“You wish me to ask him if Sir Harrowby has a wound on his shoulder?”
“Yes—on his left side—although Philippe will remember. He was the one who tended me throughout my illness.”
“Could your cousin have employed someone else?”
He gave his head a shake. “It is more inconceivable to think of Harrowby’s dealing with a cutthroat, than it is to imagine him as an assassin. He would not have the courage.
“No,” he continued with a sigh, “the only reason I can even entertain the notion of Harrowby as my father’s murderer is the cowardly way in which it was done.”
He told her how his father had been stabbed, describing the bruise from the oddly-shaped hilt on Lord Hawkhurst’s back.
“I still cannot understand how my father turned his back on a man carrying a sword. It must have been someone he trusted.”
She could feel every hurt and every bitter thought that stoked his grief.
“Is there no one from the Abbey who might have done it?”
In his long hesitation, she read another source of pain. She could do nothing but wait.
In the end he told her of his discovery that James Henry, his father’s most trusted servant, was a half-brother he had never known he had. He described their midnight confrontation and James Henry’s suspicions of him.
Hester knew that it pained him to talk of this brother who hated him, but she felt she must ask, “Are you certain that he told you the truth, my lord? If I understand you, you have no one’s word that he is your father’s son but his.”
“When you see him, you will wonder that his face didn’t tell me long ago. But I was gone for three years, you see, and it was during my absence that he gained such an important position in my father’s household. When I came back, I was so eager to assume my own place that I had very little time to think of anyone else. My father had tried to arrange for my election to Parliament, but in those three years, Kent had gone entirely to the Whigs. His bitter disappointment when I lost—and my own wish for society, I confess—kept me in London most of the time. I was dimly aware of James Henry’s dislike for me, but I seldom saw him.”
“Do you have any suspicion that he might have killed your father? I thought he was the one who reported your quarrel to Sir Joshua.”
“Yes, he was. Although if, as he said, he had an affection for our father, I can see how he might have believed me guilty, particularly with his hatred for me.
“He might have done it,” St. Mars went on, “but I find it hard to see what he would have gained. My father was making him an attractive allowance, which he has now lost. If he did commit murder, it was for a reason other than money.”
“When you confronted him, did you see if he had been wounded?”
“No. I’m afraid that the shock of discovering a brother, on top of everything else, drove every useful thought from my mind.”
Hester could imagine the swarm of emotions he must have felt on making his discovery. Chagrin would have been the very least of them. Not knowing what to say, she tried to think of a way to help him determine James Henry’s innocence or guilt, but before she could, he asked her, “I would be very grateful if you would tell me your impressions of James Henry after you have met him. He will certainly wait upon my cousin, and you might find an occasion to engage him in conversation. I—I had a feeling about him. But with such animosity between us, I cannot trust my own feelings. Your opinion may be helpful in settling my own.”
“I will do my best, my lord. But where can I reach you?”
“Send a message to Mr. Brown at the Fox and Goose in Pigden. And be sure to include whatever Philippe has to say about Harrowby.”
“Will there be a difficulty in posting it?”
“It would be better if no one saw the address. If you go into Hawkhurst, you can give it to the postmaster yourself. If not, tell one of our pages, Clem, to take it in for you. He is a bright boy, but he cannot read. As long as no one else sees your letter, he will not question it.
“But no,” he said, suddenly changing his mind. “I had rather get your answers sooner than that. And you might find it hard to send a servant on an errand when you are new to the household.” He turned towards her. “Would you be willing to meet me? In a week’s time?”
“Yes, but how—and where?” She felt her heart speeding up just at the thought.
“When you get to the Abbey, you will notice the ruins just below the house. No one goes there. The servants believe they are haunted.”
“Dear me!”
He grinned. “I hope you do not believe in ghosts, Mrs. Kean?”
“No, I don’t, however, I daresay there is something vastly unpleasant about them if no one visits them at all.”
“I’m rather fond of them myself. Will you meet me there or not?”
“Of course I will meet you, my lord. You have only to say when and tell me how to go about escaping from the house of an evening, for I assume you do not mean to meet me in a haunted place during the day. I would be bound to miss the ghost, and you could be caught.”
“I shall be there among the ruins one week from tonight. That should give you time to get an answer to one of my questions at least. Do not concern yourself with the hour. I will arrive near dark and can hide myself until you come, whenever that might be.”
“I may be able to leave the others when they are at cards. Since I have no money to wager, I am often excluded from their games. I doubt that anyone will miss me.”
“There’s a good girl.” He told her which door would be closest to the ruins and from which her departure would less likely be noticed by the servants. “Although if anyone asks you, you can say you have always had a romantic turn of mind and adore a ruin.”
“I have always had a romantic turn of mind, and I do adore a ruin,” she said. “Thank you for reminding me of it, my lord. Now, if only your servants will believe that when they see me hard at my stitches and my household chores.”
She had made a joke of it, because she did not want him to know how near the truth he had been. How could she think of meeting him in an ancient ruin in the dark without thinking of fantastic things that would never be?
