Daughters of Disguise (Lady C. Investigates Book 4)

by Issy Brookw

  “Do not hurt him!” Ruby pleaded. “He has done nothing wrong.”

  “Except for breaking your heart!”

  “He has not broken my heart! My lady, you are breaking my heart.”

  Cordelia stumbled and Ruby grabbed her mistress’s arm, setting her right on her feet again, very quickly. She dropped her hold as soon as Cordelia was moving again.

  The shop door was standing open and Cordelia did not hesitate. She plunged into the bitter-smelling place. The young apprentice, George, looked up from the mess around him on the counter. Clothes and small boxes and bags surrounded him. His face broke into smiles when he saw Ruby.

  Cordelia realised, at last, that she might have misread the situation. She pushed it aside. She was here, then, on the other matter. The murder, and the pursuit of the murderer.

  “Where is your master, Caradog Lloyd?” she demanded.

  “Answer the lady,” said Geraint, obviously keen to play a full role in the proceedings.

  “I do not know. He will be here soon, I am sure,” George said, nervously. “Why? Do you all want your hair cutting?”

  No one laughed. “Have you seen him at all this morning?” Cordelia asked.

  “No. He is sometimes late, though. I have a key so I can open up before him, anyway, and get things ready for the day.”

  “Is he ever this late? It’s nearly time to close up!”

  “No, we stay open late into the night, most times, because people who work long days need their hair cutting after hours,” George explained. He was still folding things up, and seemed to be agitated now.

  If people have their hair done at such hours, that could be why the shop is often empty when I visit, Cordelia thought.

  Suddenly young Constable Evans gave a cry of triumph. “My lady!” he said, beckoning her to a shelf. “Look here! Do you remember I told you that I thought that you might find sugar of lead here? It is an ingredient in this hair dye. See, it is written on the packet.”

  She took the ornate paper package in her hands. “Harlene,” she said. It was a popular brand by Edwards of High Holborn, and claimed to cure baldness, promote a luxuriant beard, and probably increase your wage packet too.

  And it brazenly advertised that it contained sugar of lead.

  Which was fine, of course, as long as one did not eat it.

  She handed the package back to Evans. “Keep it as evidence,” she said. She turned to speak to George, but he was taking his apron off, as if he had finished for the day. The mess on the counter was mostly gone now. All that remained was a canvas bag, bulging with its random contents. Ruby stood by his side, and turned her pink-rimmed eyes to Cordelia.

  Cordelia felt cold. She said to the two policemen, “Take that back to the head constable. Where is Geoffrey?”

  “He is outside, my lady.”

  “Right. Go to it. Tell Geoffrey to wait. I shall follow, with my coachman. But I have a little more business to attend to here, first.”

  Geraint and Evans left as directed. Now Cordelia was alone with Ruby and George.

  He was a fine figure of a man, she had to admit. She said, “What is happening here? What have you been trying to tell me, Ruby? For I do swear again that if this man has hurt you in any way, by hand or by word…”

  “No, no, he has not!” Ruby said.

  George spoke up. “My lady, I love Ruby with all my soul. I know I am young but we can make this work. But … my family has found out. And they will be against this marriage. They will say I must finish my apprenticeship.”

  “As to that,” Cordelia said, “I rather fear that your apprenticeship is already over. So they cannot complain.”

  “But they can and they do. All we can do is elope, now, today, before they come for me to prevent it.”

  Now she understood why there was a bag on the counter. George’s arm went around Ruby and held her tight to his side. Cordelia did not doubt the sincerity of his love for her maid.

  But she had doubts as to his suitability. He was so young, her mind screamed, and she glossed over the knowledge that most of her friends from her youth had also married so young. And anyway, she had married late, as an old maid at the fading end of her twenties, and look how that had turned out.

  Then he spoke again, and removed any doubts. Now she was certain he was wrong, utterly wrong, as a marriageable prospect for her Ruby. He said, “I know that our love can overcome everything. I might not have money, or a job, or a family to support me, but we have one another.”

