Lord Perfect

by Loretta Chase

  Even as mere clouds, they boded ill. This was how the sky had looked yesterday before it loosed the torrents that drove them indoors.

  Below and to the east of the New Lodge, one caught glimpses of Throgmorton’s large lake, between the trunks and branches of the trees and shrubbery bordering it on this, its western side. On the eastern side lay a series of temples and grottoes, cunningly situated so as to be visible only from certain points along the pathway. At its southern tip, the lake narrowed and spilled into a picturesquely steep cascade that tumbled into a river. In the decreasing intervals of sunlight, the restless waters sparkled. Mainly, though, they were murky, like the sky.

  Rathbourne, Lord Northwick, and Peter DeLucey stood talking a few yards away from her. Occasionally they looked up from their discussions, to study the heavens.

  Though the aristocratic countenances revealed little emotion, she doubted the conversation was optimistic.

  If it rained as it had done yesterday, the children would seek shelter, and they had all too many hiding places to choose among. If it rained as it had done yesterday, searching for them would be far more difficult, nearly impossible.

  The afternoon was waning. In a few hours, night would fall.

  Another day would be lost.

  I’ll have another night with him, Bathsheba thought.

  She wanted another, and another. She wanted that badly; at the same time she doubted she could bear another day. The passing hours were hard enough.

  She’d steeled herself for the break, today.

  She was ready to be strong, today.

  She was not sure for how much longer, though. She’d already had her nerves wrung to pieces with a series of false alarms. Three times Lord Northwick’s search parties had cornered tenants’ children by mistake. Once, they’d cautiously surrounded what turned out to be an escaped pig rooting under the shrubbery near a “ruin” built in the last century.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rathbourne step away from the others and start toward her. Northwick and his son set out in the opposite direction.

  She quickly returned her gaze to the clouds roiling above the temple.

  “Northwick is sending men out to investigate the latest rumors,” came Rathbourne’s low voice beside her. “One of the local women thinks she saw the children at some point along the eastern boundary wall, not far from the main gate. Another report puts them nearer a gate along the northern boundary. I’ve told him we’ll stay where we are. It makes no sense for us to chase every rumor. At any rate, it is time we had our tea.”

  “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  “You’re pale and chilled,” he said. “You ate scarcely anything at breakfast, and nothing at midday. If you faint dead away when the prodigals finally put in an appearance, people will mistake you for one of those fragile creatures you insist you are not. That would be extremely awkward for me, considering the pains I have taken to assure Northwick that you are a determined woman of strong principles.”

  “A waste of breath,” she said. “He would never believe one of my ilk knew what a principle was.”

  “He does believe that you are determined to leave Throgmorton as soon as you retrieve your daughter,” Rathbourne said. “He has agreed to put a carriage at your disposal.”

  “A private carriage?” she said. “Have you taken leave of your senses? All you need do is lend me coach fare.”

  “No, I do not,” he said. “You dislike stagecoaches. On account of the jolting and crowding and drunkards and puking and vermin, remember?”

  “Then a place on the mail,” she said. “Or a post chaise, if you must be extravagant. But I beg you will not send me away in one of my relative’s private carriages.”

  “I am not sending you away,” he said. “You are sending you away. Because of noble principles. Which I am obliged to respect, curse you.”

  She turned and looked up into his handsome face, though it hurt her. He wore the same bored expression he’d worn at the Egyptian Hall, but his dark eyes were gentle. Oh, it was affection she saw there, worse for her. If he were truly bored and distant she would not long so much to touch his cheek.

  “How do you think I feel?” she said. “I have a handsome, wealthy aristocrat in the palm of my hand, and I must let him go.”

  “Dream on,” he said. “I find you merely tolerable.”

  “Imagine how I feel,” she went on. “I can look back on generations of utterly amoral, conscienceless DeLucey ancestors, any one of whom wouldn’t have hesitated to ruin your life and bankrupt you for good measure. Why couldn’t I be like the rest of them? But no, I must be the one cursed with scruples.”

