Morris leaned back against the squabs, smiling vacantly at the postilion’s back.
“Hey!” said Gideon.
Sighing, Morris murmured, “M’father will adore her. So will the family.”
“Did you hear one word I said, you star-crossed dolt?”
“Ain’t star-crossed! I’ve found the most wonderful girl ever created, and I intend to wed her. What has star-crossed to do with that?”
“Oh, nothing at all. Save perhaps that her brother swears to blow a hole through you, and if you instead blow another hole through him there is some slight possibility he would object to your marrying his sister. In either case you haven’t exactly won his esteem, Jamie.”
Blinking, Morris returned to reality. “Who are you to talk of winning esteem? If ever I heard of people living in glass houses and flinging stones! To judge from that scorching scold he dealt you, your honoured sire ain’t delighted with you, my Tulip.”
“No,” acknowledged Gideon rather grimly. “My apologies that you were present through it all. He’s really not such a bad old fellow. At least, I got you away.”
“So you did.” Morris looked around, frowning. “Away to where, might I ask? And what am I doing in this coach? I was reduced to blancmange after hearing Sir Mark comb you out, and you took advantage of it to kidnap me, damme if you didn’t!”
Gideon laughed. “You agreed to come, and I thought it very good of you. But an you wish to be put down…” He reached for the window.
“In this wilderness? What are you about, you villain? I’ll have no more of your minor wars, and so I tell you!”
“We’re coming into Canterbury, as you’d know did your eyes see aught but Miss Falcon. As to what I’m about—Jamie, I am in a fair way to being convinced that the chess piece Naomi lost is in some way connected with my sire’s troubles.”
Morris stared at him. “My idea exactly! The ringleader is that curst chessman. I felt when he was in my pocket that actually, I was in his, and—” He threw up one arm to protect himself, and having begged for mercy, settled back, laughing. “No, really, dear boy. You must allow ’tis far-fetched. But you’d Collington facing you an hour ago. Why didn’t you ask him? An he knew something, he’d likely tell you. Good man, the earl.” Gideon’s speculative gaze turned to him, and Morris added reinforcingly, “M’father says so.”
“And how if your sire is mistaken, and Collington is the man behind my father’s downfall? A fine figure I should cut asking him for information!”
“Collington?” Morris groaned and drew a hand across his eyes. “Poor lad, you’ve a proper rat’s nest ’twixt your ears! Why do you not accuse the Archbishop of Canterbury? Or the Lord Mayor of London? We might have as much fun with them.”
Gideon said quietly, “I’ll hire another coach in Canterbury, and you can go on to Sevenoaks. I shouldn’t involve you, at all events.”
“No, you shouldn’t. Mind you, I’d be glad of a brawl did you point me the villain, and say ‘There he stands! Tally ho!’ But you’re tilting your lance ’gainst every windmill in sight, and each more unlikely than the last! I wonder why I had it fixed in my foolish head ’twas Derrydene you suspected?”
“I do suspect him.” Gideon frowned. “And perhaps I am tilting ’gainst windmills. The devil’s in it that I don’t know who I’m fighting, Jamie. Dammitall! ’Tis like trying to grapple a shadow.”
“And what shadows do we grapple in Canterbury?”
With a faint grateful smile, Gideon said, “’Tis my hope that the jeweller who repaired that confounded chessman may be able to tell me something.”
“If he ain’t connected with the murky business, he’ll know nothing. And if he is connected with it, we’ll likely wind up with our throats cut! Besides, how d’you know which jeweller? There are likely a dozen or so in Canterbury.”
“When Lady Naomi came to Promontory Point that first day, she mentioned a jeweller’s shop in Stour Street. It shouldn’t be hard to find, surely?”
His optimism proved well founded, and an hour later, the two young men stood on the flagway, gazing at Shumaker’s Jeweller’s Shoppe.
Morris sighed. “Well, you were right, dear boy. ’Twasn’t hard to find.”
