I thought I knew what was distracting Kit, but I decided to make sure.
“It can’t be easy for you,” I said casually, “having so many new employees to manage.”
“They’re hard workers,” he allowed, “which is surprising when you consider their backgrounds. They all come from well-to-do families, you know. None of them need to work.”
“Even rich boys will get their hands dirty when they have the right motivation.” I swirled the tea gently in the cup. “Annelise seems to think they’re trying to impress Nell.”
“Yes, well…It’s understandable, isn’t it? Nell is…” Kit’s gaze turned inward as his voice trailed off. He stared hollow-eyed at nothing for a few seconds, then shook his head as if to clear it and got to his feet. “Don’t move, Lori. Stay here with the packs and finish your tea. I’m going to prove to you that my tracking skills aren’t as rusty as you think.”
I could almost see Nell’s image dissolve mistily in midair as Kit tore his mind away from her and focused it on the task of tracking Rendor. It’s a start, I told myself contentedly. Next time I’ll mention how good-looking and well built the new stable hands are. Then I’ll wonder aloud why so many strong, handsome, hardworking, filthy-rich, and utterly besotted young men have failed to make so much as an inch of headway with Nell. That would give Kit something to think about.
While I was busy sipping tea and scheming, Kit was searching the cemetery for more clues. Now that his heart was in it, he was as single-minded as a bloodhound. He began at the stone bench and worked his way outward in ever-widening circles, bending frequently to touch a blade of grass or a vagrant twig. He seemed to take a great deal of interest in a clump of wild geraniums at the clearing’s northern edge. After crouching over it for some time, he called out that he would be right back and disappeared into the woods.
I was about to call Annelise, to tell her not to put lunch on hold for me, when my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my breast pocket, saw my husband’s name and number on the little screen, and reminded myself that he’d be much better off not knowing about my vampire hunt.
“Hi, Bill,” I said cheerily. “How’s the work on the Shuttleworth bequest coming along?”
“It’s like herding cats,” he said dismally. “Every time we lasso one clause, another three start yowling for attention.”
“I hope you’re not going to take out your frustrations on Stanley when you get home,” I said. “He worships you.”
“Stanley worships his food bowl,” Bill stated flatly. “As far as he’s concerned, I’m just a warm lap.”
“But you’re his warm lap,” I said, laughing.
Bill managed a weak chuckle, then said, “Enough about me. What are you up to?”
“I’m relieving Kit of his boredom,” I replied. “Emma ordered him to take a few days off, and he didn’t know what to do with himself, so I’ve taken him out for a hike.”
“In this weather?” said Bill. “How charitable of you.”
“Not entirely,” I admitted. “I have an ulterior motive.”
“I thought you might.” Bill sighed. “Go ahead, tell me the worst.”
Bill hadn’t heard about the situation at the stables, so I told him about Nell’s herd of young stallions, then outlined my campaign to show Kit the error of his ways and help him achieve his heart’s desire.
“I wish you luck,” said Bill when I’d finished. “Kit’s dug his heels in pretty deeply when it comes to Nell, but if anyone can budge him, you can. Where is he, by the way? He can’t be within earshot, or you wouldn’t be talking about him so freely.”
“He’s…hunting for wild mushrooms,” I said, because, I told myself, it could be true—Kit might find a mushroom or two trodden underfoot by Rendor—but I felt a stab of guilt nonetheless and hurriedly changed the subject. “Did you know that there’s a pet cemetery on Emma’s Hill?”
“I did not,” said Bill.
“I’m sitting in it right now,” I told him. “It looks as though it’s been here for ages. Some of the headstones are so old you can hardly read the inscriptions.”
“A problem foreseen by Mrs. Shuttleworth,” Bill said dryly. “She left instructions for us to set up a special fund to pay for the construction of a cat mausoleum. I won’t be surprised if it’s air-conditioned. Listen, Lori, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to touch base. I’m glad to hear that you’re having a better day than I am.”
“It’s just about purr-fect,” I agreed.
