“You have no idea what happened after she left Ranelagh?” she asked Chase.
He seemed surprised to be addressed, but shook his head. “No, ma’am. Since her cousin was with her....”
“Cousin? What cousin?”
Matlin answered. “That’s the queerest part of the story, Aunt. It seems that this Joaquín is one of Thea’s Spanish cousins. He told the Chases he would bring her home. By God, if I find him....”
“Yes, dear, I’m sure you will,” Lady Ocott said obscurely. “I only wish I could. The most pressing matter is to figure out where he has taken Dorothea. Then you may run him through or shoot him or whatever you like.” She folded her hands complacently and regarded her companions with a look of expectation.
“His lodgings....” Chase began once.
“Do you know where they are?” Matlin asked eagerly.
Chase slumped back. “No.”
A few minutes later: “His carriage.... If we can trace that, find out where it went after they left Ranelagh....” Matlin sat bolt upright.
Tony Chase shook his head unhappily. “He had hired a hansom cab for the evening, a nice rig, but not in the least remarkable.”
Matlin sank back again, his face a mask of frustration. “How the deuce do you trace a man and woman in a hansom cab in the dead of night in London?” As if to confirm his thoughts, the hall clock struck one. “If he has harmed her, I will kill him, cousin or no.”
No one said anything for some time.
At last, Lady Ocott rose. “I can see that I am not helping you in the least. Perhaps what we all need is some sleep, Douglas. In the morning we may be thinking more clearly, or Thea may send to tell us where she is. Nigel will be home to help.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Aunt Sue, though I don’t see how I shall sleep—yes, Platt?”
The man seemed flustered. “Excuse me, sir. This just arrived for you. The young person as delivered it, sir, was a foreign person, sir. I thought as you would like to know.”
Matlin snatched an envelope from the footman and looked at it. His own name and address were inscribed in a small, flourished hand.
“Well?” Lady Ocott prodded.
“For the love of God, Sir Douglas, open it.”
“I will. I will.” Matlin replied equally to Chase and his aunt. He tore the envelope open with unsteady hands and removed a card of the sort used for invitations. The message was written out in the same small, dramatic hand.
Sir:
My cousin is well and sends you her greetings. It is vital that I speak with you on a matter of importance to us both. I will send to you in the morning with information as to where Lady Matlin and I can be found. I beg you will then come at once.
It was signed: Joaquín Raul Ibañez-Blanca y Mores.
Chapter Fourteen
“I will kill him.”
“Douglas, for the love of God, what does it say? Is she all right? Has he got her?”
Matlin handed the card to his aunt with an almost offhanded gesture. She and Chase read it quickly and turned back to him. “My God, he has abducted her,” Lady Ocott protested faintly. “I didn’t think gothick tricks like that happened to people like us.”
More to the point, “What does he want?” Tony Chase worried. “If Lady Matlin is his cousin, surely he cannot want—that is to say,” he started again with an apologetic glance for his hostess, “he cannot be in love with her.”
“Pray, Mr. Chase, don’t consider my delicacy at this late date. I assure you I have none; so don’t mince words. If this Mr. Joaquín Iba—which is his surname? If Thea is not what he wants, what can it be?”
Matlin spoke in a dangerously calm tone. “He wishes to speak with me; didn’t you notice? That unmitigated blackguard has abducted my wife, taken advantage of her confusion and their relationship, forced her off to God knows where....” He broke off angrily. “The poor child must be terrified,” he added more gently.
“You know, Douglas, when Thea does come home, it would do you a world of good if you ceased to refer to her as ‘child.’ It’s all very well for me; I’m old enough to be her mother, or your own for the matter of that. When you consider that you are only nine and twenty yourself, it is hardly the appropriate way to speak of your wife.” Lady Ocott settled herself in her chair again and reached for her glass.
“What on earth has my age to do with it?” Matlin asked, exasperated.