A tug at his boot roused Gideon. He glanced down. A tiny monkey with a red shako strapped to his head blinked up at him and waved a tin cup. Mechanically, Gideon took out his purse and dropped a groat into the cup, and the monkey scampered, chattering, to the organ-grinder. That large individual, wearing an ill-fitting scratch wig, and with a purple kerchief knotted around his throat, beamed, and turned the wheel, and the piercing notes of some unidentifiable melody shattered the quiet. Gideon raised one hand, and the organ-grinder stopped, his soulful dark eyes scanning the customer questioningly. “You no like-a da music, signor?”
Stepping into the kennel, Gideon lied, “Very much. But I’d liefer have information. Can you tell me what happened here?”
The big man gave him a pitying look. “It burn-a down.”
“So I see. Do you know when?”
A crafty expression dawned. Twirling his fine moustachios the organ-grinder said, “Might.”
Gideon extracted a florin from his purse, and held it up. “Try. And you need not trouble with the accent.”
The man grinned. “I knowed you was a downy file, Guv’nor. Right y’are, then. The shop catched fire Tuesday night. Poor old Doc was workin’ late. The constable says as he fell asleep while he was meltin’ dahn some gold, or summat and woke up makin’ his excuses to Saint Peter. Funny.”
Much shocked, Morris said, “You’ve a dashed strange notion of what’s amusing! If you want to know, it ain’t in the least funny to be burned. I’ve never burned to death, mind you, but I burned my hand once, and—”
“No disrespeck intended, sir,” interposed the organ-grinder hurriedly.
Gideon asked, “Did you mean that there was something odd about the fire, perhaps?”
“Ar. You got it right, sir! We called Mr. Shumaker ‘Doc,’ ’cause he were school eddicated. And—clever? Cor! You shoulda seen the way he could put broke things back tergether. Funny, though, that with a name like Shumaker he were a clockmaker!”
Morris gave a shout of laughter in which the organ-grinder joined heartily. “Now that is funny, begad,” Morris agreed. “Blister me, but the fella should better have been called Mr. Time, eh?” The two men howled anew and the monkey jumped up and down chattering excitedly.
When the uproar quieted, Rossiter said, “Is that all you have to tell me, Mr. Organ-grinder?”
The big man wiped his eyes with an end of the purple kerchief, and said breathlessly that Doc had been a very tidy worker. “You’d never a thunk he’d cause no fire. He’d a good trade, poor chap. The gentry useter come wi’ their timepieces from miles around, they did. Workin’ on summat o’yourn, was he, Guv?”
“I’d heard of his work. I pity his widow. Does she live nearby?”
“Useter. Gone now, poor creeter.”
Morris inserted, “I say! Was she killed too?”
“No, sir. Moved away, she did. Yestiday. Her brother come and helped her pack up. Poor old mort. I ’spect she couldn’t stand bein’ all alone. So she upped and went to live wi’ her brother. Not that he was no bargain, by the look of him.”
“Had she no friends hereabouts who would have stood by her?”
The organ-grinder fingered his chins, pondering the matter. “Yus and no. Doc had. But his missus—a queer sorta woman, she was, if ever I see one. ’Course, they all is, ain’t they? Women I mean. All touched in the upper works, one way or t’other. But that Mrs. Shumaker—Cor! I dunno how Doc coulda stood her! Nervous as two cats in a thunderstorm, she were. I come up behind her once. Bright as terday it was, and bein’ a kind-hearted soul and meanin’ no harm, I says, ‘Mornin’, ma’am.’ That’s all. Jest—‘Mornin’, ma’am.’ And she goes straight up in the air and gives a screech like a ungreased wheel, then gallops orf dahn the road so that everyone’
s a-starin’ at me and wonderin’ if I give her a pinch where I shouldn’t oughter. Me face was that red it pretty nigh catched light all by itself it did! No tellin’ what a woman like that’ll do next, is there?”
“No, by Jove,” said Morris with ready sympathy. “Dreadful thing! I recollect once—”
Gideon interrupted quickly. “Do you know where this brother of hers lives, by any chance?”
“No, I don’t, Guv. It come as a surprise ter me, matter o’fact. Never knowed as she had a brother. I wish her well of him. A big’un, and ’andsome as a bearded cockroach. The kind you wouldn’t wanta meet in a alley of a dark night!”
