The Thief of Lanwyn Manor

by Sarah E. Ladd

  Benson’s gruff voice cut the uncustomary silence, and his breath plumed white in the cold air. “Theivin’ vagabonds.”

  “Did you recognize any of them?” Isaac turned his attention toward High Street, searching for signs of anything out of the ordinary.

  “Not a one.” Benson ran a thick hand over his bearded jaw. “Did ye get a good look at their faces?”

  Carew, the innkeeper, shook his head. “Nay. They all had kerchiefs tied over their mouths the entire time I saw ’em, like a bunch o’ cowards. But mark my words, I saw their eyes and I’ll not forget them. Like a snake’s eyes they were, beady and evil. If one of ’em dares to step foot inside here again, they’ll be met with this rifle. And I’ll not miss either.”

  “I’ll go after them,” interjected Isaac. “Join me, Benson?”

  Benson burst out a laugh. “Yer daft. This fog’s thick as mud, and they got quite a lead on us. Not much to be done now.”

  Isaac’s gut sank. Benson was right, of course. The vagabonds would have cleared the village by now and could have fled anywhere. The murky fog would be in their favor, and now falling darkness shrouded all. Without hounds to trace their scent, pursuing them in such conditions would be futile. Irritation flaming, Isaac removed his hat and pushed his fingers through his thick hair.

  They’d had enough trouble over the last six months over the closing of Bal Tressa, Lambourne’s copper mine, and instead of getting better, the tension in the nearby villages was mounting to the point of attack. Isaac looked back through the inn’s window. “Who’s the woman?”

  “Lambourne’s niece, come o’er from Braewyn.” Carew tucked his rifle under his arm, pointing the barrel downward. “Arrived about an hour ago with him. Lambourne said he had business with Rogers right up the street there and said he’d be right back. Left her sittin’ all alone like too. No doubt the vagabonds saw Lambourne’s carriage and thought to trap him. Surely if he was at Rogers’s, he’d a-heard the shots and been here.” Carew angled his head to peer through the window, where his wife could be seen wrapping a blanket around the niece’s shoulders. “I bet she’ll quit Goldweth before dawn’s first light.”

  “Can’t say as I blame her,” Benson added. “Not exactly a welcomin’ reception.”

  Isaac assessed the petite lady from a distance. Long, dark curls hung in disarray, blocking his view of her face, and the barkeep’s wife was helping her to a table. He’d heard that the Lambournes were expecting a guest to stay with them at Lanwyn Manor, and evidently everyone in the countryside knew about it as well.

  “Before you got out here, I sent my stable boy over to find Lambourne,” Carew said, “and I sent Trent to fetch the constable.”

  “A lot of good a constable will do now,” Benson scoffed. “Any thoughts on who the footpads might be?”

  “Wish I knew, but one thing’s certain—they were on the hunt for Lambourne. Heard ’em sayin’ the name as they talked amongst themselves, and they knew she was his niece—asked for him right to her face, they did. I’d say they were hired, most likely. If they were from here, someone’d recognize somethin’.”

  “But who around here has enough money to pay for that?” Benson asked.

  “Well, apparently they got paid with a timepiece.” Isaac let out a sarcastic huff, patting the pocket of his waistcoat where his watch chain used to hang, careful to mask the gravity of the loss. To most, the piece would appear nothing more than a replaceable trinket, but to Isaac, the pocket watch was the last gift his father gave him before his untimely death. “If it was a targeted attack, can’t say I’m surprised. The longer Lambourne leaves Bal Tressa closed, the angrier—and hungrier—the villagers will get. ’Tis a matter of time before they lash out.”

  A burst of laughter from Benson shattered the tension, and he slapped a heavy hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “Can’t believe you approached a man with a pistol with naught but yer bare hands to protect yerself. Carew here told me about it. Either you be a reckless fool, or yer the luckiest man to draw breath on God’s earth. Can’t decide which.”

  The rigidity in Isaac’s back relaxed, and he shrugged. “Carew signaled toward his rifle as I entered, so I created a diversion so he could reach it without being noticed, ’tis all.” He nodded toward the horses. “Come on.”

