Love Unexpected: A Regency Romance (The Saunders Family Saga Book 1)

by G. G. Vandagriff

  It seemed like a longer ride than ever before to Heyford Abbey, and Marianne was very glad of Gweet’s company. They played piquet and read to each other aloud from the memoir that the captain had given her.

  “What a magical place Florence sounds, Mama! I would love to go there.”

  “I think we just might, now that the war is over. I am thinking that we may ask Miss Braithwaite to go with us.”

  “Sir Russell is such a wonderful writer, I can almost see the view from the hill overlooking the city in my mind’s eye—the river, the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio.”

  “When Bertie returns we can ask him about arrangements. That is somewhere he and Lady Catherine were determined to visit.”

  When at last they reached her brother’s house, they were welcomed by Ramsey and Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, and served a late dinner. When Marianne finally went to sleep in the bed she had had since she was a girl, she drew her first free breath. They were safe in the old Tudor mansion. She would write the captain in the morning and let him know of this latest development.

  * * *

  Heyford Abbey

  Lower Heyford

  Oxfordshire, England

  Dear Captain Saunders,

  I do not know when this letter will reach you, as I am sending it to Wellingham House, but I am certain my address will surprise you. Heyford Abbey is my brother, Sir Bertie’s, house. When you left so suddenly yesterday morning, Gweet and I decided that for safety’s sake we would move here where no one would expect us to be.

  We decided not a moment too soon. We were eating luncheon when Lord Webbingford called! Orcutt made an excuse to him that we had been called away and invited him to wait for us. I have no idea how long he waited, as we got away by carriage and he did not follow us.

  We have no idea if his intent was evil or not, but you advised me to take care, and so I thought it prudent to leave.

  I hope you are having luck on your search. Gweet and I are reading the memoirs you gave me. We have decided that as soon as my brother returns from abroad and can make the arrangements, we will decamp to Florence!

  I will never be able to thank you adequately for rescuing me from that horrible grain shed and most probably from death. You will have a place in my heart long after you have returned to the sea.

  Yours truly,

  Lady Deveridge

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ernest was able to arrive in Epsom Downs after two days of hard riding, during which time he thought far more of Marianne than he did of the murder of his friend. That kiss he had given her had jolted him clear through. And from her reaction it had had the same effect on her. It was the very devil of a thing that he hadn’t been able to stay!

  After checking in to the inn where he had previously stayed, he paid a visit to the Horse and Crown, where he had met Abernathy. As he suspected, the gruesome murder was the subject on everyone’s tongue.

  “Shame, that’s all I got to say,” said the large man with shaggy hair and braces who stood at the bar. “After he won all that money and got engaged to his sweetheart.”

  Ernest purchased a pint of the local ale and said to the man, “I’m a visitor to these parts. Sounds like someone’s had some bad luck.”

  “Yeah. Happen this retired captain who sat every day at that table over there by the fire got hisself murdered. Neck slashed ear to ear.”

  “The devil you say! Not the sort of news you expect to hear in Epsom Downs,” said Ernest.

  “You might be surprised, you might,” said the big man. “Had another murder here just last month. Jockey over to the prize stable. Fellow named Simpson. There’s some as think the two are connected.”

  “Bad luck doesn’t begin to cover it,” said Ernest, sipping his ale. It was the best he’d had since the last time he was here.

  “That’s what I say. Both murders had something to do with that horse—that Ginny’s Prize. Something’s not right.”

  This observation intrigued Ernest. “How so?” he asked.

  “’Twas Ginny’s Prize’s jockey what was murdered in the first place. Then this captain bloke—he just won a fortune betting on him. Odds of a hundred to one!”

  This surprised Ernest. Hadn’t Abernathy said repeatedly that he was going to put his money on Nemesis? That Virginia’s Prize was too risky? What had made him change his mind?

  “The captain was an acquaintance of mine,” he said to the shaggy man. “Just before the race, he told me he was going to bet on another horse. He thought Virginia’s Prize was ill.”

  “Mayhap he got a tip and got lucky,” said another man, short and wiry, standing on Ernest’s other side.

