The end of the evening would be soon enough to return the bracelet to its rightful owner, and until then Loris would wear it as a reminder of all the dreams she’d never share with Thomas, if she chose to continue protecting her father.
* * *
Matthew Belmont had for many years hated the assemblies, especially the summer assemblies held on the village green. They’d reminded him of his late wife, who had loved the music, the flirtation, and the gossip, while Matthew had felt like a lummox on the dance floor, and a bumbling school boy next to Mathilda’s bright smiles and ready wit.
Now he rather enjoyed assemblies, because somebody invariably over-imbibed, and the local magistrate was the logical resource to break up fights, sort out misunderstandings, and suggest elderly uncles be taken home before they drank themselves into a state of regrettable lechery.
Managing the assemblies appealed to Matthew. Prancing around with females half his age did not, so Matthew generally spent much of the evening by the men’s punchbowl.
Tonight’s brew had probably started out as a genteel blend of fruit juice with a bit of fortification, but assiduous research revealed that a bold portion of rum had found its way into the recipe, possibly accompanied by gin. Once gin joined the festivities, nobody’s evening was safe from bad manners, falls on the dance floor, and words best left unsaid.
From beneath a nearby oak, Matthew monitored the patrons of the punchbowl, several of whom were already listing hard to port.
Giles Pettigrew sauntered up, his evening attire loose on his lanky frame. “Belmont, good evening.”
“Pettigrew, hello. I’m watching the parade of inchoate inebriates pay their respects to the punchbowl. Summer is the worst for over-imbibing, though it’s a tasty blend, at least.”
“I’ll stick to my flask,” Pettigrew said, brandishing same. “A matter has come to my attention that rather involves you.”
Matthew’s enjoyment of the evening dimmed, though a magistrate was always fair game for a discussion of legal matters.
“Do we need privacy for this discussion?” Matthew asked, not that anybody noticed old Squire Belmont lurking in the shadows. If there was a male equivalent to the wallflower, Matthew would gladly embrace the term.
“We do not,” Pettigrew said, in a hushed tone guaranteed to attract notice. “I thought I should let you know that I’ve heard rumors Mr. Micah Tanner has been seen in the vicinity of Trieshock. Out of respect for Miss Tanner, I’d appreciate it if your efforts to apprehend him were more deliberate than impetuous.”
Impetuous. Matthew hadn’t been impetuous since, well, perhaps on his wedding night he’d been a bit hasty, and look how that had turned out.
“Difficult to apprehend a rumor, Mr. Pettigrew.”
Giles paused with his flask halfway to his mouth. The silver was embossed with a rose, though a dent marred the design.
“You’ll not rush out to slap him in irons? A man suspected of multiple felonies?”
Gossip had brought Matthew some of his most useful insights, solving crimes he’d considered unsolvable. Gossip also wasted half the typical rural magistrate’s waking hours.
“Firstly, irons are heavy and they clank. I defy anybody to slap them about with the desired result of shackling a criminal. Secondly, information against Tanner has not been formally laid, thus I have no warrant for the man. Thirdly, I do not arrest people on the basis of informal accusations, else I’d have to arrest you.”
Pettigrew was not a bad sort, merely a young man with a difficult, headstrong female running his household. Matthew knew how that felt, and yet, Pettigrew was trying to create drama where his mother’s scheme had failed to achieve that result.
“You’d arrest me?” Pettigrew asked, stuffing his flask back out of sight. “Squire, your humor eludes me, and I believe my dance with Miss Tanner comes up next.”
Miss Tanner was probably wishing she’d not learned to dance. She’d stood up for every set so far, and every man within twenty yards of the green had taken notice.
“When you were sixteen years old,” Matthew said, “you dipped Horatia Beam’s braid into the inkwell you’d smuggled into choir practice. Her mama wanted me to have you spend an afternoon in the stocks, but alas for the wronged party, hearsay alone is no basis for a conviction.”
