Quick, Amanda by Lie By Moonlight Page B

believe that he had brown hair,” she said politely.
    “Is that all you can recall?” the stranger demanded angrily.
    “I’m afraid so, sir. Like Ned here said, there was nothing in particular to remark about him.”
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    “Where in blazes would she find a hired guard around here?” the gentleman asked.
    They both looked at him, politely blank-faced, and said nothing.
    “I’m wasting my time,” he muttered.
    Without another word he turned on his heel, walked out of the inn and got into the waiting carriage.
    Ned scooped up the coins on the counter and walked into the office. He put a comforting hand on
    Lizzie’s shoulder. Together they watched the vehicle roll out of the yard and turn in the direction of the
    village and the train station.
    “Mr. Smith was right when he said that someone would likely come around making inquiries about the
    teacher,” Ned said.
    She shivered. “Thank goodness Smith did not ask us to lie in exchange for the money he gave you. I
    don’t think it would have been easy to fool that man.”
    Smith’s request yesterday morning had been simple and quite straightforward. He had put ten pounds on
    the counter and spoken very politely to Ned. “There will be questions asked. Feel free to say that the
    teacher hired me to see her and the girls safely onto the London train. But I would take it as a
    great favor if you could keep your description of me as vague as possible.”
    “In a manner of speaking we did lie,” Ned said. “We told the man from London that there was nothing
    remarkable about Mr. Smith.”
    “Well, there wasn’t,” she said. “At least not in regard to his features or his height.”
    “There was something about him, though . . .” Ned let the sentence fade away, unfinished.
    There was no need for words, she thought. They had both been in the innkeeping profession long
    enough to have become sound judges of human nature. There had, indeed, been something about Mr.
    Smith, something remarkably dangerous. But the teacher had seemed to trust him and that had been
    good enough for her. Because there had been something about the teacher, too.
    Lizzie had seen the sort of fierceness and determination in the woman that one saw in females throughout
    the animal kingdom when their young were threatened.
    She reached up to cover Ned’s fingers with her own. “Never mind, the business is finished, at least as
    far as we’re concerned, and we’ve nothing to complain of. We’ve turned a nice profit.”
    “True enough.”
    “What is it that still troubles you?”
    Ned exhaled deeply. “I’m damned curious about why Mr. Smith didn’t ask us to lie outright. Given the
    amount of money he put on the counter yesterday morning, I expected him to instruct us to say nothing at
    all about him or his companions.”
    “Instead, he merely asked us to keep any description of him to a minimum. It does seem peculiar,
    doesn’t it? Ten pounds is a lot of money for such a simple request.”
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    “Got a hunch,” Ned said slowly, “that Smith wanted to be certain that the gentleman from London was
    told that the teacher and her students had a bodyguard.”
    “Why?”
    “Perhaps because he wanted to warn him off.” Ned rubbed the back of his neck. “But there is another
    possibility.”
    “What?”
    “Smith may have wished to distract the elegant man.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “If you saw a hungry tiger closing in on a flock of helpless lambs, one way to turn him aside from the kill
    would be to drag the scent of more interesting prey beneath his nose.”
    She tightened her hand abruptly around his. “Must you use the word kill ?”
    “Figure of speech, my dear,” he said quickly, soothingly.
    “I wish I could believe that.” She sighed. “I hope we do not see either one of those men again.”
    11
    The blue and