He laughed, fortunately. As they had been speaking, Hester had got the feeling that his spirits had partially recovered, so she was not surprised when, on hearing Tom’s return with their horses, he sprang up with all his former vigour.
“I shall leave that for you to contrive, Mrs. Kean, for I must get you back to Harrowby. I won’t ask if you can think of a plausible story to explain your abduction, for I’m certain you will. But the less time you have to explain away, the better.”
Hester fought a feeling of nervousness. She could think of some very uncomfortable questions that might be asked. “I will come up with something, my lord.”
“Good girl.”
A polite gesture invited her to accompany him to his horse. Along the way, he stooped to recover his mask and hat.
“I hope you will be more comfortable riding postilion this time, Mrs. Kean. Tom, will you help us up?”
His servant, a square, broad-chested man, came over to give him a leg up. He waited for St. Mars’s lively horse to settle down before turning to Hester.
“Give me your right hand and rest your left on Tom’s shoulder,” St. Mars ordered.
She obeyed, as Tom said, “Pardon me, madam,” and bent in front of her with his hands clasped. In a second he had tossed her up on the rump of St. Mars’s horse.
“Put your arms about my waist,” he quickly warned her, as he soothed his sidling mare. “Penny isn’t used to carrying two, I’m afraid.”
Hester overcame her timidity at the horse’s first buck. She grabbed hold of St. Mars’s waist for dear life. “Is that her name? She is very pretty, my lord.”
“You see, Penny,” he said, bending over slightly to pat his horse’s neck. “I told you Mrs. Kean was a lady of uncommon good taste.”
Hester felt an irrepressible bubble
escaping in her laugh, which had very little to do with his remark, and everything to do with riding behind him on a cold spring night. She clasped her arms about his body and felt the strength of his back and the smoothness of his satin cloak against her cheek. The chill in the wind made her huddle close, and remarkably, she felt no shame or uneasiness. No reluctance—just a glorious thrill.
She did not ask him where he was taking her. For the time being she could pretend he was taking her away from her aunt’s house and the dreariness of her future, as the trees sped past them and the moon lit their way.
At this, the blood the virgin’s cheek forsook,
A livid paleness spreads o’er all her look;
She sees, and trembles at th’ approaching ill,
Just in the jaws of ruin, and Codille.
(Sir Plume of amber snuffbox justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane)
With earnest eyes, and round unthinking face,
He first the snuffbox opened, then the case,
And thus broke out—”My Lord, why, what the devil?
Z-ds! damn the lock! ‘fore Gad, you must be civil!
Plague on ‘t! ‘tis past a jest—nay prithee, pox!
Give her the hair”—he spoke, and rapped his box.
Now move to war her sable Matadores,
In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.
Spadillio first, unconquerable Lord!
Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board.
As many more Manillio forced to yield,
And marched a victor from the verdant field.
Him Basto followed, but his fate more hard
Gained but one trump and one Plebeian card.
CHAPTER 16
He carried her all the way into Cranbrook, approaching it by a drovers’ trail through the woods, then skirting the main road to cut in behind the church. They dismounted in the yard, leaving Tom with the horses. St. Mars had doffed his cloak, but Hester could not help fearing his capture as he walked her through the cemetery to the gatehouse, which stood within sight of the George Inn.
From the shelter of its walls, they peered out at an extraordinary bustle in front of the inn’s door. Men had crowded around it, and they appeared to be discussing something disturbing. After a moment, a boy was seen to push his way through the crowd to run up the street.
The Hawkhurst coach was nowhere in sight, but it could already be in the yard.
“From the look of things, I would say that my cousin has called for a hue and cry after the rogues who robbed him. I’m afraid I will have to part with you here.”
“Oh yes, please, do go! I shall be quite all right.”
“And you will meet me?”
“Yes, of course. Please, hurry!”
But St. Mars would not leave until he had thanked her, and he insisted on watching her walk safely into the George. He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Then he held on to it, as he expressed his gratitude in a flow of humble words.
She was unable to find the right thing to say at such a moment. Fearing for his safety, but also afraid to give away more of her own emotions than would be prudent, she merely returned the pressure of his hand, before moving out into the street.
The George stood on a corner, with entrances in both streets. Since the men had grouped themselves near the door to the taproom, Hester made her way around the building to the other side. They were so engaged in their business that not one of them noticed a lady crossing from the church.
No matter how thrilling her ride had been, she still had found the discipline to make up a lie about her abduction. She was only nervous that her capacity to act might fail her when she needed it.
As she stepped into the corridor, she heard voices grumbling about a “blue devil” and a “blue Satan,” and her heart skipped a beat when she recognized Sir Harrowby’s plaintive tone amongst them.
“I insist on speaking to a magistrate. I tell you, a lady in my party has been taken. We must raise a posse to hunt down the scoundrel who took my guineas and my ring!”
