Adventurer Gone

  Adventurer Gone

  A Hettie & Ro Adventure

  Beth Byers

  Bettie Jane

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Also By Beth Byers

  Also By Amanda A. Allen

  Chapter 1

  “Oh my heavens!” Hettie muttered, tilting her head to the side. “Oh my heavens. Why do they do this?”

  A fist thumped against a cheek and blood sprayed from the man’s mouth to the sound of a resounding cheer. Hettie covered her mouth and gagged. Ro, on the other hand, laughed. Hettie tossed her friend a scowl and then paused when she realized Ro’s gaze was fixed on Hettie. She wasn’t laughing about the fight, she was laughing about Hettie’s near sick-up.

  The boxing match that Hettie and Ro had stupidly decided to watch moved at a furious pace. Hettie watched through her fingers. Ro’s laughing had caught the attention of a couple of spoiled-looking gents, but it might have been the fancy dresses and pearls that kept their attention. This wasn’t a prize fight, it was a street brawl complete with a crowd of shouting, smelly men. Ro had claimed it would be more authentic to see a street fight. Hettie amended that claim to gross and disgusting.

  One lurking man elbowed another, muttered something low, and both of them smirked at Hettie and Ro. The lascivious look Hettie received had her scowl morph into a furious frown. Ro swore that Hettie was lovely, but Hettie felt like a ginger-haired lobster with too much flesh about her hips, an abundance in her chest, and a tendency to freckle.

  Ro, on the other hand, was slim as fashion demanded, with lovely features, and a sparkle in her eye, and she was laughing so hard that tears were spilling down her cheeks.

  “The look you gave those blokes was enough to start a duel in another century.”

  “Maybe if I were a man,” Hettie said. “I told you men are evil.”

  “All men aren’t evil.” Ro smirked and sniffed snobbishly. “Just most of them.” Ro lifted her glass in a salute to their dead husbands. “To Leonard and Harvey.”

  Hettie grinned and begged, “If we leave right now, I’ll buy drinks and cake.”

  Ro’s condescending glance had Hettie’s gaze narrowing. “I don’t think we can get through the crowd,” Ro told her.

  Hettie’s wicked grin matched Ro’s as Hettie pulled out her parasol and turned to leave. When her polite ‘pardon me’ was ignored, Hettie poked her parasol into the crowd and leveraged her way through. Curses chased her, but she was able to escape. Ro almost missed the window created by Hettie wielding her parasol until she grabbed hold of Hettie’s waist and cursed at anyone who tried to separate them.

  “Your mouth is filthy,” Hettie told Ro when they escaped. “If you keep that up, eventually I’ll see my mother and I’ll use one of those words, and then she’ll lecture me for days. Ages. I’ll hear about it on her deathbed.”

  Ro didn’t react to Hettie’s comment. She rubbed her hands together in glee at the sight of the Rolls Royce. They had been faithful participants in their driving lessons all summer and they’d confidently—or foolishly, Hettie couldn’t quite decide—made the decision to leave their instructor and take the Rolls-Royce to the boxing match.

  “We’re idiots,” Hettie told Ro. “Fools. Why would we enjoy boxing?”

  “We’re trying new things, Hettie. We’re adventuring. Also, and this is the most important part, it was your idea.”

  “Not a street fight,” Hettie shot back, “that was you.”

  The Rolls-Royce might have a small scratch on the side. Hettie refused to admit that it was her who was responsible for that scratch, but after she’d marred the pretty Rolls, she’d decided to purchase her own auto. That way she’d only be besmirching her auto instead of Ro’s lovely beast.

  Hettie had a sunshine yellow 1921 Aston-Martin that was sassy. The fact that Hettie had purchased the auto because it was sunny and sassy had made her driving instructor’s eye twitch. Or perhaps that had been the speed at which she’d cornered and the trouble she’d had backing up.

