was still airing after her night’s adventure in the rain, and tied it on while she hurried toward the river.
She knew the countryside better than Mr. Ames, who was taking the well-worn path over the fields to the bridge. Juliet ran directly to the river itself and followed its bank so that she could support Dan by coming at Ames from a different angle.
And if I’m wrong? If he’s just gone shooting birds?
He probably had. She could not really imagine him shooting anyone, let alone his wife’s nephew… And yet it was he who had passed the mushrooms to Dan.
And if I’m wrong, and someone else comes, then I’ll see them as well from here as from the garden. And here I can do something if I have to.
What that something was, she had no real idea. Until she rounded the bend in the river and saw she was about to intercept Mr. Ames.
She stopped dead, but the man didn’t see her. He was striding across from the meadow toward the bridge. And then something caught his attention, and he stopped. At once, she saw what it was.
Someone had scrambled down the riverbank to the side of the water. From the stillness of his head, he had fallen asleep. And from the shape of the hat, she knew who it was.
Asleep!
The stunning realization hit her almost at the same moment as she saw the gun emerge from Ames’s cloak. She began to run, coming at him from behind. He raised the weapon to his shoulder, taking slow, careful aim at the head of a man who could not even see him.
In pure terror, she screamed out a wordless warning, both to Ames and Dan, and launched herself through the air to land on Ames’s back.
*
Watching Ames with as much sadness as anger, Dan couldn’t quite believe his eyes when the tiny figure hurled herself out of nowhere, screaming like a banshee as she landed on Ames’s back.
His heart in his mouth, Dan popped out from under the bridge, pounding toward the two-headed spinning creature that was made up of his uncle and Juliet. She had landed on him with such force, that Dan was actually surprised Ames didn’t immediately fall forward on his gun. Instead, he spun around, trying to dislodge her, which gave her the opportunity to wrest the weapon from him and hurl it away.
Ames reached over his shoulder, grabbed her by her clothing, and sent her flying to the ground.
Dan emitted a sound of fury and cannoned into his uncle, flattening him beneath his body on the ground.
Ames stared up at him in utter bafflement, jerking his head around to see the hat and then back to the man who should have been wearing it. “What… what…”
Dan rose, hauling his uncle to his feet and started desperately toward Juliet.
She might have been winded by the force with which she hit the ground, but she was all spirit. She staggered to her feet, stumbling in the direction of the fallen gun. And then she saw Dan and Ames and behind them, the hat.
Her mouth fell open.
“I told you I had a plan,” he said apologetically. Dragging Ames with him, he picked up the gun, and only then let his uncle go. He unloaded the weapon.
By then, Juliet had stormed closer to the hat and seen enough to understand what he had done. She spun back on her heels, strode straight up to Dan, and slapped him across the face. With that, she burst into tears and hurled herself into his arms to kiss him full on the mouth.
“I thought I was saving you!” she cried.
Dan was enchanted. He closed his free arm around her. “You did, you are.”
“No, I almost got you killed instead! And now I’ve struck you for my own idiocy, and you’ll hate me, and I’ll never—”
He stopped all that by simply capturing her mouth once more. Which at least seemed to convince her that he was not angry.
Ames uttered a snort of disgust. “You’ll spread colds and diseases of all kinds.”
Dan drew back to stare at him. “You’re worried I’ll get a cold when you just tried to shoot me?”
“That’s the third time.” Ames sighed. “The first time, I didn’t really try very hard, wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. But even so, you have the luck of the devil.”
“Why?” Juliet demanded helplessly. “Why do you want him dead?”
“Hugh,” he said simply. “I don’t have very much, let Hugh run through what little