by Rebecca Ward
“Not until I am satisfied that—blast and confound you, woman, you will not faint.”
Cecily had pretended to go limp in her captor’s grip. When she felt that clasp slacken, she jerked herself free and, picking up her skirts, started to run. He lunged after her and caught her arm, but she kicked back at him with all her strength. Apparently her kick connected, for he gave a muted roar of pain and let her go.
Where was Trevor? Cecily’s heart hammered like a kettledrum. Though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, it was impossible to see the path over which she ran. Suddenly another figure stepped out of the trees before her. “Stay where you are,” the newcomer hissed.
Mindlessly Cecily turned to run back the way she had come. Her assailant was too fast. The scream that had been forming on her lips died into a little whimper as he caught her around the neck. “Don’t you make a sound, or you’ll be sorry,” Dickinson snarled.
Acting instinctively, Cecily dug her elbows backward. The underfootman had not expected fight and was caught off guard. He gave a grunt of pain and released her, but a moment later he had recovered and was after her, catching up to her at the edge of the woods. “No bloody fear you’ll get away.”
The vicious tug he gave her hair nearly snapped her neck. With no strength or breath to cry out, Cecily found her arm gripped and cruelly twisted. Then, letting go of her hair, Dickinson clamped that hand over her mouth.
“Come to warn Lord Brandon, ’ave you?” he sneered. “The colonel’s got ’is nibs dead to rights. A common smuggler ’e is, and both you and ’er ladyship is in on it. The colonel’s going to be pleased with me.”
Dickinson was the colonel’s creature. He had been spying for Howard all along. Cecily felt the white-hot fury that had risen in her when Giles Netherby accosted her in her room.
She bit down on Dickinson’s palm, so that he bellowed with pain and loosened his hold on her arm, then eeled out of his grip. When he grabbed for her, she knocked away his hands so hard that his hat flew off.
“You unspeakable swine!” she exclaimed.
With an oath, he leapt at her, and she saw the dull glint of steel in his hand. “When I get me ’ands on you, you’ll regret it, me lady,” he threatened.
Cecily snatched up a dead branch and parried the footman’s knife blows. She knew that Dickinson was much stronger than she and was wondering if she could make a run for the house, when, to her horror, her foot slipped from under her. “Now, me beauty, what’ll you do?” Dickinson sneered.
There was a rustle in the underbrush, a movement of shadow, and a click of bone meeting bone, and Dickinson fell like a stone. He lay on the ground and did not move.
“Trevor!” Cecily cried.
He dropped down on one knee and gathered her into his arms. She clung to him stammering, “Thank God I found you, oh, thank God. The colonel is riding for the western downs—”
“I know all about Howard.” Swiftly he rose, lifting her with him. “You have no business being out here,” he told her. “Go back to the house at once.”
Before she could protest, there were halting footsteps, and a tall, shadowy figure came limping up the path toward them. “Ah, good,” a cold voice said, “you have stopped the woman.”
“She has nothing to do with this business.” Though Lord Brandon spoke calmly, Cecily could feel the heightened tension in him. “She is leaving now.”
“That she must not do. There is no telling what she has seen. For security’s sake, she must be sequestered.”
Brandon thrust Cecily behind him. “She’s going back to the house.”
“No, I am not,” Cecily contradicted. “I demand to know who this is.”
“Go back to the house, Celia,” Lord Brandon said.
“You know this hellcat?” There was astonishment in the other man’s cold tones.
As though discussing the weather, Lord Brandon replied, “I hope to marry the lady.”
There was a silence. Then both Cecily and Cold Voice spoke at once. “Marry?” Cecily exclaimed, while the man she had kicked demanded to know if Lord Brandon had taken leave of his senses.
“There’s no time for moonshine and madness now,” he said angrily. “You of all people know what the stakes are. What have you confided in this vixen?”
Cecily glared at him. From the very little she could make out of Cold Voice, he looked thoroughly unsavory.
“If I am a vixen,” she told him roundly, “you are a rogue. No one but a rogue would accost a female as you did.”
There was a little silence, and then Cold Voice said, “Madam, I will offer my apologies at another time. Deal with her, Brandon.”
