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Barricade?
Barricade!
What the blazes was the witch up to now?
Fearing his imagination had already worked out the answer, Rafe sprinted back to Atlas, and then rode at pace across the empty market square towards the London Road.
He did not have to go far down the only lane to freedom from the growing nightmare that was Whittleston on the blasted Water to discover why none of his eager potential buyers had turned up. Not only was the entire width of the rutted road to nowhere completely blocked with placards, but the villagers had built a haphazard blockade out of everything from hay carts to milk churns. To one side, in case Rafe was left in any doubt that the lunatic villagers intended to sabotage the viewings for the duration, someone had erected a substantial makeshift tent out of planks and oilcloth where a cheery bonfire burned. Above that was a spit upon which some meat was roasting and even from a distance he could also see several kettles were suspended on metal hooks spouting steam.
In the thick of the melee, like Wellington at his battlefield command headquarters, Miss Gilbert stood giving orders. It was then that somebody spotted him and at least fifty smug faces turned towards him—hers included. Even from this distance he could tell her eyebrows meant business, causing him to experience a moment of unease as he warily stared back.
As he neared, her disciples parted like the Red Sea to allow her through, then gathered behind her scowling with their homemade signs held aloft to intimidate him.
The comely witch had the gall to feed his mount an apple as she stared up at Rafe smarting in his saddle.
‘Good morning, Lord Hockley. I trust you are having a pleasant day.’
‘It is against the law to block the road.’ He had no idea if it was or if it wasn’t, but as she had the upper hand as well as the reinforcements, the only weapon he had in his ill-equipped arsenal was bravado. ‘Remove yourselves immediately or I shall have the constable arrest you all.’
‘Go on then.’ She wiped the last remnants of the demolished apple from her palms and shrugged. ‘Go fetch the constable, and the magistrate too while you are about it, because we are not moving unless someone in the high official office tells us to.’
She was calling his bluff, damn her, and in front of a baying audience who all hated his guts. And by the defiant glint in her lovely eyes and saucy angle of one arched brow that amused her.
Instead of grabbing the nearest placard and snapping it in half as he wanted, Rafe forced himself to breathe slowly and remember his favourite colonel’s words of wisdom.
Stay calm.
Appear reasonable.
Stay measured.
Remain in control at all costs.
‘Miss Gilbert, I am not sure what you hope to achieve beyond a stint in gaol, but this is ridiculous.’ Rafe mirrored her amused expression as he swept his hand in the direction of the protestors as if he wasn’t the least bit shaken by the sight of them and his poor heart wasn’t hammering like a woodpecker in his chest. ‘We are not at war.’
‘What is ridiculous, Lord Hockley, is that you thought you could sneak a full-page advertisement in The Times past us. One that announces your intention to sell our village out from under us for a song.’ Her hands went to her hips—her rather distracting and womanly hips—while she waited for him to explain himself.
‘I take issue with the word sneak, Miss Gilbert, for it suggests I have been disingenuous when I absolutely have not. In fact, I have been nothing but honest with you. I have made it plain that I intend to sell, and during my last—and to my mind—cordial meeting with the village’s representatives, I even went as far as granting you the final say in the sale. In writing, Miss Gilbert, as was requested. I have not rescinded on that promise, nor has anything changed in the short week since, so I do not understand this at all.’ He pointed to the enormous red and white SHAME ON YOU, LORD HOCKLEY! banner which had been strung across the lane like a ship’s sail from the branches of two tall trees. ‘This is hardly in the spirit of reasonable compromise which I remain convinced we had agreed upon.’
‘The same meeting where we all agreed to let the dust settle until we were all in full possession of the facts before we did anything rash?’ He could tell by her innocent expression she was about to hoist him with his petard. ‘Are we to assume that you clean forgot the pertinent and significant fact that you had already placed an advertisement in the most influential newspaper in the land? Or are you just a bare-faced liar, Lord Hockley, who we cannot trust as far as we can throw?’
‘I take exception to that accusation as I have never lied to you.’ He forced himself to hold her gaze even though the suppressed need to wince was painful. For a man who prided himself in his abilities as a good leader of men and a born diplomat, he had made a total pig’s ear of this. For some inexplicable reason, from the moment he had set foot in Whittleston, all those abilities had deserted him, or he had ignored them in his blinkered haste to be shot of the place, and he had handled everything wrong.
‘You omitted to tell us the whole truth then? Which in my book is just as bad.’
‘I should have mentioned it and I apologise wholeheartedly for that slip.’
Her vexing brows arched in mock surprise. ‘Oh, it was a slip, was it? Well, I suppose that combined with your insincere apology makes all your cloak and dagger skulduggery perfectly acceptable.’ The brows now flattened in disgust as the damning full-page advertisement materialised from behind her back. ‘You’ve had a week to appraise us of this.’
Rafe sighed then tried a different tack. ‘How on earth do you expect me to sell the estate without informing people that it is available for sale?’
Miss Gilbert read the advertisement aloud. ‘“Society is but a stone’s throw away.”’ She rolled her eyes at his choice of headline. ‘“Nestled in five hundred acres on the picturesque and fertile banks of the River Thames and only twenty-five miles from the excitement of London, Hockley Hall presents the rare opportunity to reside in the heart of the picturesque countryside yet still be conveniently situated close enough to the capital to feel its pulse.”’
Her eyes snapped back to his.
‘You have a poetic and evocative way with words, my lord, and a canny knack for romantic descriptions. This alluring advertisement waxes lyrical about watching the sun rise over the sublime river views, galloping through the rolling parkland and benefiting from the economic virtues of the rolling pasture which surrounds it. It even extolls the many health benefits of the fresh air and space which eludes them in London. In just five hundred and two words...’ Of course the witch had counted them. ‘You reiterate the infinite potential of the land thrice and for such a bargain price too—but nowhere in this flowery promise of paradise do you mention that our ramshackle village happens to lie smack in the middle of those five hundred acres. Why is that?’
She paused only long enough to blink.
