Free Death at Dawn by Caro Peacock

better come and see her.’
    ‘Just what I was going to suggest myself, miss.’
    The landlord was lurking in the hall, probably listening.
    ‘Your receipt – madam.’
    I tore it out of his hand. He looked up at Amos Legge then down at me with a greasy gleam in his eyes that made me want to kick him. I wanted to kick the entire world. I stalked out of the door, Legge behind me. I more than half resented him for bringing this female and when he came up alongside me, walking respectfully on the outside of the pavement, I kept as much space between us as I could. He must have sensed my mood because he uttered no more than ‘Left, miss,’ or ‘Across ’ere, miss,’ taking us towards the landward side of the town, away from the crowded streets.
    Who was this Rancie person? Badly treated servant girl? Wronged wife? Betrayed sweetheart? Any of those could have appealed to my father’s chivalrous and romantic instincts. He’d eloped with my mother and they lived ten years blissfully together until fever took her. He grieved all his life, but there is no denying that his nature inclined to women. He loved their company, their beauty,their wit. In our wandering life together there’d been Susannas, Rosinas, Conchitas, Helenas … I do not mean that my father was a Don Juan, a ruthless seducer. If anything, quite the reverse. Far from being ruthless, he’d do almost anything to help a woman in distress. His purse, his house, his heart would be open to her, sometimes for months at a time. Undeniable, too, that some of the Susannas, Conchitas and Rosinas took advantage of his chivalrous nature.
    ‘There’s no great ’urry, miss. She won’t run away,’ Amos Legge protested.
    I suppose I was walking fast. We were clear of the town now, only a farm and barns on one side of the road, a broken-down livery stable on the other.
    Well, if it had happened like that, it wouldn’t have been the first time. But it had been the last. Violent husband or bullying father had resented it, caught up with him. For the first time, my unbelief in the black lie wavered. Suppose, against his will, that he had been forced into a duel after all.
    ‘Nearly there, miss,’ Amos Legge said.
    We were level with the farm. I expected him to turn in at the gateway. Perhaps my father had instructed him to lodge this Rancie hussy out of town, for her protection. But we walked past the farm gateway and turned in under the archway of the livery stable with its faded signboard, Hunters and Hacks for Hire . There was a groom sweeping the yard. Amos Legge nodded at him and took my arm to keep me from treading ina trail of horse droppings. I drew the arm away. Seeming unoffended, he walked over to a loose-box in the corner, letting out a piercing whistle. A horse’s head came over the door, nostrils flared in curiosity, eyes bold and questioning.
    ‘What …?’
    I was caught off balance, assuming that our journey was not yet over and we would have to ride. Amos Legge stroked the horse’s nose, whispered something then turned to me, the grin back on his face.
    ‘Well, miss,’ ere’s Rancie for you.’ Then to me, alarmed, ‘My poor little maid, what be you crying for?’

CHAPTER SEVEN
    I had the story of Rancie from Amos Legge, sitting in a broken-down chair in the tack room, saddles and harness all round us and flakes of chaff floating in the sunbeams that pierced the curtain of cobwebs over the window. He stayed respectfully standing at first.
    ‘You see, miss, it all starts with a Hereford bull, look. Red Sultan of Shortwood ’is name was in the ’erd book, only we called ’im Reddy.’
    He was clearly one of those storytellers who liked to take his time. I suggested he should sit down. He settled for a compromise, hitching a haunch on to a vacant saddle tree. I’ll abandon my attempt to record his accent because in truth the broad Hereford he talked is the hardest thing in the world to pin down. Those dropped ‘h’s, for instance, are