by Carola Dunn
Folding it, she pushed it deep into her topcoat pocket and went to fetch Sparrow’s saddle. Now she knew where Ralph was going, she need not try to catch up with him but she did not want to fall too far behind.
Ralph was quite addlepated enough to believe he had a chance of winning, she thought as she buckled the girth strap and eased the bit into the gelding’s mouth. Madame Duhamel’s motive in drawing him still further into debt was impossible to guess. Why had she granted him credit in the first place? Her letter indicated she knew his only hope of redeeming his vowels was to win.
Surely she did not take pleasure in driving young men to suicide?
Mariette shivered. Leading Sparrow from his stall, she mounted and set off into the starlit night.
Chapter 16
By starlight reflected from the black waters of the Plym, Mariette tied Sparrow’s bridle to a sapling just off the riverbank path. Rubbing his nose, she fed him a lump of sugar, then convulsively hugged him. She felt very much alone as she set off towards the dark bulk of the house.
What had once been a lawn sloping down to the river was now a hummocky meadow. Mariette steered clear of the exposed area, creeping through overgrown shrubbery which snatched at her clothes and rustled mysteriously though the night was still. A branch knocked off her hat. She caught it, muttering an expletive that would have shocked Lilian to the core.
A briar caught in her hair. By the time she had disentangled it, half the pins had fallen out and her hair was tumbling down her back. With another oath, she jammed the hat on her head and hurried on.
As she neared the house, a gentleman’s residence somewhat smaller than Bell-Tor Manor, she noticed a faint light behind curtains at one corner. French doors flanked by two windows; perhaps with her ear against the glass she’d be able to hear what was going on inside.
Between her and the lit room were a stretch of rough grass and a terrace—no cover except for two large stone urns at the top of the steps. Yet why on earth should anyone be watching? Her precautions were really rather silly. Nonetheless, dashing across the grass and up the steps, she cowered by one of the urns for what seemed an age before she had the nerve to go on.
From here she could see the French doors were set in a bay projecting some four feet from the side of the house. On tiptoe she approached. Not a sound escaped from the room beyond. She tried the door-handle.
To her surprise the door was not locked. The curtains hung across the bay, separating it from the room and leaving plenty of space for an eavesdropper.
Fate was on her side, and however momentary that fickle favour, she could not refuse the invitation. She discarded her hat, shrugged out of the bulky topcoat, sat down on the flagstones and removed her riding boots. Heart in mouth, she slipped in.
Still no sound of voices! Holding her breath, she crept between two dust-sheeted chairs, parted the curtains an eighth of an inch, and peeped through. More furniture shrouded in holland covers; an open door in the opposite wall, in the left-hand corner from her vantage point; to her right....
Ralph sat at a card-table, looking sulky, his legs stretched out beneath it. Just as she caught sight of him he pulled his watch from its fob and grumbled loudly, “Where the devil are they?”
Somewhere in the house a clock chimed the half hour. In the open doorway a man appeared. Lamplight glinted on the pistol in his hand.
Mariette bit her lip to stop her gasp. She wanted to know what was going on before she intervened. A moment later she bit her lip still harder as the man moved into the room and the light reached his face.
Lord Malcolm! And Captain Aldrich followed him in. Mariette’s head spun.
Ralph jumped up, overturning his chair.
“Don’t move!” said Lord Malcolm sharply. “The game is up, Riddlesworth. We know you have been spying for France. We’ve intercepted your letters, sealed with your sphinx signet.”
“B-but...” Ralph stammered, glancing down at his hand in utter disbelief.
“Hardly a common emblem, is it? There’s no way out.” His voice was full of contempt. “You ought to hang. However, for your cousin’s sake we shall let you flee abroad, where your treachery cannot harm your country.”
“What the deuce?” cried Captain Aldrich. “We can’t let the traitor go!”
“But I didn’t...I’m not...I haven’t...” Ralph squawked.
For her sake! Mariette was about to step forth and sort out their baconbrained male idiocies when a new voice, deadly calm, interrupted.
“Drop your weapons or I shoot.”