  “So where are you going to go, with no money, no job and no family?”

  “I have a strong body and a willingness to work,” he said, defiantly. “We will head up to Liverpool. They need workers on the docks there.”

  “Oh my goodness. You hope to be a stevedore? You have started on an apprenticeship in a skilled craft, of a sort, and you will give it up to labour? Do you know how they work there? They line up, morning after morning, and beg for work at the gates. The largest, strongest men are chosen and the rest go home. Well, I call it home. You will be lucky to rent a shared room. You will be in rags, in a doss house. This is the future that you are promising my maid?”

  “I too can work!” Ruby said.

  “As a married woman, what can you do? No real respectable service is open to you. You will be a seamstress … or worse.”

  “Do you defy this match, then?” Ruby said, her voice rising.

  Cordelia looked at her. She had been a companion to Cordelia as well as a servant. They had grown close. Close enough for Cordelia to know some truths.

  One thing she knew she had to accept was that Ruby longed, more than anything, for a connection, and a family, of her own.

  Another thing Cordelia knew was that Ruby was facing heartbreak in that area. And there was nothing she could do about it. Ruby would make her own mistakes.

  She didn’t try to disguise the tears and the hurt in her voice as she replied, “Ruby, I wish you all the peace, happiness, health and joy in the world.” She pulled her small purse from her bag. “And here. I have not carried much with me, but you can take it all. Write to me as soon as you are settled somewhere, so that I know where to send more, as a wedding gift. As to your wedding…”

  “Oh! My lady, you will be invited.”

  “Thank you,” she said, knowing that she wouldn’t be invited at all. They would marry hastily and cheaply, in some out of the way place, on the run, and forever regret the loss of a special day. Cordelia kept that dire prediction to herself. She tipped all her coins into her hand. It was a paltry sum; she had little need to carry money on her person. There was more, back at the inn. She put all she had on the counter, and stepped back.

  The urge to hug Ruby almost overwhelmed her. Her throat was tight and painful.

  Ruby spoke before Cordelia could. “My lady, thank you again. George, we have to go.”

  He nodded, and gestured to the back. “We’ll go that way.”

  It would mean that Ruby would not pass by Cordelia, and so Cordelia would not be able to grab her for one final embrace.

  “This is my only chance at happiness,” Ruby said, and then she was gone.

  Cordelia exhaled slowly, and refused to cry.

  “Every moment is a new chance to find happiness,” she whispered. “But you have turned away from them all and gone away after a false and empty dream.”

  She hoped she was wrong.

  The shop door jangled behind her, and Geoffrey coughed.

  “Don’t say it!” Cordelia snapped immediately, turning her anguish to anger.

  He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, and silently led her out.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was early evening now, but still light and warm and summery. Cordelia let Geoffrey walk her back to the inn. At first she moved slowly and sluggishly but as she got closer to the inn, she picked up her pace, and tried to put Ruby firmly from her mind. She had other things to do, and Ruby was her own woman, after all. There was a murderer t
o catch. The police were after him, but she needed to do more. She could not sit and wait for the outcome, not now.

  Stanley was in the bar, and he followed Cordelia into a snug with Geoffrey where she explained that they were to go in pursuit of Caradog Lloyd, like the police were doing. “He is almost certainly the murderer, and the fact that he cannot be found, and has therefore fled, simply compounds his guilt,” she said.

  Stanley nodded, but although he was looking at his feet, he did not miss anything. “My lady, is everything all right? There is an air here, an air that suggests something bad has happened.”

  “Everything is fine. Please go and find some carriage or cart that can take us on our way. The comfort matters not. But make all haste.”

  “Yes, my lady. For how many people?”

  “You, me, Geoffrey and perhaps one or two policemen.” She considered that she was being sensible.

  “And Ruby…?”

  Geoffrey butted in. There was a mocking edge to his voice, like a laugh half-stifled, as he said, “She’s finally gone off with her lad. For now. She’ll be back.”