Cecily glared after him as the man limped away. “I am glad I kicked him,” she said. “And you are a rogue, too, Lord Brandon, for speaking so scurrilously about marriage.”
In spite of himself, Brandon grinned. “Celia, you are beyond price,” he said. “You force me to kiss you.”
About to protest, Cecily found herself being taken back into his arms and being thoroughly kissed. The kiss lasted for a few seconds only, but in those seconds the sun became unfixed, the world ceased to turn, and night was transformed to brightest day.
For a long moment they stayed fused together, and then Brandon loosed her and stepped away. “Go back to the house now,” he told her softly. “Don’t worry about me.”
She knew that she should do as he said, but she could not bear to see him walk away into danger. “Wait,” she temporized. “You do not know that Captain Jermayne has joined the colonel and his Riders. And that Dickinson, here, is the colonel’s spy.”
“We’ve had our eye on Master Dickinson for some time.” Lord Brandon whistled softly, and two shadows materialized, grasped the unconscious Dickinson by his boot heels, and dragged him away.
“What are you going to do with him?” Cecily wondered nervously.
“He deserves hanging for putting his hands on you, but at least I have broken his nose and his jaw.” There was grim satisfaction in Brandon’s voice. “Once this is over, he will be set free. Now do what you’re asked for once in your life and go back to the house.”
He turned on his heel and melted away into the darkness, and there was nothing she could do but to return to Marcham Place, where she found Lady Marcham reading a book in the periwinkle room. Her aunt looked up as she entered and remarked, “Ah, my dear. I wondered where you had got to.”
Cecily saw no reason to lie. “I was in the woods, Aunt Emerald. There I was accosted by a tall man with the coldest voice I have ever heard.” As she recounted the rest of her adventures, Lady Marcham frankly stared.
“You kicked this icy-voiced knave in the shin, did you say? How extraordinary! Cecily, I begin to have great hopes for you. You will go far.”
Cecily had been watching her grandaunt’s face closely. “Do you know who the man is?” she asked.
“How could I, when I was not even there?” Lady Marcham asked. “As for Dickinson, I will not peel eggs with you. I had my doubts about him all along. I am sorry for Mary, however, for it is not her fault that her swain is such a thatch-gallows.”
With this she returned to her book. Cecily wondered how Aunt Emerald could be so calm. She herself felt as if she were resting on a bed of nails.
The minutes crawled by into hours, and the house began to prepare for sleep. The senior footman had just taken up the candelabra to light the ladies to their beds when Cecily started. “Listen,” she whispered, “hoofbeats! Do you think—”
“Colonel Howard is the outside of enough,” Lady Marcham exclaimed irritably. “The man has no sense of propriety to come here at such an hour. Well, I suppose I must receive him, but you need not. Go to bed, my dear.”
Her voice was as calm as ever, but when Cecily looked into her eyes, she could for once read her grandaunt’s thoughts. She went to her and put her arm around the older woman’s waist. “We will meet the colonel together,” she said.
“Did I not say that you would go
far?” Lady Marcham asked affectionately. “Announce the colonel when he arrives, Grigg.”
But when the knock came at the door, the voice Cecily heard was not the booming tones of the colonel, and a moment later James Montworthy strutted into the room. He was booted, spurred, armed with sword and pistols, and followed at a respectful distance by half a dozen of the rank and file.
He looked thoroughly pleased with himself as he made his bow and exclaimed, “Glad to see that you ladies are both in plump current, give you m’word on it.”
Cecily turned her back. Lady Marcham said coldly, “We thought that you had ridden off with Colonel Howard.”
“Truth is, now that Brandon’s been exposed as the ringleader of the smugglers—beg your pardon, Lady Marcham, but I’m not one to wrap plain facts in clean linen—I was sure he’d go to earth. So I told the colonel, and he sent me out here with some of the men. Ain’t safe for you ladies to be on your own, give you m’word on it.”
“Do you stand there and tell me that we are in danger from my godson?” Lady Marcham demanded impatiently.