“I rather think it has more to do with her age,” Lady Ocott replied. “You’ve mixed with girls of come-out age since you were breeched, and why you continually refer to this one as a baby, a child, an infant, is beyond me.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t suppose I do.” Lady Ocott sighed prosaically. “Well, what are we to do until Mr. Joaquín whatever-he-is sends his next message? Sleep? Mr. Chase, you are more than welcome to stay the night here.” Lady Ocott looked significantly at her nephew. “Douglas would be glad of your support in this, I think.”
“Since Lady Matlin was abducted out of my care I feel myself—and after all, Joaquín has been making advances to my sister and....” The young man swallowed a lump in his throat. “Yes, I want to be in on this, if you don’t mind, Sir Douglas?”
“What?” Matlin roused himself from a deep funk. Chase repeated his offer. “Oh God, yes, if you wish. You can assure my aunt that I did not kill Señor Ibañez-Blanca except in a fair fight. As for sleep, I don’t think I could. If you wish, go ahead. I’ll send for you before I leave.”
“I think I’ll sit up, if it’s all the same to you.”
Lady Ocott looked at both men, sighed, and made it known that if she was going to sit awake all night, she would do so in the privacy of her own chamber. “The fact remains that you will not be in any condition to run Mr. Joaquín through unless you get some sleep, Douglas. I am going to my room, and I advise you boys to do likewise. Mr. Chase, I shall ask Platt to have a room made up for you.”
They exchanged thanks and good evenings. Looking tired and old, Lady Ocott left them.
“Look, Chase, if you wish to go upstairs for a while and rest in comfort....” Matlin began some fifteen minutes later. They had been sitting in silence, staring at the fire as if some answer would be revealed there. “Platt will have seen to your room by this time.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Chase advised. “I can no more sleep than you can. If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, an ass is exactly what you have been, allowing that woman to make a public spectacle of you, treating Lady Matlin as if....”
“I do mind. I am aware of each and every one of my follies, but I am damned if I will be scolded yet again; by anyone other than my wife, in any case. I’ve been read quite enough lectures for one day.”
“I’m sorry, I had no intention, I mean....” Chase stared at Matlin as if a new idea had come into his head.
“Well?”
“You care for her, don’t you, sir?” Matlin nodded. “Did you never tell her so?”
“Dammit, that was what I went to Ranelagh to do.”
“I see.” Chase said. After that, neither of them felt very much like talking.
A maid woke them in the early morning when she came to light the fire and to sweep the ashes from the hearth. From the pale light that shone in the chinks of the shutters, it was just dawn. In the hallway a clock struck five. The maid finished her work, bobbed an apologetic curtsy to the two half-recumbent men, and left.
“Where’s the message? By God, the man has the soul of a fiend, making me wait this way. What does he think to gain by it?”
Chase was unable to answer him. After a while Matlin suggested they would both feel better for a wash and a change of linen, and offered to send his man to Chase with anything he might require. They met an hour later in the library, where coffee and bread was waiting for them. While they were breakfasting Joaquín’s second note came.
“Well?” Chase waited uncertainly, tempted to read over his host’s shoulder.
“It’s an address in Chiswick.” Matlin’s voice was tired. “He says nothing of my wife.”
“She is surely all right, sir. I mean, he would not harm her. Would he?”
“Would you have expected him to abduct her? The man seems a trifle unconventional, who knows what he balks at.” Matlin drained his cup and set it down. “Well, shall we go effect a rescue? Chase?”
“Sir?” Tony was collecting his great coat and hat from the chair where he had discarded them the night before.
“If the need arises, may I count on you to second me?”
Tony Chase gulped. Then he straightened his shoulders and smiled at Matlin. “I would be honored, Sir Douglas, if the need arises.”
“Well.” Matlin waved the younger man out the door before him and followed, calling loudly for Platt and his phaeton.
The drive to Chiswick was accomplished in near silence. Matlin had left his groom behind, and it was Chase who climbed down from the carriage to inquire the way. The house they wanted was set a little apart from its fellows and surrounded by a small, tidy lawn. It looked deserted, but when Matlin and Chase climbed down from the phaeton and went to knock at the door, it was opened at once by a hatchet-faced woman in black. Her dark hair was parted severely in the center, and her expression was sullen.
