The Artist's Healer - Regina Scott Page 0,78

face, feeling her touch, he knew he had made the right choice this time.

He took her hand and kissed it. “I love you, Abigail Archer. Let’s catch a spy.”

~~~

He loved her. She could feel it in his touch, hear it in his voice. She could almost see it shining in the brine-scented air. Though they were tracking danger, she wanted to skip up the hill, throw flower petals into the sky.

They would think her as whimsical as Mrs. Tully.

She didn’t care.

But she did care about locating the French spy calling himself Doctor Owens. She would not allow him to endanger the man she loved again.

Nancy Haughsby at the Swan offered the first clue. The chambermaid nodded as Abigail asked her about the morning.

“Yeah, I seen him,” she said, hands on her ample hips. “Bag in hand and strutting out the door, bold as you please. I wondered at the time if he’d paid his shot, but it’s not my place to question a fine fellow like him.”

“Did he turn left or right out the door?” Abigail asked.

She wiggled her lips a moment before answering. “Left. Down toward the village.”

Abigail thanked her, then led Linus out onto High Street.

“Mr. Ellison is up early to make his bread,” he mused. “Perhaps he saw someone.”

“And if he didn’t, we might be able to rule out the shore,” Abigail agreed.

Mr. Ellison had been working, but his son had been out in front of the shop, watching for early customers. He could vouch for the fact that Doctor Owens had not passed that way.

“But I’d like a word with the good doctor,” the baker said, rolling up the sleeves on his burly arms. “Mrs. Archer told me what happened last night. No one accosts our magistrate, our Riding Surveyor, or our physician.”

He insisted on following them back up the street, leaving his son in charge of the bakery.

One by one, here and there, they gathered more clues. Mr. Carroll had not seen Owens, though he had been up as well, preparing to accept a shipment from London. He too joined their train. Mrs. Kirby had seen Owens after returning from Linus’s new home with the key and had noticed him heading toward Castle Walk. Mr. Lawrence had recently taken a house on that street. His wife had come upon the sham physician passing when she’d gone out to her garden to snip chives to go on the eggs. The jeweler was at work, but his son, the militia drummer, ran to fetch the magistrate at Abigail’s request.

“He’s making for the castle,” she told Linus and their followers as they waited at the end of Castle Walk. “The French boat was still in the caves beneath the headland, last time I heard. Perhaps he’ll attempt to sail it himself.”

“But the earl already took up residence,” Mr. Ellison protested. “He can’t just wander into the castle and expect a welcome.”

“A fine physician from Scarborough?” Abigail countered. “He may not receive an audience with the earl, but he could request a tour. Visitors often do that at the great houses. Mrs. Kirby will tell you how many times she’s had to fend off requests to visit the Lodge.”

“We should wait for the magistrate,” Mr. Carroll said with a glance up the headland. “He’ll know what to do.”

“We can’t wait,” Mr. Ellison argued. “We have to catch him now. They might not grant tours to the likes of us, Carroll, but we could come in through the kitchen. My Jenny has a job there now. She’d let us in.”

Linus shook his head. “We must do nothing to make him feel threatened. We don’t know whether he’s armed. And we cannot allow him to take the earl or his daughter hostage.”

“Then perhaps,” Abigail said with a look to him, “we should request a tour too. Surely the earl could spare a moment for the physician who treated his father.”

Linus smiled. “He might at that.”

In the end, they divided to conquer. Mr. Ellison and Mr. Carroll went to the back of the castle and the kitchen door; Abigail and Linus knocked at the front. She had hoped the earl had requested help from Mrs. Catchpole and she would recognize the staff, but the tall, slender footman who answered the door was a stranger to her.

“Doctor Bennett and Miss Archer, calling to welcome the earl to the area,” Linus told him. “I had the honor of attending his father, the late earl. I believe you came with him when he was last