  “I think she is too proud for that,” Cordelia said, and that was a bitter thing to acknowledge. She hoped that somehow, things would work out for the foolish and impulsive girl. She also knew that Ruby was likely to be facing a great deal of disappointment and unhappiness once the initial love and lust wore off. And if the worst should happen, and Ruby needed a place to flee to, where would she go? Cordelia could not imagine her returning to Clarfields to beg for her own position back.

  “My lady, surely you can stop them?” Stanley said.

  “Yes, I could ask Geoffrey to kidnap her and bundle her into a cart and force her to leave George Price. But can I keep her locked up? Can I prevent her from following her heart? No. But she will survive. She is strong. Maybe it will work out, but they will need luck. And if it does not work out, she is clever and pretty. She will make a way for herself.”

  “As a—”

  “—as a resourceful young woman,” Cordelia said firmly. “Now, go to your task. I need to go and change. Well, I shall go and find my cloak.” Changing one’s outfit was a lengthy task, and needed help. She didn’t have the time to spare. “Geoffrey, find us some food to take with us. And then we will all go to the house of correction and see where we might be most useful. We don’t want to get in the way, do we?”

  Stanley’s face was a blotchy mix of red and white and pink, and he could not speak. She knew he was upset, and angry, and felt let down.

  He held a candle for Ruby, of course he did. Cordelia knew it, and Ruby might have suspected it, but he himself could not admit it. For, to the rigid and religious Stanley, Ruby was a fallen woman. He wanted to save her and condemn her at the same time. He knew he should follow the example of Jesus and forgive her and wash her feet; he also wanted to follow the example of some of the more thundery preachers and throw her into the fiery pits of hell.

  And he had been in such close proximity to her for so long that, on a very normal, basic and human level, he liked her and was going to miss her.

  He left, and she put a hand out to stop Geoffrey going after him. “Let him get ahead of you. You are to find food, remember. Leave him be. And do not tease him.”

  “He needs toughening up. How else will he learn?”

  “I do not want him to learn to be like you,” she said.

  He scowled. “And would you have me change? I think you need me as I am.”

  It was true. She did not answer. He went off to the kitchens to terrorise the staff there, and she went up to find some better outdoor clothing. Who knew what perils she would be facing now?

  ***

  She did not linger up in her rooms. She grabbed a cloak, her larger bag, and shoved a handful of extra hatpins in her bonnet. As weapons went, they were effective and lightweight. Then she ran down and met Geoffrey who had acquired a basket of food and drink. They dashed out into the street, expecting to see Stanley driving a borrowed vehicle along.

  Instead, down the narrow lane came Davies, standing at the front of his cart. It was empty, except for the miserable-looking figure of Stanley sitting in the back, gripping the sides.

  “You let him go this instant!” Cordelia yelled, leaping out in front of the horse which shied away from her. Davies hauled on the reins and brought the beast to a halt.

  He spoke in thickly accented English, but without meeting her eyes. “Well now, he is free to go of course.” Davies let the ends of the reins drop into the cart, and jumped down. “Or he can stay up there and drive that thing, you know.”

  “What?”

  Davies shrugged, and then spat on the floor, a vile and insulting gesture to leave Cordelia in no doubt as to his feelings about her. But he said, “You want a cart or something for the day, isn’t it? So here you are.”

  “But why?”

  “You need it. You may as well have it. Oh, and while you are at it, find whoever it was that tried to frame me, so that I can watch them hang for it.” He strode away, leaving Cordelia staring after him, speechless for a long moment.

  “Let’s get to it,” Geoffrey barked, breaking the spell. “There is a mounting block behind the inn, my lady.”

  She looked at him sideways. “We don’t have time for any of this,” she said, and with her skirts held up in one hand, she clambered into the back of the wooden cart, joining Stanley. “Get us to the police station, Geoffrey.”

  Geoffrey hesitated at the back of the cart.

  “What is it?”