  Nearly two months had passed since the two friends had met, lost their husbands, and declared themselves bosom buddies. They’d become friends and widows within twenty-four hours. Friendship, as it turned out, didn’t require a probationary period.

  Although, Hettie had to admit, holding each other up through a murder investigation might have sealed their friendship in an extraordinary way. With philandering, murdered husbands safely in the ground, Hettie and Ro were determined to experience all the fun and adventure possible.

  Ro was the chauffeur this time, but she knew Hettie didn’t mind. Hettie still felt bad about the scratch on the Rolls. She had said about a thousand times that the next time she scratched an auto it would be her sunshine baby, even while she denied it was her who had done the deed.

  “I’m positive that anyone paying attention to our antics finds it ridiculously excessive that we have two autos between us, but as my auntie always says, ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’.”

  “This is your American aunt?” Hettie asked. Ro’s family stories were nearly unintelligible as they almost always occurred when Ro was half-zozzled.

  “She’s English,” Ro explained. “Married an American timber baron for the money and pretends to embrace the culture. I think she just likes watching my mother flinch every time she pulls out an Americanism.”

  “Your mother is a classist snob who pushed you into a marriage with a philandering, mean—” Hettie paused as she considered what term to use for Leonard. “I’m going to go with bastard. Philandering, mean, bastard. Your mother’s opinion is, therefore, suspect.”

  “Accurate,” Ro muttered.

  “Why are we talking about birds?”

  “We’re talking about our excess of autos.”

  “We are?” Hettie frowned. She hadn’t gotten that at all.

  Ro laughed at Hettie’s perplexed expression as she muttered to herself. Ro knew exactly what she was doing. Hettie was counting her drinks to make certain she couldn’t possibly be zozzled. They did have that effect on one another.

  Hettie finally repeated Ro’s phrase again, and then shook her head. “How does that saying have a thing to do with our autos?”

  Ro tucked her hair behind her ear, adjusted her shoulders, and then glanced back at the road. “I’ll explain. Put your thinking cap on, my dear Hettie. If one bird in your possession is worth two birds only near your possession—you understand that in this scenario, our autos are the birds—then two birds in our possession are worth four autos we haven’t yet purchased.”

  “I see.” Hettie’s sweet Canadian accent made Ro smile. “What you are trying to say in a twisted Ro-like way is that we were being highly responsible when we bought two autos, so when the inevitable day came that we lost one, we’d have another at the ready?”

  “Exactly. Everyone should have a practice auto to drive in. Or lose.”

  Hettie snorted and muttered about being spoiled, but Ro ignored her.

  “Wait!” Ro crowed. “Maybe the most appropriate idiom is actually ‘a stitch in time saves nine.’ That’s better, don’t you think?” Ro tapped the steering wheel in time with her thoughts.

  “I don’t understand that one either.” Hettie slipped off her sho
es and propped her feet up in front of her.

  Ro just shrugged. Stopping to think about it, she didn’t understand it either.

  They took the next curving road too quickly and Hettie grabbed onto her seat as she swung towards the door.

  “It’s a good thing you have more money than—and this is the important part—your parents. You can simply buy another auto. Consider if we go to Bath in your auto, forget it, and then take the train home.”

  “You are a dear friend, Hettie. A pea in my personal pod, if you will. I’m not sure I can, however, imagine forgetting the auto.”

  “I will be the pea in your pod,” Hettie agreed. “You, dearest Ro, well, there is simply nobody else I’d rather adventure with. What trouble should we get into next?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “There are so many things to choose from,” Hettie said, smoothing her hair as they sped around the next corner and then righting herself as the car straightened out. “I believe Mr. Jones would have objected to how swiftly you took that corner.”

  Ro knew it was not a complaint. If anything, Hettie was laughing at the idea of poor Mr. Jones, driving instructor, who they’d had to give several bonuses to keep him as their teacher.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes,” Hettie agreed, “he certainly would have objected. In that high-pitched squawk he has. We could go fox hunting.”