  He smiled. “I shall never forgive you for that, Bathsheba. For that and a great deal else. I believe I shall nurse a . . . grudge . . . to the end of my days.”

  “Ah, well, at least you won’t forget me,” she said.

  “Forget you? I should as easily forget a bout of whooping cough. I should as easily—Damnation.”

  He looked up and raindrops splattered his face.

  “Come inside,” he said. “There is no point—”

  “M’lord!” came a shout from not far away. “Sir! This way!”

  They both turned toward the sound.

  “It’s Thomas,” Rathbourne said. He ran that way. Bathsheba ran after him.

  Chapter 17

  WHILE LORD NORTHWICK’S MEN WERE searching the northeastern section of the estate, Peregrine and Olivia had been making their way in the opposite direction.

  A high wall surrounded Throgmorton’s park, as Peregrine had expected. Since Swain the pawnbroker had said the mausoleum was in the southwestern corner of the park, this was the way Peregrine led Olivia. Eventually they came to the stream Swain had mentioned. Thanks to the recent rain, its waters were high and muddy, rushing along a route it more usually meandered at a leisurely pace.

  Peregrine was sure there would be a bridge, and near it a gate, to accommodate carts and wagons. Not many yards farther on, the bridge appeared, and the expected gate, which, though locked, was not guarded.

  Climbing over it was no problem.

  Once inside the property, they kept to the cart track, which followed the boundary wall. At first the thickly wooded landscape hid the rest of the park from view. But after a few minutes, the track began to climb, and Peregrine spotted the lantern-topped dome of the mausoleum.

  “There it is!” Olivia cried.

  Birds flew up from the trees, squawking.

  “Be quiet,” Peregrine said. “I can see. Do you want all the world to know we’re here?”

  But she was already hurrying up the hillside, along a narrow path that did not seem to be used very much. Peregrine glanced up once at the sky, then followed her. He did not like the looks of the clouds. At this point, though, it made no sense to travel all the long way back to the Bristol Road again because of bad weather.

  They could take shelter from the rain at the mausoleum, he thought, under its portico. If they had to spend the night—and that seemed likely—they could do it in one of the numerous other buildings adorning Throgmorton’s park. Peregrine doubted they’d all be locked—not that he supposed mere locks could stop Olivia.

  He saw her slip, and hurried to catch up with her.

  “Do watch where you’re going,” he said. “Can’t you see the ground’s still wet? Do you want to break an ankle?”

  She didn’t seem to be listening. Her eyes were on the mausoleum.

  “It’s bigger than I pictured,” she said. “Fancier, too. They’ve put a dome on top of the roof, and a rectangular box on top of the dome, and a little ball on top of the rectangular box. And they’ve stuck all those urns or pots or whatever they are on every roof corner.”

  The decoration didn’t surprise Peregrine. What did surprise him, when they reached the top of the hill, was how secluded the place was. The mausoleums he’d seen had been built for show, and dominated their immediate surroundings. Though this was typically grand, i
t was very private, with only a small stretch of lawn about it. A dense wall of tall shrubbery and trees almost completely enclosed the space.

  “This isn’t the fanciest part,” Peregrine said. “It’s obviously the back of the building. The entrance will be under the portico.” He led her round to the front. “Much more elaborate, you see.”

  It had a wide stone staircase, with balustrades, upon the ends of which stood two stone figures about eight feet tall. From the staircase, a wide pathway wandered down the slope, then seemed to continue up another hill nearby. Everywhere else, the trees blocked his view of the parkland. Peregrine guessed that beyond those trees would be more of the same: the usual rolling landscape. He couldn’t be sure, though, since the greenery shut out all but that bit of pathway.

  “I’ll wager anything that Edmund DeLucey buried his treasure at the foot of one of the statues,” Olivia said, calling his attention back to the mausoleum. “But which one?”

