*
Lucy left Caulfield Hall, a borrowed horse beneath her, Goodfellow at her side, and resentment in her heart.
David and Rob had given her and Maddy the briefest of reports about Spangler, one the men so obviously edited to spare the tender sensibilities of ladies that it forced Maddy to give David a sisterly dressing down. Their words left Lucy bristling with questions. Rob ignored her attempt to ask them and informed her she would go back to Willowbrook under escort. His high-handed order that she stay inside and go nowhere alone infuriated her.
The beast! What gives him the right?
She started to protest, but he spun on his heels and left “to make the arrangements,” leaving Maddy and David staring back and forth between Lucy and Rob’s departing back, identical bemused expressions on their faces.
Attempts to wheedle more information from Goodfellow as they rode away met little success. The corporal did admit that, “You won’t have to worry about Spangler. He won’t be bothering you again.”
“Because he’s in custody?”
“Yes. That.” Goodfellow clamped his jaw shut.
Rob threatened him. I wish I could have seen it. Do they all think I’m some sort of fragile flower?
“If the earl has him locked up, why is all this close surveillance necessary?” She urged her horse forward, and the corporal kept pace.
“The major believes it is. You should trust him.”
She did, but she didn’t like it.
Goodfellow went on, “I’m to talk to Abbott about spelling me, so we can have someone with you night and day.”
“That is excessive! I’m perfectly safe at Willowbrook.”
“Sorry, Miss, but those who mean you harm are on the loose. That snippy butler and Miller both.”
The butler. It triggered a memory. “Higgins is the dowager countess’s agent, isn’t he?” The men had danced around the countess’s abrupt departure and her involvement, probably to spare her daughter. Maddy had said as much when they left the room. “I know what my mother is. She’s capable of stage managing all of it,” Maddy had confided.
Goodfellow glanced away uneasily. “It isn’t for me to say.”
“Yes, then,” Lucy said. “Why isn’t Sir Robert with us.”
“I don’t know. He and the earl didn’t say.”
Leave the poor man be, Lucy. He’s trying to do his job, she told herself. She turned her mind to the future. She couldn’t put off finding a place of her own forever.
They rode back through the woods, and Lucy had to give Goodfellow directions. Rob didn’t need directions. He knows this land. But he plans to walk away from it. Sorrow stilled her voice the rest of the way home.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“What do you plan to do?” Lady Madelyn stood at Rob’s side, watching Lucy ride away with Goodfellow. He had come back into the drawing room when the front door closed behind them.
“Get to the bottom of the threats. One way or another.” Rob didn’t take his eyes from Lucy’s back, stiff with resentment. She’s in a fair temper. He didn’t blame her. You could have worded things more gently, you big looby. She isn’t one of your men.
“Not that, you lack-wit. Lucy. What do you plan to do about Lucy?”
He stared at his sister then. “I am not going to evict her if that’s what worries you. Once the threats are neutralized, I’ll make sure Miss Whitaker is settled, sell Willowbrook, and go back to my life.”
She rolled her eyes, the least ladylike thing he’d ever seen her do. “You don’t seriously think Lucy is the sort of woman to wait passively for you and David to sort out her life, do you?”
He hadn’t actually considered it in those terms, but, yes, he planned to make sure… A vision of the termagant with a musket stifled the thought.
His sister’s eyes softened. “You can be honest with me, at least, if not with Lucy. You care for her.”
“Of course, I do. None of this bequest business is her fault.”
“You want her.”
He turned back to the window, but the riders had disappeared from sight. “What man wouldn’t? She’s lovely—and ladies aren’t supposed to speak of such things.”
“Come away from that window. She’s gone, and you can’t pretend you aren’t longing to be with her.”
“Miss Whitaker has my respect. It’s better if I keep my distance.” He looked at Madelyn just in time to catch another eye roll. “I’ll ride home to check on her in an hour or so.”
“Spare me the noble gentleman. Do you even know what you want?” She gestured him to sit in one of two upholstered chairs near the hearth and sat in the other.
