Serena (4 page)

“
Trouble
.” Freddy made a face, but his voice was full with excitement. “It sounded as though someone is in trouble.” He glanced at her and added, “Stay here—I’ll go and investigate.”

“Oh no, my friend. I am coming with you,” Serena answered and trotted up alongside him.

They both stopped short and sat very still, before they urged their horses forward. They definitely heard two men, evidently in a heated argument, shouting at one another.

“Look there … in the deep of the woods,” Freddy whispered.

“I see—the smaller man looks like he took a blow. His nose is bleeding,” Serena said.

“Aye, the other looks to be a seaman.”

Serena studied the two. Freddy was right—the large, burly fellow looked like a sailor in his dark woolens. The other was short and stout. His eyes were wide open, in a pale face and he was cowering. It was at that moment that both men turned startled expressions to Freddy and Serena.

The tall, husky seaman gave the other man a push. Then without doing anything further he mounted his horse and rode away. The smaller man had a bit of trouble mounting, as he couldn’t quite reach his stirrup, but finally managed. With a harried expression he glanced once more in their direction before he too weaved through the woods and away.

Freddy and Serena eyed one another, and Freddy grinned. “Odd that.”

“Yes, indeed it was, and I didn’t like the looks of that big bully of a sailor. I wonder what they were doing out here.” Serena went quiet for a moment and then said thoughtfully, “You know, Freddy, that seaman … I do believe I have seen him now and then at Buckler’s Hard.”

“Have you? They both looked like shady characters to me,” Freddy remarked.

“Yes, indeed they did,” Serena agreed. “Well, ’tis none of our affair, at any rate.”

“Lord, no, but what a strange picture they presented out here in the woods,” Freddy said and then chuckled. “The sailor so tall, the other so short and round, all bug-eyed and harried. Whatever is towards? Something havey-cavey, I’d wager.”

As they made their way to the pike, they threw different suppositions at one another as to what these two strangers might have been up to, all alone in the woods.

Freddy gave his final opinion on the matter, “Whatever you may say, whatever they were up to, I am certain that the sailor was nearly seven feet in height.”

“Freddy!” Serena exclaimed on a giggle. “Unusually tall, yes … but seven feet?”

“Well, as to that, I am six foot two, and my uncle is taller than I … and that brute was taller even than my uncle,” Freddy returned.

It was at this point that Freddy’s horse took a misstep. Serena exclaimed, “Oh no, Freddy, have you lost a shoe?”

Freddy jumped down to investigate. When he picked up his horse’s leg and bent it at the knee, even from her vantage Serena could see the hoof was loaded with mud and debris but had no shoe.

“Aye,” he said. “We’ll stop at the blacksmith’s when we get to town.” He moved to her and touched her booted leg as he looked up at her. Worship absolute and complete was in his eyes, and Serena frowned.

She saw he was going to say something romantic and immediately stuck in, “We must hope he will not put a crack in it over the rough stones in town—”

“Serena, my dear sweet …” Freddy said, obviously trying to bring matters back to what he had in mind.

* * *

A light-stepping flash prime-blood horse trotted around the bend in the road, ears flickering. The dark horse was alert to something ahead. His rider, Daniel Pendleton, soothed him with quiet authority but looked ahead as he slowed him to a walk.

What the blazes? His nephew Freddy was on foot with his hand on a lady’s boot, and that said lady was frowning down at him.

What, just what, do we have here?

He had been seriously concerned about extricating his nephew from his involvement with the Moorely chit. He knew, after making inquiries, that she was the niece of Squire Moorely and that while the estate was modest when compared to Freddy’s, it was a respectable estate. It was obvious she must have a dowry and could make a very good match if she wanted. The question remained, had she set her sights on his nephew?

Looking at the ravishing creature before him made him blink. He would, he realized at once, have his hands full.

The two were in deep conversation, and he wondered what they could be talking about as the lady in question appeared harried and concerned. His nephew, on the other hand, looked like a puppy protecting its dinner.

