“Sorry.” Arianna straightened in the saddle and tried to keep her attention from wandering.
“You look tired. If you would prefer to curtail our ride, I know a shortcut back to your groom.”
“No, no, I could do with a bit of fresh air to clear my head.” She squeezed at the reins, still finding the sensation felt very awkward. “Besides, there have been a number of new developments that you ought to hear.”
Sophia listened in silence, waiting until the summary was done before letting out a low a whistle. “Henry Lawrance an agent for the Foreign Office? I suppose I must give him credit for being more than a foppish fribble.”
“So it would seem,” murmured Arianna, wondering whether there was a reason other than the biting chill that her companion’s cheeks were now a vivid shade of crimson.
“Exotic chocolates and daredevil aviators, a secret explosive and a missing inventor.” Sophia shook her head. “How does it all fit together?”
“I don’t know yet,” admitted Arianna. “One tiny piece of the puzzle eludes me right now. What’s frustrating is that I’ve a feeling that I’ve got it in my grasp”—she gestured to punctuate her point—“I just haven’t recognized it.”
Her horse shied at the sudden jerk on the reins.
Arianna lurched forward. Losing her grip on the leather, she ducked low and grabbed a handful of her mount’s glossy mane.
“Damnation,” she muttered, determined not to suffer an embarrassing fall. “I—”
The rest of her words were lost in a pelter of pounding hooves as a dark shape exploded from behind a thicket of holly bushes.
A frightened whinny, a skittish veer. The ground began to spin and suddenly everything was happening so fast that all Arianna could see were bits and snatches of the whirling action. A flash of steel, a foam-flecked stallion charging straight at her.
Abandoning the fight to keep her seat, she threw herself sideways, hoping against hope to roll free of the slashing strides of the big bay. Her heart was galloping faster than the oncoming beast. The chances were slim—she would likely be squashed like a bug.
Sophia reacted in a flash. Urging her mount forward, she cut off the attacker’s angle and forced the stallion to alter its path. Mere inches perhaps, but just enough that it raced harmlessly by.
Tucking into a tight roll, Arianna bounced over the hard, cold ground, dead leaves crunching loud as cannon fire in her ears. She looked up to see the stallion trying to wheel around, but Sophia had set her spirited gray flank to flank with the bay, and the two animals were jostling and kicking up great clots of earth.
Expelling a vicious oath, the rider threw up an arm to shield his masked face from the flurry of blows from Sophia’s crop.
“Watch out! He has a knife!” called Arianna.
Deaf to the warning, Sophia redoubled her attack, elbows flying like a whirling dervish as she added a barrage of slaps and punches with her other hand.
Scrambling to her feet, Arianna snatched up a rock and hurled it at the prancing bay. It hit square against the stallion’s withers, and with a frightened snort, the big beast danced back.
Between the bucking horseflesh and the thrashing rain of whip leather, their assailant lost his weapon. A last, strangled snarl, and he turned his mount and spurred away into the thinning mist.
“Good God, are you hurt?” cried Arianna between gasps for breath. Catching hold of the gray’s bridle, she ran a calming hand along its sweating neck.
Sophia blinked, and it took a moment for the blank look to clear from her face. “I—I don’t think so,” she said. “J-just a bruise or two.” The air leached from her lungs. “What about you?”
“The same,” answered Arianna. “Thanks to your intervention. Is Boadicea, the warrior queen of Britain, among your family forebears?”
“Not that I know of.” Her shrug ended in a wince. “Nor can I explain what came over me. It was like a haze—”
A question cut through the fog. “Does this horse perchance belong to you?”
Arianna turned slowly at the sound of the all-too-familiar voice. She had lost her shako, and smears of mud streaked the disheveled folds of her riding habit. “Yes, it does, Lord Grentham,” she said tersely.
The minister looked down his long nose, and then at Sophia, whose hair was hanging down in lopsided tangles from beneath the battered brim of her once-stylish high-crown hat. “Your mastery of eccentric skills does not appear to extend to equestrian pursuits, Lady Saybrook.”