“Well, he is a desperate character, ain’t he?” Montworthy checked himself and added in a somewhat sheepish tone, “Fact is, Colonel Howard sent me to . . . to, ah, search the house and grounds.”
Whirling to face him, Cecily cried, “That is beyond everything. Next you will say that Aunt Emerald and I are criminals.”
James looked obstinate. “Well, after all, the man lives here.”
He paused and stared meaningfully at Lady Marcham, who shrugged. “Do as you will, but remember that those who seek often find more than they bargain for. Indeed, you are brave men to search my house.”
Behind Montworthy the rank and file shifted uneasily, and Cecily heard one of them muttering a charm against magic. “Maybe, unner the circumstances, sorr,” one of them ventured to say, “it’s best if we just search the grounds, like.”
“You’ll search what I tell you to,” James snapped. “Start below stairs, and do a good job of it. The lower classes,” he added loftily as his henchmen clomped away, “try my patience, give you m’word on it. Never use their brain boxes. Now what is it?”
One of his retainers had shuffled back into the periwinkle room. “If you please, sorr,” he stammered, “If you was to come below stairs—”
“Hoy!” James started like a hound who has scented game. “So Brandon is here.”
He strode out of the room and down the hall, and Cecily, after a glance at Lady Marcham, ran after him. At the top of the steps that led to the servants’ domain, she stopped. James and his followers were standing at the kitchen door.
The door was ajar, and through it wafted the sound of a male voice. Cecily readied herself to shout a warning, but before she could do so, the voice said distinctly, “Is this the right way? Has one got the right touch at last?”
“Sir Carolus?” Cecily wondered. She turned amazed eyes to Montworthy, who had turned brick red.
“Yes, yes!” Mrs. Horris’s voice cooed. “You are doing hit so lovely, sir. Keep at hit, keep at hit!”
Sir Carolus and Mrs. Horris? It boggled the imagination. James gritted, “That’s why he’s been acting so odd. I see it now. Smiling to himself, as though he’s come into a honeyfall. Looking guilty whenever I chanced on him. Lying to me about his gout tonight so he could sneak over here and . . . and canoodle with a cook! How could he do this to me?”
“Ooh, lovely! You got it hup so well,” Mrs. Horris moaned. “It’s going ter ’old this time.”
James seized his hair with both hands.
“Now?” panted Sir Carolus. “Now?”
With a muffled roar, James burst into the kitchen, then stopped dead in his tracks. The rank and file, who had raced in after their leader, collided with his broad back and stopped also.
Mrs. Horris screamed, and Sir Carolus shouted, “No! You must not—oh, it is too late.”
Cecily pushed her way into the kitchen and saw Sir Carolus staring mournfully at a collapsing soufflé. “It had such a beautiful height to it.” He sighed. Then, glaring at his son, he added, “How dare you burst in here and ruin my work of art? Why are you here?”
“What are you doing here?” James retorted. “Left you in your bed. Said you had gout and was in too much pain for fireworks. You lied to me—”
“If one had told the truth, one would not have had any peace.” Sir Carolus looked ready to weep as he put his wilted soufflé down on the table. “It was to be a dish of eggs and potatoes and onions with just a kiss of herbs. It was Mrs. Horris’s recipe, and she was teaching it to me.”
James opened his mouth to speak, but Mrs. Horris had finally recovered her voice. “Isn’t a woman safe in her own kitchen?” she shouted. Then, waving her rolling pin, she advanced on the rank and file. “Out, you lot,” she threatened. “You hain’t wanted in ’ere!”
The colonel’s homespun warriors retreated hastily into the hall, from which one of them called, “Shall us search the rest of the ’ouse, sorr?”
Montworthy nodded. He seemed to be beyond speech.
“And you, too, may take yourself off.” Sir Carolus shook a finger under his tall son’s nose as he added, “Your conduct, sir, is reprehensible in the extreme. What is it to you if one enjoys the culinary arts? From henceforth one intends to cook at Montworthy House.”
Obviously taken aback by his sire’s vehemence, James swallowed hard and faltered, “But our cook’ll give notice, Pater.”
