Dealing with arsonists didn’t make her fearless.Maybe they needed another hound to stay behind while Wolfie was out.She’d hate to have her hens stolen.Although picking up a shotgun to look for a chicken thief seemed excessive.Rafe could pound a man into the ground with a single fist.So they were assuming the thief and the killer were one and the same.Verity shivered.
Damien’s kiss apparently served to calm Brydie back to rationality, of a sort.When he finally released her, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder and took deep breaths.“I still want to kill him,” she insisted, proving she wasn’t composed.
“You nearly did,” Damien said with a hint of strained laughter.“By the time I reached you, he was doubled over and hobbling like a cripple.Rafe will find him, and you can kick him again.”
“Would you like luncheon and perhaps a draft of ale?”Verity asked dryly, gesturing toward the open door.“Not that I can provide more than bread and cheese.”
“That’s why I want to go back!”Brydie insisted, reluctantly accepting Damien’s nudge into the slightly warmer lobby.“I can make some lovely buns that will taste delicious with your cheese.Add a little bacon or pickled onion...”
“You are worse than Lady Elsa.”Verity led the way into the pub where the children were pretending to work but listening as hard as they could.“If you’re done eating, take your pomanders into the kitchen and ask if there are any currant biscuits you might have.You can work there, where it’s warmer.”
“But Miss Butler will see our gift!”Lynly protested.“We will take them to the bedroom, then come back and ask for biscuits.”
Brydie buried a laugh and cheered up.“There’s our Lynly.Rob, as man of the house, why don’t you fetch biscuits while the youngers carry your gifts to the bedroom.”
“Where’s Arthur?”Damien asked as the children traipsed off.“Shouldn’t he be the one looking after them?”
Verity liked that he already concerned himself with the welfare of his intended’s family.Kate and Brydie were strong, but everyone needed support occasionally.“I sent him off to help the new hardware merchant.He really needs to be working with adults and not children.When he comes back, we’ll send him with the mail pouch to Mr.Oswald.”There really hadn’t been time for responses to their inquiries, so there would be naught of importance in it.“Now tell me about hen thieves while I tap Rafe’s ale.”
“A vagabond was hiding in the henhouse,” Brydie said with indignation, marching toward the kitchen.“I’ll put together sandwiches.”
In the dim light of the pub, Verity set ale on the table and raised her eyebrows questioningly.Damien waited until Brydie was out of hearing.“The scoundrel tried to choke her.It’s a wonder you didn’t hear her scream all the way here.My heart nearly dropped to my boots.By the time Rafe and I reached her, she’d kicked his shins and kneed him and was trying to scalp him with her bare fingers until he fought loose and ran.”
“Ah, now I know where Lynly learned that...very unfortunate maneuver.”Verity had been heartily impressed when the tiny eight-year-old had fought a kidnapper by kicking him in his manly parts a few weeks ago.
Damien ran a hand over his disheveled hair and snorted.“Brydie learned it from me and my brother.She wasn’t wearing her gloves.Her fingers are turning blue.”
Verity shivered.“I need to heat cider then.”They both knew that, like Lynly, Brydie got chilblains too easily.“I don’t like this at all, mind you.Rafe better catch the mongrel.”
She marched off to join Brydie in the kitchen, where Miss Butler was already preparing hot tea and forcing Brydie to hold the mug to heat her hands.
Setting the tea aside, Brydie hacked bread and cheese as if they were the enemy’s necks.She’d found the last of the ham and assaulted that while Miss Butler assembled the sandwiches.“He was hiding in thehenhouse,” Brydie said without preamble.“Waiting for everyone to leave.Damien thinks he was the killer, but he won’t say it aloud.”
“You read minds?Come along, let us serve you for a change.”Verity took a plate of the sandwiches and elbowed her much larger friend back to the pub, where Damien was adding coal to the fire.
Brydie took a seat, still insisting she had to go back to Willa’s and finish the bread.
“Let Cooper do it.We need to leave him over there to guard the place anyway.He said he knows how to shove bread into the oven.”Damien added more tea to her cup after she swallowed the boiling beverage practically in a gulp.
“He won’t know how to knead and shape the dough or the right temperature or when to take it out.And I want to make buns,” Brydie insisted truculently.“I’ve already proved I can take care of myself.You can’t stop me.”
Before that turned into another argument, Verity intervened.“Why didn’t the guards Rafe set there last night find the thief?”
“The guards didn’t attempt to hide.I saw them smoking and passing a jug when I went past last night.He probably just waited until they left this morning to return.And then we arrived.”Damien quaffed his ale as if he needed it more than food.He seemed pretty shaken, so it wasn’t as simple as Brydie tried to make it.
“Hen thieves aren’t that smart,” Brydie scoffed, sticking to the more innocent theory.“There is no fence to keep him out.He knew Willa had hens.We weren’t looking after them.He probably thought he was doing the hens a favor.”
Damien didn’t argue with that.Verity thought he might ought to so Brydie didn’t take more chances, but perhaps she’d work it out on her own once she calmed down.“Is there a rooster?Might I steal him?”
Scowling mutinously, Rafe trudged in before they could argue the morality of “rescuing” poultry from a dead woman’s property.He pulled ale and threw it back, then, in disgust, waved his mug.“He had a horse.Fletch and Wolfie are trying to follow, but Fletch has been riding since sun up.His horse is knackered.By the time I saddle up, or run to the manor for help, the scoundrel will be long gone.We all need to start carrying firearms.Any man who attacks a woman deserves to be shot.”
“Then he’s gone and I can finish my baking.”Brydie glared at them defiantly.
Both men shouted at once.With a sigh, Verity snatched their mugs from the table and held them behind her.“Stop it, both of you!That bread is needed or people go hungry.If you fear the thief was more than a thief, tell us.And if so, then we need people in that house, day and night, searching for whatever a killer might want.”
That took the steam out of their whistles.Brydie looked shocked, then pounded her mug on the table and cheered.
Eleven
