Damnation, there’s two on the box!
That related, quite clearly, to information that had been wrong. That, in turn, pointed to a prearranged ambush. The masked men had expected to see only himself on the box. Which fact led directly back to Cumberland and the information innocently given him by Annabelle. And what could be further surmised from that? The possibility, for some reason, that Cumberland was darkly interested not only in himself, but in Caroline and Annabelle too. He himself, of course, might certainly have been found suspect by Cumberland, but Caroline and Annabelle? Absurd.
A quiet word with Annabelle was required.
The house having been safely reached, it was left to Sammy to stable the barouche and the horses. Caroline disappeared only moments after entering the house, and that left Captain Burnside with Annabelle in the drawing room. Annabelle was already over the alarm and whatever fright she may have suffered, and sank in tranquil languor into a chair.
‘Charles, such a beautiful ball,’ she murmured. ‘I have had an excess of delicious activity, and do declare I could have gone on until dawn. And never, since arriving in London, have I seen Caroline so happily engaged and so vivacious. Isn’t it a little mournful that a ball has to come to an end?’
‘It’s extremely mournful to young ladies, for whom ballrooms are designed, and in which I’ve no doubt you could all happily live.’ Captain Burnside mused. ‘Let me see, Annabelle, on the afternoon when you came flying and flushed from Cumberland’s house, had he upset you in any other way than trying to attempt kisses?’
‘Why do you ask that? You aren’t going to be in uncharitable consideration of the duke, are you?’
The captain, remarking that Annabelle had elected to make a study of her fingertips, said in his pleasantest fashion, ‘Not if it will distress you, although I realize you were upset. Did he perhaps say something hurtful?’
‘Charles, such a conversation is very dull after a ball.’ Annabelle plucked at her gown. She was suddenly uneasy. ‘Oh, I must tell you, I think,’ she said, and in the little rushing fashion of one eager to confide, she recounted the conversation she had overheard between Cumberland and his secretary, Mr Erzburger. ‘I vow it worried me,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘that some hot tea would be welcome.’
‘There are no servants up,’ said Annabelle, ‘and I cannot think myself how tea came to be relevant: I surely do feel the duke is mysterious in some of his ways, and much more of a concern than tea.’
‘But not as refreshing. I’ll go to the kitchen and prepare a pot.’
‘But I don’t need refreshing, I need to go to bed,’ protested Annabelle, ‘and you are being very cool about the duke, you surely are. Nor have you said a word about those footpads and the dreadful alarm they put us in.’
‘Oh, everything outside the ball and your enjoyment of it, Annabelle, is all of insignificant.’
‘Oh, yes, who could deny it?’ breathed Annabelle. ‘Where is Caroline? Has she gone up?’
‘I have no idea,’ said the captain, ‘but should she appear, tell her I’ve taken the liberty of using the kitchen to make some tea.’
‘Tea at this time?’ Annabelle laughed softly. Having confided her worry to Charles, she was free of it. ‘How funny you are.’
‘Captain Burnside, what are you doing?’ Caroline, still a figure of splendour and showing no hint of tiredness, swept into the kitchen.
‘At this precise moment, marm, I am pouring boiling water into the kitchen teapot,’ said Captain Burnside. ‘I trust your staff will forgive my use of the available facilities.’
‘Sometimes, I think you quite mad. On this occasion, I think you quite commonsensical. Tea sounds perfect. I hope you will allow me to share the pot. I’m of the opinion that simply going to bed after a ball isn’t the most exciting thing.’
Caroline paused to make a thoughtful observation of her hireling. He seemed entirely at his ease, his military jacket unbuttoned, his attention concentrated on making the tea. ‘I must congratulate you on your behaviour and performance tonight. Apart from your brief excursion into folly with Lady Chesterfield’s niece, you were faultless. I’m quite certain Annabelle thought you the perfect escort, and she spent very little time casting her eyes in search of Cumberland. She sang your praises with enthusiasm.’ Caroline paused again, needing to choose her words carefully. ‘So I must ask you, Captain Burnside, are you now able to tell me that Annabelle is no longer in danger of throwing herself into bed with Cumberland? Have you, in fact, completed your mission for me by seducing Annabelle from Cumberland’s arms into your own?’
