Mandy

by Claudy Conn

  Mandy smiled sweetly at him and turned to find the viscount staring at them both, his mouth open and a startled expression on his face. She smiled and said, “What, Skip? Why do you look like that?”

  He cleared his throat, “Like what? I don’t know what you mean.” So saying, he burst into laughter.

  Both Mandy and the duke eyed him, and the duke said, “What is the joke?”

  “Ah, but you know already, don’t you, Brock?” With which he went off onto another peal of laughter.

  “Skip, what is so funny? Do let us in on it,” Mandy declared.

  “‘Tis nothing suitable for a female,” Skip said. “Just something that occurred to me.” His face was bright with his amusement.

  “Well, that is horrid! You should know that I am up to snuff. My brother is forever telling me things, that I am quite certain you would think not fit for a lady’s ears, but that is all stuff and nonsense.”

  The duke cast her an affectionate glance, “No doubt, gamine, but there are things you should not be told.”

  “Such as?” She challenged.

  The duke and the viscount exchanged glances and Skip waved a superior hand to say, “Never mind.”

  “Well, then, it is customary to leave the gentlemen to linger over their port, but don’t linger too long and leave me all alone.” she said getting up and smiling as they rose up as well.

  They stood and watched as Mandy glided out of the room and Skip only waited a moment after she was gone before he turned and put a finger in the duke’s chest and said, “You dog!”

  “What? What the devil do you mean?” the duke returned his brows up with surprise.

  “Egad, man! You are done up…demme, Brock, there is no denying it, you have been drinking deep and any fool can see you are in love with her.”

  “What are you talking about? She is my ward,” the duke looked away from his friend.

  Skip snorted, “What has that to say to anything? It is all over your face. You can’t hide it. Lord, I don’t think you are even trying to hide it. You are in love with her!”

  The duke sighed and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “Aye then, deeply, madly, wildly…and I don’t know how it happened.”

  Skip burst out laughing once more.

  * * *

  At that moment, some ten miles northwest of the viscount’s residence, in the heart of the Dales lay a tavern well hidden from the road and not frequented by those high in the instep.

  Its location was such that travelers never came its way, or when they did, one glance at the shabbiness of the establishment quickly set them back on the road again.

  It happened that Chauncey remembered a friend who enjoyed the privacy this particular inn afforded, and it was there Chauncey led young Sherborne.

  The tavern’s large public galley was low ceilinged, its oak rafters and wall beams lined dirty, yellow-painted walls, covered with nondescript paintings, many of them tilted one way or another. Its oak floors sloped with age and its tables and chairs were crude with wear. However, the inhabitants didn’t seem to mind any of these failings.

  They swayed, boomed, and made merry with raucous good mirth and in spite of the tavern’s seclusion, its rooms were full. The reason for this was the fact that many of these individuals, whose occupations put them outside the law, enjoyed a retreat where they felt secure and paid well for their lodgings.

  One room in particular, which was called the “Boiler” was connected to a legend. Chauncey murmured into Ned’s ears as they approached the tavern, “The innkeeper’s wife would put up lonely travelers in the room ye see. The bed had a trick spring and when pulled a trap door opened and it would lower its occupant into a cast iron container filled with boiling water. Murder and theft. Went on for many a year until a vigilant woman in search of her husband, discovered it all. The innkeeper’s wife escaped, but her mate was hung for his crimes he was and the room sealed.”

  As they entered the lively inn, Ned said, “I don’t know if sleeping here will be much more comfortable than sleeping by the river, Chaunce. We’ll have to sleep with an eye open.”

  Chauncey laughed, “Aye, that be certain.” He turned then and purposely regaled any who would listen with a tale of their harrowing escape that day. This immediately won them their place within the inn, and two tavern wenches winked at them slyly as they brought them some food and ale.

  At the very moment, Mandy felt a twinge of guilt eating her brother’s favorite cake. Ned was swinging one of the barmaids onto his knee and waving his free hand with his tankard to the beat of the song.