  “Not too lucky, it would seem,” said Ernest. “If he got himself murdered.”

  “Rumor going around that Ginny’s Prize was drugged by that murdered jockey,” said the hairy man. “Maybe Captain Abernathy got wind of it. Maybe he thought he’d take the long odds because the jockey wasn’t around to drug the horse anymore,” said the hairy man.

  “Mayhap he killed the jockey hisself,” said the wiry man.

  “Naw, that don’t make sense,” said the other man. “Huggins keeps that stable locked up tight. No way the captain could’ve gotten to him. Besides, Abernathy was the deuce of a good fellow. Always buying drinks for the likes of us.”

  Ernest ordered a ploughman’s meal—bread, cheese, and a pickle—and settled at a table to think.

  Did Abernathy have any connection to the murder of Simpson and the drugging? If so, who had murdered him? Was this person a danger to Marianne?

  Ernest returned to his room at the inn to think. He began by sitting at the small desk to write a list of chronological facts.

  Virginia’s Prize is being drugged

  Jockey Simpson is murdered

  Marianne is bashed on the head in Virginia’s Prize’s stall

  Tony sets guard on Virginia’s Prize

  Attempted kidnapping of Marianne in London before King’s Plate

  Abernathy claims he will bet on Nemesis, not Virginia’s Prize

  Strangeways decides to run Virginia’s Prize using alternate jockey

  Marianne is successfully kidnapped on her way to Newmarket, not to be found until after King’s Plate is run. She is not seriously hurt, but left to die (?)

  Virginia’s Prize wins King’s Plate at one hundred to one

  Abernathy has bet on him (contrary to his word), makes a bundle, and gets engaged to Cit’s daughter

  Abernathy has his throat cut

  After studying the facts, Ernest wrote down a series of questions.

  Why did the perpetrator kill Simpson and Abernathy but not Marianne? Are there two different villians?

  Was Abernathy one of them? Did the other one kill him?

  Did Abernathy hire someone to drug Virginia’s Prize?

  If so, who was villain #2 who killed him? It had to be someone who had access to the horses.

  Bert Huggins (stable minder)?

  Greenwood (trainer)?

  The jockey or trainer or owner of another horse?

  The theory that two people were involved, one of them being Abernathy, was a good one, Ernest decided. But it left the field wide open for Villain #2. Tomorrow he would interview Greenwood and Huggins and then set off for London. Sometime during the night, he had decided that perhaps he ought to interview Abernathy’s fiancée. He must get a copy of the Post for the day after the race to see the announcement of their engagement to find the fiancée’s name.

  That night, Ernest dreamed of murders, stables, and horse races, all of the scenes featuring Marianne. He woke testy and exhausted, determined to put an end to the string of violence and the danger that still threatened Marianne for a reason he still did not fully understand. What did the villain think she had seen? Is she safe at Poplars?

  After breakfasting on a boiled egg and a single piece of toast, he ventured off to see Huggins and hopefully Greenwood, if he had come back from Newmarket. Ernest realized he didn’t
know exactly where Strangeways’s horse was going to be kept before the next race.

  * * *

  “Ah! The newspaper bloke!” said Huggins as Ernest approached. The stable minder still had the red kerchief around his neck, and today he sat on a three-legged stool. “Thought you might be about again on account of the poor bloke what was killed.”

  Ernest asked, “Did you know the fellow? He must have been pretty famous around here after he won the race one hundred to one!”

  “Nah. I never saw him, I don’t think. Wouldn’t know him anyway if I had seen him.” Huggins began wringing out his ear with his little finger.

  Ernest pressed on. “We think Virginia’s Prize was drugged. Who do you think did that?”

  “No one gets by me what doesn’t belong here. Woulda have to have been a jockey, a trainer, or an owner. Pretty big field of suspects.”

  “You don’t have a favorite suspect?”

  Huggins scratched his head. “It weren’t Simpson. He were that concerned about his horse losin’. Worried he’d be blamed and lose his place.”

  “Greenwood?” prompted Ernest.

  “Aww. That man flat-out loves Ginny’s Prize. I don’t think no one could pay him enough to hurt him.”

