Cautiously, she lifted it to her nose.
Tobacco.
Emma gritted her teeth. If George had needed proof of smugglers, this would be it.
“What is it? Can you tell?” asked Miss Bates.
Emma thought for a moment. Then she placed the package back where she found it. “Miss Bates, I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course, Mrs. Knightley. But why did you put that back?”
“Because I need Mr. Knightley to see exactly where I found it. Could you please go back and fetch him? Simply tell him that I have something to show him by the Langham Path, and please do it as quietly as you can.”
Miss Bates’s thin features registered consternation. “Mrs. Knightley, you begin to worry me.”
Emma gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s nothing, I’m quite sure, but Mr. Knightley will wish to see this. Do you think you can fetch him without attracting much attention?”
“I’ll try.”
“Thank you.”
Miss Bates picked up her skirts and hurried back toward the pond.
While Emma waited for George, she circled to the other side of the shrubbery. There was nothing else to be found there, so the only reasonable surmise was that one of the smugglers had accidentally dropped the package. It was, however, some feet away from the tracks in the snow, almost as if someone had tossed it there.
That made no sense.
And why had the smugglers travelled so close to Donwell in the first place? Were they coming from the direction of Abbey Mill Farm? That also seemed strange, since they would have had to travel across fields and wooded land. Why not just stick to the Langham Path, which would surely be easier for them than trudging across stubbled fields in the snow.
She glanced up when she heard George and Larkins coming to meet her. Unfortunately, they weren’t alone, as Mr. and Mrs. Weston followed behind. Emma had complete confidence in Mrs. Weston’s ability to keep a secret, but her husband was a different matter. While Mr. Weston did try his best to be discrete, it was often simply too high a hill for him to climb.
George’s long strides ate up the distance between them. “I wondered where you’d gone off to. Miss Bates said you found something I needed to see.”
“There’s Mrs. Knightley,” exclaimed Mr. Weston to his wife. “I told you there was nothing to worry about. No crisis in the offing, so no need to rush off.”
Unfortunately, therewasanother crisis in the offing.
Mrs. Weston leveled an exasperated look at her husband. “I was not inclined to rush off—you were. I only followed to keep you out of Mr. Knightley’s way.”
He grimaced. “Dash it, my dear, I’m only trying to help. Miss Bates was in such a tizzy when she arrived back at the pond, it was hard not imagine at least a minor calamity.”
Emma sighed. “Was she truly in a tizzy?”
“Not really,” George replied. “Just a trifle rattled. She said you found something.”
“I suppose by now everyone knows something is wrong.”
Mr. Weston waved a hand. “Never fear, Emma. The children don’t realize a thing.”
“It’s not the children she’s worried about,” Mrs. Weston dryly replied.
“Dash it,” he muttered.
“Emma, perhaps you can show us what you found,” said George in a long-suffering voice.
“Of course.”
First, she showed him the tracks in the snow. Both George and Mr. Weston crouched down to study them, but Larkins stalked back toward the house, obviously following the trail backward.