Lord Wareham? Mariette would know that hateful voice anywhere. Icy fear filled her veins as Malcolm’s and the captain’s pistols thudded to the floor. They turned towards her and she saw their startled, dismayed faces. Ralph was aghast and totally bewildered.
The baron advanced into the room from her extreme left—he must have entered through a door outside her angle of view. He stopped half turned away from her, a pistol in each hand, their unwavering barrels aimed at the men.
Mariette felt for her gun.
“Regrettably,” said Lord Wareham, “I mean to shoot anyway. Oh, not you, Riddlesworth,” he added, a sneer in his tone, as Ralph took an involuntary step backwards. “You’re nothing but a pawn. I shan’t waste a shot on you.”
She had left the pistol in the pocket of her topcoat. On silent, stockinged feet she scuttled out to the terrace to retrieve it.
Behind her, Malcolm announced grimly, “You cannot escape. The house is surrounded.”
A moment’s silence, while she found the pocket and disentangled the weapon.
“If that’s true,” Lord Wareham said, and he sounded just a trifle shaken, “it makes no difference. I shall hang whether you die or not, and sending the gallant captain to meet his reward will be a positive pleasure. Business first, however. Do you know, Eden, I never guessed you were a spycatcher? Nothing personal, I assure you, but should I get away I daresay there might be some reward for putting you out of the picture.”
As he raised his right hand, Mariette charged through the curtains. “Stop!” she shouted. “Stop or I’ll fire.”
The baron swung round. Two shots cracked out. A burning agony seared through Mariette’s arm and her pistol fell from strengthless hands.
Lord Wareham rushed towards her, past her, shoving her aside. Losing her balance she crumpled to the floor. A shrill whistle rang in her ears. Through the spots dancing before her eyes she saw Captain Aldrich dash after the baron, Ralph at his heels. Then Malcolm’s horrified face filled her universe.
The ringing in her ears faded but his voice came from a vast distance and she could not quite make out the words.
She had to explain. “Ralph...lost the sphinx to...to Lord...Wareham, a year...ago,” she whispered. She could not see him now, but his hands clutched hers. Though her arm was on fire, she was clammily cold. One more effort: “Sparrow...”
* * * *
“Is Miss Bertrand really fit to receive us?” Des asked as he rode at Malcolm’s side over the crest of Wicken’s Down.
They had returned late last night from escorting Wareham and Madame Duhamel to London. Nothing was going to stop Malcolm from seeing Mariette today.
Fortunately he was able to say, “She was downstairs yesterday when Lilian and Emily called on her. Emmie said she looks pale and interesting as she did when she first came to Corycombe, but her message says she is more like to die of curiosity than anything else.”
Des laughed. Malcolm failed to summon up more than a faint smile.
Her only concern before she swooned had been to exculpate her cousin, he thought gloomily for the hundredth time. She was as loyal and courageous as ever. Loyal to Sir Ralph Riddlesworth. Courageous in his defence.
They had grown up together, but they were not related by blood. She had mothered him, but they were of an age. Did she care for him because he needed her, or did she love him as a woman loves a man? She was not blind to his faults, his weakness for gambling, his
refusal to take responsibility for his own mistakes. The more reason she might find to devote her life to protecting him from himself.
Malcolm swallowed a sigh and turned his attention to guiding Incognita down the steep slope between the fragrant, gaudy masses of yellow gorse.
As they approached the manor, a landau accompanied by two horsemen drove off down the valley and disappeared among the greening trees. In the stable yard, Riddlesworth was talking to Jim Groom. He swung round at the sound of hooves.
“I say, my lord, are you come to enlighten us?” he asked eagerly.
At least the lad did not hold a grudge, as he had every right to, Malcolm admitted reluctantly. “Yes,” he said, “if Miss Bertrand is well enough?”
“She’s in fine twig, considering. Bolger and Phillips just brought their sisters to call but I wouldn’t let them stay long.”
“They don’t know what happened?”
“Only that she was hurt in an accident. That was bound to get about since we took her to the inn at Crabtree.” He greeted the captain, holding his horse as he dismounted, then ushered the visitors into the house.