Gideon thanked him, handed over the florin, and watched him stroll away, the little monkey clambering up to his shoulder to sit there chattering, and the strident music ringing through the warm air.
The two men walked on, side by side, Morris humming along with the melody, and Gideon deep in thought. When the organ-grinder’s efforts were diminished by distance, Morris asked, “What now?”
“Emerald Farm,” said Gideon. “I really must look in on the old place, just to be sure all’s well. May have to move my family down there, and I’ve not had a chance to see it since I come home.”
Morris glanced at him obliquely. He took setbacks well, did Ross, but this must have been a blow to his hopes, as far-fetched as they were. He said carefully, “Look, m’dear fella, if there’s anything I can do…? I mean, I know you’ve suffered a great disappointment, and with the duel fixed for Saturday, I—”
“Disappointment!” Gideon’s eyes were ablaze with excitement. “To the contrary, this confirms everything I’d suspected! The jeweller was silenced, do you not see? And his wife, heaven help the poor lady, has been borne away, heaven knows where, lest she say something untoward! I am on the right track, my James! By Jove, but I am!”
“Lord help the Archbishop of Canterbury!” groaned Morris.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Because they’d had a late start and Rossiter must return to London before nightfall, he had been most particular in his selection of a coach and four. The light vehicle he’d chosen had not taxed the team unduly, the postilions had set a spanking pace, and with two brief halts they came in less than three hours to the Sussex border and the chain of hills known as the Weald.
The road swung in an easterly loop to bring them around to the south and the access road, and from their high vantage point they caught several glimpses of Emerald Farm. During his grandmother’s lifetime, Rossiter had visited it in winter and summer and never failed to find it a delight. The house itself faced south and was built on a low rise, with higher hills lifting emerald shoulders behind it. A long, low, half-timbered structure, the roof deeply thatched, it stood serenely amidst its lush pastures and fields as it had stood for over a century, the many windows twinkling in the sunlight that painted a golden glow on the whitewashed walls. No smoke rose from the chimneys, and the silence was broken only by the distant lowing of cows, the twittering of birds and the occasional bustling stir of the breeze.
They were still some way off, but Morris thought it looked deserted. As they rumbled over a wooden bridge, he said, “Jolly nice. How much land?”
“Roughly two square miles. This stream is the eastern boundary, and the hills mark the northern line.”
“Tidy little parcel. Who manages it for you?”
“I’ve a couple living here who used to work for my grandmama. They keep four farmhands, I understand.” Gideon’s glance raked over the meadows. “Though you’d not guess it at the moment,” he muttered, looking rather grim.
They drove on along the well-kept road edged with rioting wildflowers, through fields where young corn waved softly, or the feathery heads of carrots marched in neat rows. Distantly, cows stood hock deep in the lush meadow grasses. A curving drive led to the house, and the postilions stopped the team in front. Gideon climbed from the coach. His hail brought no response nor sign of life. Touched by apprehension, he strode up the steps between flowerbeds where daffodils bobbed golden heads to the tune of the breeze and tulips splashed their bright colours against the stems of lofty hollyhocks. The front door was not locked, and he hurried inside only to halt, shocked into immobility.
Following, Morris gasped, “Lord save us all!”
The wide hall was littered, drawers pulled from the sideboard and tossed heedlessly. The tall case clock had been wrenched open, the pendulum torn off, the glass door cracked from top to bottom.
They walked, stunned, into the spacious withdrawing room that Gideon remembered as being so warm and welcoming, and was now a shambles of overturned chairs and tables, broken vases, torn cushions, even the pictures having been pulled down and thrown haphazardly about the floor.
“They were thorough,” remarked Morris. “You’ve got to give ’em credit for that.”
“I’d like to give ’em a sight more than credit,” said Rossiter grittily. “Damme, but they want that accursed chessman!”
He went back onto the steps and called to the postilions to take the carriage to the barn and bait the horses. Returning, he and Morris made a rapid and painful inspection of the house. Room after room had been ransacked and wrecked. It was a violation; a painfully wrenching invasion of this personal place, which was inexpressibly dear to him. Coming slowly down the stairs, he tried not to show the extent of his rageful grief, and muttered, “I hope to God none of my people were hurt in this debacle!”
