“She’s ridin’ with Master Bran!” she cried out. “I seen her! Look! There in the woods!”
Shannon leaned forward, craning her neck to see over Oplas’s kerchiefed head. “Let me past,” she said as Brandon, Henry, and Sam cleared the trees. She jumped off the flagstones and began running toward the riders just as Cody, coming from the direction of the fields, joined them.
Breathless by the time she reached them, Shannon had to gulp air before she could find her voice. She stared at her sister, pale and obviously shaken, but appearing to have not suffered any great injury for all that she was clinging to Brandon. “Are you all right, Aurora? I was worried.” She extended her arm toward the house. “Everyone was worried.”
“A show of concern that comes rather too late, don’t you think?” asked Aurora. She brushed back a strand of black hair that rested against her cheek, revealing a smudge of dirt. Lifting her chin, she studied Shannon contemptuously, her violet eyes scornful. “It was your doing that caused my fall.”
“Aurora!” Brandon said sharply. “We don’t know who cut the strap.”
“Iknow.” Her voice rose. “I know.” She pointed a shaking finger at Shannon. “She’s the one with the most to gain. She wants me dead.”
Shannon gasped at the accusation. “No! It’s not true! I would never—”
“Don’t defend yourself, Shannon,” Cody told her, placing his horse between Shannon and Aurora. “When Aurora has come to her senses, she’ll realize you couldn’t have done it.” He motioned to his brother. “Please get Rory out of here, Bran.”
“That’s right. Take her side. It wouldn’t surprise me if you encouraged her.”
“Enough!” Following Cody’s advice, Brandon kicked his horse’s flanks.
“I’m sending for the authorities,” Aurora called back over Brandon’s shoulder. “She tried to kill me! I’ll prove it!”
“Don’t listen to her,” Cody said grimly once Aurora’s voice had ceased to carry. He ordered Henry and Sam to find the other grooms. When they left, he dismounted and began walking beside Shannon, leading his horse. “She doesn’t know who did what, Shannon. And neither do we. I wish Brandon hadn’t told her about the cut girth and then she wouldn’t be the wiser. Heaven knows, if she hadn’t been in such a hurry to ride out, she would have seen the thing for herself, and the fall could have been averted.”
“But not the intent,” said Shannon quietly. “The fact remains that someone deliberately tried to cause her harm.”
Cody had no response. He put his arm around Shannon, feeling despair in every line of her body, and continued toward the house in a silent anguish of his own.
Brandon was waiting for them in the drawing room, standing at the mantel but gazing out the window on the opposite wall. He visibly shook himself out of his reverie as Shannon approached him. “Aurora’s gone to her chamber,” he said, answering the question she had not voiced.
“Was she hurt at all?”
“She claims she will be bruised, and she was limping when Henry came upon her.”
“He found her, then?” asked Cody.
“Yes. A little dirty, more than a trifle angry. It was her pride that suffered at that point.”
Cody shook his head. “Why did you tell her about the strap?”
“I didn’t. Henry did. It was inevitable that she would find out anyway. Once she examined her tack, she would have seen it. Aurora has enough sense to know the difference between natural fraying and knife etchings.”
“I didn’t do it, Brandon,” said Shannon.
Brandon’s shock was a palpable thing. “I never thought you did. I don’t give any credence to Aurora’s ravings.”
“But the authorities might. She will bring some official from town to investigate.”
Cody snorted derisively. “And he’ll find that he has no end of suspects. Brandon and myself among them.” He sat in a wing chair, folding his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling, a half smile on his lips. “After all, we threatened to do murder often enough.”
“I don’t understand how you can take this so calmly,” Shannon said.
“Because I know I didn’t do it.”
“Let us hope the constable believes in your innocence,” Brandon said dryly. “And my own, for that matter. Aurora is likely to accuse everyone at the folly save Clara.”
“The main thing is that we turn suspicion away from Shannon,” Cody said decisively. “Aurora only pointed to her because she knows Shannon’s history. It made her a convenient target.”
Shannon took the chair beside Cody, sitting rigidly on its edge. “What am I to do? Who will believe me?”