“I want to get back to my career before the opportunity is snatched away from me. That means London. I want a life of my own. I don’t belong here.”
She studied him until he shifted in his seat. “Don’t belong here, Robbie? You were born here. What of family?”
She hit a nerve. Three months ago, he would have been able to convince himself he didn’t care about family, but after Da’s accident, after time with Emma, and time with the sister sitting next to him, he could not. He dropped his gaze to his boots. “Perhaps I will visit more often.”
“But not if Lucy is nearby. You could keep Willowbrook and let her run it, but then you’d have to see her.” He didn’t deny it. “The answer to your dilemma is right in front of you, Rob. Marry Lucy. Keep Willowbrook.”
“And be trapped in Ashmead for the rest of my life? No thanks.”
“Try to use your brain. Plenty of men have both. Work in London but keep your country home. Hire a steward to run it. David is certain you can afford it.”
“You talked with your brother about me?” His outrage lifted him halfway out of his seat.
“Don’t divert the subject. Why not?”
He sank back down. “It would never work. She hates London.”
“You asked her?” He’d astonished her at last.
“She told me she’s a countrywoman and would have no use for the city.”
His sister’s eyes narrowed. “You asked her about London, but not marriage. Did you ask her about sharing it with you? Did you offer her a compromise?”
He had no answer.
“Did you tell her that you love her?”
Do I? God help me.
He rose then and bowed over his sister’s hand. “It has been a delight as always, Your Grace.”
“My name is Maddy, as you damn well know, and you didn’t answer. Don’t be a coward, Robbie. Don’t run from her. Talk to the woman!”
Run. Is that what I’m doing? Again? “Maybe when this is over, Maddy. Maybe I will.”
*
Desire to ride to Willowbrook warred with the desire to pursue the miscreants that threatened it. Rob and David agreed to go after the countess and her minions, yet he told Maddy he would go to Willowbrook to check on Lucy. If she were a client, he would trust Goodfellow without question and go about his business. His uncharacteristic indecision rubbed up against a riot of other uncomfortable feelings unleashed by Maddy’s interfering words. He grabbed on to the one emotion he could handle. Anger.
Spangler must pay for what he did. The countess will pay if I have to throttle her myself. He found David dressed for travel in the corridor near the now quiet estate office, walked with him through the cellar, and spared the bolted storeroom door a glare. The man guarding it pulled his forelock with a grin in response. A great strapping brute, he would have no difficulty subduing Spangler should it prove necessary.
“Did the messenger come?” Rob demanded.
The earl nodded. “I’ve had horses brought round.” He handed Rob a folded piece of foolscap. “They went west instead of east to the Great North Road. They left the main road at Stoke-on-Trent and headed northwest.”
“Not London then?”
Clarion shook his head. “I thought she might go to my house in town and try to brazen it out, but she has to get Higgins out of the way.”
�
��Any idea where she might go?” The two men spoke as they walked out the cellar door and toward the stables.
“She has a cousin. He has a small estate near Blackshaw Moor.”
Their horses, saddled and ready, awaited.
“Will he take her in?” Rob asked.
“She has treated him abysmally over the years. I can’t imagine he’ll welcome her with open arms,” Clarion said, mounting his horse. “The last I heard, though, the man didn’t leave his townhouse in Manchester—too ill to travel. She may try to bully whatever servants he left behind, or, more likely, there’s a cottage on the estate where she can stash her associates.”
“Accomplices,” Rob muttered, mounting Khalija.
“Ready?” Clarion asked. The earl’s face, set in hard lines, gave Rob confidence in the man. He nodded.
“If we go cross country, we may be able to cut her off,” the earl said, setting off.
They left late in the afternoon. After four hours of hard riding over increasingly hilly terrain, they reached a road meandering generally northwest, just short of Blackshaw Moor, in gathering darkness. They saw no sign of a carriage nor of the men they sent to follow it. That and the moonless night added to Rob’s growing frustration.