Whatever else university had done for Pettigrew—probably left him in debt to the usurers, about which Matthew had lectured his own boys at length—Pettigrew had not grasped the basics of English law. His father, who’d been magistrate before Matthew, would have been disappointed.
While Matthew was mostly bored.
“Horatia Beam has red hair,” Pettigrew said, as if this were a class of criminal offense. “I was just a boy.”
Pettigrew was still just a boy, while Matthew felt positively elderly. “I’ll not arrest Tanner without sworn information and due process, and if all the evidence against him is one woman’s unverified accusation, then under present law, unfair though it might be, a conviction is unlikely. Now, if you don’t want to dance with Miss Tanner, I’ll be happy to take your place on her dance card.”
Pettigrew was off as if shot from a longbow, leaving Matthew to the familiar comfort of the shadows. He hadn’t long to wait before Baron Sutcliffe joined him, looking vastly more elegant—and frustrated—than the gathering called for.
“For ten years,” Sutcliffe said, “Loris Tanner worked her backside off on the neighboring estate, cleaned up her father’s messes, held her head up while Mrs. Pettigrew ignored a motherless young girl who might have benefited from the smallest kindness tossed in her direction. Now Giles has eyes only for that same woman?”
“While the lady has eyes only for you.” Matthew passed over his flask—the good one that no horse had stepped on yet, and no foolish owner had dropped on hard ground. “Care for a nip?”
“My thanks. How long do these gatherings typically last?”
Roughly half the contents of Matthew’s best flask disappeared down the baron’s handsome gullet.
“They last years,” Matthew said. “Each one is a small eternity, though being English, we will perpetuate the institution until not a spinster or a bachelor remains standing. Don’t suppose you’ve seen any suspicious boot prints tonight?”
“Not since the one I spotted in the Trieshock livery. Must he hold her that closely?”
The course of true love never did run uncomplainingly, particularly when fueled with good brandy.
“It’s five minutes of capering about in public, Sutcliffe. That’s the only liberty Pettigrew can take, and Miss Tanner in her finery would turn any man’s head.”
Blazing blue eyes fixed on Matthew. “With the exception of present company, she’s been ignored or worse by the entire village until tonight. What did Pettigrew want with you?”
The baron was a bright fellow—he’d have to be to keep up with Loris Tanner.
“Your report regarding Tanner’s whereabouts has been confirmed. The fellows you hired to keep an eye out for him, and now Pettigrew as well, all claim to have seen Tanner in the vicinity of Trieshock.”
Among the dancers, Loris Tanner smiled fixedly at Giles Pettigrew, while the viscount and his lady were a study in liberties taken in public. Beckman and Nicholas were partnering the wallflowers Matthew himself usually stood up with. But for the newlywed viscount and viscountess, the scene was typical for the Linden village. Try as he might, Matthew could find nothing to support a dull sense of unease.
“Where is Claudia Pettigrew?” Sutcliffe asked.
Damn and drat. “Excellent question,” for Claudia Pettigrew liked to see and be seen, swanning about in London fashions most of the local women could only envy. “Perhaps she’s grown tired of dancing with other women’s husbands. Then too, sensible people don’t hop about needlessly in this heat.”
The musicians brought the interminable dance to a final cadence, and Matthew considered refilling his flask at the punchbowl.
“Try mine,” Sutclif
fe said, passing over a silver container embossed with a crest of thistles framing a rampant unicorn.
The contents were ambrosial, brandy such as a mere country squire might dream about in his old age.
“Why would Tanner use Trieshock as his base of operations?” Sutcliffe asked, tucking his flask away. “Why not hide in London or Brighton?”
Another excellent question. Matthew moved away from the temptation of the punchbowl and led Sutcliffe to a different patch of shadow.
“If I were passing through the area with intent to leave quickly, Baron, I’d stay in Trieshock. The main road to Brighton lies not two miles from the town, and yet few over that way would know Tanner because he conducted most of his business right here at Linden or in Haybrick.”
Pettigrew had engaged Miss Tanner in earnest conversation, though even he had to know one did not importune a lady on the village green with all the local gossips looking on. Perhaps that’s why Pettigrew took Miss Tanner by the hand and led her away to the other side of the green.