  “Where we goin’?”

  “If they went to the north, we’ll cut through the wold to try and cut them off at the crossroad. At least see where they’re headed.”

  “You know me.” Benson rubbed his hands together, his enthusiasm contagious. “Always up for adventure.”

  They bid farewell to Carew and mounted, but as they rode out of the courtyard, Isaac cast a glance back at the young woman still visible through the window. He thought he saw her narrow shoulders shake, as if she was crying, and anger at the fact that a man could treat a woman so horrifically welled within him.

  He refocused his attention—and indignation—on the road stretching before him. He’d need a clear head in the coming days, for no doubt this attack was just a portent of things to come.

  Chapter 3

  Julia gripped the threadbare blanket the innkeeper’s wife had given her numb fingers and tightened it around her. Try as she might, she could not stop shivering.

  She stared, unblinking, into the hearth’s leaping orange flames. Surely the warmth should be enough to still her trembling limbs and chattering teeth, but shock and fear had left their icy fingerprints on her. Even though her mind knew she was out of danger, her muscles poised for peril.

  She drew a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings with a cautious eye. Now the inn’s taproom was relatively empty. No men wielded pistols. No blond man shielded her from danger. All that remained were the portly constable, the innkeeper, Uncle William, and a few unassuming-looking men.

  She took a sip of lukewarm tea and then returned the cup to the table. The bitter liquid soured in her stomach, and nausea swelled. Oh, she wanted nothing more than to leave this little village inn, with its smoke-stained rafters and dense, musty air. Regret for having ever left her home at Penwythe Hall coursed through her veins, and her head throbbed with the unbelievability of it all.

  She flinched as her uncle’s sharp words echoed from the low ceiling.

  “This is an outrage!” Uncle William’s face flamed crimson as he stabbed his thick finger toward the constable. “I demand to know what’s to be done.”

  The constable shifted, the wooden planks beneath his feet groaning with the weight. “We’ll hunt ’em down. Such villainous actions will not be tolerated.”

  “That’s supposed to satisfy me?” His throaty voice rose an octave. “They accosted my niece!”

  The stoic constable slid a dark glance in her direction before he adjusted his dusty coat and returned his focus to her uncle. “With all due respect, your niece will recover from this episode. No harm’s been done. I want to catch these men as much as you want me to. We’ll find them, and when we do, justice will be served.”

  Uncle William thudded his walking stick on the floor.

  Never had she seen him so irate.

  “I will be satisfied, Constable Thorne. Since the magistrate did not feel this an important enough incident to warrant his presence, you be sure to communicate that I will expect his call tomorrow.” Uncle William stomped over to Julia, reached for her elbow, and guided her to her feet.

  Eager to be free of the pungent, poorly lit inn, she looped her hand around his offered arm and followed him toward the door and out into the damp courtyard.

  Once she and her uncle were settled in the lavish Lambourne carriage, it groaned and lurched forward. The faint glow the village had afforded faded, and once they were under way, harsh slivers of fleeting light from the carriage lamps illuminated his full cheeks, robust side whiskers, and bushy gray brows.

  As he stared out the window, he worked his jaw like a man contemplating his next move, and the drumming of his fingers on the seat’s edge rose above the clamor of the whe
els crunching over the rutted ground. He said nothing—no words of consolation, no words of comfort—but only stared into the night, the darkness of which emphasized the stormy shadows beneath his eyes.

  Even though William Lambourne was her uncle, he was essentially a stranger to her. In all of her nineteen years, she’d only been in his presence a handful of times. It had been two and a half years since she last visited her relations at their London home to attend her cousin Jane’s wedding, but he was rarely present. His stern expression and sharp tongue had frightened her as a child, but as an adult, she regarded him more with curiosity than uneasiness.

  She had so many questions, and her mind, sluggish with exhaustion, struggled to organize them.

  Where had her uncle gone that was so important he would leave her unattended at the inn?

  Why would someone be so intent upon harming him?

  Why had it taken him so long to return after the attack?