  To Ernest’s mind, that left the other owners. “What do you know of Lord Webbingford?”

  Huggins’s bushy gray eyebrows lowered in a frown. “Hot under the collar. Goes through jockeys and trainers like water. Wants a winner in the worst way.” He paused, inspecting a hangnail. “Now you mention it, wouldn’t be a tall surprised if he hobbled Ginny’s Prize.”

  “Who’re his trainer and jockey? Are they here now?”

  “Haven’t seen ’em since the King’s Plate. Probably still at Newmarket but might be over Leicester way for the next race.”

  “Any other owners you can think of that are suspicious?”

  Huggins gnawed at his lower lip while he thought. “Vulcan’s owner, Sir Willoughby Darset is straight as a die. Can’t see him playing foul. Ain’t no other horses running close enough to Ginny’s Prize, except Webbingford’s.”

  “I appreciate your thoughts,” said Ernest. He gave the man a shilling and asked him where Greenwood might be.

  The stable minder tipped his cap to Ernest and said that the trainer was probably with Virginia’s Prize in Kent at his home stable. He knew Mr. Gibson was keeping the horse close since the drugging episode.

  “Oh, by the way, what was the name of the jockey that ended up riding Virginia’s Prize in the race?”

  “’Twas Billy Boxer. Most likely you’d find him down t’ the Horse and Crown celebratin’. Lives here year round. He’ll be a good ’un for your story.”

  Ernest had almost forgotten he was posing as a journalist. “Thanks for all your help.”

  * * *

  Billy Boxer was not at the pub, but according to his mates, he had been there. Ernest gathered that the jockey lived in digs up the street.

  “You’ll know it,” said one of his mates. “Only yellow house on the street. He’s on the second floor.”

  He made his way up the street, which climbed steeply from the level of the pub. Finding the yellow house, he went up the outside stairway, where he found a door open. All the drawers in the cupboard were also open. Empty. Ernest stood still, his mind racing.

  Billy Boxer had fled. Guilty men fled. Had his own nosing around tipped the fellow off? Word must have gotten around to him this morning in the pub.

  Confound it! The man was a jockey. He knew how to ride a horse. Fast.

  Ernest returned to his inn with all speed, paid his shot, saddled his horse, and rode away. Where would a man guilty of murder, and, Ernest guessed, blackmail, run?

  If he got his hands on Abernathy’s cash gains before he killed him, he would have a fortune. Besides that, he would have his portion of the purse for winning the race. If he was right, Boxer was guilty of two murders, drugging a race horse, and possibly kidnapping, although Ernest was inclined to put that deed down to Abernathy, as he had not outright harmed Marianne, and Boxer was violent.

  If he were Boxer, he would take his money and flee the country. As Ernest had reason to know, most ships departed from Southampton. He urged Doolittle on a southwest trajectory.

  Being a sailor, Ernest didn’t know the roads of England terribly well, but he possessed an inner compass based on the position of the sun. At every junction, he took the largest byway in the southwesterly direction.

  He put together the facts as he knew them: Billy Boxer had wanted to ride Virginia’s Prize in the King’s Plate, probably not only for the generous amount of the winner’s purse, but, judging by his ruthlessness, because he was tired of being a second-string jockey.

  Ernest surmised that the jockey had worked in collusion with Abernathy, probably knowing him from the pub. The whole idea might even have been put in his head by Abernathy. One of them got hold of some laudanum or like drug, and Boxer put it in the race horse’s feed.

  While Ernest had never seen the man, he knew jockeys were exceptionally small and muscular men. Their legs were often bowed from riding horses since their childhood, when they would begin their training. From behind, even in the light of dawn, Marianne could have known his size and shape, and they would have been singular enough for her to have remarked upon them.

  He guessed that the man had something else distinctive about him that she would have recognized at the King’s Plate. Red hair? A limp? She hadn’t mentioned either one. Marianne, unfortunately, had not seen whatever it was that Boxer feared she had seen.