“Sutcliffe, she sees him as a boy, and you’re grinding your molars to dust over nothing.”
Sutcliffe checked a headlong charge to the lady’s side. “Belmont, something has bothered me ever since my stable was reduced to a smoldering ruin.”
“I expect much has bothered you since that unfortunate day.” Having an arsonist loose in the shire certainly bothered Matthew.
“The first person on the scene, the first person to offer aid and assistance, was Giles Pettigrew, who claimed to have heard word of the fire at the posting inn two miles away from my property.”
The unease in Matthew’s belly coalesced into cold, miserable dread. “Neighborly of him.”
“Or did Pettigrew have reason to know my stable would be put to the torch? I’ve had Nick make discreet inquiries, and nobody is even sure Pettigrew came to the tavern that morning. Where has that fool taken Loris?”
Sutcliffe’s voice boded dismemberment for the fool in question.
“They can’t have gone far. I’ll fetch Nick, Beckman, and Fairly if you’d like help searching for her, but whatever you do, Sutcliffe, keep your head.”
Matthew was talking to the night air, for the baron had already slipped away into the shadows.
* * *
Giles Pettigrew gave off the excited air of a boy who’d just realized he’d stumbled onto the answers to the Latin examination, but couldn’t gloat about his good fortune to any of the other scholars.
His dancing was a shade too energetic, his voice a trifle too loud, his laughter forced. Loris wanted nothing so much as to get away from him, and from the entire gathering.
Though not until she’d had her waltz with Thomas. No power on earth could make her forfeit that memory.
“Miss Tanner, thank you for the dance,” Giles said, bowing low enough that Loris could see his hair was already going thin on top.
He escorted her away from the area designated for dancing, while Loris tried to discreetly locate Thomas among the bystanders on the periphery.
“You dance very well, Giles, and I’m sure your next partner is looking forward to her turn with you. I’ll find the viscountess and rest my feet.” Or Loris would locate Thomas, who was nowhere in evidence. Nick and Beckman, tall enough to be easy to spot, had also apparently chosen that moment to visit the bushes, or wherever men went when the punch and ale caught up with them.
“If you’re looking for Sutcliffe, I think I know where you’ll find him,” Giles said. “He and Squire Belmont were near the men’s punchbowl. Shall we look for them there?”
“Yes, please. I’m sure the musicians will soon want to conclude the festivities, and I promised the final dance to the baron.”
Giles linked arms with Loris, and led her off around the oak in the center of the green.
“Giles, the punchbowl is outside the tavern,” Loris said.
“Well, yes, but your baron has probably gone ’round the back of the smithy. It’s quiet back there, and has benches, you see.”
Loris did not see, never having loitered at the smithy. “Giles, slow down. If you’re seen dragging me into the darkness, I won’t answer for the consequences.”
She wasn’t about to make a scene over what was merely forward behavior, and as to that, nobody seemed to notice her exit from the throng milling beneath the lanterns on the village square.
“You needn’t worry about consequences,” Giles said as they came around the corner of the blacksmith’s establishment. “I’ll marry you, Loris Tanner. I don’t care about your past, or about your infatuation with the baron. That’s to be expected when a Town man comes riding down from London, drawling fine manners and dressed to the nines.”
Giles Pettigrew was daft, or perhaps giddy from an evening spent beyond his mama’s watchful eye.
“That’s very generous of you, Giles, but I don’t think marriage will be necessary.”
Behind the smithy, all was deserted. The violins sawing away so energetically back on the green were soft and distant here, the moon the only light.
“I will marry you, though,” Giles said, gripping Loris by the wrist. “Have no fear on that score. That’s a very pretty frock. Maybe you’ll wear it on our wedding day, too. The blue goes with your eyes.”
Loris’s eyes were gray, not blue. “Giles, we’re not getting married. Thank you for the honor you do me, but we would not suit.”