His lordship adjusted the beaver top hat on his head so that it sat both jauntily and just a bit angled over his eyes. He sat a bit straighter in his saddle as he continued to approach. The closer he got, the wider his eyes opened.

She was completely ravishing though, he could see, a bit disheveled. Whatever had the two been doing?

His imagination took flight, and he cursed softly under his breath. He had a tough road ahead, but, damn, he was up for the challenge.

* * *

Neither Serena nor Freddy heard the approach of horse and rider, although both their horses told them with body language that someone approached.

Serena was so involved with keeping young Freddy at a distance, and he with making headway, that they missed the signs.

Serena bent to put a hand on his shoulder and told him as sweetly as she could, “Freddy, I fear our friendship is perhaps—”

“In the way, at the moment. Our friendship is in the way of what I really want from you, Serena …” came his strangled reply.

She straightened and sighed. “Freddy … dear, dear friend … you know that …” The sound, an all too familiar sound of horses’ shoes scraping against stone, brought her head up, and with some surprise her eyes widened.

The big roan, she thought, must stand at seventeen hands, but its rider? She was for a moment struck dumb by the vision of the rider. He sat tall and broad in the saddle. His black locks sparkled in the sunlight. His clothes hugged a massive, beautifully proportioned and masculine body, and his eyes … his blue eyes, had they not looked as though he wanted to give her a thrashing, would have been absolutely captivating. Something happened to her, and she wasn’t sure what. It was as though her brain stopped functioning and her heart began to pound for release from her chest. Its beat was so loud she nearly put her hands to her ears. She had never seen a man more captivating!

Seeing her expression, Freddy looked around and cursed right out loud, “Fire and brimstone!” He then folded his arms across his chest and stared accusingly at the well-dressed, high-styled Corinthian bearing down upon them. “My uncle …” he said out loud to Serena.

“Ah,” Serena remarked.

“No doubt sent down by m’mother to haul me off and make certain I return to school,” he added, obviously attempting to show her the full horror of the situation he now faced. “Does no one understand I am a man and can make up my mind just what I want to do? The title is mine, the estate of Radburn is mine, and my decisions are mine to make.”

Serena did not argue with this. He was of course embarrassed, and she had no wish to further humiliate him.

His uncle approached and hailed him. “Well met, Freddy!”

“Uncle, what are you doing here?” he demanded, making it sound like an accusation.

Serena discovered blue, iced eyes staring hard at her and once again was struck dumb. What was wrong? Why was he looking at her like that?

“I …? But, of course, I am here to visit with Sir Newton. We are old friends, and he invited me to visit and enjoy some exercise with the hounds before the season begins. I was pleased to accept his invitation.”

Well done, Serena thought, keeping quiet as she watched the two interact. This was completely captivating—no, he was completely captivating.

“Sir Newton mentioned that you and he were old friends …” Freddy said doubtfully. “Are you staying with him then?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did invite me to stay with him, but I told him that since you were in town and staying at such a lovely inn, I rather thought I would put up there as well,” his lordship said glibly.

“Stay with me? At the inn? Are you trying to tell me that Mother did not send you?”

“Why should she? What is this? I had rather thought you would not mind your uncle’s company,” he returned, his dark brow up. “I see I was mistaken.”

Serena saw that Freddy had been thrown off balance. Freddy shot her a look, and she gave him an encouraging smile. She knew he adored his uncle, as he had often mentioned him.

“Well, we should not be discussing these matters on the open road, with Miss Moorely standing by like this,” Freddy said as he remounted his horse. “If you will excuse us, Uncle Danny, Serena and I have business in town.”

“Indeed, so you may, but first … I think an introduction would be pleasant,” his lordship said and eyed his nephew, again.

Reluctantly, Freddy made the introductions and with a nod said, “Later then, Uncle.”