Malcolm suddenly had to know how things stood between the cousins before he saw Mariette. “I’d like a word with you, Riddlesworth,” he said. “Des, do you mind going ahead? Tell her we’re on our way.”
Des glanced at him, in turn surprised, comprehending, quizzical. He nodded and went on.
“You don’t still think I did it?” Riddlesworth demanded in alarm.
“No.” If there was a delicate way to phrase what was a deuced impertinent question, it did not come to mind. “I simply wish to ask whether you have an understanding with your cousin.”
“Understanding?” He looked puzzled, then aghast. “You mean am I going to marry her? Good gad no! That is, devil take it, I’m deuced fond of Mariette but a fellow don’t want a wife who’s always ordering a fellow about.” His expression changed to one of enlightenment. “Daresay she don’t order you about,” he observed sapiently.
His face hot, Malcolm strode ahead towards the drawing room. Hope raised its head. Sir Ralph’s feelings were no guide to Mariette’s, but after all, in the end she had not risked her life to save her cousin’s. It was Malcolm whom Wareham had been about to shoot when she burst into the room, terrifyingly foolhardy, superbly brave, utterly adorable.
Fending off Ragamuffin’s exuberant welcome allowed him to regain his composure. He nearly lost it again when he looked up to find Mariette smiling at him. Pale and interesting indeed! Though she reclined on a sofa, her arm in a sling, she was blooming, wild roses in her cheeks, dark eyes brilliant. Her loveliness took his breath away.
And she smiled at him! Of course, she did not yet understand that his slow-wittedness had nearly got her killed.
“How is your arm?” he asked, shuddering inside at the memory of his terror as he tried to find where she had been wounded.
“It aches like the very d...like anything,” she said frankly. “Captain Aldrich says you are going to tell us everything.”
“Not to be repeated beyond these four walls,” he warned. “It all started with a quasi-patriotic smuggler who mistrusted a letter he was paid to take to France. The Admiralty sent me to investigate.”
“I knew you were not just a fribble, in spite of the waistcoats,” cried Mariette, and the corners of her mouth quirked as she glanced at his Tudor rose midriff.
Rather exotic for morning wear even for him, but he’d had it made to please her and he was glad he’d worn it today.
Mariette was quite ready to take it as a compliment. Through all the pain and lassitude of her injury, one memory had sustained her: Malcolm’s voice announcing his willingness to let a supposed traitor go free for her sake. For her sake he had risked disgrace or worse. What could it mean but that he loved her?
She listened, fascinated and admiring, as he explained about the use and misuse of the sphinx seal. Taking a small object from his pocket, he tossed it to Ralph.
“Here, you ought to have my copy. The other was found on Wareham and will be used in evidence against him. Believe it or not, it never dawned on me that what I could do, so could someone else. If I had not been so sure you were the traitor, we’d not have been taken by surprise and Miss Bertrand would not have been shot.”
He sounded so downcast, Mariette hurried to say remorsefully, “I should have mentioned you were not the first person to win the ring from Ralph. I was too proud. You see, when I redeemed it from Lord Wareham, he treated me like a worm. A squashed worm. It’s all very well laughing, but I did not like to think about it, still less to talk of it.”
“Most understandable,” said the captain, his lips twitching.
“What I don’t understand,” Ralph put in, “is why the devil you thought I knew any naval secrets.”
“Blame Wareham for that, too,” said Malcolm. “Obviously he used your seal originally with an eye to deflecting suspicion from himself should aught go amiss. He told us he learned from a certain highly placed naval officer, by way of Madame Duhamel, that Aldrich was hunting for spies.”
Mariette interrupted. “I heard him say he did not realize you were after him. How clever not to give yourself away!”
Malcolm grinned and bowed ironically. “Thank you, ma’am. Unaware of my position, Wareham’s first hope of escape was to persuade my sister to marry him, thus obviating the need for money which led him into treason in the first place. However, he then discovered his letters had actually been intercepted. He had to have a scapegoat. He introduced you to Madame’s gaming house, did he not, Riddlesworth?”