Bill groaned, promised to call again in the evening, and rang off, but I kept the cell phone out to call Annelise.
“You’re missing the boys’ lesson,” she informed me.
I clapped a hand to my forehead. I’d completely forgotten to attend the boys’ riding class as part of my cover story.
“Whoops,” I said. “Are they very disappointed?”
“Not at all,” said Annelise. “They think you’re hiding in the manor house because you’re afraid—”
“Of horses, yes, I know what they think,” I broke in, bridling. “Well, I’m not hiding in the manor house. I’m up on Emma’s Hill, hiking with Kit. I’m helping him to enjoy his time off.”
“If I had a day off, I’d spend it near a roaring fire instead of tramping through the woods,” said Annelise, “but I expect Kit wanted to get away from the stables.”
“I expect so,” I said. If Annelise was inclined to believe that Kit had come with me because he couldn’t stand watching the new stable hands drool over Nell, I wasn’t going to argue with her. “At any rate, don’t wait for me after the boys’ lessons. Just give them lunch and take them to school as usual. If it looks as though I’ll miss dinner, I’ll let you know.”
“How will you get home?” she asked.
“I’ll cadge a lift from Kit or Emma,” I said.
“Good,” said Annelise. “I’m going to do some shopping after I drop the boys off at Morningside, so I’ll stay in town until they’re ready to come home.”
“Have a good time,” I told her, and rang off.
I slipped the cell phone into my pocket and finished drinking the tea. I’d just returned the insulated flask to Kit’s pack when he strode into the clearing, looking both pleased and rather ashamed of himself.
“I should never have doubted you or the twins, Lori,” he called as he crossed to the stone bench. “Someone has passed this way. Come along—I’ve lots to show you.”
We donned our packs and headed into the woods, walking away from Anscombe Manor and toward the cleft between Emma’s Hill and the unnamed hill to the north, still following the level shelf we’d been following since we’d left the apple tree. We hadn’t gone far when I spotted a neon-orange plastic ribbon tied to a short length of stiff wire protruding from the ground beneath a fountain of damp brown bracken.
I pointed to the eye-catching ribbon. “Rendor didn’t leave a calling card for us to find, did he?”
“It’s mine,” Kit informed me. “I always carry a pocketful of flags with me. I use them to mark protected species of wildflowers, so Emma can find and photograph them when she has the time. Fortunately, they work just as well for footprints.”
When we reached the neon-orange flag, Kit pushed the withered bracken aside to reveal the unmistakable print of a long, narrow, pointy-toed boot.
“The bracken kept the print from being washed away by the rain,” he explained. “You can still see where Rendor bent a few fronds in passing.”
I gave a low whistle. “So I was right. I did find a footprint back at the apple tree.”
“You certainly did. And it was made by the same boot that made the print you see here. The toe marks are identical.” Kit plucked the flag from the ground and put it in his pocket.
“Good idea,” I said. “If Rendor comes back this way, we don’t want him to know we’re trailing him.”
Kit glanced over his shoulder, toward the pet cemetery, then let his gaze roam up and down the hill, as if he were taking stock of the terrai
n.
“This is the route I’d take,” he said, “if I wanted to move quickly without being seen. It’s not an established trail, so I’d run little risk of meeting anyone. The footing’s not bad, and there’s plenty of cover. I’d be far less exposed here than I would be along the ridgeline.”
“So I was right about that, too,” I said happily. “Rendor was sneaking around in the woods.”
“He was certainly behaving in a suspicious manner,” Kit conceded, and took off again. “Come along. I found more traces up ahead. I may be mistaken, of course, but I think I know where Rendor was going.”
We moved on, pausing every few yards to examine the telltale signs Kit had marked with his flags—a broken branch, a crushed plant, a partial boot print. If he wanted to impress me with his tracking skills, he succeeded. It would have taken me a month to find half the clues he’d discovered in just over an hour.
Gradually the shelf began to curve around the shoulder of Emma’s Hill, becoming narrower and narrower until it petered out completely on a ledge that overlooked the river valley to the east.