“Oh, my goodness! Gideon!”
Wearing a beige travelling gown and with a beige lace-trimmed cap perched atop her high-piled curls, my lady Lutonville stood in the entry hall, her maid peering curiously over her shoulder.
The sight of her was balm for Rossiter’s bruised spirit and he went quickly to take her outstretched hand. “If it needs this to bring you to me,” he said with his wry grin, “’tis worth it!”
“I came for quite another reason,” she answered. “La, but how dreadful this is! What senseless destruction. I am so sorry. I know how you always have loved this old place. Did you catch sight of the vandals?”
“No. We arrived but ten minutes ago.”
Morris growled, “I wish we had seen the filthy louts!”
In her distress, Naomi had been aware only of Gideon. Belatedly, she said, “Lieutenant, I ask your pardon! Whatever must you think of me? I had not meant to ignore you.”
He bowed with unfailing courtesy, and assured her he quite understood her reaction. “Nasty shock for you, ma’am. You didn’t expect to walk into this.”
“No, indeed.” Naomi looked sadly about the wreckage. “’Tis frightful! Frightful! What of your servants, Gideon?”
“Would that I knew.” He righted an overturned chair. “I had hoped to show you the farm under different circumstances. My apologies that you must see it in such a state.”
Morris picked up a heavy silver candelabra. “They do not appear to have robbed you, at all events.” He glanced at Maggie, who looked pale and frightened. “C’mon, m’dear,” he said bracingly. “Let us start to set things to rights.”
They all began to pick up those articles not hopelessly smashed. Retrieving a little clock, Naomi listened anxiously for the tick, then handed it to Gideon. “’Tis still running, thank goodness. Oh, how silly we are! We can accomplish so little. You will need help to tidy this poor house.” She saw that he was watching her rather quizzically, and went on, “I fancy you must be wondering why I am here.”
“I scarce dare ask.”
“I came to tell you that you owe my papa a most humble apology, sir. He has found the chess piece!”
“Be dashed,” exclaimed Morris, hurrying over to them.
“How?” asked Rossiter.
“In the strangest fashion. Papa received a package through the Post yesterday. ’Twas from the jeweller in Canterbury, explaining that he had given me another gentleman’s property by mistake. He enclosed the chess piece belonging to Papa, and desired that the other be returned to him. Which
will,” she acknowledged thoughtfully, “be rather awkward.”
“More so than you might think,” said Morris.
Rossiter asked tersely, “Did the jeweller name this other gentleman?”
“No. But it’s simple to discover, surely?”
The two men looked at each other.
Rossiter said, “You are quite sure, Naomi? You saw the other chessman?”
She frowned. “I might have guessed you’d not believe me! Or is it that your burgeoning imagination now sees my father as having lied? Well, I can assure you that is not so, for one of the reasons he came to Falcon House this morning was to show me the piece.”
Puzzled, Rossiter muttered, “Then—why the need for all this, I wonder?”
“I would think that should be perfectly clear. You were mistaken in believing it has aught to do with the lost chessman. At least, with the one belonging my papa!”
He was silent, staring fixedly at a broken china bowl.
Morris picked it up and said rather helplessly, “Might be stuck back together, I suppose, dear boy.”
Rossiter sighed. “We shall be obliged to buy gallons of glue.”
Her heart touched by his twisted attempt at a smile, Naomi’s resentment fled. “Oh, never say the whole house is like this.”
“As bad, or worse,” answered Morris disconsolately.
“Whoever they are, whatever they want,” said Rossiter, “they’re devilish determined.” His own words sounded defeated, and impatient with himself, he pulled back his shoulders and looking into Naomi’s lovely and concerned face, said in a more cheerful voice, “You are very good to have driven all this way to bring me the news. But I think you are here without your father’s permission, eh, ma’am?”
The tenderness was in his eyes again, a silent caress that enthralled her. She said in a faraway voice, “I am of an age to go about as I choose.”
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