Serena inclined her head and said softly, “Good-bye then. It was very nice meeting you, my Lord Pendleton.”

* * *

His lordship inclined his head as he answered in kind and tipped the brim of his hat.

Brazen minx
, he thought, his mouth set in grim lines as he watched them leave.
She rides off with Freddy, fully aware of her power. Well, well, young lady, we shall see. This is not going to be easy, but I am not about to allow you to ruin my nephew
.

~ Five ~

THE ERRANDS IN Buckler’s Hard had been discharged, Freddy’s horse had a new shoe, and Serena was looking forward to getting home. They were once more following the main pike, this time making their way back to Moorely Grange.

Serena eyed Freddy, who had been oddly quiet, and said, “You were a bit hard on your uncle before, don’t you think?”

“He shouldn’t have come,” Freddy returned sullenly. “He can’t think I believe that he came to watch hounds getting trained?
Absurd.”

“Why wouldn’t he enjoy that? I thought you said he was keen on fox hunting.”

“Because he hunts the Quorn,” Freddy said, as though this was explanation enough.

Serena was curious. “I got the impression when you mentioned his lordship to me, which you have more often than not, that you rather liked him? In fact, I remember you saying that your uncle Danny was the best of old chaps.”

“Oh, as to that, I do like him … very fond of him, in fact. He is a great gun, you know, but well, never mind.”

Serena smiled and allowed the subject to drop, but she was certain that Freddy was correct in thinking his uncle had come to fetch him. Not only that, but she had come to believe after giving it some thought that the harsh look his lordship had cast her way must mean he blamed her for Freddy’s not returning to school. She became certain of this the more she thought of it. Freddy’s family, no doubt, thought she was the cause and the culprit. It was very demeaning and most annoying. How dare they blame her without knowing the facts?

“You know, Serena, m’mother is the best of all good mothers, but she has to let go of the apron strings, doesn’t she? After all, I am nearly twenty and shall be twenty-one next year, after all, and it is very disappointing to find Uncle Danny falling in with her schemes. How could she have taken him in like that?”

“Taken in, Freddy?”

“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.”

“Yes, yes, of course, but what can this mean? What is going on in our sleepy little hamlet, Freddy? This man was murdered,” Serena whispered as she turned to take another look. She shuddered. “Who was that rider? He must be the murderer.”

“Aye, but I don’t think it was the little stout fellow. The rider was taller, more put together. He must be the killer. We heard the shot …”

“Come on, Freddy … we better hurry,” Serena said, remounting her horse.

“Aye, aye,” agreed Freddy, excited all over again. “Can you imagine? M’mother wanted me to go back to school—ha!”

* * *

Daniel Pendleton stared as he consulted the mantle-shelf clock in the parlor of the inn. He paced and went over what he now knew. It was not good. In addition to this, he was irritated.

He was not used to being kept waiting—though in truth, he had made no assignation with his nephew. He simply thought the lad would have returned by now. He was hungry and already heartily disgusted with himself.

Why had he allowed his sister to draw him into this situation? He frowned and answered himself.
Because a hussy of a woman means to take Freddy to the altar before his time, that’s why!

He frowned over this problem. She wasn’t quite a hussy though, was she? A beauty, with a respectable name and a lengthy line of ancestors. However, she was not for Freddy, who was still a boy, just a boy, and should return to Oxford.

His lordship made his way to the private parlor he had reserved and took up a chair at the table. The hour wanted ten minutes to seven, and he was going to have his dinner.

An attractive serving girl came in at once with a basket of freshly baked bread. She laid this on the prettily arranged table, advised his lordship that dinner would follow directly, and gave him an inviting smile.

He smiled absently back at her, and although he tore a piece of bread off from the large loaf, he set it back down and got to his feet to pace. Thus he was standing by the small hearth, his fists at his back, when his nephew came bursting through the doorway.

“
Uncle!
We have had the most famous afternoon,” Freddy exclaimed, his grievance with his uncle evidently temporarily set aside.