  “Maybe if we knew who they were meant to represent, we could guess,” Peregrine said. “Gods or demigods, probably. Funny, isn’t it, how our lot carry out their strict Christian burials under pagan symbols. I know that at least one member of the peerage has a mausoleum in the shape of a pyramid.”

  Olivia, as one would expect, was not interested in the burial rituals of the British aristocracy. “I suppose we’ll have to dig in both places,” she said. She looked about her. “I doubt anyone will notice.”

  Peregrine had to agree with at least the last statement. If Edmund DeLucey had buried anything here, he wouldn’t have had to worry much about attracting attention.

  Peregrine’s family had a park like this, where features of the landscape, interesting structures and such, were artfully hidden along the pathways among trees and shrubbery, so that the visitor arrived upon them unexpectedly, or saw them at a distance only from the ideal vantage point.

  Meanwhile, this building’s foundation rose about six feet off the ground. Anyone digging at its base would be very hard to see, unless the observer stood in exactly the right spot.

  Of course, one must remember that the surrounding trees wouldn’t have been so thick and tall a hundred years ago. The hill might have been bare, for all one knew.

  Not that Olivia would care what anything was like a century ago. She’d only want to know where they might find spades and shovels. And maybe pickaxes.

  As Peregrine stooped to study the ground at the base of the balustrade, he felt the first cold drops of rain.

  He straightened. “We’d better get under—What’s that noise?”

  Olivia turned her head at the same time he did.

  A man was running down the pathway on the nearby hill, waving at them and shouting. He was barely a hundred yards away.

  Peregrine looked at Olivia. She looked back at him, her blue doll eyes wide.

  “No,” she said. “No.”

  And NO! he wanted to shout.

  He wasn’t ready to be found.

  Not yet. He wasn’t done.

  He needed only seconds to decide what to do.

  His punishment would be horrendous.

  He might as well deserve it.

  He grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the stairs and toward the nearest opening between the trees. “Run!” he shouted. “Just run!”

  THOMAS WAS RUNNING down the path. Benedict started after him in time to see Peregrine grab Olivia and plunge into the woodland to their right: the lake side of the hill. The steepest side.

  Benedict could hardly believe his eyes. “Stop!” he roared. “Are you mad?”

  The children didn’t stop.

  He quickly calculated the best angle for intercepting them, and charged into a narrow path nearby. . . . With any luck, he’d catch them before they got far.

  He heard the hunting horn’s blare.

  The signal, summoning the other men from all parts of the estate.

  Benedict didn’t pause.

  “Olivia!” a voice cried.

  Bathsheba, calling her daughter.

  Benedict didn’t look back or waste breath telling her to stay where she was.

  He pushed past branches and leapt over roots.

  The ground was slick with fallen leaves and pine needles. He ran, wishing she wouldn’t run, too, yet knowing she would.

  Please, don’t fall and break your neck.

  As he raced down the slope toward the lake, the pathway narrowed, the forest giving way to shrubbery nearly as tall and much denser.

  “Peregrine!” he shouted. “Olivia!”

  No response.

  Evil children. When he got his hands on them—

  “Olivia!” came Bathsheba’s voice again from somewhere behind him.

  He ran on. The rain beat down now and the curst path twisted and turned, but in the wet it offered surer footing than the children would have among the trees and undergrowth, where wet leaves and pine needles carpeted the sloping ground.

  Curse the brats! When I catch them, I’ll throttle them.

  That was his last coherent thought. His toe caught on a gnarled root, and Benedict pitched forward.

  PEREGRINE HEARD THE shouts behind him.

  He heard Olivia, too, panting behind him, so close she was.

  A part of him wanted to stop, but another part wouldn’t, couldn’t. He kept on, though he was wet through, and he’d lost the path. It was harder here, because there were fewer trees and more shrubs. The low branches grabbed his clothes and slapped his face. He kept running.

  Then he saw it: an opening, at last.

  He burst through it—and saw, too late, the short, steep embankment and the swirling water below. He grabbed for a branch, but his feet slid out from under him, and he tumbled headlong down the slope.