  Chauncey did the same, but kept an ear out for anything that might help them find Elly Bonner or more likely, Jack Hawkins.

  * * *

  Elly Bonner had no such solace in the damp chamber of their quarry cave. She stared at the walls of the chamber and wrung her hands fretfully. She paced the room as though she were some caged animal looking for a way out. Never before had Jack left her alone all night. He wouldn’t.

  She began worrying about all sorts of things. Had he found another woman? No…Jack would not, he was not that sort and he would never leave her alone like this.

  Morning progressed and when he still had not returned, she thought her heart would break. Something had happened to him. She knew it. She simply knew it. She could no longer feel him, because he was gone.

  No. He couldn’t be. Not Jack. He was so big and full of life and plans. He couldn’t be gone, but he could be hurt? She sprang into action. He had told her he was going to stop at the waterfall at Pitman Pool. He said he wouldn’t lie to her and that he needed just a bit more of the gold…just a bit, he had told her.

  Perhaps he was hurt?

  She washed quickly with the tub of fresh water from the river Jack always kept full for her and fixed a mopcap on her hair. Taking up a dark wool shawl she draped it around herself and began the four mile walk to Pitman Pool. It would take her a little bit over an hour if she kept up a pace and Elly was used to walking.

  She took the diary out of its hidey hole, dropped it into a satchel, slung it over herself diagonally and stuffed some of the cash she still had into her dab grey gown’s pocket, and began her hike.

  As she crossed the pike on her way to a shortcut Jack had told her about, a farmer stopped and offered her a ride. She accepted this and it saved her two miles. She jumped down and within a short span of time, found the deer path that would take her to the river’s edge and allow her to go unseen toward the waterfall.

  She sighed with relief as she heard the rumbling splashing of the falls and hurried, just as Jack had the day before, scrambling over the boulders and rocks, as she climbed. She tore her gown in her haste and found the opening, just as Jack had described. No one knew of this place he had told her. He had come across it as a young boy when he ran away from one of his father’s beatings.

  What appeared to be solid rock under the avalanche of white foam was an opening that led to a cave. She slipped inside and stood. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. She felt it.

  Elly saw the three chests of gold lined up against the wall and then, almost immediately, she saw Jack’s slumped body.

  And she knew.

  Even though she called out his name and ran to him, she knew—Jack was gone. Her Jack was dead.

  She didn’t know how long she sobbed over his lifeless form, but when she stopped, she knew what she was going to do. She put the diary under his body, and said, “Keep this for me, m’darlin. I’m going to get justice for ye, I am.”

  She stood, her sorrow, her own.

  She would grieve for him and the plans they had made all her life. She put her hand to her eyes, but her determination kept her strong. It was all she had left.

  She would need help, but she didn’t know where the Sherborne twins were hiding, and as she only knew of one man, one man that could help her get the justice for both her Jack and Lord Sherborne, it was to him, she decided to go.

  Chapter Nineteen

/>   MANDY WAS IN the morning room with her legs tucked under her pretty green muslin gown. She had taken extra care with her gold ringlets, hoping to enchant the duke into allowing her to ride out and look for Ned.

  Enchanted he said he was as he had bent over her hand, but apparently not enough to allow her to ride out for any reason at all.

  She nibbled at shortcake biscuits and drank her tea and was as bored as ever she had been when alone at the Abbey.

  Mr. Fowler had arrived at the Manor and had taken both the viscount and the duke off with him only moments ago. She had no idea when they would be back or where they were going and it was infuriating in the extreme. She had a mind to don her riding clothes and go off for a jaunt. Why not?

  The sound of a heavy thudding at the front door down the hall brought her head out of her meanderings and she stood up curiously to listen. She waited and her ears pricked up like a kitten’s.

  Sticwell’s tone, though not precisely his words, could be heard, and it seemed as though he was dismissing someone? She stepped into the hall to see who it was he was sending away and saw him wave his white gloved hand dismissively as he said, “Look here, young woman, the viscount is not in and even if he were, you don’t really think I would admit you…looking like that…” his hand indicated her dirty and torn gown, “into his presence?”

