Gideon had begun to believe she ran away, but not returning for coins owed made that unlikely. “How do people know she was going to the dairy that day? Did someone see her?”
“My sister said the vicar’s wife told her that Milly Adcock saw her heading that way that afternoon with a milk bucket. That’s what they told Bill Carter, and that’s what he believes.”
“Then it must be so,” he said.
Martha Hinson did not appear to recognize sarcasm when she heard it.
“Did Milly Adcock tell the vicar’s wife whether anyone was with her?”
“She were alone,” Martha said emphatically.
“There’s one more stop we need to make,” he told Mia when they were out on the street. At her raised brow, he said, “The blacksmith’s forge.”
They found Bill Carter hot and sweating despite the bitter November day—a hazard of his profession, no doubt. He pounded on an iron wheel bent over a form, hammering it into shape. “What do y’ want? Have y’ found my Lizzy?” he demanded. He stalked toward Gideon, sledgehammer in hand.
“No, sir, we have not,” Gideon said. “After hearing your concern at the wedding, I decided someone needed to investigate.”
He studied Gideon from his heels to his hair. “Asked you to see what you’d say. There’s folks who think you did it,” he snarled, raising his hammer.
Mia grabbed Gideon’s hand.
“There are folks who believe many things that aren’t true. People at the dairy think you hit her. Did you?” Gideon replied without backing up.
“Not unless she deserved it,” Bill said, wiping his face with his free hand and smearing grime.
“Do you think she ran off with a man?” Mia asked.
“My Lizzy were a good girl, and I’ll kill the man that says otherwise!” Bill shouted.
“We heard she was seeking to earn money. Do you know why?”
“No. She’d a roof over her head and food in her belly. I needed her home looking after things, not running the street.”
“Did anyone send to the magistrate in Shaftsbury? Could she have gone there to work?” Gideon asked.
Bill Carter exploded. “Someone took her on her way to the dairy. You know it, and I know it. You better find out who done it before folks here take it into their heads it was you.”
It was a threat, pure and simple. Gideon didn’t care for threats. He wondered if Carter could have killed his daughter in a fit of temper, perhaps accidentally. Perhaps not. “We’ll talk to you again, Mr. Carter. Count on it.”
He offered his arm to Mia, and they went on their way.
“I think Hector and I need to take a walk between the dairy and Nether Abbas. If there’s something to be found, we’ll find it,” she said.
“We need to alert authorities in Shaftsbury, too,” he replied.
She grinned at him. “Have we created enough gossip for one day?”
“Not quite,” he said, and he kissed her right there on the street.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mia returned fromher search of the fields with Hector in the guise of a leisurely stroll with nothing to report. The walk had turned up nothing, not so much as the missing milk pail or a hair ribbon. If something had been there, Hector would have found it. She feared for Lizzy but had no idea what else she could do to help. They would have to wait for word from the magistrate in Shaftsbury.
She decided not to distract Gideon from his work on the ledgers. He’d said the sooner done, the sooner they could return to Wales. There was still time to manage it before winter set in in the Welsh mountains, but he needed to focus on the task he had come to do.
A passing footman carried a tray of sandwiches. “Mr. Kendrick and Mr. Marshall requested luncheon in the estate offices. We’re laying out for the ladies in the breakfast room now,” he said.
Drat. Luncheon with Lady Tavernash, the sour old woman. She sighed. Hunger called, and it would be self-centered to demand servants bring her a tray when they’d already laid out. She dragged herself to the breakfast room. Seeing the old woman scowling from the end of the table while a footman filled her plate, Mia made the shallow obeisance proper to a baronet’s widow.
