Imperfect Pretence

by Imperfect Pretence (retail) (epub)

  ‘And what of the others?’ Melinda ventured.

  ‘My people?’ Abdas asked, his voice anguished. ‘I know not. Some drowned. Others managed to cling to the wreckage. I was able to help just two others to stay afloat until we were spotted by the crew of the Lady Marion. What kind of a … a man am I, to save just two and myself?’

  ‘A truly remarkable one, I do believe,’ Melinda responded. Then, after a moment, she added in a low tone, ‘If only I could make it up to you for all that you have suffered.’

  He stopped again and covered the little hand that rested on his sleeve with his own. ‘Your kindness and sympathy are balm to my soul,’ he assured her. ‘Come, we must not get left behind.’

  They caught up with the others as they reached the church. Scarcely had they exchanged half a dozen remarks when Melinda cried out, ‘Look up there! Isn’t that someone on the roof?’

  They all glanced towards where she was pointing. A small figure was indeed clinging to the roof of the church. ‘Let us investigate,’ said Max.

  They walked through the lychgate to see a small group of people gathered together, looking upwards, among them the vicar. ‘What’s to do?’ Max asked him.

  ‘Tommy Spencer, a lad from the village, has managed to climb onto the church roof by means of yonder tree,’ said Mr Mawsby.

  ‘Good heavens, why?’ Constance asked.

  ‘Because he’s a boy, I expect,’ Max answered good-humouredly. ‘I suppose the silly lad can’t get down now.’

  ‘He did try a few minutes ago,’ the vicar answered, ‘but he slipped, and now refuses to move either way. In any case, as you see, it is far easier to drop from the tree onto the roof than to climb back up from the roof to the tree again.’

  ‘What is being done to rescue him?’ Max asked.

  ‘Some long ladders are being fetched,’ the vicar answered. ‘A steeplejack could go up there easily. Unfortunately, there is no such man living near here, and the boy is getting more nervous by the minute.’

  ‘Abdas,’ said Max. The African went to his side, and the two men looked up at the roof of the church. The lad’s position did indeed look most precarious. He was about halfway between the tower and the opposite end. As Max looked at the lad, he could see something of the pallor of his complexion and his general demeanour.

  He had come across something like this before, in tragic circumstances. He had chanced to be on board another man’s ship, about some long-forgotten errand. It had been a cold day in March, with a wind blowing across the Atlantic that cut right through into your bones. There had been a storm brewing and a young lad had been sent to climb the rigging to secure one of the sails more firmly. The boy had looked very unsure and nervous, and had had to be told more than once, ‘Get aloft, you young varmint!’ As he had climbed, the master had told Max that this was his first voyage.

  Given the nature of the day and the lad’s inexperience, in the master’s place Max would have been inclined to send another more confident boy, and allow this youngster to learn his work when the conditions were less hazardous. He had held his tongue. It was not his ship, after all, and he barely knew the master, who was much older and more experienced than himself.

  Whilst they had been attending to other matters on deck, they had been alerted by a cry from above their heads. The boy had managed to climb so far, then had missed his hold and was hanging on precariously, his face white, his eyes glassy with panic. Instinctively, Max had begun to strip off his coat, preparing to go up after the boy. He had only had time to get his arm out of one sleeve, when the lad’s hold had failed him, and he had fallen to his death on the deck at their feet.

  As Max remembered that incident, his jaw hardened. The ladders might arrive too late. He wasn’t going to see another boy perish if he could help it. He cupped his hands, and with a voice that had often been raised to carry across the deck of a ship mid-ocean, he called out, ‘Hold on, lad. We’re coming.’

  There was a window in the tower, perhaps eight feet above the roof on which the boy sat, and Max pointed to it. ‘Go to that window with a rope, and talk to the boy. Don’t let him move; I’ll retrace his steps.’ Abdas nodded, and immediately turned to the vicar to make sure that the door to the tower was unlocked, whilst Max made for the tree, halfway between a stride and a run.