  “Oh no, boring,” Ro said. “It’s all very proper and the fox doesn’t get away in the end. I hate that part.”

  “We could visit Cyprus.”

  “Mmmm,” Ro agreed. “Although, perhaps we should wait until it gets a little cooler here. Go when it’s the heart of dismal in England.”

  The next corner came faster than either was expecting. Ro slammed onto the brakes, but they still went bouncing off the road until they found a rather unexpected ditch. A field, if the glimpses of fence and cows Ro caught before they landed were accurate.

  When the auto came to a rather sudden stop, Ro’s head had hit the steering wheel with a bounce and then came to rest there. She thought she could hear Hettie moaning, but the sound was coming from outside the auto. The cows.

  Slowly, Ro pushed back from the steering wheel. “Oh, that’s going to bruise.”

  Hettie moaned and Ro glanced over. The auto’s sudden, bone-jarring stop had sent Hettie sliding forward, but she’d had her feet propped high on the dash, so only her bottom had slid off the seat, wedging her between the seat and the dash.

  “I think I’m stuck,” Hettie told Ro. Her bottom was on the floor of the auto, and she was sandwiched with her face touching her knees. “Yes,” Hettie said, wriggling. “I’m definitely stuck.”

  Ro stared, head slowly cocking and then she giggled. It was the sound a schoolgirl made when someone made shadow animals on the wall.

  “Ouch,” Hettie said, trying to shift, but unable to get a grip on anything. While Ro’s giggles grew to guffaws, Hettie attempted to open the door of the auto. The way they’d landed in the ditch made it impossible for her to push the door open. “Can you get out?”

  “I don’t know,” Ro choked through her laughter. “I can’t see. The tears are blurring everything.” Ro wiped them away.

  Hettie sighed and tried to bend her knees and use them to leverage out of her seat. Silk stockings prevented that, and she dropped back down. “Get out on your side and pull me out.”

  “I can’t,” Ro told her. “We might need some help.”

  “Try,” Hettie said and then groaned at one of Ro’s naughty words. Hettie paused. “Oh!”

  “See?” Ro asked triumphantly. “They do make things better.”

  “They taste bad in my mouth,” Hettie lied.

  “That’s your knee,” Ro laughed. She tried opening her own door, but it wasn’t working. She grabbed the level to let down the window and struggled to get it to turn, but was finally successful. Ro groaned as she climbed out the window of the auto, sitting on the side of the door with her legs inside and her head and torso out.

  The auto was pitched at an angle with Hettie’s side well and truly stuck in the mud. Ro’s side was clear, but the drop from the window to the ground might be unnavigable on a return. Ro glanced around, hoping for some handsome farmer to come to their rescue, but all she found were the big, beautiful brown eyes of a cow.

  Chapter 2

  “Get me out of here,” Hettie ordered Ro, who seemed to be entranced by an English longhorn.

  “Now,” Ro said carefully, “this isn’t a commentary on your size, but on my weakness. I don’t think I can.”

  Hettie shifted, trying to push up and then groaned. “At least pull off my stockings. I can’t get any grip.”

  Ro crawled back into the auto and yanked on Hettie’s stockings until she finally used a nail file to cut out Hettie’s feet.

  “I have an idea,” Ro said with a grin as she knelt next to Hettie and deconstructed her stockings.

  “Do you mean after we get rescued or before?”

  Ro shrugged. “Either way. You know what we should buy next? Motorcycles. Winter will set in soon and with it the cold, drizzly rains that are no good for motorcycles. Why wait for next summer? Let’s buy them now and get some good practice in. We can resume our efforts with your new auto once the grey sets in and sentences us to a dreary existence. What do you think? Say yes, Hettie? Please. For me.”

  “You realize that I am currently kissing my knees?” Hettie asked dryly. “I might also be permanently bent in half. And you have a bruise on your forehead from your own loving session with the steering wheel.”