  She doubted she’d have answers to her questions, at least at this moment, so she turned her attention to the landscape. The mist fully invaded the moors with frightful weight, as if it, too, were weary. Blurs of browns, blacks, and shadows swept past her on a fleeting journey of their own.

  No doubt one day soon, these surroundings would be as familiar to her as Penwythe Hall’s vibrant orchards and verdant meadows. But it would wait for another day. She slumped against the seat, permitting her body to sway with each rut and rift in the road. The carriage blanket covering her legs did little to curtail her shivering, and she let her eyes fall closed.

  Aunt Delia, her guardian at Penwythe Hall, had cautioned her not to let her excitement consume her that morning as she bid her farewell. The words flared and echoed loudly in her mind. Julia had dismissed the advice, considering it overcautious. But who could have predicted a man would threaten her very life?

  She’d been invited to Lanwyn Manor to be a companion to Jane, who was with child and confined to bed. At the time the invitation arrived, anything—and anywhere—seemed like a diversion from the quiet isolation at Penwythe Hall.

  And a distraction from him.

  Now, as she jostled in a carriage with her aloof uncle and the scent of gunpowder still lingering in her nostrils, she was not so sure.

  “There, round this bend.” His curt voice jarred her from her thoughts. “Lanwyn Manor.”

  Julia leaned forward and arched her neck, squinting to see out the window. She’d never been to Lanwyn Manor before. To her knowledge her uncle had only inherited the ancient estate two years prior, and even though it was not far from Penwythe Hall, she’d not made the journey.

  She forced cheerfulness to her voice. “I’m eager to see it for myself. Jane speaks highly of it in her letters.”

  Her uncle grunted in reply and set about arranging his coat around his thick trunk. “No doubt your aunt will already know what transpired at the inn. She possesses the uncanny sensibility of unearthing every little detail of every little event. Prepare yourself, Niece. Your aunt already despises everything about Goldweth. This incident will fuel her fire like no other, mark my words. I need not tell you she’s hardly a woman to take such things in passing.”

  Julia, surprised to hear of her aunt’s opposition to Goldweth, stiffened at the warning in his voice. Aunt Beatrice’s temper was well known, and Julia did not wish to be the source of a flare.

  As the carriage turned the corner, the outer walls of Lanwyn Manor blazed into view. Its gray slate stone-castellated facade gleamed in the torchlight, and yellow light spilled from the mullioned windows of the gatehouse’s upper levels onto the shadowed carriage turn below. The carriage slowed before the gatehouse’s heavy wooden door, and Julia held her breath, noting the significance of this moment. Once she stepped inside this courtyard, everything would be different.

  Or so she hoped.

  She clutched the carriage blanket around her in lieu of a cloak, accepted assistance down the single step, and trod to the cobbled path. She passed through the narrow gate and into the inner courtyard, aglow with torches and a fire burning near one of the side entrances in defiance of the moisture misting down. The flickering glow cavorted around the large, square space, on arched wooden doors and great mullioned windows, but she focused her attention ahead. There would be time enough for exploring, and at the moment she wanted nothing but warmth and safety.

  As she neared the main entrance, the ornate, timbered door flew open and Aunt Beatrice emerged.

  Julia’s shoulders eased at the sight of her aunt bustling toward her, hands outstretched and brows drawn. The torchlight lining the drive highlighted Aunt’s graying hair as it danced about her face in a minuet with the wind. Caroline, Julia’s cousin, followed close on her mother’s heels, a crimson shawl whipping about her narrow shoulders.

  Aunt Beatrice shooed her way past the footmen, and with determination emphasizing the lines on her full face, she gripped Julia’s bare hands in her own. “Who can believe this? Why, you’re frozen! Are you injured? Distressed?”

  “No, Aunt, I’m well.” Julia managed a convincing smile. “No harm’s been done.”

  “No harm?” Aunt Beatrice’s voice shrilled as she wrapped a warm, protective arm around Julia’s shoulders. She then turned toward Uncle William as he traversed the stone path toward the door. “Jago Hugh was in the inn when it happened, and he came to tell me all. William, how could you allow such a thing to happen?”