  ‘Your Grace?’ Constance ventured, hurrying beside him. Along with everyone else, she had been watching the drama unfold. Every day since the duke’s arrival, she had been obliged to revise her original impression of the man. Now, if she was not mistaken, he was about to embark on an adventure which would be positively heroic.

  For a moment or two, Max was barely aware of having been addressed. These days of languor and inactivity had not suited him at all. He was a man of action. Now, he had an opportunity to put aside the part that he had been obliged to play and be true to himself. Again, he measured the distance from the window to the roof with his eye, and then looked carefully at the tree to see how the youngster had managed to cross from its branches to the roof. Courage and daring were two things; foolhardiness was quite another. He had no wish to provide someone else for the villagers to rescue with their long ladders!

  ‘Your Grace?’ Constance said again. Max looked at her this time. For a brief moment, he could not remember why she was calling him by a title that was not his.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked him. By now, they had reached the foot of the tree.

  He jerked his head in the direction of the stranded youngster. ‘Go and get him down,’ he replied easily.

  ‘But it’s so high,’ she answered.

  ‘Fearful for me, Miss Church?’ he asked. Max had dressed in his best to entertain the ladies, and he could not possibly climb in such a well-fitting coat. What was more, he now realized that whilst he would have been able to throw off a coat of his own choosing with ease, he actually needed someone to help him off with this one; that is, if he were not to pull and tug at it and turn the sleeves inside out in a somewhat farcical display. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I hate to ask you, but—’

  ‘But no doubt my hands are by far the cleanest of anyone around here,’ she suggested, with a twinkle.

  She had only intended to offer for the sake of being useful. Now, she found that there was something exceedingly intimate in helping a gentleman off with his coat. It did not seem to be possible to do it without touching him, and in doing so, however fleetingly, her awareness of his muscular physique was heightened. She coloured slightly, thankful that his back was turned towards her. Once his coat was in her hands, he shed his waistcoat and then his cravat, and also entrusted them to her. Using the tree as a support for his back, he pulled off his boots. He then looked at the tree and set about finding the best way up.

  Impulsively she said, ‘Surely it would be best to wait for the ladders.’ Even as she said the words, she looked at his face, and saw what was in his mind. The ladders might arrive too late. ‘Go, then,’ she said. ‘Do be careful.’ He turned briefly to look at her and knew an impulse to kiss her anxious, upturned face. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’ Constance asked him, breaking the spell.

  ‘Blankets for the boy,’ said Max, as he found the foothold he was searching for and climbed into the tree. ‘He’ll be shocked and cold.’

  ‘Be careful,’ she said again.

  He turned his head and looked down. He was all buccaneer now, in his shirtsleeves, his eyes flashing in his swarthy face. ‘I always am,’ he responded, before resuming his climb. As Constance watched him, at last she located the elusive memory that had escaped her until now. The duke, and the man on horseback who had seen her at the window of the Scotts’ house and had blown her a kiss, were one and the same! He was playing a part! Which was the part, and which the real man?

  The sound of voices from behind her made her aware that she was staring up into the tree like a halfwit so, remembering her errand, she turned back to make sure that blankets were fetched for the terrified boy. Of the hazardo
us nature of the duke’s next move, she hardly dared to think.

  Those assembled in the churchyard were now looking up at the roof where the boy still crouched, apparently unable to move. There was no sign of the African or of Melinda. In response to her question, the vicar informed her that they had both gone into the tower. ‘Miss Grayleigh’s father employs the lad’s uncle, so she knows him,’ he explained. ‘She thought that a friendly face might reassure him. A stranger, especially one who is obviously’ – he cleared his throat – ‘a foreigner, might cause him to panic further.’

  Constance nodded. She was not sure how Mrs Grayleigh might feel about her daughter being left unchaperoned in such a way. Even so, now was not the moment to insist that someone else go up the tower to play propriety. She was certainly not going to do so! Instead, she passed on Max’s message, and stood watching the roof. A glance to the right showed her both Melinda’s and Abdas’s faces at the window. To the left, she detected a sway of the tree’s branches, then Max emerged, looking for a way to descend to the roof, which was a short drop below him.