  They would never know if Simpson figured out that Boxer was drugging his horse, but he had had to go so that Boxer could ride in the race. His murder may not have been part of Abernathy’s plan. In fact, Ernest doubted it was. Nevertheless, Boxer had brutally murdered his fellow jockey.

  He had also attempted to murder Marianne by the same means. When she didn’t die, he and Abernathy (acting as coachman and footman) had kidnapped Marianne, but she had escaped before they could murder her. They gave it another try at Harlow, the day before the race. At least, Abernathy did. Boxer would have already been expected at Newmarket, putting Virginia’s Prize through her paces. Though Abernathy did not kill Marianne outright, he left her where she was very unlikely to be discovered, to die of thirst, exposure, and starvation.

  Then Boxer got greedy. Not contented with his prize money, he blackmailed Abernathy for a portion of his winnings. Abernathy probably threatened to tip off the authorities about the murder and the drugging, so he had been murdered as well.

  And now Boxer had fled, probably to someplace where no one would guess from his looks that he was a jockey.

  When Ernest reached Guildford, he came to familiar territory. He guessed he had come a little less than halfway. Changing horses at the King’s Arms, he left Doolittle to be collected upon his return.

  Riding the main highway to Southampton from there, he traveled through the night. He had plenty of time to think of Marianne.

  Her desire to travel gave them something important in common. As he had read the memoirs of Sir Russell Effington, he had no trouble imagining Marianne drinking in the atmosphere of the remarkable place. He had felt that way about places, too—enlivened in every part of his being by the very air of a city or country. He longed to show her the Far East, India, the islands of the South Seas.

  It was as though God, himself, had found for him the perfect partner. Ernest was drawn to her with a passion he had never experienced; even one extraordinary kiss was enough for him to know that he would never desire another woman the way he desired Marianne. Her luminous face and tempting form were there in his mind almost continually.

  He thought of the anxiety he had felt when she had been kidnapped. He had never felt so driven and never so afraid. Had he not found her, he would not have wanted to live in the barren future that lay before him.

  So. How could he leave her? How could he sail away in five months knowing he would proba
bly not see her for years? How could he see her married to Webbingford or some other man?

  An idea began to form in his mind. Yes. He could do that. It was possible.

  After a further change of horses, he reached Southampton at dawn. Deep in his heart, he began to hope. But first there was a murderer to catch.

  Now came the difficult part. There were hundreds of ships here bound for all parts of the world. Fortunately, he knew the retired captain who headed up the shipping office.

  * * *

  There were four ships leaving that morning that took on passengers. Destinations: India, Buenos Aires, the West Indies, and Alexandria. Any of them would do. They would all be leaving on the tide, which gave him two hours to find his fugitive.

  They didn’t speak English in Buenos Aires, so Ernest put that port at the bottom of his list. India was the farthest destination, since it required sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. The West Indies and Alexandria both offered English speakers and the hot weather that would appeal to an expatriated Englishman.

  Fortunately, Ernest had a broad stride. The ship to the West Indies was the closest at about a mile off through the maze of docks. Energized by being near the end of his quest and hoping he had guessed right about the jockey fleeing the country, he finally caught sight of the ship bound for Barbados. Running up the gangplank, he addressed the boarding officer, “I’m Captain Saunders of the HMS Intrepid. Have you taken on a little man, perhaps with red hair or a limp, bowlegged, and anxious to be gone? If so, he is wanted for murder.”

  The officer, a bear of a man, grinned as he saluted. “Greetings, Captain! You were at the Second Battle of Sacket’s Harbor! I was with Captain Perry!”

  “Greetings!” returned Ernest. “Have you seen such a man?”

  “I have. Red hair like a flame. Slightest bit gimpy. He was flush with cash, so I put him in one of our best cabins. In the stern. Cabin one hundred sixty. Two decks down.”

  “Thank you, Officer. Is your captain on the bridge?”

  “Aye, aye. Captain Harold Summers. Good hunting.”

  Relieved that all his guesses had been on the money, Ernest headed for the bridge. Captain Summers wasn’t known to him, but fortunately the man had heard of the lucky Captain Saunders of the Second Battle of Sacket’s Harbor, where he’d taken two prizes.