Sophia huffed an indignant snort.
“You don’t appear to be much more comfortable in the saddle, Miss Kirtland.”
“Do forgive our unladylike appearance, sir,” said Sophia acidly. “Alas, fending off an attack by a knife-wielding military man requires such an untidy amount of exertion.”
His features immediately sharpened. “You were attacked?”
“By a man mounted on a big bay stallion,” replied Arianna. “Did you not see anyone riding off?”
Thinning his lips, Grentham flicked a hard stare off into the distance.
Ignoring the minister for a moment, she turned back to Sophia. “What makes you say he was a military man? A cloak and a mask covered most of his person.”
“I got a good look at his eyes when my crop cut a rip in the silk. It was Stoughton.”
“You are sure?” demanded Grentham.
“Absolutely,” answered Sophia without hesitation. “I would recognize his God-benighted orbs anywhere. Not to speak of the small scar that I put above his left brow the last time he attacked a companion of mine.”
The minister frowned.
“If you doubt me, track him down. I struck a solid blow to our assailant’s right eye.” Her voice was edged with savage satisfaction. “I’m quite sure it will be swollen shut.”
“I noticed that the horse had a white blaze on its forehead, and a stocking of the same color on its hind leg—” Arianna sucked in a sharp breath on spotting a small dark circle spreading just below the epaulette of Sophia’s claret-colored riding jacket. “Good Lord, you are hurt, Miss Kirtland!”
Sophia touched a gloved hand to her shoulder and looked in quizzical bemusement at the smear of blood on the kidskin. “Oh.”
“Dismount this instant and let me take a look at you.”
Grentham swung around. “I’ll summon help.”
“No! The last thing we want to do is attract attention to the attack.” Arianna grabbed the reins of Sophia’s gray and handed them to the minister. “Let’s get ourselves into the shelter of the bushes so that I can take a look at the wound. Then we can decide how to proceed.”
Taking Sophia by her uninjured arm, Arianna marched her to a secluded spot screened by the leafy branches. “Sit down,” she ordered, grateful to find a rock outcropping. Without further ado, she began peeling back the layers of fabric.
“Have you a handkerchief, Lord Grentham?”
The minister pulled a snowy white square of linen from his pocket and handed it over. “Surely we must summon a surgeon,” he said tightly.
“Not necessary,” said Arianna, folding the handkerchief into a thick pad. “It’s just a flesh wound. A bit of pressure will staunch the bleeding. Once I get Miss Kirtland home, I’ll have Mr. Henning come bandage it properly. But I doubt it will require stitches.”
Sophia swayed slightly.
“You are doing quite nicely, Miss Kirtland. Is this the first time you’ve been knifed?”
“Yes,” answered Sophia faintly. She glanced down at the makeshift bandage and blanched. “I can’t say that I wish to make a habit of it.”
A growl rumbled in Grentham’s throat.
“No, indeed not,” said Arianna quickly before he could comment. “I can assure you the experience does not improve with repetition.” Seeking
to keep her companion distracted, she recounted several of her dockyard tales from the Caribbean. “The Malay captain was quicker than a snake. I thought I’d escaped his blade when I swung away on the rope, but he nicked my bum just as I cleared the ship’s railing.”
Sophia started laughing. “Do you have a scar?”
“Shaped like a half-moon.” She darted a glance at the minister, who was standing rather stiffly by her side. “Sorry if we are shocking you, sir.”
Scowling, he muttered something about “deucedly odd females.”
“Seeing as we offend your sensibilities, sir, you may feel free to leave,” said Sophia.
“Indeed, you ought to be pursuing that cur Stoughton, not wasting precious time with us,” added Arianna.
“But I can’t very well rush off and leave you two ladies here on your own,” exclaimed Grentham. “What if you were to . . . faint?”
Arianna and Sophia each fixed him with a coldly disdainful stare. “I’ve never fainted in my life,” they snapped in unison.