“Yes.” Ralph gave Mariette a guilty look. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you disliked him.”
“Loathed him!”
Malcolm smiled at her. “Most discerning of you. The club provided a damning link with the high officer--whose embroilment, incidentally, brought about my involuntary departure to London—as well as a link with Madame, his m...er, hm.”
“His mistr...? Oh!” Mariette thought of Lilian’s lessons and blushed.
“Precisely. She arranged for your cousin to win at cards at first, to encourage him, and then to lose, to be given credit and then to be denied credit. At last he was offered one last chance to recoup.”
“If I lost again,” said Ralph sombrely, “I was going to take the king’s shilling.”
“Enlist in the army?” Recalling her fear of a far worse fate, Mariette decided it was best not mentioned. “You dropped the letter in the stables. That’s how I found the house.”
“I could wish you had not, since you’d not have been injured,” Malcolm said unsteadily, his gaze fixed on hers, “but on the other hand I’d now be dead. If I haven’t yet attempted to express my gratitude it’s because—”
“Oh, fustian,” she exclaimed, thoroughly embarrassed. “Do go on with the story.”
“As you wish, for now.” His look made Mariette glow all over. “Madame was growing nervous, and ready to flee to France. Also, by that time Des had cut Wareham out with Lilian, humiliating him. Before leaving the country, he wanted revenge. If he had simply relied upon the letter in Madame’s desk to lure Des to the house, he might have succeeded, though we did guess at a trap and surround the place with sailors. His downfall was that he gilded the lily.”
“He what?” said Ralph blankly.
“He lured you to the house, too, as bait, as a decoy. Miss Bertrand followed, and the rest is history.”
Ralph was still bursting with questions.
“Your turn, Des,” said Lord Malcolm laconically. As the captain took over from him, he leaned towards Mariette, murmured “Excuse me for a few minutes, I want a word with your uncle,” and slipped out of the room.
Mariette’s heart sang. Surely, surely, she did not mistake his meaning!
As expected, Malcolm found Mr. Barwith in the front hall, tapping away at a piece of sandstone which now bore a respectable resemblance to a badger. He was considerably sprucer, too, though he st
ill bore a faint patina of red dust.
At the sound of Malcolm’s footsteps, he looked round and beamed. “Ah, the young man who suggested my purchasing spectacles, is it not? My dear sir, you can have no notion of the difference they have made. I was even able to read to Mariette while she was confined to her bed.”
“I am prodigious glad to hear it, sir. It is about Miss Bertrand I wish to speak to you.”
“Is it, now!” His eyes twinkled behind the new spectacles. “Perhaps we ought to go into the library. All those books I have not been able to read these twenty years, now restored to me.” With a happy sigh he led the way.
Impressed by the library, Malcolm began to understand the importance of books in his beloved’s lonely life. Her books and her gallops on the moor—he’d deprive her of neither, he vowed, whatever they cost in money or in social acceptance.
“I want to marry your niece, sir,” he said bluntly. “As a fifth son I am not wealthy, but my father will increase my allowance on my marriage and I shall be able to support her in comfort.” He might even persuade his father to buy Wareham’s forfeited estate for him, he thought. Mariette would want to live near her uncle and cousin. At least she’d never have to hang on Riddlesworth’s sleeve.
“My brother left her something,” said Mr. Barwith to his surprise, “and her mother smuggled some jewellery out of France.”
“Any little bit she can call her own will be welcome.”
The elderly gentleman pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It’s not exactly a little bit,” he said. “To tell the truth, I cannot remember the lawyer’s precise figures. Twenty-five or thirty thousand in the funds, I believe, and jewellery amounting to sixty or eighty thousand pounds, though that will have changed, the way prices have risen. It is in a bank vault somewhere in London. No doubt the lawyer will know.”
“No doubt,” Malcolm agreed faintly. “Does Mariette know of this?”
“Not from me. I don’t spend half my income and I’m happy to give her whatever she asks for. You see, when she came to the manor the lawyer suggested she was too young to understand and the figures would only confuse her. I daresay she is old enough now to be told?”