A bobbing lantern approached, revealing the woman who carried it and a man behind her pushing a cart full of vegetables.
Rob suspected they were on their way home. “Evening, good sir, madam. Have you seen other riders coming this way?”
The man walked around to stand by his wife, pausing to glance at her, before studying the two men in front of him. Rob knew what they saw, men so similar they had to be brothers. “Family is it? Are you following the carriage as well? I hope you catch them. Too big a hurry for these roads, I don’t doubt. They’ll come to grief.”
“A carriage, yes, likely the same one,” Clarion said.
The man chuckled. “Don’t get many carriages that fancy down this road. Must be the one.”
“Where did you see them?”
“We were helping Alf Jones harvest his winter wheat. Saw ’em fly by. They turned off near Alf’s place—two miles back. Bit later them other gents stopped and asked. Rode after ’em.”
Rob thanked them, and the two men rode on, slowing to a walk. Though they picked their way carefully, they almost missed the turn in the darkness.
“We’ll never find Gibbons in the dark,” Clarion muttered as they turned.
As much as he hated to agree, Rob knew going any farther put their mounts at risk and possibly their mission, too, if they stumbled by in the dark. He dismounted and led Khalija off the road. “Soft enough over here. We can bed down in the grass.” He braced himself for the earl’s objections. Rob slept rough often enough in Spain, but he doubted the earl ever had.
To Rob’s astonishment, Clarion dismounted without complaint and untied a rolled blanket from his saddle, along with saddlebags.
“Pull your saddle off. It’s a reasonable pillow,” Rob suggested.
“Do this often, do you?” Clarion’s grin, just visible in the gloom, took Rob off guard.
He grinned back. “More often than I care to contemplate. I thought I was done with it.”
They spread their things, and Clarion produced bread, cheese, and ale from his saddlebags.
“You thought ahead.”
“It pays to plan, and an army of servants comes in useful.”
Rob’s laugh had less bitterness than he might have expected. They ate in silence and lay down. There seemed little to say beyond, “Pity clouds are covering the stars.”
After a while, Clarion broke the silence. “Robbie, do you remember the time Maddy got caught in the apple tree and dark was approaching.”
Robbie again, is it? “It took both of us to get her down. Your mother would have made her life a misery if she found out. It took both of us to keep it from her.”
“We failed. Mother had her beaten—through her skirts—and confined to her room with no dinner for two days. I had to sneak bread and cheese through her window.”
“She made Maddy’s life difficult no matter what she did,” Rob mused.
“Difficult? Hell. You have no idea. Our sister refuses to be in the house with her. She only came today because she knew the woman was gone, and you were coming.”
“What are you trying to say, David?” The use of his brother’s name felt unfamiliar but right.
“We were not well blessed with our parents, Robbie. I know what the countess is. I’ve always known.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
David and Rob woke in the faint light before dawn, swallowed the remains of the earl’s stores, and rode on quietly, neither commenting on the new sense of brotherhood enriching their shared determination. The sun spread a sliver of light over a hill before them and to their right. From his perch atop it, Gibbons signaled, and they urged their mounts to a gallop.
*
At Willowbrook, Lucy paced, pen in hand, to peer out the front windows. Goodfellow, her ever-present shadow, leapt to his feet and watched her, aware by now that even her beloved ledgers couldn’t keep her anchored in the study. Goodfellow had assured her Rob would follow when the two of them were banished to Willowbrook. She waited up that night, but Rob didn’t come. Maddy’s note telling her that the two men had ridden off to join Gibbons didn’t arrive until the following morning, and Lucy had fallen asleep in the drawing room, waiting fruitlessly.
Soon after the message, Ellis Corbin and folks from Ashmead arrived to carry off poor Robbins’s body to the church. The vicar sent word the burial could wait a few days but no longer. That distraction faded as soon as the wagon carrying Robbins’s body made its way over the newly completed bridge, and her fears resurged.
