by Candace Camp
“Hush, Pirate! Hush!” Rose cried at intervals, but the earl, the only one whose commands he obeyed, made not a gesture toward the dog.
Instead, he and Mary raised their voices to be heard above Pirate’s yaps, bringing more than one interested face to a window in the house.
“You cannot stop us from going to the mill!” Mary hurled at the earl.
“The devil I cannot!” Stewkesbury slammed his hand down on the glass-topped table, which sent the dog into a paroxysm of barking. “You will not go to the mill! I will not be disobeyed!”
With that, he pivoted on his heel and strode into the house. Charlotte, with an agonized glance at Rose and Mary, hurried after him, calling, “Oliver! Wait!”
Pirate trotted after the earl, then turned and looked at the girls. He ran back a few steps toward them, stopped, whirled, and finally lay down on the terrace between the girls and the door. Mary and Rose faced each other. Their nerves had been strangely calmed by the faux fight.
“How long do you think we should discuss this?” Rose asked, taking her sister’s hands and looking into her face earnestly. “I feel a fool.”
“Not long. We don’t want him to get bored and think we aren’t going to do anything if he’s watching; but on the other hand, we have to give someone time to get a message to him if there’s a traitor among the servants.” Shaking off her sister’s hands, she turned away, exclaiming, “I will not let that man tell me what to do! He’s not my father.”
“No, of course not.” Rose pursued her, tugging at Mary’s arm so she turned to face her. “He hasn’t any right!”
“Are the servants watching?” Mary asked in a low voice.
“The windows are full of them.”
“There are a number of gardeners peeking out from behind bushes, too. I think we should get going. We can dawdle on the way.” She stepped away, saying loudly, “Well, I am going! You can stay here and be Stewkesbury’s slave, if you want to.”
“No, Mary, wait!” Rose hurried after her sister down the steps.
Pirate ran to the edge of the stairs and barked ferociously. As the girls disappeared into the garden, he tore off down the steps after them.
The first problem, of course, was to elude the gardeners. There was little doubt that several of them had seen the argument; it was unlikely that any of the gardeners would physically try to stop them, but they might very well follow the sisters to make sure they were safe, which would effectively ruin the plan.
However, Fitz had laid out the route himself last night, having used it frequently when he was young, and it was well hidden from the view of most of the garden and quickly led out into the side yard. It was not the most direct route to the river and the mill, but it kept them well away from the gardens. The girls ran as fast as they could, and though they encountered a few amazed stares from some grooms around the stables, they met with no resistance. Soon they were clambering down a small hillside to the river.
“Whew!” Mary plopped down on a rock to recover her breath, and Rose joined her.
They kept watch to see if anyone had followed them from the house or stables, but there was no one. In only a moment, however, a small black-and-white body bounded down the hill. Pirate stopped in front of them, smiling, his stumpy tail wagging.
“Pirate! No. Go home!” Mary tried ineffectually to shoo him back toward the house.
“It’s no use. No one can make him mind except the earl.”
Mary sighed. “Well, we must hope a dog will not discourage the kidnapper. He looks too small to be trouble.”
“To someone who’s not acquainted with him.”
They set off again, the dog trotting along with them, sometimes bounding forward to inspect the trail ahead, other times chasing off after some elusive scent, but always coming back to rejoin the girls.
“I wish I knew exactly where the others are hiding,” Rose said in a low voice as they walked along. “It would make me feel safer.”
“We cannot look around for them.” Mary kept her eyes on the path ahead, now and then glancing at the river that ran only a few feet away. “Any more than we can look for our assailant.”
The girls fell silent. The worst part, Mary thought, was keeping their walk slow. They needed to give the man time to come after them, but with the passage of each second, her anxiety increased. Her ears strained to hear any untoward sound—a twig snapping, the pad of feet on the dirt, birds flying up in fright at the passage of a human. But there was nothing beyond the sigh of the breeze in the trees. The world seemed utterly deserted.
