by Sandra Heath
“Come quickly. Bodkin, for I think I may have happened upon something.”
“Have you found Nutmeg?” Bodkin cried, seizing his arms excitedly. .
“Not exactly. Oh, come on inside and you’ll see for yourself.” The door opened as a footman came out, having recognized Dominic’s horse on the common, and the two brownies slipped inside.
Minutes later, Polly’s carriage halted outside 1 Royal Crescent. She wasn’t at all surprised to see the horses; indeed she half expected it, for Bodkin was bound to ride back here. Where had the mischievous little scoundrel gone now? Oh, once she found him, she was going to give him a piece of her mind second to none! His conveniently long tail wouldn’t only be tied in one knot, but in as many as she could manage!
The carriage halted, and as Dominic alighted, he saw the footman leading his horse off the grass. “Thank goodness for that—I thought I’d never see my best mount again,” he said.
Polly smiled. “Well, that’s one blessing.”
“So it seems.” He turned to her. “Thank you for being bold enough to offer to convey me.”
“I trust for your sake that Lady Georgiana doesn’t find out.”
“I hardly think she will believe us to be embarking on a liaison.”
“I was alluding to her dislike for me,” Polly replied, and then gave him a slightly indignant look. “Anyway, why shouldn’t she suspect us of a liaison? What makes it so impossible a thought?”
“I meant only that I’ve made my love for her so very clear that she would think it unlikely that I’d seek consolation elsewhere just yet.”
“It would do the horrid chienne good, maybe it would even make her as jealous of me as you are of Lord Algernon. I don’t know what she sees in him, unless it be his title and expectations.”
Dominic gave her a thoughtful look. “Maybe you’re right, and she would benefit from a little such food for thought. And maybe Lord Benjamin would be a little deterred if he thought you were bestowing favorable smiles upon me.”
“Unfortunately, no one has witnessed our escapade, except my coachman and your footman, and I doubt if either Lady Georgiana or Lord Benjamin would pay heed to a mere servant.”
“No, but they’d pay heed to an incorrigible old gossip like the Marquis de Torkalotte.”
“Who?”
“The elderly French gentleman strolling along the pavement behind you. He’s a close family friend of the entire Beddem family, including the duke himself.”
She glanced around and saw an elderly gentleman of flamboyant but rather old-fashioned appearance. Powdered, patched, and bewigged, he was returning to his elegant house in the Circus after an afternoon perambulation. Polly was puzzled. “But what is there for him to tell anyone? All we’re doing is standing here in civil conversation. He doesn’t know we traveled together in the carriage. We could simply have met as I alighted on my own.”
“Oh, I think we can give him something to broadcast,” Dominic said, and before Polly realized what was happening, he’d pulled her into his arms. He pressed her close, his parted lips upon hers in a kiss that was really quite shocking. His fingers wound warmly into the hair at the nape of her neck, and his mouth teased hers in a way she’d never experienced before. The kiss continued as the Marquis de Torkalotte strolled past, his head pulled around on a string as he goggled at the astonishing scene.
As soon as the Frenchman was out of earshot, Dominic drew back. “There, I fancy that was scandalous enough to spread all over town, don’t you?”
Polly’s face was crimson with mortification and with aroused emotions she would have preferred had remained asleep. “How dare you!” she breathed, and dealt him a slap on the other cheek to the one Georgiana had struck earlier. “There, a matching pair, I believe!” she declared, then turned to hurry into the house.
Dominic gazed after her, his expression hard to decipher, then he walked quickly toward his own house. Polly peeped out around the dining room curtain, and as he vanished from sight, she leaned back against the wall, her eyes closed. Her lips still seemed to burn from his kiss, and she knew that in spite of the circumstances, she had found those few intimate seconds quite me most exciting imaginable. Strange new feelings now whirled unstoppably through her, and she was conscious of a delicious ache she knew only he could soothe. Oh, Devil take him! He was arrogant, presumptuous, selfish, and unkind, but oh, how easy it would be to love him!
