Resolved and determined to keep the pursuit of The Barbarian front and center in her mind, she hurried through an early breakfast, poking at Dickie—never an early riser—to hurry, and made a point of getting down to the inn yard before anyone else so she could use the mounting block and avoid having her senses unnecessarily scrambled.
She was perched on Nickleby’s back, impatiently waiting, when Nicholas appeared, closely followed by a barely awake Dickie.
Sally was there and already mounted as well, and the grooms and stablemen were waiting with the horses. Within minutes, the company was mounted and ready, and nothing loath, Addie led the way out of the yard and turned to take the northbound road.
It was early, and there were few others about; they were able to go at a swift trot. Nicholas brought his gray up on her right, and eventually, Dickie appeared on her left.
“We may as well ride directly to Manthorpe.” Dickie glanced across at Nicholas. “Given the sighting there was so definite, there seems little sense wasting time trying to track him until after there.”
Nicholas nodded. “I agree.”
With that decided and the outskirts of Grantham falling behind, Addie pushed Nickleby into a canter.
Nicholas and Dickie kept pace, as did the others behind them.
Soon, Addie felt happier, soothed by the sense of finally moving quickly on the thief’s trail. Admittedly, they were more than a day behind him, but however irrational, the belief remained that they would soon catch up to him.
They passed through Manthorpe, and she took the lead in questioning people they found along the road, and they discovered two further definite sightings, first in the village of Belton and then just outside Barkston.
They were, finally, on the right track.
Increasingly confident, the company thundered along the road.
They reached the fork outside Honington where the road to Sleaford veered to the east. Addie and Dickie continued on along the Lincoln road, but Nicholas slowed. “Wait.”
It took a moment for them all to draw rein. Addie and Dickie had to circle to return to where Nicholas sat his huge gray, staring toward Sleaford. When they reached him, he tipped his head in that direction. “How can we be sure he didn’t take that road?”
“Well,” Dickie said, “that leads to Sleaford, and even more so than Lincoln, if the blackguard had intended to go to Sleaford, it would have been so much faster going direct from Aisby.”
“Actually,” Addie put in, “it would have been faster still if he’d continued along that right of way from The Barbarian’s paddock. Had he gone that way, he might not have been spotted by anyone, and we wouldn’t have found any hint of him at all.”
Nicholas saw that Rory and the stablemen and even Adriana’s maid were all nodding.
“And if,” Dickie continued, “we’re leaning to the hypothesis that because there was no attempt made to get The Barbarian’s papers, then our thief might simply have stolen the horse as a good-looking hack that will be easy to sell, then I really can’t imagine why said thief would make for Sleaford.”
Adriana explained, “There’s nothing notable or useful about the town, and it’s not the fastest way to anywhere else, either.”
“Lincoln would be the best bet for selling a stolen horse,” Jeb put in.
Everyone bar Nicholas and Young Gillies—the only non-locals—backed that assessment.
Nicholas knew he tended to err on the side of caution—Pru and Toby often told him so—and with time ticking inexorably by and everyone else being so convinced that the thief would have headed for Lincoln, he felt he had to set aside his innate inclination to insist on proof instead of assumptions. Accepting that, he turned Tamerlane’s head toward Lincoln. “In that case, let’s ride on.”
They did, but it was slow going as they stopped and spoke with everyone they came across who might have seen horses passing along the road. Unfortunately, no one had seen The Barbarian, yet none of the non-sightings were definitive. Courtesy of the sighting at Barkston, they knew the thief had come that way on Wednesday afternoon, and it was possible he’d passed by either before or after their informants had been in position to see him.
Either that, or they hadn’t been looking toward the road at that time.
Regardless, it was nearing noon when they approached Leadenham with nothing to show for their recent efforts. As breakfast had been so long ago, they stopped at the Three Feathers to assuage their hunger.
They ate at a long wooden table at the front of the inn. Seated on the end of one of the bench seats, Nicholas glanced at Adriana, sitting opposite. “Should we backtrack?” When she and the others looked blankly at him, he rephrased, “How likely is it that our thief turned down one of the minor lanes we passed?”
They’d ridden past the entrance to several country lanes, some leading east and some west.
All the locals in the company frowned and chewed, then Dickie swallowed and said, “I can’t see why he would. Ultimately, all those minor lanes lead to either Sleaford to the east or Newark to the west, and I can’t imagine why a horse thief would make for either town, not with Lincoln ahead of him.”
That seemed to be the general consensus, one Rory summarized. “If our thief with a fabulous horse to sell didn’t go to Grantham, then surely he’d go to Lincoln. He’d have a much better chance of finding a buyer there, even better than in Grantham.”
Mike nodded. “It would have been risky trying to sell The Barbarian in Grantham, given the estate is so close. Someone might have recognized him.”