  Eyes fixed ahead and jaw clenched, Uncle William continued onward, ignoring his wife’s question.

  Aunt Beatrice huffed as she smoothed the blanket on Julia’s shoulders. “Oh, bah. Men are so tedious when it comes to things such as this. Come, let’s get you inside.”

  Julia allowed herself to be guided across the windblown courtyard, through two thick oak arched doors, and into a tall, broad foyer lit by two candles atop a side table.

  Once they were all inside, her uncle stomped to the end of the foyer and paused to remove his gloves.

  Julia bit her lip, shocked. He’d not even greeted his wife or daughter.

  Aunt Beatrice’s tight expression confirmed that the slight had not gone unnoticed.

  Hoping to ease the uncomfortable situation, Julia placed a hand on her aunt’s arm. “Please do not distress yourself on my account. I’m quite well, as you see.”

  “How could I not be angry?” she shot back, her cheeks flushing, her glare fixed on her husband. “My niece has come to visit us, and you leave her alone at a wayside inn and the worst happens? Julia is a lady,” Aunt snipped, her face trembling with intensity. “A lady, William, and you treat her as if she were naught but a waif from the poorhouse. Talk of it will be all over the village by tomorrow morning, mark my words.”

  A darkness shuttered her uncle’s eyes, and he still did not respond to his wife’s harangue. Instead, he shrugged off his coat and deposited his belongings in the arms of the waiting butler. Julia almost felt pity for her uncle as he stood there, accepting his verbal lashing stoically.

  After a few muttered words toward the butler, he turned and stomped up the stairs.

  Julia looked to Caroline, who’d been standing silently behind her mother, hands clasped, eyes downcast.

  If there was one nuance Julia remembered from previous visits, it was the ever-present tension threaded between her aunt and uncle, and nothing seemed to have changed on that count.

  Aunt Beatrice’s narrowed, pale eyes followed him up the great wooden staircase until he disappeared around the landing and the sound of his footsteps faded. Then, with a click of her tongue, she gripped Julia’s hands in her own. “La, how cold your hands still are, but I’d imagine no less. What a rogue to take your cloak! How hungry and tired you must be. The footman will take your things up to your chamber straightaway, and Caroline will show you the way herself, for her own chamber is opposite yours. I’d take you myself, but you’ll be on the second floor of the tower, and tonight my constitution cannot endure the climb.”

  As Caroline gui
ded her through the foyer hall, Julia drank in the sights around her as her curiosity of her new dwelling intensified. The occurrence at the inn seemed almost a far-off, vague nightmare, especially now that she was safe and surrounded by comfort.

  It was a different world here. Would she be able to adjust?

  Chapter 4

  What had started out as an ordinary day had become anything but ordinary.

  When Isaac and Charlie returned from their search, they were wet and tired and had no more of an idea of who was behind the attack at the Gray Owl Inn than they did when they set out.

  “What a waste of time,” Charlie muttered as they turned from High Street onto Miner’s Row—a long, cobbled road with dark-stone cottages flanking each side.

  Many local mining families lived along this lane. It was a tight-knit community in and of itself, with shared spaces and gardens. The occasional bout of distant laughter rose above the steady patter of rain to crack the night’s stillness.

  Straight ahead of them stood the cottage Charlie shared with his wife and son. Light seeped through the linen curtains at the square front window, and Charlie nodded toward it. “Margaret’s gonna wonder what I been up to. She don’t like it none when I’m gone longer’n she thinks fittin’.”

  Isaac laughed, for Charlie’s wife’s temper—and expectations—were well known. “No doubt she’s heard all the details of the events at the inn, for I’m certain the story’s been told a dozen times over, up and down this row.”

  As if on cue Margaret opened the door, a dark wool shawl wrapped about her narrow shoulders, and she leaned her slender hip against the doorframe. “There you are, Charlie Benson. Come home to me at last, have you? I was beginnin’ to wonder what it was you’d gotten up to.”

  “Couldn’t be helped, Wife.” The customary twinkle glinted in Charlie’s eye as he leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “A bit of excitement at the inn been keepin’ us busy.”