Chapter 15
Bodkin and Ragwort knew nothing of the startling developments on the pavement outside 1 Royal Crescent. Ragwort had led Bodkin up to Dominic’s bedroom, where he pointed out something wedged between the carpet and the dado. It was something that was visible only to brownies, the buckle from a brownie’s belt. Ragwort prodded it with his foot “That doesn’t belong to anyone I know,” he declared.
Bodkin gazed at it. Was it Nutmeg’s? He didn’t know! For the life of him, he suddenly couldn’t remember what her belt had been like.
Ragwort glanced at him. “Well? Do you recognize it?”
“No,” Bodkin replied sorrowfully. “It might be hers, but then again it might not. My mind is a blank.”
Ragwort sighed. “Well, it’s the only clue of any sort that one of our kind has been here. I’ve even asked Giles if he knows anything.”
“Giles?”
“My footman friend at number one. I wondered if he’d overheard anything strange between Mr. Horditall and Lord Benjamin, but he hasn’t. If it weren’t for you, no one here would know a brownie named Nutmeg even existed.”
“Oh, she exists. She’s wonderful, and I love her with all my heart.” Bodkin sighed as he inspected the buckle again. “Maybe it belonged to the last brownie who looked after the house. Caraway, wasn’t that her name?”
Ragwort nodded and colored a little. “Yes, it was her name, but this isn’t her buckle.”
Bodkin raised an eyebrow. “You seem very sure of that”
“I am.”
“What happened between you and Caraway?”
Ragwort’s face was now the color of beetroot “It’s none of your business. Bodkin, Nutmeg’s the one we’re concerned with now.” He poked the buckle again with his foot “So you can’t tell if this is hers?”
Bodkin picked it up and turned it over carefully in his hand. “It might be, Ragwort. Oh, I’m in such a state over her that I can’t remember anything.”
“Well, let’s assume it’s hers. Its presence means she’s been here, and if that’s so, maybe she still is. Although where, I really don’t know. I hunted high and low while you were at Claverton Down. By the way, did you get up to some good mischief?”
“Oh, yes.” Bodkin relayed his pranks.
“You actually brought the review to a standstill?” Ragwort was impressed.
“Yes, although I wasn’t able to make as much trouble for Miss Polly as I’d hoped.”
“I still can’t believe she’s part of it,” Ragwort said.
“Oh, she is. Why else would she be all smiles with Hordwell? Look, I don’t want to talk about Miss Polly. Let’s get back to Nutmeg. Have you tried calling her?”
Ragwort was indignant. “Of course! What manner of dumb-cluck do you take me for?”
“All right, all right, I only asked,” Bodkin said quickly.
“Anyway, calling her is actually quite pointless, and I don’t really know why I bothered.”
“What do you mean?”
“If someone’s holding her captive through her belt, she won’t be able to speak or communicate in any other way with anyone trying to rescue her.”
Bodkin stared at him. “Of course she can speak!”
“Not if someone has her belt,” Ragwort repeated patiently. “For the same reason, she can safely be left anywhere her captor chooses. It doesn’t matter where he goes—she cannot run away, because she’s completely in his power. That’s why, if it is Lord Benjamin, he doesn’t have to give her a second thought until he has the page from Nostradamus. He can put her entirely
from his mind. It’s like buying a new handkerchief, then folding it away in a drawer until it’s needed.”
Dismayed, Bodkin sat on the floor and gazed tearfully at the buckle. “We country brownies must be very naive, because I didn’t know any of that,” he confessed miserably. “Oh, Ragwort, how on earth am I going to rescue her?”
“I don’t know, and that’s fact. Unless...”
“Yes?”
“Well, if we could find the rest of her belt and steal it back, then we—” He broke off with an irritated snort. “Come to think of it, that won’t do any good, because you can’t remember what her belt looks like!”
Bodkin lowered his eyes glumly. He felt so utterly foolish. Why couldn’t he recall Nutmeg’s belt? He’d seen her wearing it every single day for months.
Ragwort leaned against the dado, his arms folded and his tail swishing idly. “This is most perplexing. Which of them has the belt? Hordwell or Lord Benjamin?”
