“M’mother must have put him up to this. You must see that? It is something I will not abide.”
“You know, in this, I must tell you, Freddy—your mother is quite right. You should finish your education,” Serena said gently.
“I don’t wish to at this time.”
“But—”
“Serena, I have quite made up my mind.” He winked at her, and she smiled ruefully.
“Still, I do think you should return to Oxford … and—”
“No. If I wanted to take the Grand Tour and finish at Oxford afterwards, do you think she would object? No, she would not. Do you think she would have sent Uncle Danny after me? No, she would not. He is here because she doesn’t know you and wishes to interfere.”
“Well, of course she doesn’t know me, and what have I to do with this issue?” Serena sighed. So she was correct to think they had made up their minds that she was after Freddy’s title and wealth. It was humiliating and very, very irritating.
“Well, at any rate, she had no right to send my uncle here to look you over.”
“Look me over?” Serena was genuinely astounded at this. Send his uncle to convince him to return to school, yes, but ‘look her over’ was unacceptable. “Frederick, I am losing my patience. I will not be caught up in this.”
“It is my fault. I may have mentioned you in a letter or two …” he said and sighed heavily. “Now it has come back to slap me in the face.”
Serena put a gloved hand to her forehead. “Frederick of Radburn, what have you told your mother?”
At that moment, however, a gunshot blasted through the quiet of the day, chasing all thought of a reply away.
Serena and Freddy eyed one another, and before either was able to say a word a rider on horseback came crashing through the woods not more than twenty yards from them.
With a flying leap, rider and horse sailed over the narrow ditch that separated the Piney Woods from the pike road. They saw from his size and shape that the rider was a man, a man with a scarf pulled up to his eyes and a wool cap pulled low over his forehead.
A moment later he was lost to sight as he crossed the road to the glen, jumped the line fence, and vanished from their view.
“What the deuce?” Freddy was moved to exclaim loudly.
“Freddy, something dreadful has happened. Should we call out to see if someone needs help?”
“No … we need to be careful here,” Freddy returned on a frown.
“What then, shall we investigate?” Serena suggested as she tried to gaze through the thick of the woods.
“Yes, by Jove! That’s the ticket,” Freddy agreed enthusiastically.
Serena urged her horse forward and found the spot the masked rider had emerged from only moments ago. She took her horse over the narrow ditch with a light jump and called for Freddy to follow.
He did so, and as she tracked, he advised her with joy written all over his face, “Serena, you are the most famous right ’un. There is no other girl like you!”
That was not what she wanted him to take away from this experience together, but for the moment his infatuation was not uppermost in her mind. At the moment, she was sure they were going to come across someone in awful straits.
“Hush,” she told him. “Look for tracks.” The ones she had been following had seemed to suddenly stop. She gazed around, saw a mud patch, and exclaimed excitedly, “There, Freddy, there!”
After they had gone a little bit further at a very slow pace, Serena cried out, “Oh Freddy, oh, no … no …” Her glove covered her mouth, though she wasn’t truly shocked. She had suspected they would find someone, but she had hoped he
would still be alive.
“Damned bobbery this is!” Freddy exclaimed as he jumped off his horse, threw Serena his reins, and hurried to bend over the man lying on a bed of blood-soaked pine needles. Serena shook her head as she stared at his lifeless body and wondered who it could be and what he had done to be killed and left to rot.
Freddy turned the man’s body onto his back, and Serena gasped when she realized it was one of the two men they had seen in the woods earlier. She jumped off her horse and, holding both reins, went towards Freddy as she told him, “Freddy … this man isn’t the short, stout fellow, but the seven-foot bully.” She was shocked. Of the two, she would have expected the other one might have come to harm. “Is he … is he beyond saving?”
“Oh, yes, completely beyond,” Freddy said. He took her arm and turned her away. “Serena, don’t look. This is the sort of thing that could give you nightmares. Come on then, let me see you home, and we’ll send for the magistrate.”