Claire stepped out to enjoy the warmth of the late afternoon sun. The red brick Tudor-style buildings in Lyndhurst seemed prettier than any she’d ever seen, and the air carried the scent of baking bread. She took a deep breath and spun around, hoping to find the source of the delicious aroma when the earbobs tapped her neck. Happily, she fingered one lustrous pearl. If Mama ever let her wear the Fitzcarry pearls, what a picture she’d make! Seized with a desire to find a mirror immediately, she grabbed her cane from the vehicle and took one step toward the village inn. In that instant, two lads dashed in front of her, screeching with excitement. Henry pushed past Claire to get a better view.
From around the corner came the merry notes of a tambourine and drum, and then into the square swarmed a band of brightly costumed strollers. The men wore mismatched doublets and hose, their shoes were covered in dust, and bedraggled ostrich plumes dangled from their hats. The women, eyes darkened with coal, exposed their ankles, surreptitiously lifting mud-caked hems to the delight of the men who left their shops unattended to watch.
A huge man in a princely ruffle made of tattered paper separated himself from the troupe. “We are the stuff that dreams are made on!” he shouted, a shovel-shaped beard exaggerating his jaw. “Give me your hands if we be friends!”
More shopkeepers and patrons spilled into the street, forming a circle about the players. Children squealed and ran between adults’ legs. “Ladies and gentlemen, one and all,” the actor continued, “tonight sweet England’s mists shall recede, and in its stead the sands of Egypt blow. Join us for Antony and Cleopatra—a most tragic love story, by the great William Shakespeare!” A smattering of applause erupted.
Laughing with joy at the sudden burst of color and music, Claire headed across the courtyard toward the inn.
“Following our revels in this fair city, we shall on to London and Drury Lane, where the Siddons themselves will weep at our so worthy production,” the man continued. “Fail not to attend Squire Farnsworth’s barn tonight at eight. There will be oranges!” More applause erupted, but was drowned out as the troupe banged their instruments and began dancing in a ragged circle.
Just as Claire made it to the stairs to the inn, the actor shouted, “Give me some music! Music, moody food of us that trade in love!” A high, perfect note floated into the afternoon air. Whirling around in terror, Claire saw, being lifted off the back of a chestnut mare and onto the shoulders of two actors, Arabella—dressed in nothing but a sheet tied with cheap gold cord.
It was too late to scamper unnoticed into the inn, and Arabella’s eyes went dark as they caught Claire, and darker still as she focused on the earbobs. Her singing abruptly stopped and a terrible silence ensued. The other actors looked confused, and a few members of the audience tittered and followed Arabella’s stare.
Spreading her slender arms wide, the girl sang, “He took a stick down off the rack, Fal al lal lal lal li-do, and on the back went rickety-rack, of Ruggleton’s daughter of Iero.”
The crowd laughed, and Arabella threw her head back and laughed with them.
So frightened she could scarcely breathe, Claire bolted up the rest of the stairs and retreated into the darkness of the inn.
* * *
On the Poole Road headed west, Flavian worried for the hundredth time if he was going in the right direction. The thief-taker’s letter said only that Arabella had joined a troupe of strollers, The King’s Players, but the spy simply assumed the company would continue its normal circuit. So far, he’d asked everyone he’d met if strollers had come by, and not a one said yes. “Blasted fool,” he mumbled, cursing the thief-taker for not finding out the company’s route.
Killen’s head went up at the sound of baa-ing. Over a rise trotted a herd of wooly sheep, with a black and white dog nipping at its heels. “Wheet-wheeeo,” came the sound of a whistle, and the dog began circling the sheep just as a herder topped the rise. The wreckage of a beaver hat sat aboard his head, and long strands of dirty hair swung around his face. He wore threadbare breeches and a homespun coat patched with gunny sacking.
“Morning to you,” Flavian shouted over the bleating sheep.
“And to you, my lord,” the herder said, removing the top hat gently so as not to tear hand-stitching on the rim. Obviously intimidated by Flavian’s fine clothes and horse, the man twisted the hat nervously in his hands. “Can I be helping you in some way?”
