The Bride Wore Constant White by Shelley Adina

Author:Shelley Adina
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-939087-77-5
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

Chapter 14

Monday, August 5, 1895 at 3:45 p.m.

When Daisy took her leave amid a flurry of invitations to come again, to take tea, to join the Ladies’ Aid, she gained the safety of Mr. Hansen’s front garden with a gasp of relief. She hadn’t told anyone that she and Frederica were merely in transit; nor had she mentioned that they were staying in the home of the deceased and the accused.

That would probably have dried up the invitations on the spot.

But she did want to remain friendly with the women of the town while she was here. One never knew when the observations and conclusions of a woman might hold just the bit of information that would help save a man’s life.

That odd little snippet about the desert flower, for instance. They’d been perfectly frank about speaking of the lieutenant’s scandal. Why not speak of one involving her?

She found Frederica’s coat hanging on a peg by the door, but she was not in the house. A look outside revealed her in the back garden, bent over a small enclosure. She pulled her sketchbook and a pencil out of her reticule and went to join her.

“What do you have there, Freddie?” she asked as she crossed what was meant to be a flagged walk bisecting a lawn, but the latter had no grass yet, despite the fact that it was summer. Only a wilderness of weeds, waiting for someone to care for it.

“I thought this was a tool shed back here, but it isn’t. He keeps chickens.” Freddie indicated several hens whose avid gazes soon returned to her when they realized Daisy had nothing edible in her hands. “I had no idea. Why didn’t he mention them, I wonder? Look, they have nothing to eat.”

“I expect he has had weightier matters on his mind. Let them out for a while ... though it is clouding over. I believe it may rain.”

As though they perceived their time might be short, the birds began to dig and weed energetically, and the heels of the loaf Freddie brought out were most welcome. She filled a pan with water and eventually located a burlap bag of dried cobs of corn that seemed to be intended for their consumption.

“I did not know you knew the first thing about chickens,” she observed as Freddie joined her upon the back step to watch the birds’ industrious tilling and weeding of the ground. She began to sketch their pleasing shapes in their various poses.

“I learned during my visits to Carrick House. Lady Claire keeps chickens in the garden, and at night they roost in a coop that walks about. I did not see that, however. But Lewis—I mean, Mr. Protheroe, her secretary—showed me how one cares for them. And you saw that there were a small number aboard Swan, did you not?”

The less said about poultry roaming the decks of otherwise respectable airships, the better. At length, shading in feathers and tails, Daisy said, “Was your visit to the Rangers useful?”

Freddie clasped her hands over one knee.

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