In answer, there was a third shot, clearly ringing out from behind the house.
“That’s fortunate, then, isn’t it?” Gray quipped, and they took off at a run into the darkness around the side of the house.
With heavy rain pelting him, stinging his face, he circled one side of the manor while the captain went around the other way. The lightning, which had been blocked by the heavy curtains in the drawing room, flashed stark and white across the sky every few moments, and the thunderclouds boomed close by.
They reached the terrace simultaneously, then headed into the gardens, and finally onto the back lawn. All was quiet.
Suddenly, he heard barking, recalling the spaniels who’d dashed off toward the trees that morning.
In the brilliant, blinding flash of the next lightning bolt, he spied one of them running hell bent toward him, something in its mouth.
As it approached, Gray could see the dog had a chicken. A moment or two later, the other one appeared, and for a moment, he thought it had been shot because of something sticky plastering its soft fur, but it was running too well.
“Drop it,” he ordered the dog, and to his surprise, the dog released the dead bird. Obviously, it was well-trained for hunting. The other dog, however, scooped it up and took off toward the house with its littermate in pursuit. Gray couldn’t tell if it was covered in mud or blood.
“I’ll get ye,” came a voice out of the darkness, along with the familiar sound of a shotgun barrel being snapped back into place after reloading.
“Sir,” Philip called out, “you are on Angsley land. Lower your weapon.”
“What?” came the man’s voice. And another flash of lightning showed he’d turned toward them, gun haphazardly pointed in their direction.
“Lower your gun,” Gray repeated the captain’s command.
“Or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Philip added, sounding as piratical as Beryl said he was.
“Oy, some foxes have been at me chickens,” the man said, but he did as told and lowered his shotgun.
“Not foxes, sir,” Gray explained. “His lordship’s hunting spaniels.”
“What ye say?”
“It’s true,” Gray added. “We just saw them with one of your chickens. Your name, sir?”
“McNeil. My place is just past the grove, about two furlongs to the west. Spaniels, you say?”
“Yes. Come back tomorrow,” Gray instructed him, “and you’ll be compensated for your chicken.”
“More than one,” he said. “They dropped the other one. That’s two chickens.” He held up his hand, two fingers pointed to the sky.
Philip muttered something under his breath about counting chickens.
“Tomorrow, then,” Gray reminded the man. “And don’t fire your weapon on Angsley land again. You could have hurt someone.”
“Bah!” grunted the man whose name Gray recognized as a local farmer. “Blasted dogs.” And he wandered off.
They watched him take a few steps, and then they turned and started back to the house.
“Stuff like that doesn’t happen on board ship,” Philip pointed out. “Far more peaceful on the high seas.”
Gray laughed. They went inside through the servant’s door, finding the dogs had got there ahead of them. The spaniels, filthy and still fighting over the poor cockerel, were contained in the mudroom. When informed a stable hand had been called to take the dogs away and clean them, Gray and Philip removed their muddy shoes and damp cloaks and headed in their stockinged feet for the parlor.
“Just an angry farmer,” Gray explained to the waiting group, though he couldn’t seem to look away from Eleanor’s big, brown eyes.
“I bid you all goodnight again,” the captain said, saluting with his pistol before disappearing upstairs once more.
“A good man to have at one’s side,” Gray said, taking a seat next to Eleanor. “Did I miss anything exciting in here?”
“We were discussing literature,” Eleanor said, and he realized he was relieved he’d been outside in the pouring rain. The deluge was preferable to the silly romantic serials in the paper that women usually discussed, none of which he’d read or had an interest in reading.
