Was it Browning, or Murray, or even Archibald Harrington?
His head began to whirl with all of the details he was trying to make sense of, and he puffed out his cheeks on a stupefied sigh. Right now, he was starting to wonder if they had unwittingly ventured into things that they should have just left to the police.
The sudden rumble of carriage wheels nearby made them both jump nervously. Beatrice glanced behind them in horror, and her eyes widened as she saw the now familiar black horse racing up the lane behind them.
“Ben!” She cried, and tugged on his sleeve with one hand while she pointed behind them with the other.
Ben threw a glance over his shoulder and cursed. “Keep an eye on it,” he growled.
He clicked his horse into a trot but tried as hard as he could to keep the tension out of the reins so the horse didn’t panic. Rather than pull over to the side of the road as most considerate carriage drivers did when someone wanted to pass, he deliberately directed the horse to block the road.
“Hold on to something, Beatrice, and see if you can get a good look at that driver. He isn’t going to get past me this time,” Ben snapped.
He threw a dark look at the heavily garbed coachman, and mentally calculated how far they had to go before they reached the next turn in the road. He knew this road like the back of his hand. If he kept his horse in the middle of the lane, and quite effectively blocked the path of the carriage behind them, it would be forced to remain behind all the way to Tipton Hollow.
“Why do you think he is holding back like that?” Beatrice gasped as she saw the distance between the carriages widen.
“I think he is waiting for a suitable gap he can push through at speed,” Ben replied. “If he forces his way through quickly, he knows I will have to move to the side of the road or face being pushed out of the way. We will get hurt, or killed, if this thing tips us out into the middle of the road.” He glanced at her. “Is he approaching us yet?”
“Go to the left, Ben. He is looking at the left side of the carriage.”
“Keep an eye on him. Make sure that the carriage doesn’t shoot past us again. There is a turning coming up that will leave us vulnerable, but there is nothing we can do to avoid it.”
Ben wondered if they were doing the right thing. After all, there was nothing to say that the driver didn’t have a gun on him. Luckily, they were trotting along at a rapid clip, and it was going to be damned difficult for anyone to shoot at them while trying to steer a carriage at the same time, but he still didn’t like feeling vulnerable.
“We are going to go to my house,” Ben declared firmly. “We will go past your house, and through the village.”
“Do you think he will follow us through the village?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really care right now, darling. Let’s just see what happens.”
“He is heading to the right again. No left. No. Back to the right again.”
Beatrice sighed as she studied the carriage driver. There as something about him that rang alarm bells, and brought forth just a little bit of recognition. She was sure that she had seen that horse somewhere before, but where? Why did it look familiar to her?
“He is trying to force his way past again,” Ben growled after a quick glance over his shoulder.
Suddenly, as if the driver had heard him, the carriage lunged forward. Ben glanced back, but was reluctantly forced to move to the side of the road. His own conscience would let him force his horse to harm itself in a daring stand-off with a fool. Not only did they need the horse to get home, but the animal deserved better treatment. The lunatic behind them clearly had no respect for his own horse, and didn’t seem to care that the beast had to grunt and struggle to drag the huge carriage past the thicket at the side of the road.
As it forced its way through the narrow gap, the wheels of both carriages touched and threw sparks all over the road. Ben swore at the sight of the corner only a few feet ahead of them, but didn’t slow his pace. For several moments it was neck and neck as to who would get the main line around the corner until, with a crack of a whip, the huge black horse recklessly increased its speed. Unfortunately, the corner was upon them before it could pull the carriage clear.
“Ben!” Beatrice screamed, and felt herself start to slide across the seat as their own carriage tilted wildly when they took the corner far too fast.
“Hang on,” Ben shouted over the panicked screams of the horse behind them when it realised that it had no choice but to run straight through the hedge at the end of the road.
Unfortunately, the carriage was too big to fit through the narrow gap in the hedge left by the horse and it slammed to a bone-jarring halt that made the horse scream even louder.
“It’s stopped. They are stuck,” she gasped and turned fearful eyes on Ben. “What do we do?”
“Hope he fell off?” Ben suggested helpfully.
Beatrice stared at him. “We need to know who it is, and what they want with us.”
“They may be armed,” Ben argued. There was no way in hell he was going to put them both in danger and go back.
“If they were going to shoot us, wouldn’t they have done so while they were following?” She refused to give up and glared at him when he made no attempt to slow the carriage down.
Eventually, when he couldn’t ignore her hard stare any longer, he reluctantly reined the horse to a stop.
“We have to go back and see if the driver was injured,” Beatrice declared flatly, but didn’t wait to argue with him.
“Beatrice, come back!” He called, and cursed fluidly when she began to march down the road.
When it became evident that she wasn’t going to listen to reason, Ben secured the reins and hurried after her. He hated to leave the carriage unattended, especially now that the reckless coachman had lost his own conveyance, but he had little choice because there was nowhere in the lane where he could turn the carriage around. Right now, it was more important that he stopped Beatrice doing something incredibly foolish, like approaching the person who had been trying to kill her.