“You can, sir,” Flavian said, “Have the King’s Players been by this way? They’re strollers.”
“I wouldn’t be in a position to see ‘em, my lord, watchin’ the flock and all.”
“Thank you then.” Disappointed, Flavian pressed his heels to Killen.
“But there was strollers here but a few days back.”
Flavian drew rein.
“The master says they asked the wife if she’d any bits of finery for their stage shows.”
“Was there a girl with them—a pretty girl with black hair and dark eyes?”
The herder’s lids narrowed. “And what’s a strapping rich man like yourself wanting with a young thing such as she?”
“You did see her then. Did you learn where they were going?”
Suspicious, the man folded his arms and eyed Flavian with disgust.
“She’s my daughter,” Flavian blurted. If the herder looked shocked, he didn’t catch it. His own shock at having finally said the words aloud reverberated like a shout through an empty house. “She’s my daughter,” he repeated, more for himself than the herder.
“Then you’d best hurry,” the man said. “She’s a beauty, and the lads won’t wait long. Ask in Christchurch. God speed you on your way.”
“Christchurch? But that’s east. I thought they made a circuit west to Poole.”
“The master’s son be quite taken by your daughter, if you’ll pardon me saying so, my lord. He learned where The King’s Players were headed and got caught saddling his pony.”
Flavian turned Killen around and threw a coin to the herder. He had miles to make up, and quickly. Arabella might hurt someone—or from the sounds of it, someone might hurt her.
* * *
A moment after Claire banged the door to the inn shut, Mrs. Gower burst through. “Did you see the singer? Did you see her?” the woman panted, wide-eyed with alarm. “What are we to do?”
Claire bit her lip, a rising tide of panic nearly washing reason aside. “We must get word to Flavian.”
“Arabella, here. Good God, what if she’s following you?”
Heart thumping, Claire forced her mind to concentrate. “She’s on her way to London. We have to go back. We have to let him know.”
The innkeeper approached. A tall man with a curved spine and a head that hung before him like a too heavy flower. “We’ve porter and ale, a nice mutton . . .”
Claire held up her hands to stop his litany. “When is the next coach for Bournemouth?”
“There’s one in ten minutes. They’re changing the horses now.”
“Can you tell me if it’s full?”
He stepped behind a counter and examined the waybill. “Aye, she’s full all right.”
“We must have two seats.” Claire fumbled through her reticule, finally producing a ten-pound note.
“For you and . . . ?”
“My chaperone.” She indicated Mrs. Gower.
The man swayed his large head doubtfully.
“Ask the coachman, please.”
She followed the innkeeper to the door and peered through the glass as he crossed the courtyard. Arabella’s dulcet voice grew in intensity as she built toward the climax of her song. A dense crowd had gathered around the players. Claire prayed she and Mrs. Gower could sneak out unnoticed.
To the left of the strollers, the driver of the Bournemouth coach—a squat man with red cheeks—loaded a trunk into the compartment under his seat. The innkeeper spoke as the driver continued working. With abrupt and angry gestures, the coachman waved him off. Clearly, a no.
Th
e innkeeper produced the ten-pound note, but the driver pushed it away. He picked up another trunk and brought it around to the far side of the coach, where Claire lost sight of him. The innkeeper followed. What seemed like hours ticked by. “Please, please,” she begged in a soft whisper, all the while keeping an eye on the throng surrounding Arabella.
Finally, the innkeeper emerged from behind the coach just as the audience burst into applause. The man looked grim.
Claire ducked around the corner as the innkeeper opened the door and stepped through. She summoned him to the side where Arabella couldn’t spot them. “He’ll take you, but not the other, and only because you’re slim.”
“You can’t leave me here with her,” Mrs. Gower said, appearing from the far side of a grandfather clock, where she’d been hiding.
“Please, Mrs. Gower, book a room for the night. I’ll be back with Flavian, possibly in a few hours if I can find him.” Before the chaperone could answer, Claire hobbled out the door and down the porch stairs, her sprained ankle flaring with pain. By the time she got into the vehicle, the crowd was still mercifully gathered around Arabella. The audience shouted for another song, and Claire breathed a sigh of relief.