“Have you?” his uncle returned, wisely waiting for more.

“Certes, yes … that is what delayed me.” He spotted the fresh bread and asked with fervor, “Is that cornbread?” Without waiting for a reply, he put a chunk to the test. “Zounds, but I am famished. You must know that with all the goings-on, I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“Sounds as though you have had some fun,” his uncle returned, grinning. He held Freddy in greater affection than he let on.

“Fun?” Freddy said in high glee, “Uncle, I don’t know when I have had such a rare kick-up. Zounds—
we found a dead body!”

His lordship was taken aback but restrained himself from asking the chain of questions that came immediately to mind. Instead, he moderated his tone and asked, “A dead body, you say?”

“A dead body right smack there in the pine woods near Buckler’s Hard, and damn if we didn’t see the murderer making good his escape.”

Now was the time for clarification, of course, but again, Lord Pendleton restrained himself and asked, “We?”

“Serena and I were on our way home … well, that is I was escorting her home—”

“Home?” his lordship interrupted his nephew.

“Aye, well, to Moorely Grange, that is. It was a long day, for you must know we were with Sir Newton exercising his hounds early on. He was in the process of training some of the older pups, you see, when Warrior took off into the thicket, and what must the other fellows do but follow and one got lost and off we all went running amok … damn exciting good fun.”

“Ah, just so that I am clear, Miss Moorely was on this mad chase after the hounds …?”

“Oh yes, nothing holds back Serena. A right ’un, she is. She lost her hat but unlike most of her kind did not go on and on about it.”

“And what do you know, Freddy, about most of her kind?”

He frowned and stuck up his chin. “I know enough to know that.”

“Indeed, do go on,” his uncle said, more than a little interested at this point.

“Right, so there we were coming back from town … my horse lost a shoe, and that took a bit of a wait, and so I escorted Serena as she discharged some errands for her uncle, and then off we went to get home, both of us starving, when …
boom
 … a gunshot! We knew something havey cavey was going on, but then, whoosh, out of the woods comes this fellow whose face was all wrapped up in dark woolens, and he was galloping like the devil himself was after him. Serena and I thought we should investigate.”

“Miss Moorely went with you to investigate? She did not remain behind?”

“Told you, Uncle Danny, she is a right ’un, didn’t I? Now, I’ll tell you another thing. You should see Serena track, a very knowing one is Serena in the woods.”

“Do go on,” his lordship answered dryly.

“Yes, well, we tracked horse prints, and there he was, dead—the tall, loose fish, not the short one. Saw the two earlier you see … in the woods. Damn if he wasn’t just lying there, dead, looking like a giant hit hard. Shot in the head! Not much of a face left.”

“A loose fish in the morning?” Now Lord Pendleton’s brows were drawn together. “The dead body was someone you met … a loose fish, earlier that day?”

“Well, didn’t meet him, but we saw him arguing with a short, stout fellow, but that is neither here nor there. Off we went, as Serena thought we should go straightaway to the magistrate.”

“Quite right,” his uncle interrupted to say, “but are you saying that Miss Moorely accompanied you to the magistrate? She must have been exhausted by this time?”

“Told you … she is—”

“Yes, yes, a right ’un, I know. So she went with you?”

“Yes, to Mr. Tuthill. Then we had to take him to where the body lay, and what do you think, Uncle Danny?”

“I can’t imagine. What should I think?”

“It was gone!” returned Freddy dramatically. “
The body was gone
.”

“Ah,” said his uncle, “gone, you say? Are you sure the poor chap was actually dead?”

“Quite, quite dead, Uncle, but there was also the matter of his horse.”

“Of course, Freddy, his horse?”

“Aye, Serena thought we should take it along with us, for we spotted it grazing about in the woods. I said, no, it would slow us down, so she said that I was probably right, so we left it there.” He eyed his uncle grimly and continued, “And the horse was gone as well.”