By the time he caught up with her, she was already next to the damaged carriage. The loud squeals from the horse continued to grow increasingly desperate. Beatrice blinked away the tears that stung her eyes, and tried to think of a way she could help the distressed beast.
“We have to do something,” she gasped, as she tried to find a way through the bushes to get into the field. Even from the road she could see that the horse was struggling fiercely against the restriction of the traces and knew that it was going to hurt itself.
“Help me,” she snapped at Ben, who still stood in the road.
Ben cursed and forced his way through the thick bramble. One look at the rapidly retreating back of the dark figure in the far corner of the field was enough to assure him that the damned cretin had just cleared off and left his animal to suffer. Luckily, they were heading in the opposite direction to his carriage, and so he and Beatrice still had a way to get home.
“God, how could they?” Beatrice gasped in disgust as she glared after their tormentor.
Ben sighed and walked slowly up to the horse. “Because they are brainless idiots,” he murmured softly. Although his words were harsh, his tone was gentle.
Beatrice had never felt so helpless in her life. “What do we do?”
Ben studied the traces. “I am going to remove the reins. Stand back. He will most probably run once he senses freedom. Don’t try and stop him. Just stand well away from the carriage. It is fairly bogged down so isn’t likely to fall over or anything, but I don’t know how much damage there has been to the wheels. If one of them drops off, I don’t want the carriage to tip over onto you. Step back against the hedge over there, and stand still.”
She had little choice but to comply, and watched Ben swiftly release the reins. The animal suddenly charged across the field without a backward look leaving the traces to thump heavily onto the ground. Luckily, the carriage didn’t move.
“I am sure that I have seen this carriage somewhere before,” she murmured when Ben moved to stand next to her.
Ben sighed as he studied the area around them. “Now that the horse is safe, and the carriage is blocking the gap so the horse can’t get out of the field, we need to go and get help. We have to find Fred Dinage, and tell him what has happened. He can come and try to identify the owner, and take it from there. Right now, we need to get out of here,” he growled as he waved her toward the hedge. “Let’s go.”
He held the hedge back to allow her to climb through and followed her down the road. As they walked, he glanced at her and just had to touch her. For his sake, he had to reassure himself that she was alright.
“Beatrice?”
Right there, in the middle of the road, he drew her into a kiss that was so swift, so fierce, that her world spun on its axis. His lips lay siege to her senses and left her reeling beneath the weight of sensual promise. Tongues mated hungrily, lips duelled lovingly, and arms cradled protectively. In that one brief moment, their worlds collided and changed irreversibly, because they both knew that they were now together.
“Are you alright?” he growled when the need for air made him lift his head.
She nodded and lifted onto her tiptoes to place one last kiss on his lips. “I am fine.”
“We are going to talk about this later,” he warned, and captured her lips in a kiss that sealed the promise. “Let’s go.”
They were closer to Tipton Hollow than she had realised and, within minutes, pulled up outside of the constable’s house. Fred was luckily at home, and swiftly on his way to take a look at the carriage.
“Where is it, did you say?”
“We will show you,” Beatrice sighed. She glanced at Ben and sensed his argument, but quickly looked away. “The carriage is familiar to me, and not just because it is the same carriage that nearly ran me other the other day. I have seen it before around and about before then, I am sure of it.”
“In Tipton Hollow?” Fred demanded with a scowl as Ben turned the carriage around in the road.
Beatrice put her head in her hands and scoured her memory for details of where she had seen it last. “It is very similar to Caroline Smethwick’s carriage.”
“Can’t be hers,” Fred replied. “She got rid of it once the Detective Inspector arrested those psychics.”
“I am not saying it is hers, but it looks similar.”
Fred frowned. “Let’s go and take a look, shall we?”
Silence settled over them until they got to the site of the accident. Fred climbed down and stared at the carriage with a dark frown on his face. He shoved his way through the hedge and studied the horse before he took a closer look at the firmly embedded carriage.
“It’s the same one,” he growled, clearly bewildered.
“What do you mean?” Beatrice’s stomach dropped to her toes. “It’s the same one as what?”
She threw a somewhat panicked look at Ben, and was suddenly glad that she had decided to return to the site. A wild thrill of anticipation swept through her at the thought that they were going to get at least one answer today. Unfortunately, her anticipation was quickly replaced with doubt and concern. She saw the look on Fred’s face, and knew that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“Unless my eyes are deceiving me, this is indeed Caroline Smethwick’s carriage.”
Beatrice’s first instinct was to burst out laughing and tell him not to be so ridiculous. Caroline Smethwick was a member of the Circle, and a friend. It was inconceivable to think that she would do something so heinous as to try to run her over – twice, and run Ben off the road – twice.
“What makes you think that?” Ben snapped and stared at the constable before he turned to study the carriage a bit more closely.