Two days passed with no word, and Lucy’s nerves were frayed beyond repair. She spun around to face her bodyguard, watching her from the other side of the foyer. “I’m going to ride over to Clarion Hall with you or without you. There must be news by now. If they’ve heard nothing, I’ll retreat to the dower house. At least then, I’ll have Lady Madelyn’s company. I’m going. You can follow if you insist.” He did.
Lady Madelyn, as it turned out, met her at the hall. “Still no word,” she said.
“I hope those miserable villains didn’t escape,” Lucy breathed. “I don’t understand what the countess had to do with the threats, but she—”
The duchess’s face fell, a sheen of moisture covered her green eyes.
“I’m sorry, Maddy. She may be your mother, but this has to end.”
Lucy’s friend dropped her eyes and gestured toward the formal drawing room. “Come. Let’s have tea.”
A feeble smile rose to Lucy’s lips. “Tea. England’s cure for all ills.”
“Corporal Goodfellow, the chair by the door can’t offer comfort for a man like you. Please take your ease in the kitchen. It is warm, the seats are more substantial, and there is food to be had. Miss Whitaker will be safe enough here,” Maddy said.
“Thank you, Your Grace, but I’ll make myself comfortable here by the door.” He took the footman’s chair.
When the tea cart arrived, Lucy picked up a plate of biscuits and carried it to the door while the duchess poured. “You may at least eat to keep up your strength,” she said, offering it to Goodfellow.
The corporal grinned at her. “Thank you, Miss. I’m plenty strong, but I won’t say no to that sugar biscuit.
Maddy had placed the tea things on a table in front of two chairs subtly arranged to face windows that opened on the front of the manor. Lucy took her seat, fussed with her skirts, and sank into the lush upholstery. For a few moments, the ladies drew comfort from the tea and one another.
“What did you do yesterday to stay sane?” Maddy asked.
Lucy described the sad little caravan from Ashmead. “After that, I tried to keep busy. I sent a note to an estate agent in Nottingham outlining my requirements in a cottage.”
Maddy’s cup hit the saucer so hard, Lucy feared it mig
ht crack. “Lucy Whitaker, what do you think you’re doing?” Her voice vibrated with outrage.
Lucy’s entire body stiffened with determination. “Planning for my future. With luck, they’ll have put a stop to the threats, and Rob—Sir Robert—can sell Willowbrook. He’ll have no trouble, and it will happen fast. I have to be prepared.”
Maddy’s eyes narrowed. “You can afford this?”
“I believe so,” Lucy said, relaxing slightly. “I have some funds David has been keeping, and, um, Sir Robert promised me the money I set aside as steward’s wages. I’ll have my bees. I’ll manage.”
“Manage?” Maddy asked in disgust. “Is that all you want from life, to manage?”
“I’ll be content, Maddy. Don’t push me. You are content enough to ‘manage.’”
Maddy ignored the jibe. “Have you spoken to Robbie about this—and stop that Sir Robert nonsense with me. I know better.”
Lucy’s heart seemed to spasm, but she stiffened her resolve. “Rob has nothing to say about it. I am not his responsibility, no matter what his male ego dictates.”
Maddy opened her mouth to object, but Lucy stopped her with a glance. “My mind is quite made up, and I am content.” At least I plan to be. “Pass me those biscuits.”
The conversation turned to books. Maddy asked Lucy if she had finished the final volume of Mansfield Park, the most recent title by the author of Sense and Sensibility, one Maddy had loaned her. Lucy had finished it, and discussion of plot twists occupied a happy hour or more. Lucy found the heroine, Fanny Price, a bit too helpless, but Maddy’s insistence that the character did the best she could under her circumstances won her over.
“As to Edmund, are all men that short-sighted?” Lucy sighed.
“Most definitely! Blind and helpless.” Maddy agreed, her laughter causing Lucy to join in.
It was noon when a commotion outside drew their attention. Lucy threw open the door to find Goodfellow on his feet and striding toward the entrance. He flung open the door, and the ladies pushed out onto the porch.
The Wayward Son Page 20