It was almost painful to refrain from looking around for their protectors or their attacker. Mary stuck her hands in her pockets, closing her fingers around the small pistol, reassuring herself that as soon as they heard or saw the kidnapper, it would take only seconds to pull the weapon out.
It was easier when they were walking alongside the river through a meadow. But when the trees and shrubbery pressed in on them, narrowing the path and blocking their vision, Mary’s heart sped up and her nerves stretched until she thought they would snap. What was that noise? The soft plop of a footstep? And the rustle nearby —a person or simply an animal moving quietly through the trees?
At last the mill came into view ahead of them. Mary relaxed a little, even though she knew that it made no sense. Everyone had agreed that the greatest likelihood of attack would come close to the mill. But at least now they were within sight of Royce and Fitz.
However, the trees began to edge in closer to the river, and shrubs hugged the mill, a dank, dark building of lichened gray stone. They were very close now, and Mary had to fight not to break into a run. Beside her, Rose’s steps quickened, and Mary reached out, linking her arm through her sister’s.
Rose glanced at her and forced a little smile. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry; it’s almost over.” Of course, it wasn’t; there was the long walk back if he did not come after them in the next few minutes.
Pirate, trotting along at their heels, suddenly burst forward, barking like a mad thing. An instant later, a man erupted from the bushes in front of them.
Chapter 26
Rose shrieked, and Mary pulled out her gun. She fired, but the shot went wide of the mark, and in the next instant the man was on them. He snatched Rose up, his arm effectively pinning hers to her sides, making it impossible for her to use the small knife she had drawn from her pocket.
He headed back into the trees, and Mary hurled herself after him, crashing into his back. He staggered, and it was enough, combined with Rose’s frantic struggles, to knock him off balance. He went to his knees. Mary swung her pistol at his head, and it struck with a satisfying crack. Pirate ceased his jumping and barking long enough to dive in and sink his teeth into the man’s ankle.
The attacker let out a roar, lashing out with his leg and sending the dog flying. Twisting, he rose and shoved Mary, but doing so lost his grip on Rose. She flung herself away, scrambling to her feet, and began to run toward the mill. The assailant turned to pursue Rose, but was met by the sight of two men running full-tilt at him, one of them wielding a pistol in each hand.
Letting out a curse, he whirled and ran back in the direction he had come. Mary, struggling to her feet, grabbed at him, but he dodged her. It cost him time, however, and he didn’t get far before Royce caught up and launched himself at the man, knocking him down. The two of them rolled across the ground, exchanging punches. Fitz, drawing close, stopped and stood watching them.
Mary ran up beside him. “What are you doing? Knock him in the head!”
“And spoil Royce’s fun?”
Pirate seemed to share Fitz’s view, for he was dodging around the combatants, yapping happily.
“For heaven’s sake!” Mary was about to wade in with the butt of her gun again, but at that point Royce landed a hefty blow, then another, and the man went limp.
Royce raised his fist again, but Fitz gripped his shoulder. “Enough. Enough. I have no desire to c
arry this chap all the way back to the house.”
Royce hesitated, then nodded and stood up. He turned, bleeding from cuts on his cheek and lip, a bruise already forming on his cheekbone, and grinned at Mary. “Not much of a show of fisticuffs, I’m afraid, but it got the job done.”
Mary, torn between throwing herself into his arms and breaking into tears, whirled and marched over to Rose. They wrapped their arms around each other and held on tightly for a few moments, letting the tension drain away. Behind them, they could hear Fitz and Royce dragging the attacker to his feet.
The girls turned to see the three men returning to the path, their assailant stumbling along between the other two, and Pirate prancing beside them.
“Is this the same man who attacked you at the summerhouse?” Fitz asked as they approached, and Mary and Rose nodded.
“Has a bandage on his arm,” Royce commented. “Must be where Camellia winged him.”
“Never should’ve come today,” the man mumbled. “Told ’im it’d end badly.”
