“So he must know he is in danger now. That is a relief. Yet, why has he not tried to reach me? If he knows the enemy is on his trail he must also know that I am.”
“He may but who does he trust to give you a message? Much safer to just tell everyone not to let anyone know that he has passed their way. Then they cannot be tricked into revealing anything to the enemy instead of the friend.”
“Silence is golden.”
“Certainly safer.”
“Do you think I now waste our time hunting for him?”
“Oh, nay. He will discover that soon enough and will then try to safely meet with you. We stay on his trail to give him that chance. The fact that he now works to hide his trail tells me that your aunt and her hirelings have gotten too close from time to time. Your brother is in dire need of some ally, someone to watch his back.”
Those words both pleased and frightened her. She had not wanted to stop looking for Simeon so was happy Sir Bened agreed that they should continue. If he had decided she should stop and go home or someplace he decided was safe, they could have come to a parting of the ways. Primrose knew that she could not stop now, she had to find Simeon and, if he already knew he was in danger, she had to stand with him. Although grateful beyond words for Sir Bened’s aid, this was a family matter and when Simeon faced the threat from within their own family, she had to be at his side.
“This has turned out to be a very tangled web you have gotten tangled in,” she said.
“Nay, I am not leaving.”
She scowled at him. “That was not what I said.”
“Aye, it was.”
“Well, then, it is a reasonable thing to contemplate.”
“It might be reasonable if and when we certainly find your brother. I untangle myself now and you return to riding about alone. Not a good plan. The theft of your horse was not the first attempt to stop you from continuing in your search, was it? Just why were you separated from your horse when I found you?”
Primrose silently cursed. She had hoped he would not ask that question. Before it had been because she had not wished to drag him into the mire with her. Now it was because he would just use the information to strengthen his opinion that she could not continue alone, that even if Simeon was sitting right around the corner, it was not safe for her to turn that corner alone.
“Some hunter shot at his game too close to me and it startled Smudge.”
“So she tossed you.”
“I fell, lost my grip when she bucked in alarm.”
Bened gave her a look that silently asked just how gullible she thought he was. “Of course. Tell me, how close was this shot?”
“Not close at all. It hit a tree several feet behind us.”
“Would it, perhaps, have been a tree you had just ridden by?”
“Perhaps he mistook us for game?”
“Strange-looking game. Sounds as if he might need spectacles too. Very strong ones. Or he was a man who had little practice shooting at moving targets or one who even thought you might pause for a moment to admire the tree.” He could not fully suppress a smile when she growled at him.
“If someone was trying to kill me, then why did he leave me lying in the road? I would have been a very easy kill. As it was I had only just roused myself when I heard a carriage coming. I got out of the way then.”
The image of her sprawled in the road while a carriage raced toward her chilled Bened to the bone. “He did not check on you because he believed the carriage would finish the job he had begun. I believe that if you think back, each and every problem you have had in finding Simeon can be attributed to intentional interference.” Her shoulders slumped and he resisted the urge to comfort her. She knew he was right and it was past time she faced the dangerous days ahead of her with a sharp, clear eye.
“She knew what I was about from the beginning. When she did not get blamed for Papa’s death, she probably began to immediately plot the many ways she could get rid of me and Simeon.” Primrose shook her head. “Long years of resentment and envy have twisted her mind. It was always there. That ability to be rid of anything and anyone in her way or which annoyed her, has always been there. It was just never turned against us before.”
“The death of your father made her see the chance to get everything.”
“Which makes it even more plausible that she killed him when he threatened to take away what she had managed to hang on to, all through his generosity. And she would only kill the man who held the purse if she believed she could soon get it all.”
“True and that is truly a shame. He sounds as if he was a good man.”