Loris could not read his expression well in the moonlight, but her refusal didn’t daunt him. Three months ago, she would have been grateful for his proposal, and might even have accepted it.
Three months ago, she’d been frightened, lonely, exhausted, and still waiting for her father to come riding up the drive, handing out joking apologies for his absence, and resuming the duties Loris had shouldered in his absence.
The urge to laugh at Giles’s earnest condescension came from nowhere and bore a hint of grief. Fate had generously put Loris in Thomas’s path, and no matter what else befell her, for a short time, she’d had the love of a good man.
Those memories were hers to keep, while Giles’s proposal she could toss gently into the hedgerow.
“Giles, the baron will wonder what’s become of me, and he’s clearly not here. I think we’ve said all that need be said. Shall we return to the green?”
“I propose marriage, and you can’t wait to get back to your baron? I’ve known you for a decade, and in a matter of weeks, you’re smitten with him? He’s disported with soiled doves, Loris, and don’t think he humors your little masquerade as a steward for any reason other than to get under your skirts. I’ve seen London, I’ve experienced its charms. Take the word of a man of the world, Sutcliffe is toying with you.”
Giles’s histrionics might cost Loris a waltz with the only man to deal with her honestly.
“Perhaps Sutcliffe is toying with me, Giles, but he knows better than to take a lady somewhere private under false pretenses. Return to the green, and I’ll follow in a few minutes.”
Loris took the tone of voice she used on Thomas’s urchins, at least three of whom had been circling in the vicinity of the dessert tables.
“I can be patient,” Giles said, backing up two steps. “Up to a point. Your upbringing was unconventional, all the more reason you’re dazzled by a fancy rogue. I’ve made inquiries about your baron, Loris, though now is not the time to reveal the results of my investigations. I’ll leave you in solitude, but don’t tarry long. A woman in your position can’t be too careful of her reputation, and my offer of marriage presupposes your reputation remains worthy of my suit.”
On that grating little sermon, Giles finally took his worldly, judgmental, condescending, arrogant young self away toward the green. Loris was tempted to sink onto one of the benches and sort anger from amusement and despair, but the bushes moved alarmingly, and a man stepped forward.
“I thought your suitor would never leave, Daughter, and I have a few questions of my own about this Baron Sutcliffe, but first, don’t
you have a hug and a kiss for your old papa?”
Chapter Nineteen
“A grown woman in a gorgeous blue dress doesn’t just disappear,” Nick muttered.
“She apparently has,” Beckman countered.
“A lady might need the necessary,” Belmont said, though even he didn’t sound convinced of his own point.
“I sent one of the boys around to watch for Loris at the ladies’ convenience,” Thomas said. “Nick has a point. Loris’s appearance tonight was distinctive. People ought to have noticed her on Pettigrew’s arm.”
Thomas had gathered beneath the oaks with what help he had. To anybody milling around the punchbowl, they’d be just another group of men standing about with flasks and tankards in hand.
To Thomas, these few men were his only prayer of happiness on earth. “You gentlemen need to know something else. Micah Tanner has been seen in the area since the stable burned, and I’m confident he’s come to fetch Loris before taking ship in Brighton.”
Beckman left off skimming the toe of his boot through the grass. “Brighton is a thriving port and a damned big place. I’ve sailed from there any number of times.”
“Not much moon if Tanner wants to get there tonight,” Nick said, tossing the last of his ale into the darkness. “But my mare will take me safely enough.”
“Sutcliffe?” Belmont prompted. “What say you? Brighton, London, Trieshock?”
“Or none of the above,” Thomas said. The violins scraped away, a simple, repetitive reel on a simple, happy tune. Inside Thomas, all was discord and misery, and yet these men expected him to think, to think logically, when the woman he loved had willingly left his side, and very likely the future he’d offered her.
“She’s not at the necessary,” Letty said, joining the circle with her husband. “The ladies in line said Loris hadn’t been that way the entire time they’d been waiting.”
Thomas’s instincts had been warning him that Loris would not refuse her father’s summons, that old habits didn’t die that easily, not when they were habits of love and duty.
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