“Then let him,” announced Sir Carolus. “There are other cooks. Remember that you do not own Montworthy House, sir, and that if you are bored in Dorset, you have only your profligate ways to thank. Mend your manners, or you will be in the soup!”
One of the rank and file now peered around the door to report, “Sorr, Lord Brandon ain’t in the ’ouse.”
With obvious relief James turned away from his outraged sire. “We’ll search the woods, then.”
His retainer gaped. “The ’Aunted Woods?”
“Where the Widow is supposed to walk at the dark of the moon,” Cecily added promptly. “Besides, how can Lord Brandon be in the woods, when he was seen riding toward the western downs?”
But James repeated, “He’s in the woods, I tell you. Hoy, Ableman, Pruett—time to draw the coverts. Get lamps and follow me.”
Accompanied by his nervous retainers, he clattered up the stairs and out the front door. “What is this about Lord Brandon?” Sir Carolus wondered, but Cecily had no time for explanations. She fairly ran to keep up with Montworthy and the others and found them making their way through the herb garden toward the edge of the woods.
“Hoy,” James exclaimed. “Look at that!”
Cecily’s heart sank as she saw that Montworthy was pointing to the hat she had knocked off Dickinson’s head. It was lying on the edge of the wood, and the light of the lamps picked it out clearly.
Montworthy picked up the hat and examined it. “This is a footman’s hat,” he said, “and it ain’t been lying here long, or it’d be wet with dew. That Dickinson fellow was set up by the colonel to watch out for Brandon. He must’ve found smugglers inside those woods.”
“I collect that you are now a detective.” But Cecily’s sarcasm was wasted.
His face shining with renewed excitement, Montworthy drew his sword and waved it in the air. “After them, men!” he trumpeted. “The colonel expects us to do our duty.”
He plunged through the trees, followed by the rank and file. Cecily, running to catch up, said stoutly, “Cannot you see that this path ends in a solid wall of alders?”
Frowning, James gave one of the bogus trees a shake, but it had been planted solidly. “You see how ridiculous this all is?” Cecily cried.
“Now that is very odd.”
Sir Carolus had followed them into the woods. He was breathing hard from the exertion of keeping up with the others, and while he mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, he stared at the false hedge.
“One remembers
these woods well,” he said. “One used to play here with poor Marcham when we were both still in leading strings. In those days, the path did not end here.”
“That was a long time ago,” Cecily said hastily. She was grateful that James was paying no attention to what Sir Carolus had said but was stamping about the woods and stabbing between the alders with his sword.
“The way one remembers it, the path led past the groundkeeper’s cottage toward the sea road,” the little squire mused. “It is not a road that many used even then, and now few know its existence. One recollects that the road leads from the woods to the Widow’s Rock. It was a shortcut, one might say.”
“You may have something there, Pater.” Montworthy stopped stabbing with his sword, and, striding over to the bogus hedge, gave one of the trees a vicious shake. This time it moved in his hand.
“Hoy,” the delighted James exclaimed. “This one don’t have roots. Now we’re getting to the truth.”
“What truth are you talkin’ about?” a lazy voice wondered.
Chapter Eleven
Lord Brandon was standing a few feet from them. The lamps held by Montworthy’s followers shadowed his eyes so that his expression was unreadable as he strolled toward them saying, “Good evenin’, Miss Verving. Sir Carolus, your servant. Back from the colonel’s, I see, Montworthy. Got tired of fireworks, did you?”
James snapped, “You’re coming with us, Brandon.”
Lord Brandon lifted his eyebrows. “Not very mannerly, are you?” he drawled. “However, I’ll try not to take offense. It is late, so I don’t mind goin’ back to the house.”
Montworthy made a rude noise and said, “I’m taking you to the colonel.”
“Now, why would I want to be goin’ back to Howard’s?” Lord Brandon turned his back on James and addressed Sir Carolus. “I’m glad to see you’re feelin’ more the thing, sir. How’s the gout?”
“Enough of this nattering. I’m arresting you for smuggling.” James strode forward and grasped Brandon’s shoulder, but his quarry twisted away. Next moment, Montworthy was lying on his back.