“Or Sir Dominic Fortune. Maybe he’s part of it all, too.” Bodkin glanced around the room. It was the principal bedchamber, with cream and gold walls and a dado, and a fine chandelier chinked gently in the breeze from the open window. Dominic’s possessions were everywhere, including the book he was reading, a small box containing his neck cloth pins, seals, and rings, a tortoiseshell hairbrush and comb, and his gray paisley dressing gown draped casually over the foot of the vast green velvet four-posted bed.
Bodkin’s face was thoughtful. If Dominic had the belt, maybe it was here in this room right now. “Ragwort, are you sure you’ve searched everywhere in here?”
“Until I’m blue in the face,” Ragwort replied flatly. “You can search again if you like, but I’ve had enough.”
Footsteps approached the bedroom door, and the brownies fell silent as Dominic came in. He was tugging off his neck cloth, which he tossed onto the bed, then he stepped to the window and looked down at the sloping hillside, where most of the runaway horses had now been rounded up. He recognized one of the animals, a fine colt named Golden Pear, which had almost won the Derby that summer. An old nursery rhyme came to him, and he murmured the first line aloud. “I had a little nut tree, nothing it would bear, but a silver nutmeg, and a golden pear.”
Bodkin and Ragwort exchanged glances. Surely this was no coincidence! He knew about Nutmeg, and must have the belt! Bodkin got angrily to his feet, his tail beginning to twirl, but Ragwort put a restraining hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Then he pulled Bodkin toward the door and only ventured to whisper when they were in the passage.
“Leave him for the time being.”
“I want to run him through!” cried Bodkin with more vehemence than wisdom.
Dominic heard and called out. “Is someone there?”
Ragwort clamped a hand over Bodkin’s mouth. “You really are a country bumpkin, aren’t you?” he breathed, watching as Dominic looked curiously out into the apparently deserted passage.
The moment Dominic’s door had closed again, Ragwort took his hand away from Bodkin’s mouth. “Come on—it’s not the end of the world yet. Let’s go back to my house and share a dish of sweet tea.”
“Or maybe some mead? I’ve brought some with me from Horditall, and if I say so myself, it’s very fine.” This was by way of a peace offering, for Bodkin knew he’d been less than helpful or sensible over the past few minutes.
Ragwort flushed a little and cleared his throat. “Er, no, thank you all the same. Alcohol doesn’t agree with me.”
Bodkin looked curiously at him. “What do you mean?”
“Tea will do me nicely right now,” Ragwort replied, ignoring the question.
Bodkin didn’t press further, and together they scampered down through the house to the entrance hall. A maid was just coming in through the front door with two baskets of produce she’d purchased in the town for the cook, and as she put them down and turned to close the door again, the brownies slipped outside.
In his room Dominic took off his coat and boots, then undid his shirt before lying on the bed, his hands behind his head. He stared thoughtfully at die bed hangings. He’d come here to find a bride and forget Georgiana, but now she was in Bath, too, and he found it very painful; indeed, he was in half a mind to return to London. Still, there was tomorrow night’s ball at the Assembly Rooms, where he’d be able to inspect most of the likely contenders in his own private marriage mart. Please let them be an improvement on Miss Polly Peach, the only young lady—apart from Georgiana— he’d encountered since arriving. He thought of Polly for a moment. What an aggravating creature she was, so much so that it had been a positive pleasure to confound her with a kiss. Oh, yes, he’d stopped her breath for a moment! He smiled a little. “You stopped your own breath a little too, Dominic Fortune,” he murmured, for he wasn’t usually given to such public displays. Memories of the kiss washed over him with unexpected warmth. Plague take it, he’d enjoyed kissing her, in fact if he was strictly honest, he’d enjoyed it too much for comfort. His body stirred a little, and he closed his eyes. If he didn’t dislike her so, he could almost swear he desired her...
Downstairs, the tired maid carried the baskets to the basement kitchens, where the cook, a plump woman whose rosy cheeks and good-natured smile were an excellent advertisement for the quality of her cooking, examined the purchases with great care. She went over the cooking apples in particular, and frowned at the maid. “Were these the best you could find?”
The maid was crestfallen. “Yes, Mrs. Matthews.”