  “Please,” Elly begged. “It is of vital importance, it is. If ye don’t allow me in, I will sit on yer steps and wait I will, but I won’t leave…please, I have walked miles to get here.”

  “My God!” Mandy thundered as she went forward, arms outstretched, excited disbelief covering her face. “Stand aside, Sticwell.” She took Elly into an embrace, and then held her away to say, “Elly…you poor girl.” Mandy turned to the butler and said, “Please have a tray of refreshments brought into the parlor for Miss Bonner.”

  “Very good, miss,” Sticwell returned stiffly.

  Without another word, Mandy led the poor woman to the parlor where she saw her seated. She went to the decanter and poured a glass of sherry into a glass and handed it to her, “Drink this, do, you’ll be the better for it.”

  Elly did in fact, drink it down and then burst into tears.

  Mandy was beside her on the sofa and hugging her, patting her back, saying, “There there…what has happened Elly?”

  “He killed m’man. He killed Jack,” Elly wailed.

  “Oh, Elly, I am so sorry…who did this?”

  “The same man who killed Miss Celia,” Elly sniffed. “Oh…but I would have come forward sooner if we weren’t so afraid…now, if I had…he would be put away and Jack would still be alive.”

  “Elly, perhaps you should start at the beginning. We know that Jack Hawkins was somehow involved in a robbery of gold…and that you two…well…that you and he…”

  “Yes, miss, we were going to leave for America…start over, do it right and have a family. I was going to get the diary to ye before we set sail…so that he couldn’t hurt us, ye see.”

  “I see, and I understand,” Mandy said softly. “Go on.”

  “We were hiding from him in an old cave in the quarry…”

  Sticwell arrived with the tray and they went silent as he placed it on the table before them and withdrew. As Mandy poured the woman a cup and handed it to her, she said, “Here Elly…you have had a terrible shock and will need all your wits and health to get through it.”

  “Don’t want to get through it. Wish I was dead with m’Jack.” She began sobbing and Mandy allowed her to grieve as she thought how she would feel if the man she loved had been killed. Her heart ached for Elly.

  At length Elly sniffed and tried to regain her composure as she said, “Jack said we didn’t get our fair share…and that was fine, but he thought we should have few more coins…so he went back to the waterfall…”

  “The waterfall?”

  “Aye at Pitman Pool,” Elly explained. “He went to get more and the blackguard must have found him there and shot him.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I’ll see him hanged now, I will. I hid the diary there with Jack…under his body. Came to fetch the viscount and tell him…”

  “Does the diary name Celia’s…the father of…?” Mandy asked gently.

  “Aye, and more. It says that he threatened her. It says he told her to trick Lord Sherborne into bed with her and then say the baby was his, but she couldn’t get his lordship into bed, so she hatched up a plan to seduce him by the pond and invited the squire to meet her there so he could witness it. She didn’t care that eventually Lord Sherborne would know it wasn’t his baby. She needed to trick him into marriage before she was any further foregone.” She sighed sadly. “She wrote it all in the diary.”

  “Can you show me where this waterfall is? We’ll go on horseback…you won’t have to walk.”

  “Aye, that I can and I would walk to the ends of the earth to see Jack’s killer hung,” Elly said staunchly.

  Mandy bade Elly eat, insisted on it and ran upstairs to change into her riding clothes. A few moments later, they both rode astride as Elly led them through the woods to Pitman Pool and the waterfall cave.

  * * *

  The duke rose from the table at the Cock Pit decisively, and said, “Well then, Mr. Fowler, you have now in your possession enough facts to go and question the scoundrel.”

  “Aye and make it soon, while you know he is out of sorts because Hawkins spent some of the gold…” the viscount added also getting to his feet.

  Fowler pushed his tankard aside and considered them, “Aye, but it do be touchy. After all, what we have is conjecture, not facts and he isn’t the one that spent the gold, is he?”