“There are some small nicks in the traces; here look.” Fred pointed to three deep grooves in the trace closest to them. “This is where the lads banged it against one of the posts in the coal merchant’s yard.”
Beatrice stared at the horse for a moment. “I thought she sold both the carriage and the horse months ago.”
“I did too,” Fred replied. “It certainly hasn’t been stored in Brewster’s yard, I would have seen it. She said she had gotten rid of it, but there is nothing to say that she didn’t keep it and just move it somewhere else. This is definitely her carriage, I am sure of it.”
“Good Lord, why would Caroline Smethwick want to hurt you?” Ben growled, completely astonished at the thought that a villager could be trying to kill her - them.
The hurt and confusion on Beatrice’s face made him incredibly angry, and Ben’s fists clenched against the urge to storm over to Caroline’s house and demand some answers.
“I will go and see if I can find her,” Fred declared firmly. “First, I need to have a word with the lads down at the station. I don’t know if the Detective Inspector is back from London yet. If he is, I think he needs to look into this. She tried to run you off the road, you say?”
“Twice,” Ben growled. “We also think it was her who tried to run us over on Sunday. Why though? I mean, what is she trying to do?”
Fred shook his head and scratched his head.
“Caroline is my friend. She wouldn’t do something like this,” she whispered with a shake of her head. Hurt swept through her at the thought that someone she had considered a friend hated her so much that they were prepared to physically injure her, or kill her. A part of her simply refused to believe it; although deep inside she rather suspected it was true.
She turned doubtful eyes on Ben. “Why?”
“I don’t know darling, but I am damned sure that we are going to find out.” He turned to Fred. “She had abandoned the carriage by the time we got here, and headed that way. She may have been injured when this thing crashed through the hedge, I don’t know. It was certainly going fast enough that it could have thrown her off.”
Fred looked at him. “I need to get someone to get this damned thing out of here, and the hedge filled in so the horse doesn’t escape.”
“Do you want to go back to the village, or go the farm first to have a word with the farmer? It is going to need the plough horses to pull this huge monstrosity out of the mud.”
“I think the plough horses come first. I need to send Farmer Barney’s lad over to the station in Great Tipton for reinforcements.”
They climbed aboard Ben’s carriage and, for the second time that day headed toward Tipton Hollow. They all kept their eye out for any sign of Caroline Smethwick, but of course there wasn’t any.
Having dropped Fred off at the farm, Ben turned the carriage around and pulled up outside of Beatrice’s house nearly an hour later.
“God, what a day,” Ben sighed as he secured the reins and climbed down. Now that there was no carriage in hot pursuit, it was safe to take Beatrice directly home and, he wasn’t afraid to admit, it was a relief to finally get there.
Beatrice threw him a worried look. Her head was whirling by the time she let herself into the house, and she didn’t think anything of Ben following her into the sitting room. They both slumped wearily onto the couch for a moment and stared into the cold grate.
“Are you alright?” Ben asked as he picked her hand up and kissed the back of it.
Her fingers clung to his for a moment and she stared into the fireplace without answering. Right now she didn’t know how she felt. There were so many emotions churning through her that she didn’t know where to start to put a name to them all.
However, like a beacon of light down the end of a long, dark tunnel, the one strong emotion she could recognise was the deeply abiding love she felt for the man seated beside her. The strength of emotion she felt for him frightened her a little, at the same time that she found i
t immensely reassuring. Although he had yet to declare any deep feelings for her, she knew, without any doubt, that her love for him was now an intrinsic part of who she was. She loved him, and that only made her stronger and more capable than she had ever been in her entire life.
She eyed the clock on the mantle. It was too late to cancel the Circle meeting tonight.
“What do we do if she turns up tonight?”
“I am going to be here,” Ben declared flatly. “She won’t be in a position to hurt you, Beatrice. I promise.”
“We have no proof that it was her, Ben. She could have sold that carriage to someone local.” When she sensed that Ben was about to argue with her, she turned her head to look at him. “While I am not protecting her, or trying to find excuses, we have to be logical in this. We saw someone running away from the scene of the carriage accident, we didn’t exactly see her. Well, I didn’t. There is nothing to say that the driver of that carriage was her, although I have to admit that it does look likely. What I am asking is; what do we do if she does turn up as though nothing has happened? We can hardly accuse her of trying to hurt us without proof.”
“I don’t want that woman in this house, Beatrice. She could have caused us both significant injury.” He held his hand up when he saw her take a breath to argue with him. “I think that while the finger of suspicion points in her direction, she has to stay away until she can prove her innocence. Tell her that the meeting has been cancelled; that you are not well or something.”
Beatrice kissed his jaw and leaned against him. “With the mystery over the plant to contend with as well, I don’t know how much more I can take.”
Ben sighed and drew her closer. He rested his head against hers while he tried to think of the best way to get them both through the evening ahead. Beatrice looked pale and shaken, while he was blazingly angry, and more than a little disgusted with Caroline Smethwick. He had no doubt in his mind that she was the one who had driven the carriage.
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