“But it’s autumn, the best time for apples, and these aren’t even very large. Oh, dear, I’d much prefer them to be better quality. Sir Dominic told me he’s very fond of my apple pie, and he has Major Dashingham coming to dine tonight”
“I really couldn’t find any better, Mrs. Matthews,” the maid insisted.
The cook nodded. “Oh, very well, but mark my words, Jinny Carter, if I go to town tomorrow and find there are better apples, it will be the worst for you.”
Jinny’s eyes filled with tears. “But that’s not fair, Mrs. Matthews, they might put out better ones by tomorrow!”
Mrs. Matthews beckoned another maid. “Get to work peeling these, Anne.”
“Yes, Mrs. Matthews.”
“And you, Jinny, go out in the garden and see if there’s any fresh mint for the leg of lamb. I think you’ll find some beneath the mulberry tree, where last week’s frost didn’t reach.” The cook shook her head and tutted. “Lamb indeed, such a washy meat compared with mutton, but Sir Dominic insists he prefers it.”
Jinny hurried thankfully out of the back door and up the steps to the garden, where George, the gardener, was raking up autumn leaves. She paused to greet him for a moment and remarked that this was one of the finest falls she could remember, so warm that by this time of year the fine potted orange trees adorning the rooftop terrace above the kitchens had usually been taken in. George grunted in response, for he was a man of few words, so Jinny hurried on about her business.
As she neared the mulberry tree, which was right at the bottom of the garden, next to the door in the high wall that bordered-the lane behind, she noticed that the door’s catch had worked loose. Left as it was, anyone who felt like it could just walk in. She’d have to tell George, for such things were his task. Reaching the tree, she began to gather a large handful of the mint, but then she heard an ominous buzzing sound from the branches overhead. She glanced up, and her eyes widened as she saw a seething swarm of honeybees against a fork in the tree trunk.
With a gasp, she grabbed the last of the mint, and stepped hastily away. Now there were two jobs for old George to deal with, she thought, and hurried toward him, but he gave her such a glower that she changed her mind. Let him find out for himself, and serve him right if Sir Dominic got to hear that he’d neglected his work. Tossing her head again, she stalked past him without a word.
Chapter 16
It rained heavily that evening. Polly stood at the library window, looking along Brock Stree
t, where the cobbles shone in the light from the lamps. She wore the ivory woolen gown in which she’d traveled from Horditall, now with a fringed crimson-and-gold shawl around her shoulders. Her blonde hair was brushed loose because she’d had a headache before dinner, and her face was pensive as she gazed at her reflection in the rain-spotted window.
She was worried about the kiss on the pavement, and how far and wide the Marquis de Torkalotte might already have spread the juicy tidbit. Right now, how many Bath dinner parties were being far more amused by his tittle-tattling than by the debacle on Claverton Down? Was the Peach’s Bank heiress being sniggered at over the mulligatawny? Were her morals—or lack of them—under discussion as the red mullet was served? She glanced at her uncle, who’d fallen asleep in his fireside chair. He hadn’t heard the lurid tale yet, but was sure to be regaled with it when he arrived at the King’s Baths in the morning. He was still in a bad mood anyway, for there was no sign of his valuables, and he was still convinced that the servants were dishonest, every man Jack and woman Jill of them! One thing was certain, his niece had decided not to accompany him anywhere tomorrow, not even the Assembly Room ball. Her gown and accessories had been brought from Horditall, but she hadn’t tried anything on, nor would she after that kiss. She’d spare her blushes by claiming another headache that would incapacitate her all day and into the night! She closed her eyes, wishing she could dislike Sir Dominic Fortune as much as he deserved, but instead she was in peril of falling head over heels in love with him!
A carriage was splashing along Brock Street, preceded by a soaking wet linkboy with a smoking torch. She watched it idly, her thoughts still upon Dominic, but then a face looked out as the vehicle passed by, and she recognized Dominic’s friend. Major Dashingham, who’d suffered Bodkin’s attentions at the review. Was he going to see Dominic? Curiosity got the better of her, and she hurried to the dining room, from where she could look along the sweep of the crescent. The carriage drew up at Dominic’s door, and the major climbed down. His uniform shone in the light from the lamps as he quickly crossed the pavement to the door, which opened immediately to admit him.