  “No, but I gave you the testimony of a respectable shopkeeper who says he saw them together a month ago…what would a man like that have to do with a man of Hawkins’s cut?” the duke said quietly. One of the viscount’s servants had come forward to give Skip this piece of gossip and the duke had looked into it the day before, even as Ned and Chauncey had escaped his uncle’s yeoman.

  “Still, it don’t prove nothing, do it?” Fowler sighed heavily.

  The duke and the viscount left Fowler at their backs as they proceeded outdoors and Skip waited only until they were well away to say, “Egad, Brock…you were in a fidget to get out of there? Why?”

  “I don’t know Skip, but I got this uncomfortable sensation that something ain’t what it should be. Besides, leave Mandy to her own devices for too long is asking for trouble.”

  A few moments later saw them mounted and riding at a heady pace. They arrived at Wharfdale Manor in good time, but even as they entered and were met by Sticwell, the duke knew. He saw it on the old retainer’s face and immediately asked, “What is it, man, what has overset you?”

  “Well, I…I am not…certain…it is my place…”

  The viscount glanced sharply at him and said sharply, “Demme, Sticwell, if you’ve got something stuck in your track go and drop some firewater in it. Don’t stand about giving us rubbish.”

  “’Tis Miss Sherborne,” Sticwell managed to croak out. “She has gone out with a very questionable young woman.”

  “What?” the duke tensed.

  “A Miss Elly Bonner…” the butler added and found himself clasped by the duke’s strong hands and bodily shaken.

  “Devil you say! Where have they gone?”

  “Miss Bonner arrived on foot, but they went to the stables to get a pair of horses. Miss Sherborne said something about the Abbey as she left…but she didn’t say it to me, she said it to the young lady.”

  “The Abbey? Why?” the viscount repeated with a shake of his head.

  “I really couldn’t say,” Sticwell looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but under the scrutiny of the duke.

  “Did she not leave a message?” the duke demanded.

  “Yes, she said to tell you that they were going to get the diary right and tight.”

  “Did she, by God!” the duke said in a thunderous voice.

  It was at th
at moment that the front door at their back which was still opened slightly opened further and all heads turned.

  A tall and lovely woman in an exquisitely designed white Spencer over a white muslin gown stepped inside. Her dark ringlets framed her pretty face under a straw bonnet embellished with a white ribbon and she held her hands out and in a tearful voice cried, “John.”

  The viscount went forward and unceremoniously took her into his arms and held her tightly, whispering, “Oh my dear Kathy, what has happened to overset you?”

  The duke watched this scene unfold, torn between impatience and amusement. He could do nothing but await its outcome.

  The viscount, with his arm around the woman, turned towards the duke and met his gaze to say, “Brock, I have the honor, to present my wife, Kathleen, to you.” He turned to the woman, “This is the Duke of Margate, Brock Haydon, my dearest friend.”

  The duke found her poised in her reply and in that moment knew she was perfect for the viscount. He was well pleased. She gave the duke a fleeting smile, as he bent over her hand and she softly said to him, “Ah, yes, John has often said your name and with great affection. Do please excuse my strange intrusion. I have received…something of a shock and am not myself.”

  “A shock?” Skip held her tightly, “Oh, my dear…what is it?”

  She cast a doubtful glance at the duke and he begged to be excused, but she stayed him, “Oh no, Your Grace, you needn’t leave. It is just that, you see, my father…has died.”

  She fell then into her husband’s arms, obviously overcome with the sound of the words on her lips.

  The duke offered his condolences and quietly left her to the viscount as he withdrew. He stood outside, having closed the front door at his back, and tried to decide what he should do. Well damn it, ride! Yes—ride, but to where? The diary wasn’t at the Abbey. Did she mean for him to meet her there? Was that it?

  * * *

  It was at just about that moment the two women in question arrived at the waterfall cave. Mandy took a moment to marvel both at its beauty and the fact that she and Ned had never found this spot. She then remembered Elly’s grief and clamped her mouth shut as she told herself she was a stupid girl.