A Lonely Rancher’s Wife Summoned the Blacksmith to Her Locked Bedroom — Then His Warning Made Her Tremble

CHAPTER 7: THE SMITH WHO CAME BACK

Daniel arrived at Willow Creek before daylight carrying a box of replacement hinges.
He had made the box himself because an ordinary repair call gave him a reason to approach the house.
Jonah had been instructed to remain at the forge with a hired worker until Daniel returned.
Rusk had promised to speak with a trustworthy clerk in Ashford about the forged survey.
Neither man could move quickly without warning Richard’s allies.
Daniel entered through the servants’ yard and found Ada waiting near the laundry room.
She took one look at his face and asked whether someone had followed him.

He said he had lost the rider who trailed him through the lower road.
Ada led him to a pantry and shut the door.
She said Marsh had spent the night in the guest room opposite Eleanor’s suite.
Vane had ordered the servants to keep the western stairs empty.
Daniel asked whether Eleanor had signed the document Marsh brought.
Ada said Eleanor had refused and was now being watched at every meal.
He told Ada that Lydia had discovered forged land records before she vanished.
Ada sat on a flour chest and covered her mouth.
She said Lydia had once asked her to carry a packet to the mill,

but Richard’s men had stopped her before she reached the creek.
Ada had returned the packet rather than risk losing it.
Lydia hid the papers herself after that.
Daniel asked whether the packet contained a deed.
Ada said she had never broken its seal.
She remembered a white thread tied around it and a drawing of a willow leaf.
Daniel told her that the older letter mentioned a hiding place ruined by water.
Ada stood so suddenly that flour drifted from her apron.
She said Lydia had spoken of a second hiding place that could survive a flood.
She had called it the dry heart of the house.

Daniel asked where it might be.
Ada said the answer was connected to the old waterwheel that once powered the estate’s grain mill.
The wheel had been dismantled long before Eleanor’s wedding.
Its iron axle had been brought to the ranch for storage.
Daniel asked whether the axle remained on the property.
Ada said a large iron beam rested beneath the stable floor.
Vane claimed it supported the foundation, but the beam had never belonged to the building.
Daniel remembered seeing the end of a hollow iron tube beneath the feed room.
He had wondered why someone used a costly piece of machined iron where an ordinary timber would suffice.

Ada said Lydia had been fascinated by the blacksmith’s work and often visited the stables to ask about unfamiliar mechanisms.
Daniel recognized the parallel with Eleanor’s recent visits.
He began to fear that the women had been led into similar traps by different people.
Ada handed him a scrap of cloth bearing three embroidered blue circles.
She said Lydia had sewn the design into several items before her disappearance.
Daniel showed Ada a rough sketch of Eleanor’s bracelet.
The housekeeper immediately recognized it as a wedding gift from Lydia’s mother.
She said Lydia had later given the bracelet to Eleanor without telling Richard.

Daniel asked how Lydia could have given Eleanor a gift if she vanished years before Eleanor arrived.
Ada lowered her eyes and admitted that the bracelet had been passed through another person.
She said Lydia’s younger sister, Margaret, had briefly visited Willow Creek while Eleanor was away in Richmond.
Eleanor never knew the visitor’s true identity.
Margaret had asked Ada to place the bracelet where Eleanor would find it.
Daniel realized that the missing bracelet had been introduced into Eleanor’s possessions deliberately.
The discovery made him question whether someone had used Eleanor as a hiding place without her consent.
Ada begged him not to tell Eleanor until they understood more.

Daniel refused to conceal something that could endanger her.
He said Eleanor deserved to decide what she would carry and what she would refuse.
Footsteps sounded outside the pantry.
Ada picked up a basket of towels and opened the door before anyone could knock.
Marsh stood in the passage, staring at Daniel’s tool box.
He asked why a blacksmith required access to the main house so early.
Daniel said Vane had ordered repairs to the western hinges.
Marsh replied that he had not been informed.
Daniel invited him to ask Vane.
Marsh looked at Ada and said he would.
Once the adviser left,

Ada whispered that Eleanor waited in the greenhouse after breakfast.
Daniel nodded and continued toward the stable as though he had come only to work.