  He harrumphed, and then flung open his long coat to reveal a shotgun held against his side. He thrust it along the bed of the cart.

  “Oh.”

  He didn’t say anything in reply. He just clambered up onto the bench at the front, held his hip and muttered a curse about sciatica, and then they were off.

  It was a short journey and they were met by the head constable coming out of the door before Cordelia had even disembarked. “My lady,” he said. “We have had sightings of Lloyd!”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To follow the sightings. He is heading south. I need to find a horse.”

  “Get in!” Cordelia said.

  Constable Evans jumped up. “This will do well enough. But is it not Davies’ cart?”

  It was a shabby, dirty thing with rags and papers stuck in the slats of wood. “It is,” she said. “Now, is there but one road south?”

  “At first, yes.” Evans leaned forward and pointed out the route to Geoffrey who lifted the horse into a light trot. “He has been seen in a cart himself, heading as if to Aberaeron.”

  “In a cart? You know, I have never seen him ride,” Cordelia said.

  “He does not.”

  “Can he ride?”

  “I do not know,” said Evans. “But he limps, does he not? Maybe he has a long-standing affliction.”

  Or an injury, she thought. I wonder …

  She said, aloud, “I would imagine he’ll avoid the toll roads. He will be noticed there, and people will remember him.”

  “Do you credit him with that much forethought?”

  “I do. And I still think we should head towards the village that he came from. People seek familiarity when in distress.”

  “Then there is only one way he can have gone,” said Evans. “But I have sent my men, as many as I could raise, down all the other roads too. Just in case.”

  Cordelia sat back, sideways on the narrow bench that ran along one side of the cart. Her palms were sweating. She knew the horse could not be urged any faster if they were to maintain their pace for a distance, and the road was bumpy and rocky. But if Lloyd was also on a cart, then he had little advantage except for his head start.

  She strained to look ahead. Green and grey hills rose to her left, and on the right, the landscape mellowed out to flowing rises and wide valleys which showed glimpses of the glittering afternoon sea in the bay beyond.

  It would have been a perfect day for a l
eisurely trip out.

  “Oh Geoffrey,” she blurted out in exasperation. “Speed up!”

  Chapter Thirty

  The bright summer’s day was giving way to a purple and grey dusk at last. Geoffrey had carefully coaxed a little more speed out of the horse, which responded willingly, but no animal could be driven relentlessly for long, and Geoffrey had insisted that they walk from time to time, and even stop for breaks, which almost sent Cordelia into apoplexy.

  But he was right, and he was a master of horses, after all.

  So all that Cordelia, Evans and Stanley could do was sit in the cart, rocking back and forth, growing callouses on their fleshy parts, and nibbling at the food in the basket.

  There was no chance of the journey allowing any real rest or sleep. The trick to riding in a rough cart was to relax enough that the motions carried through one’s body rather than working against it, but one could never relax enough. So her senses were still on high alert, and she heard the hoof beats before anyone else did.

  “We are being followed!” she said, twisting to look behind them. She stood up carefully, her arms out to retain her balance. “There is a man on a horse, well, a pony, following us. No, not a man!”

  The figure was small and she would have thought it to be a boy but there was long hair billowing out behind her as she came. The bonnet that should have been on her head was long gone. Her skirts were bunched up and her legs were revealed to halfway up the calves, yet the rider didn’t seem to care.

  The pony was a small, stocky Welsh cob, with a mass of mane and its flanks flecked with white foam now.

  “Ruby!” Cordelia almost screamed the name, losing all decorum. “Ruby!”

  “Stop!” cried Ruby, and Geoffrey did so immediately.

  The maid was out of breath, and she clung to the pony’s neck, trying to speak in short bursts. “My lady, where is everyone?”

  “We have all taken different routes to find him, but he is likely to be on this road as it leads to his village.”

  “And this is the road that the bridge is down on!” Ruby said.

  “I know that, of course,” Constable Evans said, “but there might be a temporary plank across by now.”