  “Olivia!” he shouted. “Look out!”

  His hands and feet skidded over the slick mud of the embankment, and he plunged into the rushing water.

  RUNNING ONLY A few steps behind Peregrine, Olivia heard his cry an instant too late. She was already stumbling after him, arms flailing. As she slid over the edge of the embankment into the water, her hand struck something rough and thick, and she caught hold and held on tightly with both hands.

  “Help!” she screamed. Icy water swirled around her, tugging at her, while the rain beat on her head and her hands, which were turning numb. She saw Peregrine thrashing in the water while the current carried him away.

  “Lisle!” she cried. “Peregrine!”

  His head went under the water.

  THOMAS ARRIVED A moment after Benedict fell. The footman hauled him to his feet.

  “Mrs. Wingate?” Benedict gasped, brushing muddy leaves from his face. “Where?”

  “Caught her dress on a bush,” Thomas said. “I begged her to stay there and show the way to the others. Then I run off before she could say no.”

  That was when they heard Peregrine’s shout. Olivia cried out an instant later.

  The two men hurried downward, toward the sounds.

  Benedict stumbled through the bushes and out onto the path along the embankment.

  No Peregrine.

  An instant later, the pale head popped up, and Benedict’s heart began to beat again.

  “Help him!” came a cry from his right.

  He turned that way, and saw the girl, clinging to the branch of a fallen tree.

  The rotten tree had caught on something. That was why she wasn’t yet drifting down the waterway after Peregrine. The boy, meanwhile, was struggling against the current.

  “He’s tiring, sir,” Thomas said.

  Another fifty or more yards and he’d be tumbling over the cascade . . . and breaking his neck, if he didn’t drown first.

  Benedict’s gaze shot to the girl. Any minute now, the swollen river could carry away Olivia’s tree.

  “I can swim it, sir,” said Thomas.

  “No, keep to the lake path and go to the cascade,” Benedict said. He pointed. “Try to stop him going over. I’ll come as soon as I ca
n.”

  Even while he spoke, he was climbing down the slippery embankment and making his way along the water’s edge toward Olivia.

  Thomas set off at a run toward the cascade.

  “Not me!” Olivia screamed. “He’s going to drown!”

  Benedict stepped down into the water and continued toward her. Though bitter cold and thick with mud and debris, this part of the stream was not as deep as he’d feared. It rose no higher than his waist.

  Still, the current was surprisingly strong, forcing him to move more cautiously than he wanted. It seemed to take hours to cover the few yards to the girl.

  “Not me!” she screamed. “Not me! I told you!”

  “Hush,” Benedict said. He prised her stiff fingers from the tree branch, dragged her up into his arms, and staggered back to the embankment. He hoisted her up and set her down on the wet ground.

  “Are you hurt?” he said, trying not to gasp.

  “N-n-no,” she said through chattering teeth. “I t-told you. Get him.”

  She was soaked through. Rivulets of water poured down her face. She was shaking in every limb. And furious.

  She was so like her mother.

  “Stay,” Benedict said. “Stay right here.”

  “Yes, yes, only go, please.”

  Benedict went.

  BY THE TIME Benedict caught up with his footman, Peregrine had drifted dangerously near the cascade. The water here was over his head. He was trying to swim, but he was too tired—or hurt or both—and the current carried him on toward the cascade, not a dozen yards away.

  Thomas was already starting into the water. Benedict went in after him. “M’lord,” Thomas protested.

  “We need to make a chain,” Benedict said.

  He didn’t have to explain.

  Thomas moved deeper into the water. Grabbing his hand, Benedict pushed on toward his nephew. Each step took him deeper, the water rising to his shoulders. The current tried to pull him off his feet, but Thomas kept him steady.

  “Peregrine!” Benedict stretched out his arm. The boy grabbed for his hand, missed, tried again.

  The second time his fingers caught, and clung to Benedict’s.