Ed released a sob.
Robert scowled and retorted, “We didn’t have anyone to help us. They’re all foxed. We’d be, too, if we hadn’t been so queasy from last night and too sick to lick another drop of spirits. Not a single person there would be of use to us.”
“Explain what happened,” Daniel said.
Robert’s forehead puckered. “Cousin Rachel, sour-faced as ever I saw her, said she needed some air away from the reek of smoke. She stepped out but never stepped back in. By the time I thought to go look for her—”
“How long would you say that was?” I asked.
“Maybe a half hour, maybe an hour…” He shrugged. “She was gone.”
Phineas, in a voice laden with regret and fear, suddenly said, “What if she ran away, Freddy—or—or worse? What if I drove her to that?”
The Welds brothers turned to him in bewilderment, but I knew what he meant. I furiously shook my head. “Don’t even think it.” I looked away from his white face, acutely uneasy myself. How despondent Rachel had seemed by the stream this morning. How alone.
“We won’t find answers here,” Daniel said. “Let’s go. If we rush, we might have some daylight left to search for her.” He glanced at Gid and me. “We won’t be back for a while. One of us should hurry through the chores that won’t wait.”
“Chores. Oh, hellfire!” Phineas gripped his hair. “I’m forgetting all about Marian and the farm. If I don’t make it back by sundown, she’ll worry herself into a conniption.” His head whipped my way. “Freddy? Would you take care of the livestock and see to my sister and the children?”
“Gid should do it.” Rachel was my friend. I had to find her.
Straightening, my brother nodded. “I’ll whip through the tasks here, then leave for your place.”
Before Gid finished the sentence, I was running toward the horses. Daniel caught up with me and said over his shoulder, “Get there as soon as you can, boys. Freddy and I will move faster traveling by horseback. We’ll follow Phineas and see what we can discover.”
*
Daniel kept the horse at a steady trot over the uneven ground, but when we turned onto Oak Orchard Road, he hastened her into a canter. I only had to hang on, and this gave me time to think.
Unfortunately, all I could muster was a recollection of this morning, my friend and what she’d said, words that now portended nothing less than disaster: I’d like to leave, too … just run away.… Of course, running away implies you have a home you’re escaping. I don’t have that. Middleton’s not home. This isn’t, either.
Why had I let her depart with her cousins? Why hadn’t I insisted she stay? Or why hadn’t I gone with her? And why, oh why, when she was so obviously wretched, hadn’t I told her I would put off a return to Middleton for as long as she needed me? Selfish, stupid Harriet. Rachel had been through so much, too much, in her life. How many losses could a person bear?
Daniel urged the horse to go faster. The increased jostling brought me to attention.
He was scanning the sky, his profile apprehensive. Clouds had formed, like dark wraiths joining in a sinister celestial coven. Obliterating the sun, they swung over the surrounding woods with menacing intent. A moment later, thunder growled from the south.
Phineas, not far ahead of us, shouted, “We must be close.”
Daniel patted my arm, tense across his waist. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”
We rode into the storm, as though we were hastening to greet it. Thunder increased in volume and frequency, and with a resounding crack, the sky broke apart. Rain shot down and soaked us in seconds.
But our destination was straight ahead, unmistakable even in the violent weather.
Scattered wagons half blocked the road, and nervous oxen and horses, tethered to the posts along the fence, shuffled and dripped. While the men hurried to the barn to look for a dry place to secure their mares, I raced toward the rain-blackened building, my boots slipping on the road, then the mill’s lane, both of which had loosened into mucky streams.
The doors and windows were open. People craned their heads outside and hollered merrily at the driving rain.
“Excuse me,” I barked at two beefy boys blocking the entrance.
Instead of simply stepping back, they laughed and lurched out of my way.
I desperately scanned the interior. It sported an entire party of rowdy drinkers, mostly men, sliding and stumbling across a floor not much different from the rain-saturated ground. It was slick and rank with tobacco juice and liquor. Some dancing, of a sort, was under way, but even the fiddler’s playing sounded drunk.
Phineas appeared beside me, shook the wet hair off his face, and spared a scorching glare at the offensive musician. “Do you see her?” His eyes searched the gloom.
I ground my teeth. “No.” How could I make out anything in this crowd?
It was pointless to look for Rachel among the revelers. I couldn’t picture her stomaching this event, not at all a lively sociable but more of a drunken mob. She’d seek another shelter—an outbuilding, if one existed—to wait out the storm.
I sidestepped between the strapping boys playing doormen and hurried outside, shivering in my wet shirt. Maneuvering around empty bottles and dips in the ground that had widened into good-sized puddles, I rushed along the building’s side, passed an overturned bench, and headed for the back.
The clearing didn’t go far before the forest started. A muffled roar sounded from the swift brook that ran snugly along the wheel side of the mill.
Woods or water: how easily either could oblige the despairing who wanted to disappear.
I fought the impulse to panic. Rachel had never despaired in the past. She was a survivor. I sluiced rain off my soaked head, wringing my hair’s short length like a just-washed handkerchief. Think. Remain calm. Stay focused, Freddy. A hysterical cackle popped out of my throat. Now I was calling myself Freddy, too.
I tried to check these disordered thoughts and concentrate. How much time had passed since the brothers had last seen Rachel? What had she said before parting?
There was something I was missing, some blatant possibility I was stupidly overlooking. I sensed this detail, yet it evaded me, like a butterfly fluttering just beyond my net. The nuance teased me back to their account: Rachel’s bad mood, her disgust with the mill party, her desire to leave, her wandering outside by herself. I blinked the damp from my eyes and stared at the millhouse, veiled with rain but still raucous with bad fiddling, slurred singing, cracks, and thuds. Things breaking. Bodies falling.
Why, why, had those foolish boys made Rachel linger here? Once they saw the unchecked behavior inside, they should have left. Anyone could see this wasn’t a fit place for a sensible person. And Rachel, more than anyone I knew, had good reason to find boozy behavior offensive, after all she’d endured at the Lintons.
At the Lintons … with Mr. Linton …
Drunken, abusive, disgusting, dangerous Mr. Linton.
The tickling half thought at last took shape.
Oh, no.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mr. Linton had kidnapped Rachel.
It struck me as an absolute certainty, even a God-granted epiphany.
And the revelation galvanized me.
I shot straight for the road, questioning, with livid disbelief, how the bloody hell this could have happened. Rachel would have put up a fight. Undoubtedly, at least a few of the attendees had loitered outside when she’d been taken. Were the revelers so drunk or selfish or stupid or callous that the sight of a young woman’s struggle couldn’t rouse them to action? Or perhaps luck had favored Mr. Linton. It was possible he’d found her on the property’s edge. He might have knocked her senseless and made away with her quickly …