Looking uncertain, Grentham cleared his throat with a defensive cough. “Hmmph. Shock often sets in as a delayed reaction.”
“I’m well aware of that, but as far as shocks go, this one is really quite mild,” said Arianna. “There was a time off the island of Guadeloupe . . . Oh, but never mind that now.”
“I assure you, there is no need to kick up a dust, sir,” said Sophia, shooing him away with a wave of her bloodstained glove. “We are quite capable of managing on our own. I have every confidence in Lady Saybrook’s ability to patch me up and get me home without making a fuss about it.”
Seeing Sophia’s pale face, Arianna did not blame the minister for looking unconvinced.
“Speaking of making a fuss, how is it that you were here on the scene, Lord Grentham?” demanded her companion. “Are you still spying on us?”
His nostrils flared. “I was taking a shortcut through the park to my office at Horse Guards.” He paused for just an instant. “As I do every day.”
“At this early hour?” scoffed Sophia.
“I am often at my desk by this time in the morning.” A thin smile pinched at his mouth. “Trouble waits for no man.”
“Or woman,” quipped Arianna, wiping her hands on her skirts. “Saybrook is not going to be happy about this—”
“Oh, let’s not tell him,” exclaimed Sophia. “He’ll demand that we stop investigating.”
Arianna hesitated. Her thoughts were running in much the same direction, so she was sorely tempted to agree. However, a glance at Grentham slowed her scheming to a halt. “I’m afraid we can’t count on the minister not to spill the beans. With him, logic often seems to fall on deaf ears—he has a very low opinion of females and will probably do it simply out of spite.”
The minister’s cheeks turned a mottled red. She guessed it wasn’t because of the chill wind.
“You ladies aren’t frightened?” he demanded.
“We are not ninnies, Lord Grentham,” retorted Arianna. “Of course we are frightened. But that doesn’t mean we intend to flee and relinquish the field of battle to the enemy. We must fight and win.”
“And we can’t do that effectively if we are told to sit at home and work on our embroidery,” chimed in Sophia.
His brows rose. “You embroider?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I did not mean it literally. Must you always be such a . . . a . . .”
“A martinet?” suggested Arianna.
“I was thinking of a far less ladylike word, but that one will do,” snapped Sophia.
Eyes narrowing, Grentham regarded them for a long moment, his lidded gaze lingering on the slash in Sophia’s spencer before looking down at his glove and smoothing a wrinkle from the pristine leather. “And if I agree to keep silent, what do I get from you in return?”
“Renard’s pelt to hang in your trophy room,” suggested Arianna.
“You are very sure of yourself, Lady Saybrook.”
“Does that frighten you, Lord Grentham?”
A pale blade of sunlight cut though the mists for a fleeting moment, catching the curl of a smile. “Like you, I’m not easily frightened.”
She raised her chin. “So do we have a deal?”
A heartbeat passed, and then another, the thrum of her blood tickling against her ribs.
“Very well,” he said softly. He looped the reins of the two horses over a branch. “I trust you won’t make me regret it.”
* * *
Saybrook marched through the door a half step ahead of the minister’s secretary.
“Milord, I did try—” began the harried young man.
“You may leave us, Jenkins,” said the minister, cutting off the apology. “Close the door behind you.”
“I take it that ‘urgent’ means your messenger has arrived back from Middlesbrough?” said Saybrook once they were alone.
“No.” As the earl started to protest, Grentham raised a hand. “His information doesn’t matter anymore,” he explained coolly. “I’ve just obtained a new whole set of revelations which should finally allow us to run the clever fox to ground.”
“And how did you suddenly obtain them?” asked the earl, a touch of skepticism shading his voice. He gestured at an ancient Greek urn set on the bookshelf. “Did the Oracle of Delphi suddenly decide to grant our wish for answers in this case?”
“I haven’t been talking with mythical seers or prophets,” replied Grentham a little smugly. “I have just come from a private chat with Colonel Stoughton, who decided to tell me a story—a rather long story—in return for a reprieve from the hangman’s noose.”