“Which one’s your trunk?” said the driver, poking his red face in the window.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not taking it.”
His little eyes went hard. “Unseemly, a lady traveling without a chaperone or somat to wear. I want nothing to do wit the business.”
Claire sneaked a look past him out the window. Arabella started another tune. Reproaching herself for losing her calm, she said, “It’s on the London-bound coach—a slatted oak with a dome top. I believe it appears a bit finer than the others.”
The driver pulled his head from the window, and at that moment, Arabella danced onto the inn’s porch, still singing to the rapt crowd. Claire sank low in the seat.
“Take the fine trunk down,” the driver shouted, “I’ll be carrying the lady back to Bournemouth.”
Arabella’s song faltered. Claire wrung her hands, hoping against hope that the failed notes had nothing to do with her. She inched over on the squabs and peered out the window. Like daggers, Arabella’s black eyes found her and pierced to the hilt. It took every ounce of reasoning and a throbbing ankle to keep Claire from leaping from the coach and running desperately away. The bunny was back, more afraid than ever.
* * *
Flavian closed the door and stepped down the threshold of the Mayor’s Parlour in Christchurch. The man was an imbecile. Instead of simply answering his question about the troupe of strollers, the fool kept showing off tricks with his little spotted dog. “Roll over, Biddy. See how she does that nice as you please?”
“The dog is a miracle,” Flavian had responded, trying to keep his impatience in check. “But what I have to ask is exceedingly important. Lives may be at stake. The King’s Players, they’re called, do you know where they travel after Christchurch? Will they go east along the coast, or inland?”
The canine chose that moment to leap into his master’s arms. “Uh oh, she’s going to lick my nose! Wait and see.” Flavian chose not to wait. A sense of foreboding gripped him, and the longer each delay took, the more powerful his anxiety grew. Something dreadful might have already happened to Arabella. Perhaps she had harmed a fellow actress vying for a part in a play, or maybe a man was cornering her at this minute. With her unchecked mind, Arabella could put herself in danger without a second thought.
Across Castle Street, a pocked young man in a filthy apron swept sawdust from a butcher’s shop. “Pardon me,” said Flavian, “did strollers perform in Christchurch recently?”
The boy’s dull eyes lit up, but instead of answering, he retreated into the shop and shut the door. Dumbfounded, Flavian kicked the sawdust, “Are they all mad in this city?”
As he crossed the square toward a candle maker’s, a dung cart rumbled around the corner. A haggard wench, skirts tucked high above naked feet, pushed the heavy load. If anyone would notice a moment of free entertainment, it would be she, Flavian thought. “Madam?”
The woman set down her wheelbarrow and dropped into a deep and crooked curtsey. “My lord.”
“Get on now, Betty Dunghill,” cried a voice from behind. The butcher, a fat man with hands bloody from raw meat, appeared in the shop door. “You don’t know yr’ own father’s name. If there’s a question, I’ll be the one answering.”
Eyes flashing with resentment, the woman hoisted the handles of her cart and scuttled away.
“The King’s Players, did they visit?”
“They might’ve. What’s a fine gentleman such as yourself asking for?”
“That’s none of your concern. Were they here or not?”
“Aye, I understand ya’.” A wily expression came to the butcher’s face. “You’re seekin’ the Spanish Lark. Not a cull in Christchurch’ll forget her performance.”
Before he could think, Flavian had the butcher by the collar, and though the man weighed half again as much, Flavian lifted him nose to nose. “You’ll wipe all such thoughts from your mind. Now, tell me where they went.”
The man’s cocky demeanor melted. “Apologies, my lord. I’d no notion of your feelings.” Before the butcher could paw Flavian’s lapels, he tossed the man aside.
Adjusting his apron, resentment narrowing the butcher’s lids, he said, “They’re on to New Milton,”
“You’re certain? Because that’s the shoreline route, and I suspect they might be on their way to London.”
“Aye, my lord, it’s for New Milton they’re headed.”