  ‘He’ll be killed for sure,’ said one woman, her tone one of dread tinged with not a little excitement. ‘Big funeral for a duke, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘There’ll be another change at the Tower then,’ remarked another lugubriously.

  ‘Oh, do be quiet if you can’t say anything useful,’ Constance snapped. In that instant, Max dropped to the roof. Despite a gasp from the crowd, his stance did not waver for an instant. Slowly, but confidently, his arms outstretched for balance, he made his way to where the boy was crouched, and, before the lad could grab hold of him, he sat astride the roof and took him in his arms. There was another gasp from the crowd, this time one of relief. Nobody spoke; everyone understood that the next step would be just as hazardous.

  Now, Abdas emerged from the window with a rope, one end of which was attached to the window whilst the other was in a coil over his shoulder. He made his way along the roof as lightly and as easily as Max had done and soon reached the other two figures on the roof.

  ‘You didn’t need to come down,’ Max said. ‘You could have waited in the tower and pulled us up from there.’

  ‘You would deny me my chance to shine in front of a lady?’ Abdas asked him, grinning.

  Max glanced up to see Melinda looking down at them from the tower. ‘I see,’ he murmured. ‘Well, let’s get the lad to safety and earn our plaudits.’

  The most difficult part of the whole business was to persuade the boy to put his confidence in them. To begin with, he was gripping Max so tightly that it was almost impossible to move. A few minutes’ talking to him and building up his confidence was time well spent. The rope, though quite unnecessary as far as Max and Abdas was concerned, represented a lifeline to the boy, and once he had it tied around him, he became much more co-operative.

  To everyone’s relief, they soon reached the tower, whereupon Abdas climbed the rope with ease, pulled the lad up, then let the rope down again so that Max could follow.

  On the ground, as soon as the boy was pulled to safety, there was a hearty cheer in which Constance joined, and she was conscious of a surge of relief so powerful that it took her by surprise.

  She now realized that he was neither a dandy nor a brute but definitely a buccaneer; certainly not the kind of man that she ought to be hankering after, if she had any sense! It was quite a lowering thought to discover that in that case, clearly she had no sense at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The day after the lad’s rescue being Sunday, Mr and Miss Fellowes, together with their niece and her guest, attended the morning service. The duke and his secretary were there in the Beacon Tower pew. Their presence was now accepted among the village populace. Even those who had never seen anyone with dark skin before were now used to the sight of Abdas. Some of them had even been heard to say that he was ‘no worse than plenty of foreigners and a good deal better than most’ – meaning, of course, anyone who came from the other side of Aylsham.

  The willingness of the villagers to accept both men had, of course, increased tenfold after their daring rescue of Tommy Spencer. The lad’s mother, once she had given him a good hiding for his foolishness, had recounted the story of his rescue to anyone who had not witnessed if for himself. There was even a smattering of applause for the two heroes of the hour as they entered the church, hastily quelled by disapproving looks from the more pious members of the congregation.

  After the service was over, the duke invited the Fellowes party to eat with them, by way of paying Miss Fellowes back for her hospitality, and they were delighted to accept. The mist from the previous day had blown away completely, and the day was sunny, if rather breezy, so the walk from church was followed by a stroll in the gardens.

  ‘I wonder at your spending so much time here, when you have much bigger estates elsewhere,’ Constance remarked, as she walked at the duke’s side. The walled garden afforded protection to its many plants from strong winds from the sea. It was here that she had seen the duke fighting with Abdas. How different the nobleman looked today! Yet there was a vigorous energy about him, even in repose, which – or so it seemed to Constance – must surely be obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

  Max shrugged. ‘A whim,’ he drawled.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ Constance replied.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Play the languid aristocrat.’

  ‘Play?’ he murmured. ‘And what makes you think that I am playing, Miss Church?’

  ‘Yesterday’s events for a start,’ Constance replied. ‘You climbed that tree and walked along the roof as if you encountered such hazards every day of the week. And,’ she went on, when he looked as though he was about to interrupt her, ‘I saw you in Diss.’