If Hester had not been so flustered at the prospect of her own theatricals, she would have had a hard time not to laugh. Fortunately, her trembling was such as to lend her voice credence when she stumbled towards the inside taproom door, crying, “Help! Oh, help!”
A roomful of faces turned to stare at her in open-mouthed astonishment. She paused just outside the room and leaned dramatically against the door jamb.
“Oh, Sir Harrowby!” she said, doing her best to convey great relief.
“Gadzooks! Mrs. Kean!” For a moment, she couldn’t be certain whether he was happy to see her or not. Then she recollected that the posse he’d wished for would unlikely be called out just for a few guineas and a ring.
Mrs. Mayfield chimed in, “Hester! How did you come here? And who was that man?”
Feeling suddenly queasy, Hester saw questions forming in their eyes, and with more presence of mind than she knew she had, she fainted right in front of them.
It had not precisely been a genuine faint, so she was uncomfortably aware of the bruises she caught on her way down to the floor. The men of Cranbrook were not in the habit of catching fainting ladies, she discovered, but at least her apparent unconsciousness bought her sympathy and some time.
She prolonged her swoon as long as she could, hoping St. Mars would have more time to get away. But she “came to” when the people who had called for hartshorn and brandy began discussing the possibility of a chase.
Harrowby had taken it upon himself to administer the hartshorn to her. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he carried a bottle of it in his valise, but she was unhappily made aware of it when he waved it under her nose.
It would have been impossible to hold out any longer, so she sat up woozily after giving her first jerk to evade the fumes.
“My dear Mrs. Kean!” Harrowby shouted in her face as if she were deaf. “What can you tell us about the rogue? The one in that marvelous blue cloak?”
She frowned, shaking her head as if to clear it. “I can tell you nothing about him, sir. He dropped me somewhere on the road, and after ascertaining that I carried no money on me, he left me to make my way here.”
“Do you mean you have walked these last three miles?”
“No, a farmer—or a shepherd—I’m not sure which—picked me up in his cart and set me down near the church. I should have asked his name so that you could thank him, but I was so frightened—I forgot to.”
Sir Harrowby dismissed this omission with an impatient frown. “But what about my watch and my ring?”
Hester looked affronted, and was rewarded by the indignation she saw on other faces. “I was hardly in a position to demand them back, sir,” she reminded him.
As he became aware of their listeners’ sympathetic grumbles, he testily said, “Well, of course, dear lady. I did not mean that you was to get them back, but I would give a pretty pair of guineas to have that ring.
“I don’t know why my coachman refused to chase the scoundrels, but he shall answer for it, and so I assured him.”
Hester had wondered if anyone had tried to pursue them. Now, with a start, she wondered if Lord Hawkhurst’s coachman had recognized St. Mars.
“Did the villain hurt you, ma’am?” A polite man she took for the innkeeper inquired. “If he did, then it is your duty to report it.”
“No.” She did not have to fake a blush at his pointed question. “He did nothing except to take me from my friends and leave me to make my way alone.”
“That is all very well,” Harrowby inserted in an injured voice, “but he must be had up immediately for highway robbery. I cannot believe that a magistrate will not consider this assault on a peer on his Majesty’s highway a very grave offence.”
The citizens of Cranbrook could not disagree. As Hester looked around, she saw many prosperous tradesmen among them. They would be just as worried about a new highwayman in their area as an aristocrat wo
uld—perhaps more, since they would not have the escort a travelling nobleman would have.
As they discussed what was to be done, and Sir Harrowby was assured by the innkeeper that a boy had been sent to fetch “Sir Harold,” Hester excused herself and begged the aid of a maid to help her upstairs. The dishevelment of her hair—and the relative neatness of her clothes, she hoped—had convinced her audience that her story was true. She must not act so overturned that they began to suspect a ravishment as well as an abduction.
She was uncomfortably aware of Mrs. Mayfield who climbed the stairs behind her and followed her into a room where Isabella lay in bed, her hair already covered with a cap. She must have been tucked in as soon as they had reached the inn.
“Hester!” she exclaimed, starting up. “I was so afraid!”
And with that she began to cry with such a violent sobbing that Hester took her in her arms and mumbled soothing words, until Mrs. Mayfield lost all patience with her daughter. “Now that will be quite enough, Isabella. You can see that nothing has happened to any of us, and aside from a few guineas and a ring that Lord Hawkhurst can very well spare, now that he has come into his inheritance, no harm was done.”
“Your mother is right, Bella. There is nothing to cry about. I am perfectly well, you see?”
Isabella pushed away from her to blow her nose. “But did you see how that man came after me? Almost as if he knew me?”
Hester felt a sudden uneasiness, which increased when Mrs. Mayfield asked, “Why should you think he knew you? Did you recognize him?” She gazed sharply at her daughter.
Isabella shook her head. She must have been too focused on her own shrieks to have heard St. Mars use her name. If not, she should have known—not that it was St. Mars, perhaps, but that their highwayman was an acquaintance.
“Did you know who he was, Hester?” Her aunt gave her a fearful glance, as if she suspected St. Mars.
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