“Did you now?” Fitz asked cheerfully. “Seems you were right. Well, you’ll have a chance to tell the earl all about it. You might want to spend the walk back thinking about your best course of action. Is abduction a transportable offense, Royce?”
“I’m sure so—of course, he’ll go to the hulks first while he’s awaiting transportation. Not many leave there alive.”
“Didn’t abduct nobody,” their prisoner muttered, shuffling along between them.
“Well, it is true you failed each time. You might want to consider changing trades. But I don’t think that your failure will weigh much with the judge,” Royce remarked.
The man cast a glance at Fitz with the eye that was not swollen shut, then looked around. Fitz shook his head.
“I wouldn’t run if I were you. My brother here has already proven he can outrun you, and that was before you were in this condition. Besides, I am carrying a pistol, as you’ll note.” He gestured. “And, unfortunately for you, I’m an excellent shot. I’ll just aim for your leg, of course, since we want answers from you. You might want to start thinking about those answers, by the way.”
The man rolled his good eye from Fitz to Royce and over at Mary and Rose, who had picked up an exhausted Pirate and was carrying him in her arms. Pirate was not too tired, however, to curl his lip and growl at the outsider.
“Bloody dog,” the man muttered. “Bloody countryside.” He favored everyone, as well as the surrounding trees, with a black look, then set his eyes on his feet and trudged along.
Ahead of them, there sounded a long, loud, two-note whistle, and a moment later there was a great rustling in a tree down the path. Limbs shook and a booted figure appeared on the lowest branch, bending down and hanging from it before dropping the last two feet to the ground.
It was Camellia, dressed in boys’ clothing, a dark cap covering her bright hair. She wore a rifle slung on a leather strap across her back, and a pistol was stuck through her belt. She grinned broadly at them.
“I see you got him!” she called, and jogged toward them. “I saw you walking over there, Pirate following you. It was all I could do not to laugh.” She cast a look at the attacker and noted with some satisfaction the bandage on his arm. “Hah! I knew I hit you. I pulled a bit to the right, though.”
As they continued along the path, they met Sam trotting toward them. “Heard your whistle,” he said a little breathlessly, his eyes going straight to Rose.
At the sight of him, Rose let out a little cry and ran to him. He wrapped his arms around her, and the rest of the party discreetly passed them by. Before long they ran into Lily as well, emerging from a stand of bushes. She, too, was dressed to blend into her surroundings, though her dark green dress was more conventional attire than Camellia’s.
Their prisoner seemed to sag a little more at each new addition to the group, and by the time they reached the grounds of Willowmere, he looked thoroughly defeated. His demoralization was completed, apparently, by entering the grand front door and taking the long walk through the marble entryway and down the corridor between large portraits of ancestors staring down their aristocrat noses at all who passed by. Fitz and Royce were as much holding him up as holding him prisoner when they brought him into the earl’s office.
Oliver, though he must have heard their arrival, did not even look up when they entered the room. He continued to read his paperwork for a moment before he raised his head, his gaze coolly contemptuous.
“This is the fellow who has been terrorizing my cousins?” he asked finally.
“Yes. We caught him attacking Miss Bascombe and Miss Rose.”
“It was ’er as ’it me,” the man protested, gesturing toward Mary and reaching up to touch the sore spot on his scalp where she had smashed the gun into him.
“After you grabbed Rose and knocked Mary down.” Royce’s voice was cold as iron. “I think you should take him down to the cellar, Stewkesbury, out of sight of the ladies. We’ll get our answers there.”
“No! No!” The man looked around frantically for an ally. “I didn’t do nothin’. I don’t know nothin’.”
“While I am sure that is in general true,” the earl said, rising to his feet, “in this instance, I believe you have information of value to me.” He turned toward Royce. “However, I see no need for beating the information out of the man. It looks as though you’ve done enough of that already.”
