“And is that not worth a hearty laugh or two,” he muttered as he got out of bed and faced the day, the warm glow from the night’s lovemaking fading quickly.
By the time he had finished his breakfast and called for their horses to be brought round, Bened decided it was past time to settle the matter of what help he might need and what he might be able to get from his family. He had seen Primrose briefly at breakfast and told her they had to keep moving so he knew she was getting ready. She understood the need for that as well as he did. The longer Augusta Wootten ran about free to create havoc, the more people died. It might be true that a lot of them deserved the fate they got, but anyone who thought they had the right to coldly take a life could not be allowed to run about free.
Argus walked out to wait for the horses with him. “I should go with you.”
“You have guests,” Bened said, “and I do not think I have need of an army to get to Elderwood.”
“I would say we could watch your back but none of us can do that as well as you can. What I will do is set out a watch for her, try to stop her here. Best I may be able to do is slow her down, though.”
“That would be most helpful. She has been a step or two behind us all along, close enough to send someone out to try to kill us on the road. The last time she tried that, she nearly succeeded in killing Primrose.” He nodded when Argus cursed. “A day or two of travel without some dangerous confrontation with her hirelings would be a blessing.”
Argus shook his head. “All this blood spilled for a barony. There must be a very fat purse that comes with it.”
“I have no idea,” confessed Bened. “Society is mostly a mystery to me and I’d never heard of the Woottens or the Baron of Willow Hill. They have land, a manor house, her father could afford to support himself and his children as well as his brother and the man’s murderous wife, and both Primrose’s horse and her attire are not those of a poor person. That is all. Never asked her if there was a lot of money for her aunt to get her bloody hands on.”
“For that woman to go to all this trouble there has to be some money. Or, that woman knows how to use something the baron has to get a lot of money. I think I may look into that. Although it does you no good at the moment, it may be of use afterward. If the woman does not end up dead, she will need to be tended to by the courts.”
“Oh, Aunt Augusta will never allow herself to be taken before some magistrate,” said Primrose as she stepped up beside Bened. “The humiliation of being treated like some common criminal would be more than she could bear.”
“So, what? Do you think she would end herself?” asked Bened.
“The more the possibility seems possible, the harder she will fight. And then she will wash the blood from her hands and become the foolish vain woman who fooled us for so long.”
Bened cursed. “And some magistrate would never believe her capable of what she is being charged with. Nor, I suspect, would a jury of her peers.”
“She is quite good at playing the vain lackwit whose only concern is the style of her gown and if she is going to get the right invites to the right events. And, sad to say, since that is what so many expect such a woman to be, they believe that is just what she is, who she is. That woman could never do the things we would be accusing her of. She lacks the intelligence and guile. Or so they would believe.”
“What you are saying is that she must die before this can all truly be over with,” said Argus.
Not hearing any condemnation or disgust in his words, simply acceptance of a fact, Primrose nodded. “I can see no other answer. It truly is her or us. I would feel worse about it except that she does have a lot of blood on her hands and some of it from people I cared about.”
“Are you thinking there may have been others you might not even know about?”
“I am. If this is how she is rid of barriers to her dream of being an important person in society, then what did she do to anyone who blocked her from making that rise?”
Nodding, Bened frowned in thought. “It is also another thing that would be very hard to prove.” He took her by the arm and escorted her to her horse. “We had best be on our way. Argus and the others are going to try to keep Augusta off our trail for a while.”
“That would be lovely.”