  Ro grinned and Hettie felt her own corresponding wicked grin. “I have no reason to say no to you.” Belying her current position. “Shall we walk back to town and discover where one can even purchase a motorcycle? How hard can they be? I learned to ride a bicycle when I was quite small. It can’t be different, right?”

  “Yes, I need to stretch anyway. My ribs might be out of position.” Ro bent first one way, then the other with a grimace. “We should walk and make sure we aren’t concussed. I’m sure that’s what Dr. Hale would say if he were here, don’t you suppose?”

  Hettie grinned at the thought of the kind doctor with the lovely eyes and then scolded herself immediately. Men, she reminded herself, were evil creatures who lied about being in love. “You possess so much medicinal wisdom that you could probably pass any medical exams required to get your license. Shall I start referring to you as Doc Ro?”

  Another round of giggles and they extricated themselves in a rather unladylike way from the disabled, still-steaming, auto. Hettie had to put her feet against the dash, wrap her arms around the seat backward, and walk like a deranged monkey up the dash until she was able to slide her bottom back onto the seat. Once she did, she groaned and wiped pretend sweat off her brow.

  “You wouldn’t have gotten stuck,” she told Ro. “Because you have such a nice slim behind.”

  “Your behind,” Ro countered, “is lush and Junoesque.”

  “Exactly,” Hettie muttered.

  “You should love your skin and body, Hettie,” Ro said seriously. “Even if it works against the lines of today’s fashions. In the coming years, fashion will change, and I’ll regret my lack of a chest.”

  Hettie groaned, rubbing her back as she followed Ro out of the auto. Ro had to drop down into the ditch and then squawked. “There’s mud down here.”

  Hettie sniffed and then grinned. She tossed her shoes to the grass beyond the ditch and looked at her feet. She, at least, would be able to wipe her feet clean. Ro was going to be stuck with mud covered stockings. Hettie perched on the side of the auto, glanced down, and frowned furiously.

  “My pearls have broken.”

  Ro looked up from the muddy ditch. “You’ve also lost your hair piece and an ear bob.”

  Hettie glanced back, noted the spray of pearls across the auto, and hoped for honest farmers as she slid down the side of the auto and dropped into the dit
ch. The squelch was horrific.

  “Ouch,” Hettie said dryly, “and ew.”

  The ditch was only a few feet deep, so they were able to crawl out. Hettie rubbed her feet against the grass as Ro moaned about her precious, probably ruined auto purchase and let out a sigh.

  “You know,” Ro said, “I think we need a new wardrobe.” Her grin was delighted and then her laughter rang out. “We look like mad creatures escaped from bedlam.”

  “A new wardrobe?” Hettie asked, straightening her dress. It was a navy creation with embroidery on the scalloped hem, a torn lace overlay, and silver stitching at the neckline.

  Ro stretched, winced and asked, “Don’t you agree? Driving gloves, proper pants and driving shoes that aren’t so…so unwieldy. In fact, if anyone asks about this, let’s blame my shoes. I’m willing to admit I was driving, but I’d rather blame my shoes than the fact that I was entirely at fault.”

  Ro looped her arm through Hettie’s after she put on her shoes, and they started their careful walk through the field of cattle in an attempt to avoid adding animal excrement to their already ridiculously disheveled condition.

  “No,” Ro crowed, “not my shoes. It was your fault.”

  “My fault?” Hettie demanded. “I told you that you were taking those corners too quickly.”

  Ro’s grin was naughty enough for Hettie to know what came next would be as absurd as their current condition. “You must do something to contain your humor. You keep my side in stitches a good majority of the time and I feel that I might die on these motorcycles if you can’t at least attempt to be less funny.”

  Hettie snorted, groaned at the pain in her side, and pinched Ro’s arm as they walked. “The motorcycles will solve this dilemma for us since you won’t be able to hear me talk at all if we each have our own.”