BooksBarbecue
Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

For the first time an expression of human warmth cracked the young man’s face, and he smiled. “Recovering—and cursing at the regimental sawbones for keeping him in quarters. The ball broke his collarbone, but did little other damage beyond the loss of blood—and the lad’s tough as boot leather. I cannot say I was particularly pleased to get word from you that you’d kidnapped him as you did, but following Hazlitt that night, when he fled Castle Island, I was glad that it was Muldoon you were with.”

“So that’s how you turned up so pat,” remarked Abigail. “I wondered how you knew where Gilead was. Even some tribes of Indians,” she added wryly, “got lost looking for the place.”

Coldstone’s face stiffened. “In fact, it was Miss Fluckner who alerted me to the fact that Hazlitt had come out to Castle William,” he said. “With so many true citizens of the Crown on the island, it was easy enough for anyone to conceal himself among them, which I suppose is what he counted on. He could have come upon Pentyre at any time, stabbed him, and disappeared into the crowd. He had this upon him.” From the pocket of his cloak Coldstone took a long, thin-bladed knife, of the kind stationers sell, to cut open the pages of books. It had been sharpened to a razor keenness. Abigail turned her eyes from it, remembering not only Perdita Pentyre’s mutilated body, but the fact that Hazlitt had also slaughtered Zulieka Fishwire’s cats.

Such men will continue killing . . . Coldstone had said.

God made me what I am, but I chose to fight for our rights . . .

God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and said, Things are this way because I am the Lord. There seemed nothing else to say.

“Miss Fluckner knew you were working with us?”

“Her father’s butler wrote her,” said Coldstone. “She came to me Thursday night, with her maid, soon after I got your note. They told me the maid had just seen the man who was pursuing her, there, on the island, in the fort. She pointed him out to me, but he was already making his way to the dock. I think he must have learned somehow that the game was up—”

Sons of Liberty on Castle Island, Orion had whispered feverishly to her. Watching for me . . .

Thank you, Sam. “So you followed him—”

“I knew that if he had killed his mother,” said Coldstone, “the only place left for him to go, was back to this Gilead that you spoke of in your note to me. And he would lead us there.”