“I stopped here to go back and fetch you,” Kit explained, bending to pull the last flag from the ground. “If I’d continued to follow Rendor’s tracks, I’m almost certain that I would have ended up down there.”
He drew a wavering line through the air to indicate a sketchy trail that wound downward from the ledge and vanished in a dense grove of trees extending from the bottom of the hill outward into the valley.
“What’s down there?” I asked.
“Aldercot Hall,” he replied. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s nestled in among those plane trees.”
“Aldercot Hall?” I said, peering curiously at the stand of trees he’d indicated. “I thought I knew our neighborhood pretty well, but I’ve never heard of Aldercot Hall. Who lives there?”
“The DuCaral family,” said Kit.
“I thought I knew my neighbors pretty well, too,” I said, chagrined. “Why haven’t I heard of the DuCarals?”
“They live in the wrong valley,” said Kit, smiling. “You’re familiar with the families on the other side of the hill, the families in and around Finch, and they tend to be a bit parochial. As far as they’re concerned, Aldercot Hall might as well be on the dark side of the moon. Apart from that, the DuCarals like their privacy. They don’t go out of their way to mix with their neighbors.”
“If Rendor’s gone there, the family might be in trouble,” I said. “He might be holding them hostage or…worse.”
“I doubt it,” said Kit. “From what I’ve heard—” He broke off suddenly, turned away from the valley, and sniffed the air.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Look,” he said, jutting his chin toward the forest. “Smoke.”
I followed his gaze and saw a thin column of smoke rising above the canopy of trees.
“Good grief,” I said, astonished. “How could anything burn in this weather?”
“I don’t think it’s a wildfire,” said Kit. “It looks to me as though someone’s camping in Gypsy Hollow. Perhaps I read the tracks incorrectly, Lori.”
I gazed up at him, wide-eyed. “Do you think it might be Rendor?”
“It might be,” said Kit, “but leave your stake in your pack for now. We have some rough going ahead of us. I don’t want you impaling yourself—or me—if you stumble.”
I grinned ruefully, but my pulse was racing as we began our descent into Gypsy Hollow.
Eight
Kit’s description of our descent as “rough going” was appallingly accurate. He walked back around the shoulder of the hill for a short distance, then simply stepped off the edge of the shelf and plunged downward with the carefree air of a suicidal mountain goat. I gulped apprehensively but plunged after him, clinging to trees, grabbing at bushes, and wedging my boots behind rocks to keep myself from cartwheeling down the slippery slope. I’d hoped to creep up on Rendor as stealthily as a panther, but I ended up slithering uncontrollably downhill and sliding into Gypsy Hollow on my bottom.
Kit was already there, upright and with a dry bottom. I eyed him reproachfully, then scrambled to my feet and scanned the hollow for a pale, bone-thin lunatic in a silk-lined cloak.
Instead, I saw a deeply tanned, barrel-chested middle-aged man standing in the doorway of a small, mud-spattered, and very dilapidated motor home. He wore a dark brown, oiled-cotton rain jacket over a frayed and baggy blue sweater, and he’d tucked the legs of his brown corduroy trousers into a pair of round-toed Wellington boots. One glance at his footwear was enough to tell me that he wasn’t responsible for the prints we’d found up on the shelf.
Whoever he was, he’d clearly made himself at home in the hollow. A patched nylon awning on four telescoping poles provided a simple rain shelter for a bicycle, a rickety-looking canvas camp chair, and a folding table. Beyond the awning, a cast-iron stockpot hung from a tripod over a campfire ringed with large rocks. An old-fashioned teakettle sat on a flat rock near the fire, inside the ring of stones.
The folding table had been set for a solitary meal by someone who couldn’t afford fancy travel gear. I noted a tin cup, a plastic plate, cheap silverware, a bottle of milk from the local dairy, a plastic carton filled with sugar, and a tin teapot covered with a shocking pink knitted tea cozy. A dented ladle rested on a plastic saucer beside the teapot, stained, presumably, with whatever was simmering in the cast-iron pot.
