The Original Miss Honeyford by M.C. Beaton Read Free Book Online Page B

the dueling pistol in his hand and then brought it down to the point. He frowned. “Doesn’t feel as if there’s a ball in it,” he murmured. “Balance is wrong.” He took off his hat and put it on the ground and fired the pistol into it. There was a flash, but when Giles picked up his hat and examined it, there was nothing to be seen but powder burns.
    Very white in the face, Giles turned to face the others. “You murderers,” he said coldly. Jerry raised his pistol and pointed it straight at Giles. Honey stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Giles whipped a steel Scottish pistol with a rams-horn butt out of his pocket.
“This
is primed. You fool, Jerry. Did you think I meant to kill you? Was that why you all cheated? But I will
now
, if you make a move.”
    “It was a mistake, Giles,” gabbled Tom. “All a mistake, I swear. I was sure I loaded it. Let’s forget about the whole thing and go back and talk it over at breakfast.”
    “You stay here and let me go my way on my own,” said Giles bitterly. “I hope I never see any of you again.”
    Honey sighed with relief as Giles stalked off. The others waited uneasily and then burst out into recriminations and counterrecriminations, Jerry saying that he, Jerry, could not hit a barn door and that he had only intended to take Giles down a peg, each one trying to lie his way out of a plot that had gone wrong.
    “But wasn’t that voice from Heaven deuced odd?” he then said, narrowing his eyes—which made him look even more horrible, thought Honey, watching from her perch, for he had very mean-looking eyes already.
    “I don’t believe in strange voices,” said Tom, all bluster and strut now that the danger was over. “It came from over there, I think.”
    And to Honey’s dismay, he pointed straight at the tree in which she was hiding. All five men began to walk toward the tree. Honey shook with fear. They would find her cloak at the bottom of the tree and would soon begin to climb up after her.
    But they had only gone a few yards when the field was suddenly filled with sheep. They seemed to appear out of the blue. They swept across the field in a great woolly mass, surrounding the men. Behind them came the shepherd.
    The shepherd stopped and surveyed the men. Jerry quickly turned down the lapels of his coat, which had been turned up so that his white cravat would not afford an easy target.
    “Been out for a walk,” said Frank. “Let’s go.”
    “I’ve a good mind to tell magistrate of what I seed,” said the shepherd, his large eyes fixed on the long dueling pistol which Jerry still held in his hand.
    “Now, now,” said Frank heartily. “No need to bother the magistrate about a little bird-shooting, heh?” He pressed a sovereign into the shepherd’s hand. The shepherd bit it, and then stowed it away in a pocket in his smock. He fixed them all with a bucolic stare. “Yes, as my friend was saying,” said Tom, “no need to make a fuss. Here, my good man.” Another sovereign found its way into the shepherd’s hand.
    The five shuffled out of the field, making their way carefully between the sheep.
    Honey waited for a full ten minutes and then gingerly climbed down the tree, going very slowly because her legs were shaking.
    She picked up her cloak and swung it about her shoulders.
    “Thou hast surely sinned, Miss Honeyford,” came a ghostly voice. “Interfere not in the sports of men.”
    Honey gave a gasp and the color drained from her face with fright. The voice had come from the other side of the tree. Honey was a firm believer in ghosts, but something forced her footsteps around the broad bole of the tree to see what demon was on the other side.
    Lord Alistair was leaning negligently against the trunk.
    “You!” said Honey in accents of loathing. “How dare you frighten me so! And how dare you stand there like a… a…
nothing
. You are a
man
. You should have done something.”
    “Ah, so there
is
something