Flavian tossed the man a shilling, ran across the square, leaped into the saddle, and urged Killen to a fast trot.
* * *
When the last soaring note ended, the audience in front of the inn burst into wild applause, clamoring for another. The bearded actor’s voice thundered above the commotion. “Tonight, come see our Spanish Lark perform Shakespeare’s Cleopatra.”
Claire didn’t dare look out the window again. Lying flat on the coach seat, she trembled, listening to the beating of the drum as the strollers left the courtyard. Then all went quiet.
The scraping of her trunk as it was loaded on the roof startled her. Heat dampened her palms. Oh, could they never get this coach moving!
After what felt like an interminable wait, the other passengers loaded into the vehicle—three families, chatting familiarly, and a herd of children too large to count. Boys and fathers clambered on the roof, girls and mothers squeezed into the compartment. Claire, already jammed against the window, volunteered to take a toddler on her lap. There was nowhere else for the child to sit.
The company finally settled, and then—at last—the driver cracked his whip, and slowly, the carriage pulled away from the inn. Claire looked out the window for signs of Arabella. Nothing. Her hands, clenched around the child’s waist, finally relaxed.
* * *
As they approached Burley, Claire heard shouts from the roof of the coach. Unable to tell what was being said, she craned her head out the window. A horse came thundering after them, a flash of white aboard. So quickly did the rider approach, Claire didn’t realize it was Arabella, in her makeshift Cleopatra costume, until the horse’s nose came abreast of the rear wheel. “You!” Arabella screamed, pointing at her. “You no tell him.”
Pinned in her seat by the child and the close-packed company, Claire clawed uselessly at the stage’s rolled-up window curtain. In a flash, Arabella’s arm snaked through the opening and tore Claire’s bonnet back on her head. The hat’s pink ribbon pulled tight around her throat.
Claire raked her neck, desperate to loosen the strip of grosgrain, which she’d tied in a double knot high near the ear. The child on her lap screamed and kicked as it scrambled to its mother. As the chestnut, Julitta, pulled ahead, Arabella yanked the ribbon deeper into Claire’s larynx. One of the mothers wrenched back on the bonnet, bellowing, “You’re killing her. Let go!” and the men on the r
oof yelled to the driver to brake. The carriage horses, frightened by the commotion, panicked, surging into a ragged gallop.
Air ceased flowing into Claire’s lungs. Her mind screamed as black spots crowded her sight. Again and again, her head slammed against the window frame and stars of agony danced in her vision. It wasn’t enough to strangle her; Arabella wanted to break her neck.
The only thought in Claire’s mind was, I will not die by your hands! Beyond angry, she threw the only thing she had in hand— her reticule— out the window. For a fraction of a second, Arabella’s grip wavered just enough for Claire to take half a gasping breath. The spots cleared and she felt the hard edge of the cane against her knee. Not seeing or caring where she aimed, she jabbed the cane through the window, but it did no good. The frame was too narrow to angle it backward. Her hands went slack, the wood fell, and blackness roared into her brain.
* * *
Just as Flavian turned his horse down Highcliffe Road, Betty Dunghill raced into the center of the street. Out of breath and flapping her muddied skirt, she dashed in front of Killen. Startled, Flavian drew back on the reins. “Nay, my lord,” Betty said, abandoning the skirt to waive dirt-encrusted arms, “Them strollers gone the Lyndhurst Road.”
Who to believe—the wild-eyed woman before him or the surly butcher? “But I was told—”
“He gone and lied to ye’, the treacherous cur. I knew he’d do it. Feeds his customers ’orse meat as beef, and squirrels as— ”
“You’re a good woman, Betty. Thank you,” said Flavian, digging in his pocket for a coin.
She shook her head frantically. “Me name’s not Betty. It’s Lucy.”
“What’s that?”
“Lucy, my lord.”
Flavian selected a gold sovereign from his purse.
“I ain’t got change for such as that.”
He leaned down from the saddle and placed the money in her palm. “Then I thank you, Lucy.”
Her Perfect Gentleman: A Regency Romance Anthology Page 91