Unruly tufts of grizzled hair framed the man’s creased and weathered face, and a glimmer of amusement lit his bright blue eyes as he walked down the steps of the motor home and ambled toward us.
“G’day,” he said, grinning broadly. “You certainly know how to make a grand entrance, little lady. Haven’t seen anything like it since my old boss trod on a fresh cowpat and went arse-over-teakettle into the water trough.” He came to a halt before us and stuck out his hand. “Name’s Leo.”
“I’m Kit,” said Kit, shaking Leo’s hand. “And this is my friend, Lori. I work at Anscombe Manor.”
“Right,” said Leo, nodding wisely. “You’ll be wanting to know why I haven’t been round to ask your boss if I can stay on his land. Truth is, I just rolled in a couple of hours ago, and it took me a while to set up camp. I planned to pay a call on the manor after I’d had some tucker.”
He inclined his head toward the cast-iron stockpot. The mouth-watering aromas emanating from it reminded me forcefully that I hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast.
“I won’t be here for long,” Leo continued. “No more than a week at the most. Do you think you could square it with your boss for me, Kit? It’d spare me the bother of traipsing over there, and it’d spare him the bother of mopping up after me and my boots.”
Kit looked from the rusting motor home to the white hair framing Leo’s wrinkled face and said, “I’m sure the landowners won’t mind, as long as you leave the site as you found it.”
“No worries, mate.” Leo’s broad grin returned, and he thrust a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the folding table. “You’re welcome to join me. There’s plenty to go round.”
“We’ve got sandwiches,” I said hastily, not wanting to take anything from someone who seemed to have so little.
“What good are sandwiches on a rotten old day like today?” Leo demanded. “You need something hot to take the chill off.” He leaned closer to me, cupped a hand around his mouth, and added in a stage whisper, “And between you and me, little lady, your drawers could do with a bit of drying.”
The comment was nothing short of outrageous, but the rascally twinkle in Leo’s eyes was so endearing—and my bottom was so wet—that I couldn’t resist the invitation.
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll be happy to join you.”
“Good on ya,” Leo said cheerfully, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’ll put plates on the table for you.”
“Please, don’t trouble yourself,” said Kit. “I have everything we need.”
“In that case,�
�� said Leo, “you take my chair, Lori, and I’ll fetch something for me and Kit to sit on—unless you’ve got a sofa in that big pack of yours, Kit.” He winked good-naturedly, turned, and headed for the motor home, calling over his shoulder, “Back in two shakes!”
“What a nice man,” I murmured after he’d climbed into the motor home. “I’m glad you’re okay with him camping here.”
“To be honest, I’d rather he stay at the manor house,” Kit said softly, “but he strikes me as a man who likes his independence.”
When we reached the shelter of the awning, I slung my pack on the relatively dry ground, moved Leo’s chair from the place he’d set for himself to the other side of the table, and stood with my back to the fire, drying my “drawers.” Kit paused to peer into the stockpot, then set two new places with camping ware he unearthed from his pack.
He was warming his hands at the fire when Leo emerged from the motor home, carrying two camp stools. He handed one to Kit and planted his own in the spot previously occupied by the camp chair. In a little over two shakes, we were all seated at the table, drinking cups of sweet tea and digging into the rich, savory stew Leo had ladled from the pot onto our plates.
“Kit, eh?” Leo said, as we began to eat. “Kit as in Christopher?”
Kit’s mouth was so full that he could do nothing but nod in response.
“I knew a bloke named Christopher once,” said Leo. “Never left the town he was born in. His patron saint was wasted on him. St. Christopher’s for travelers, not stay-at-homes.”
Leo’s accent intrigued me. There seemed to be several layers to it, though one was more prominent than the others.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “but are you Australian?”
“No such luck,” said Leo, “but I lived there for some forty-odd years—long enough to pick up the lingo. I’m reverting to my old ways, though.” He lifted his mug, crooked his pinkie finger genteelly, and feigned an effete English drawl. “By the end of the month, I’ll be wholly unintelligible to my chums in the Antipodes.”
Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter Page 7