Page 11 of The Tart’s Final Noel (Gravesyde Village Mysteries #3)

Ten

Verity

With their guests fed, Rafe left to help Damien search Willa’s house.

Maybe Rafe might give Brydie some breadmaking tips, Verity mused as she set luncheon on the pub tables for the children.

Gravesyde needed a baker. Brydie might be a good one.

And then she’d be close by to look after her sister’s children on days like this.

But for now, Verity didn’t mind watching Rob and Lynly.

They were good for the grieving orphans.

They’d been teaching them to make pomanders out of apples and cloves to give to the inn staff on Boxing Day.

The older women had arrived with very little in the way of clothing to need scent, but they’d treasure any gift.

And Verity was paying Lavender to make over some simple gowns she and Rafe could give them on Boxing Day.

Verity was as excited about that as she was the church festivities.

If only they could settle the question of the orphans. . .

When Rafe raced into the lobby, hollering for his wolfhound and grabbing his shotgun from behind the counter, Verity’s heart wrenched in terror.

Wolfie bolted out the door and the two were gone before she could reach the lobby to question.

Reassuring the wide-eyed children, she stood in the pub’s mullioned window to prepare for whatever horror threatened now.

Returning from his mail delivery, Fletch was just riding toward the inn with a loaded mail pouch. At Rafe’s shout, he dropped the pouch in the yard and galloped down the back lane—toward Willa’s cottage. Verity couldn’t relax until she knew what was wrong.

Moments later, Brydie and Damien emerged from the lane. Damien had his arms around Brydie’s shoulders, but she seemed unharmed—although excessively agitated, even for Brydie. Her tall, fiery-haired friend was normally genial and smiling, but once her temper was aroused. . .

Deciding this was Brydie in a fury, Verity relaxed a trifle. Telling the children she’d read them a story if they behaved, she left them in the pub with their pomanders and hurried out to greet the pair. She picked up the mail pouch while she was at it. “What happened?”

“Brydie tried to kill a chicken thief,” Damien said with a strained smile, taking the canvas pouch and slinging it over his shoulder.

Verity assumed that was a lie but Brydie didn’t contradict him. She was too furious, apparently.

“I have bread rising!” she shouted. “I need to go back. And I want to make buns. There are eggs. You can collect them if you like, but they shouldn’t be left to rot!”

“He could have killed you!” Damien shouted back. “Until this monster is caught, you’re not going anywhere without me!”

Oh, very bad tactic to take with Brydie. Verity winced as her Viking-sized friend swung a fist at her fiancé’s arm. They’d never make it to calling the banns at this rate.

Damien, very inappropriately, grabbed Brydie’s fist, pulled her arms behind her back, and kissed her into silence, right there in public. Brydie wriggled futilely for a moment, then subsided, finishing the kiss with vigor.

Chicken thieves were better than the insane arsonists they’d stopped in the past, Verity concluded, waiting for the explosions to end so she could learn what had happened.

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 the henhouse,” 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.