  ‘Diss?’ he queried, drawing his brows together as if puzzled.

  ‘You were on horseback,’ Constance declared. ‘Later, I saw you fighting with a group of men.’

  Max stared at her in consternation. ‘When did you realize that it was I?’ he asked her.

  ‘Something at the back of my mind kept telling me that I had seen you before,’ she told him. ‘When you looked up at me in the gig, the angle of your face seemed familiar. I ought to have realized when I saw you fencing, only—’ She broke off. How could she admit that she had been flustered at the sight of him in his shirtsleeves? After a moment, she continued rather lamely. ‘Only I did not. Then when you climbed the tree in that devil-may-care fashion, I knew.’

  He raised his hand. ‘Ah, no,’ he responded. ‘I may climb with confidence, but being “devil-may-care” at great heights is never wise.’

  ‘Neither is taking on several men in the open street,’ she pointed out.

  Max sighed. ‘Would you believe me if I told you that I had been finding my new responsibilities rather irksome?’ he said ruefully. ‘I needed to escape for the evening. Barnes is inclined to be – protective, shall we say? – of the ducal reputation. It was easier to slip away secretly than try to explain myself to him.’

  ‘People do not always understand one, do they?’ Constance replied. ‘And sometimes, the people closest to one can find it the hardest.’

  ‘Very true,’ Max agreed. ‘I suspect that you too have secrets, Miss Church. Are your uncle and aunt aware of your acquaintance with the writings of Thomas Paine, for instance?’

  ‘How did you—?’ She broke off abruptly.

  ‘You quoted him the other day, remember?’

  ‘Hoist with your own petard, then, Your Grace,’ she declared triumphantly, making a swift recovery. ‘You must be acquainted with them yourself in order to have recognized the quotation.’

  ‘A nobleman has a duty to identify traitors in the midst.’

  ‘Mr Paine is not a traitor,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘He’s been convicted of seditious libel,’ he pointed out. ‘He’s also a member of the French Convention. And he advocated the separation of the American colonies from Br
itain.’

  ‘I am sure that he is a good man and an honest one,’ she protested, then coloured as she realized what she had revealed.

  ‘You have met him, then? Under what circumstances?’

  ‘It was in London. I went with Papa and we met him at the house of a mutual friend.’ She described her father’s study in Cambridge, the lively company, the discussions and the debates. ‘I missed it terribly after Papa died,’ she confessed. ‘It opened up a world for me; a world of intellect, in which questions and challenges were welcomed.’

  ‘Questions and challenges; or a room full of men with radical views simply agreeing with each other?’

  ‘That’s a hateful thing to say,’ she said hotly. ‘Just because most of them would … would—’

  ‘Would dispense with such as myself at the drop of a hat?’ he suggested.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that,’ she replied, flushing.

  ‘No, I’m sure you were not. That was intolerably crass and ill-mannered of me.’

  ‘Yes it was,’ she agreed.

  ‘No doubt you would send me to the guillotine for such remarks. In my defence, I would like to remind you that crassness and ill manners are not solely the province of the aristocracy.’

  ‘No indeed; buccaneers are capable of such behaviour too.’

  ‘Touché,’ he responded, raising his hand in a fencer’s gesture. ‘Shall we go inside now? I suspect that dinner might be nearly ready.’

  It was only as they were walking back to the house that Max said provocatively, ‘You didn’t mention everything that you saw me do when I was in Diss.’

  Constance felt the colour flooding into her cheeks. ‘No, I did not,’ she agreed, trying for a touch of bravado. ‘I dare say you do the same when you catch sight of any female at a window.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Max answered. ‘I only blow kisses to pretty ones.’

  It was as well that they reached the house at this point, for Constance had no idea how to respond to this audacious comment.

  Max conducted them to the dining room, where the table was laid ready for dinner. The furniture had been polished to a shine, likewise the silver, and the curtains and carpet, whilst somewhat worn, had obviously been cleaned. Either Barnes and Davis had been exceedingly busy, or more servants had been employed. ‘We have two young women who walk here from the village each day and report to Barnes,’ the duke informed them.