“That was just to subdue him,” Royce explained. “I haven’t even started to find out why he wanted to hurt Mary and her sisters.”
“I din’t!” the attacker cried out. “I din’t hurt any of ’em. Least, not till they started ’ittin’ me. And it weren’t all of ’em.”
“No?” Stewkesbury asked silkily. “Which one were you supposed to hurt?”
The man stared at him, making a little choked noise. “None of ’em. None. I wouldn’t a ever ’urt any of ’em. Please, just let me go, and I promise I’ll not do anythin’ else. I’ll go back to London, I will, and I’ll never set foot out of it again.” These last words were uttered with such embittered conviction that Mary felt sure they were true.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any possibility of letting you go,” Stewkesbury told him. “You are going to gaol. The question will be, I think, what you are charged with. There is kidnapping, attempted murder—”
“No! No! I never meant to murder anybody!” he wailed.
“Or lesser things such as trespass and assault,” Oliver offered. “What I tell the magistrate would depend, of course, on how much you are willing to tell me.”
“Tell you? I’ll tell you anything you want. Wot do you want to know?”
“Who hired you, for one thing?”
The man stared at him. “’Ow’d you know ’e ’ired me?”
“Yes,” Camellia agreed. “How did you know someone hired him?”
“Looking at this chap, do you honestly believe he came up with the idea of kidnapping anyone?” Turning back to the assailant, he said, “All right, suppose you tell me your name.”
“Jamie, sir, Jamie Randall.”
“You were hired in London?”
He nodded. “’E come to me, told me to follow them girls.”
“He told you to take one of them?”
“The black-’aired one, ’e said, the beauty.”
“Why her?”
Randall shook his head. “’E don’t tell me things like that. ’E just says, ‘Do it.’”
“So you tried in London?”
“I followed ’em to see wot they looked like. I was goin’ to come get ’er later, only there wasn’t a chance. So I ’ad to follow when they left.”
“And who was it who hired you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come, Randall, surely you don’t expect me to believe that.”
“It’s the truth! ’E never told me ’is name. He just tells me wot to do.”
“What do you call him?”
“Sir.”
The man’s response brought a twitch to Stewkesbury’s lips, but he quickly controlled it. The earl went at it from several more angles, but the answer always returned the same—Jamie Randall did not know the name of the man who had hired him.
“What did he look like?” Royce asked
Randall gazed at him blankly. “I dunno. Older’n me. Um, not tall.” He held up a hand to his arm, indicating someone who came up to his own shoulder.
“His hair?”
“Brownish—and turnin’ gray, like. Not white.”
Mary’s stomach quivered uneasily. Everything Randall had said could describe Cosmo Glass. “What about his speech?” she asked. “How did he talk? Like you or these gentlemen, or more like us?”
The man gaped at her for a moment, then said, “I dunno—sort of like them.” He gestured toward Fitz and his brothers.
Mary sagged with relief. Then it wasn’t Cosmo, whose speech was more strongly American than that of the Bascombe sisters. She looked across at Royce and saw the question in his eyes, and she shook her head slightly.
Under further questioning, Randall admitted that they had indeed camped out in the ruins on Beacon Hill, though he had found it an eerie place and was certain he had heard ghostly sounds at night.
“’E watched all the time, ’e did, with that little viewing thing. And then ’e would send me out.”
“Did he never leave the place himself ?” Royce asked.
Randall shrugged. “Sometimes ’e’d go to meet someone. Never told me ’oo,” he went on, anticipating Royce’s next question.
“Was it someone in the house?” Stewkesbury asked sharply. When the other man only shook his head dumbly, he said, “What about the case? Did you see him bring a leather satchel back to your camp? Or did you steal that?”
“I never stole nothin’. ’E ’ad the thing with ’im one day when ’e come back. Seemed right pleased at first, but then ’e said something ’bout ’ow it wasn’t enough or something like that.”
“What did he do with the papers inside the case?” Royce asked.
