Read Online Bonfire Night by Deanna Raybourn - Free Book Online

What has been done to recover her?”
    She shrugged. “Well, that’s not for me to say, is it? She’s no housemaid, so she isn’t under my supervision. She’s her ladyship’s responsibility,” she added slyly.
    “Oh, for the love of God,” I began, but Portia cut me off with a sharp hiss.
    “You know Jane is speaking,” she said,
sotto voce
, but the damage had already been done.
    “LOVE OF GOD,” crowed Jane the Younger.
    Plum rolled his eyes. “Excellent work, Julia. You have lost a maid and corrupted the youth of the family in thirty seconds. I commend you.”
    “Do shut up, Plum,” I said through gritted teeth.
    “SHUT UP,” Jane the Younger screeched.
    Portia swept inside with her daughter and the nanny while I sent Morag and Jack to join them. Brisbane and Plum organised a search party for Liddell from amongst the household staff. In a remarkably short time we had divided up and began to cover ground. Brisbane and Plum searched the copse, on the grounds that if she had fallen, she would need to be carried back and that task would fall more easily to one of the men. I volunteered to walk into Narrow Wibberley to ask if she had been seen. I passed the plague cottages, pausing to have a quick nose around for any sign of her. But the little dwellings were as sober and still as they had ever been, and I hurried on. I called in at the post office and the pub and the smithy, but no one had seen her. My last stop was the vicarage, where Mr. Belton kindly gave me a quick cup of tea and the promise to begin searching at once on his own. He did so with a smile behind his hand, and that, coupled with Mrs. Smith’s odd manner, persuaded me that somehow our village ghosts were behind this newest misadventure.
    I left him abruptly, suddenly tired of their childish tricks, and made up my mind to return with Brisbane to London as soon as the girl had been recovered. I strode purposefully through the churchyard, but on a whim, I stopped. The churchyard was a small one, and the largest memorial was clearly that of the family who had inhabited Thorncross Manor. It was the most impressive construction, a lavish affair of sculpted angels and wreaths of roses, and the bronze plaque, though worn with age and weather, confirmed what I had begun to suspect.
    I hastened from the churchyard as quickly as my stays would permit, making straight for the copse. As I walked through the little wood, the leaves began to rustle. My heart beat faster and I sped along, slowly becoming aware of a deep breathing behind me. I dared not turn, but broke into a run as did my pursuer. My plan was not an elaborate one, for there was no time for such things. I intended to dart behind a tree once I had passed a bend that would conceal me for a moment. From my hiding place I could either flee another direction or face down the villain behind me.
    But I had left it too late. Just as I rounded the bend he reached me, touching my shoulder. I gave a banshee shriek and turned to defend myself, expecting to clip the fellow neatly on the chin. As it happened, my pursuer was rather shorter than I had anticipated. My tidy blow to his jaw landed instead on his temple and he fell as swiftly and flatly as a felled tree.
    At that moment Brisbane rounded the bend and took in the scene before him. “Julia, did you assault the vicar?”
    “Yes. But I had an excellent reason,” I told him.
    “I have no doubt of it. Shall we see if he is still living?”
    We bent and prodded him, looking for significant injury, but he bore none. Of course, this did not prevent him from abusing me in the foulest language possible when he came to consciousness with the result that Brisbane struck him a second blow, this one landing precisely where I had intended mine. A spectacular bruise was blossoming on the fellow’s chin as we marched him into the manor.
    Mrs. Smith stared at him with wide eyes, but he shook his head, wincing. “Never mind, Smithy.”
    She rushed to bring him