'm afraid."

Gasps outside assured us that the huddled onlookers were listening in. Outside Winifred's kitchen window, a window that still held a freshly baked apple pie, news spread quickly that Winifred was dead.

"Did she die as the highly knowledgeable Verity mentioned? Did she drop where she stood?"

Kat shook her head. "I'm afraid not. There's blood pooling under her head." Kat crouched lower, then straightened and walked over to a small table that was covered with a cloth. She lifted the cloth and pulled out an iron skillet.

"Odd place to keep one's skillet," I said.

"That's because it's not a storing place. It's a hiding place."

"You mean this woman was murdered?" I asked. "Was it for her wooden spoon?" I motioned to the spoon clutched in her hand.

Kat tilted her head and raised her brow at me. "I highly doubt that Winifred was murdered for her wooden spoon."

"She was murdered?" a man asked as he stared wide-eyed into the house.

Kat didn't answer him. He tore off yelling to everyone like the town crier. "Winifred was murdered! She was murdered in her own home!"

"None of us are safe if you can be murdered in your own home," a woman standing outside the door said to her terrified looking friend.

Kat motioned toward the door. "Edward, could you please close that?" It was such a small thing, but I always savored the sound of her saying my name.

I shut the door, which, given the small windows in the house, made it decidedly darker. Kat searched around for a candle and light. She paused to touch the pie plate. "It's cold but she never took it off the window." Kat surveyed the small corner that had been dedicated as the kitchen eating area. Flour and scraps of dough covered a wooden board. "She baked it this morning. I don't think she's been dead long." Her mouth turned up in a slight grin. "Why are you watching me like that?"

"Interested in watching you at work. I wonder—" I looked down at the floor. "Have you noticed there are some wet footprints leading from Winifred to the door?"

Kat found a candle, lit it and carried over to where I'd discovered the footprints. She stooped down and I followed. Mostly because I wanted to be close to her and those perfect lips. We were so close, I could see the light spray of freckles on her nose.

She rubbed her hand over the footprint. "It's not wet. It's a stain." She took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the stain. The white linen turned a pale shade of pink. "Dye. Red dye." She smelled the napkin. "Beets, I think."

"Bloody brilliant," I said. "You put the town constable to shame."

My compliments produced a blush. It was rare to see on her and only added to her beauty. We stayed crouched, face-to-face, just half an arm's length apart for no apparent reason except neither of us wanted to move.

As Kat pushed off to stand up, she rolled back on her heels and landed on her bottom. She laughed. Any other woman would have made a dramatic scene or cried with embarrassment but Kat laughed. "Yes, I put the constable to shame indeed."

I stood and offered her my hand. She stared at it for a long moment, as if taking my hand was going to be painful or wrong. Eventually, she placed her hand in mine. I wrapped my fingers around it. It was so small, my hand swallowed hers entirely. I helped her to her feet and, again, held on for longer than was necessary. I could have held her hand for the rest of the day, until the moon rose in the starry sky and the world went to sleep for the night.

"Perhaps, I'll be putting the constable to shame after all. I think I know who hit Winifred with the frying pan." Kat's eyes sparkled in the candlelight.

"Truly? Well, lead the way. I'm more than curious to see where all this is leading." I opened the door and waved her through.

"Is it true?" a young man asked. "Miss Garfield, did someone kill Winifred?"

Kat stopped. "Yes, John, do you think you could fetch the constable? Tell him to meet me at Mabel Andrews' house."

The young man nodded enthusiastically and ran off.

"Mabel Andrews?" I asked. "Our culprit is a woman?"

"I believe so. Yesterday, Mabel stopped me on my way through town. She was carrying a basket of beets that she said she picked from Orson Crew's garden. She's sweet on him, you see. Orson is quite the man about town, a silver haired charmer, you might say. Winifred, also a widow like Mabel, had been baking pies for Orson. Mabel told me that Winifred was trying to win Orson over with baking. Mabel planned to knit him a sweater in his favorite color."

"Let me guess," I said. "His favorite color is red."

"Exactly. She was taking the red beets home to make dye for the wool she purchased from the local sheep farmer." We reached a small brick house that smelled strongly of cooked beets.

Kat raised her hand to knock, then looked at me. "I don't want to alarm Mabel."

"I'm not letting you go inside alone to talk to a woman whose temper led her to hit a neighbor with a frying pan."

She smiled faintly and knocked. It took several times for a robust woman with bright red cheeks and red stained hands to open the door. "Kathy, how nice to see you." Her gray eyes shifted back and forth as she scoured the road behind us. There was no way to miss the noise and chaos happening just a few hundred yards away in front of Winifred's house, yet Mabel didn't seem inclined to ask what was happening.

"I'd invite you in for tea, but I've had a little accident and I'm just cleaning up." We all stared down at her worn leather shoes. They were stained and dark. The bottom hems of her straw yellow skirts were red.

"You spilled your red dye?" Kat asked.

"Yes, so clumsy. Now I've got quite a mess as you can imagine. Hate to be impolite." She tried to shut the door, but Kat put her hand up to stop it from closing.

Mabel's fake, nervous smile vanished, and her expression hardened like marble.

"Mabel," Kat said calmly. "Did you hit Winifred on the head with a frying pan?"

"She deserved it, she did. With all her apple pies and biscuits. She was baking night and day for Orson. I told her to stop, but she said she'd go right on baking. Even had one sitting in the window cooling off. I tried to grab it to throw it out the window. She knocked my hand with her wooden spoon." Mabel pushed her sleeve back to show a small bruise. "I grabbed her frying pan and gave her a good one, right on the noggin. She fell down but she'll be fine. You'll see. Just hit her a little too hard is all. I'll bring her over some of my spearmint tea. It'll fix her right up."

"Mabel, I'm afraid spearmint tea is not going to help," Kat said. "Winifred is dead."

Her face drained of color, and she stumbled back a few steps. "That can't be. It was just a frying pan. She'll be fine. You'll see." She was muttering to herself now, in somewhat of a confounded state from the news. Kat helped her to a chair.

She turned to me. "Edward, I'm perfectly safe as you can see. I'll wait with her until the constable arrives."

I was reluctant to leave, but I needed to get back to the boy holding Arrow. I nodded. "Well done, Kat," I said and turned to leave.

"Oh, Edward," she called before I could exit the house.

I turned back.

"Thank you for worrying," she said.

I nodded again and walked out. My heart once again heavy with the thought of her.