A few quiet steps to the side of the road, and you're obscured by the tangle of bushes there. You'll still have to duck if that man turns around, but it'll be easy enough to fully hide if you need to. Now, at least, you have the option to wait it out and see how this goes down before getting yourself involved.
A black dress catches your eye, and you look up to one of the second story windows. A young woman stands there, crying with her hand over her mouth.
The front door flies open, and an older man with a rifle steps out onto the porch.
"You were told to leave."
The younger man who takes his hat off and takes a step backwards. "Please, sir. I don't know just what Will wrote in that letter or why he would do such a thing, but I took such good care of Robert while he was sick and recovering from his leg wound. Better care than I even gave to myself when I was ailing hard. Never would I do anything to hurt him. Never. He was my closest friend. I was happy they were engaged."
"If that's so, then why have you been trying to court my daughter ever since you came back here?" the older man asks.
"Sir, Charlotte and I were writing all throughout Robert's illness, as I'm sure you know. He was too ill to write himself, so I helped him best as I could, then wanted to provide comfort in my own words as well. You can understand that, can't you? I never expected that Robert would—"
"William wrote that Robert was doing better. Much better. About to be up on his feet again, until you came back, started helping him again."
"Will's no doctor. He doesn't know what he's talking about," the young man says, his voice coated in something a bit more malicious than you'd heard before.
Something moves in the fog, just beyond the tree behind the house.
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