Saybrook took a seat in the proffered chair. “I’m listening.”
“I shall, however, endeavor to keep it short. To begin with, it was Stoughton who arranged the ambush on you as you traveled to Scotland, but not for the reasons we suspected. He’s been running a highly profitable business stealing naval supplies that land at Inverness harbor from Scandinavia, and then reselling them to the fleet at Middlesbrough for an obscene profit. His partner in the scheme is Lord Mather.”
“Who works here in your department,” mused Saybrook.
“Yes. He’s privy to naval movements in the Baltic, and used that information to target the convoys carrying costly goods. With Stoughton in charge of the military, it was an easy matter to arrange the theft of materials.”
The earl tapped his fingertips together.
“I had been suspicious of Mather for a while but unsure what he was up to,” went on Grentham. “So I included him in the secret meeting about sending you North. It was he who passed your name to Stoughton.”
“And yet I can’t help but wonder—why bother attacking me? I wasn’t going to Scotland to investigate military corruption. The odds were quite good that I’d not stumble on their scheme.”
A sour smile appeared on the minister’s face. “Two reasons. Firstly, I was deliberately vague on the reasons why I was dispatching an investigator to Scotland. They couldn’t afford to take a chance that you weren’t already alerted to their misdeeds.” He rose and went to stand in front of the mullioned windows. Backlit by the silvery winter light, his profile was dark. Impossible to read.
“But more importantly, they couldn’t afford to have Mr. Henning’s nephew go free from the prison,” he went on. “You see, Stoughton uses the inmates as slave labor to repackage the stolen goods and move them to various warehouses around the Highlands. Even if you weren’t aware of the scheme, Stoughton knew that the young man would ruin everything by telling what he had seen.”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Saybrook. “What a cursed coincidence. So Angus MacPhearson’s death had nothing to do with Renard.”
“Actually, that’s not precisely true,” said Grentham.
“Ah.” The e
arl grimaced. “I should know better than to think anything is clear-cut when you are involved.”
The minister ignored the barb. “Stoughton arrested men as a favor to his cousin, Lord Reginald Sommers. He knew something sinister was afoot, but he was happy to take money for his favors and not ask questions. He’s admitted to arranging several executions and kidnappings for his cousin. However, he swears that he knew nothing about a conspiracy to betray the country. For him, Renard was simply the code name of Lord Reginald’s associate in London.”
“You believe him?” asked Saybrook.
“Let’s just say, my men in the Horse Guards interrogation rooms are quite persuasive.”
“Be that as it may, I have several questions of my own to ask of Stoughton,” replied the earl. “Let me talk to him as well.”
“I’m afraid the colonel is in no condition to receive visitors,” said the minister.
Silence shrouded the room, as if mirroring the dark, rain-thick mist that had suddenly swirled up against the windowpanes.
“How did you finally unmask him?” asked Saybrook, after thinking over what he had heard. “Stoughton must have done something to give himself away.”
Grentham moved away from the window, an odd expression tightening his features. He picked up a pen from his blotter and inspected the nib, as if looking to find a carefully worded reply engraved on the steel. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sworn to secrecy,” he finally growled. Tossing the pen aside, he gave an impatient wave. “The informer’s identity isn’t important. What matters is that on account of his dealings with Lord Reginald, Stoughton was blackmailed by Renard into arranging the abduction of Cayley, who was taken two days ago from the outpost near Middlesbrough.”
Saybrook swore. “Is he still alive?”
“According to Stoughton, the answer is yes. He says there is no plan to kill Cayley. On the contrary, the inventor is being held captive at an abandoned watchtower near Dover and the plan is to take him to France, though Stoughton claims not to know when or how.”
The earl shot to his feet. “Then we haven’t a moment to lose. I take it you have the exact location of the place.”
Recipe for Treason: A Lady Arianna Regency Mystery (Lady Arianna Hadley Mystery) Page 25