“Yes?”
Matlin restrained an urge to yell, to demand. “I am looking for a Señor Ibañez-Blanca and for my wife.”
“Come in.” She would have closed the door in Tony Chase’s face, but Matlin’s arm went out, and he held the door.
“My friend comes with me, with your permission, of course.”
“If you wish.” Her accent was thick. She stood away from the door to let the men enter, then shepherded them down a narrow hallway to a small parlor. The drapes and upholstery were of a dark dusty color between red and brown; the two windows were closed and curtained, and the room was dim and musty. The only sign of recent human tenancy was a bible, a wicker workbasket, and a brace of half-guttered work candles.
“You will wait,” the woman instructed.
Left alone, Matlin and Chase looked around the dingy room again, looked at each other, at the floor, at each other once more. Matlin’s hands were balled into tight fists at his sides; Chase’s were jammed into his trouser pockets.
“Damned gothick, all of it,” Matlin muttered. Still, it was impossible to imagine a rape in such surroundings and with such a chaperon; he relaxed a little.
There were footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs. “Sir Douglas?” Joaquín stood in the doorway smiling cordially at his guest. When Tony Chase moved into his sight his smile slipped a little. “Mr. Chase? Your sister....”
Tony stepped forward angrily. “Leave my sister out of it, you....” He brought his hands out of his pockets, and it was only Matlin’s hand on his shoulder that kept him from striking a blow.
“Gently, Chase. Your sister is safe at home. My wife, however, is still a prisoner.” Matlin released Chase’s shoulder with a slight shake and motioned him to one side. “Where is she?”
Joaquín smiled again. “My cousin is perfectly safe, Sir Douglas. I apologize to you for this inconvenience, but this was the only way I could be assured of an entree to the Foreign Office.”
Matlin and Chase stared at the other man, utterly astonished. After a moment Matlin cleared his throat. “Would it not have been simpler to have come directly to me? Or to Whitehall?”
Now Joaquín looked astonished. “You think that someone there would have listened to me? A foreigner, a Catholic? I am aware of what has been happening in this country, Señor Matlin, the persecution of those of my faith. My messages are too important to be swept under the rug by some underling at your Foreign Office. Besides that, I thought my cousin would help me speak to you. What could be more simple? Only she could not accomplish this easy thing....” The scorn in his voice was grating. “By the time, last evening, I realized she had failed again, there was no time to do the diplomatic thing....”
“So you abducted my wife.” The only sign was a tightening in Matlin’s jaw before he stepped forward and hit Joaquín a square blow that knocked him to the ground. “Where is my wife ? When I have her safe and away from here I will listen to whatever stories you have to tell. Then I will decide whether to call you out or not.”
Joaquín made a job of rising from the floor; he was striving for dignity and fingering his jaw at the same time. “You may certainly call me out, Sir Douglas, if you feel that honor demands it, but not, I beg, until I have spoken with your superiors at Whitehall. Believe me, my messages are too vital.”
“I’ll judge that, after you bring my wife to me.”
“Of course,” Joaquín assured him icily. Striding to the door he called loudly for Señora Lorca. The hatchet-faced woman reappeared, and they had a brief interchange in Spanish. Just before Joaquín and the woman left the room Matlin added a comment of his own, also in Spanish.
“What did you say to her?” Tony Chase murmured to him.
“Only that I would be obliged if she would hurry. I wanted to let them know I understand Spanish, so there would be no attempts at double dealing. Although I doubt there will be. The man is mad, but he seems to be mad in his own singular fashion. It seems Thea is somewhere in the house.” Matlin cast another glance about the drab, respectable room.
Steps sounded outside the room, and in a moment Thea stood in the doorway, with Joaquín and the Señora behind her.
“Oh, Douglas!” She was still clad in her evening dress from the night before; crumpled and dirty, she was still an incongruous bright spot in the dim room. She darted to Matlin’s side and buried her face in his shoulder.
For a moment he just held her, too grateful to have her in his arms to think of anything else.
Then, “You see? My cousin will tell you she met with no ill treatment at my hands.” Joaquín still fingered his jaw, which was rapidly swelling. A little vengefully he added, “No young women will kiss me in gardens for some time, I am afraid.”
Thea stiffened in her husband’s arms, looked up, and saw her cousin. “You hit him?” It was plain she was remembering the last sight she had had of Matlin, locked in Lady Towles’ embrace. She stepped away, suddenly cool. “I might have expected you’d have hit him.”
All the warmth in the room had left him when Thea pulled out of his arms. Where a moment before there had been a pretty, trembling girl there was now a cool, self-possessed woman.
“Thea,” Matlin began.
“I don’t wish to speak with you. I should like to go home. I doubt that you have anything to say to me that would explain your striking my cousin, humiliating me....”
“Lady Matlin!” Tony Chase interjected.
“Kissing that abominable, vulgar woman! Accusing me of flirting, and then going on to meet with your....”
“LADY MATLIN!”
Thea was startled into silence by Chase’s shout. The young man whose admiration she took for granted was frowning at her and shaking his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“O, don’t I? You saw, Tony; he was....”
“I think it would be best if I take you home. Sir, with your permission?” Chase turned diffidently to Matlin.
Matlin, white faced, managed a tight smile. “I am grateful to you, Chase. If I—er—have need of you, I will send. I will do nothing unadvised.” He reached tentatively toward Thea, then pulled his hand back again. “See that she gets home safely?”
“I will, sir.” Without ceremony Tony Chase tugged on Thea’s arm and pulled her from the room. “Come along.”
Furious, Thea waited until they were in Matlin’s phaeton before she started in. “All I want to know is whose side you are on, Tony Chase. You saw him at Ranelagh. Then he made me wait all night with my horrid cousin and that Gorgon of a woman all night. He must hate me to use me this way, Tony. I wish I were dead. He....”
Chase pulled the reins so savagely that the carriage came to an abrupt halt. �
�You know nothing about it at all. You’re hysterical, that is all. If you want, I will tell you what did happen at Ranelagh last night, if you promise to be quiet.”
Thea promised.
Chase urged the horses forward again and told Thea Matlin’s story. “When Lady Towles saw you across the crowd she decided it was time to throw a branch into the spokes. She kissed him, and he looked up and saw you and....” Looking sideways, Chase saw Thea slump into her seat, a tight distracted expression on her face. “I never saw anyone so distressed as he was last night when we realized that your cousin—is he your cousin, really?—had vanished with you. If your husband had known where to find you, we would have come at once; believe me. I thought he was going to kill that blackguard Joaquín on sight. Thank God he had a little more sense than that. I only hope....”
Thea clutched Chase’s sleeve. “You only hope what? What did he mean by ‘doing nothing’ and having need of you and all that?”
Gauging that Thea could withstand the salutary shock of a little anxiety, he told her quite baldly. “It is a matter of honor. Sir Douglas may call your cousin out, or,” he added reflectively, “Joaquín may call him out for that nice left he struck him.”
“Oh my God.” Thea had dozed uneasily all night, waking unrested and full of misery and worry. This, on top of the shocks of the last day, was too much for her. She leaned back in her seat again and began to cry silently, shaking and gasping while tears ran down her face. Chase endured this as long as he could, but finally he told her in such tones as he would have used to his sister not to make such a cake of herself.
Thea pulled herself together sternly. “I have withstood French dragoons and Spanish peasants; I have been abducted; I have spent the most excruciating week of my life being ill on a ship; and I have waited in the night to hear if Bonapartist spies had killed my husband. I suppose I should not be undone by a little thing like a duel at this late date.”
Chase appeared to miss the sarcasm in her voice. “I suppose so,” he agreed.
Thea looked at him consideringly. “You’ve changed, Tony,” she said.
Spanish Marriage Page 17