Captain Burnside poured the tea. He slid one cup and saucer over the surface of the long kitchen table until it was within reach of her hand. They stood on opposite sides of the table, his expression deferential, hers slightly challenging.
‘There’s lemon there, marm,’ he said. ‘Ah – did you say seducing?’
‘I did, sir.’ Caroline dropped a slice of lemon into her tea. ‘What other word serves as well? Annabelle has just gone up to bed. On the way, she informed me she adored you. Therefore, answer me, have you won her?’ Her calm voice suffered vibrations as she added, ‘If so, then you must leave this house immediately after breakfast. That is what was agreed.’
‘Ah,’ said Captain Burnside.
‘That is hardly an answer,’ said Caroline, ‘or even a comment. I wish to know, I must know, if Annabelle has transferred her infatuation to you. Do not attempt to make a secret of it, sir, while you worm your way deeper into her affections. So answer me: yes or no.’
‘Then I must answer no,’ said the captain, at which Caroline did not berate him for his lack of success. She sat down at the table, poured her tea from the cup into the saucer, lifted it with both hands and sipped thirstily at it.
‘So, you have failed,’ she said. ‘Her declared adoration of you is an affectation?’
‘Failed?’ said the captain, and he sat down too. He gulped down tea from his cup. ‘Assure you, marm, the game ain’t yet been played to a finish. But there it is, danger from Cumberland still lurks. There’s still a possibility he’ll contrive to bring the sweet girl into his bed.’
‘You promised me that such a possibility would never become a fact,’ said Caroline. ‘What are you about, sir? Are you playing a different kind of game? I have been speaking to Sammy, and I declare the incident on the way home was wrongly described by you as a small alarm. That four masked horsemen, all brandishing pistols, demanded you halt the carriage, that you get down and keep quiet, do not amount to anything small, Captain Burnside.’
‘I’d no wish to frighten you, marm—’
‘I have said you may call me Caroline.’
‘I’d no wish to frighten you, dear lady, but since Sammy has painted the alarm in full for you, I must agree with you that Annabelle should be placed out of Cumberland’s reach.’
Caroline gave him a critical look. ‘Agree with me? But I’ve said no such thing.’
‘Oh, I made a loose interpretation of your remark that possibility must not become fact,’ said the captain airily. ‘I think a move to your country estate, Great Wivenden, would be just the thing. In London, Annabelle is permanently within reach of Cumberland. I don’t doubt you both are. One wonders, indeed, if he came close to carrying off both of you tonight. He’s bold enough to have attempted it.’
Caroline’s eyes opened wide in utter astonishment. ‘That is absurd,’ she said. ‘Not even Cumberland would dare to kidnap or abduct us.’
‘Cumberland is a man of strong passions, marm, and would dare much to bring you to his bed. It ain’t too impudent of me, I hope, to suggest you’re among London’s most beautiful women. Faith and the angels, your magnificence and Annabelle’s virgin sweetness are enough to provoke a prince of Cumberland’s ilk into bedding both of you, willy-nilly.’
Caroline could not take him seriously. Laughter glimmered in her eyes. The ball had been a deligh
t, reawakening her love of music and dancing, and no matter that the hour was well advanced, she did not want to go to bed.
‘What a curious mood you are in, Captain Burnside,’ she said. ‘Pray tell me, is my magnificence to be preferred to Annabelle’s virgin sweetness, or vice versa?’
‘By Cumberland?’ enquired the captain, remarking her resilience and staying power.
‘I don’t think you incapable of answering up for yourself,’ said Caroline.
‘Wisdom and the terms of our contract caution me against that. Would you care, dear lady, for more tea?’
‘Thank you, yes. Tea is a stimulant, isn’t it?’
‘I ain’t supposing four o’clock in the morning is the right time for a stimulant, and perhaps I should see you to your bed.’
‘I can see myself to bed, sir,’ said Caroline, undisguisedly animated. ‘Be so kind as to refill my cup.’
Captain Burnside refilled both cups. The brown-walled kitchen might have made a hollow chamber for their voices had not the echoes wandered around the multitude of hanging pots and pans and been lost in them.
‘It shall be Great Wivenden, then, for you and Annabelle?’ he said.
‘You are persisting in the absurd. You are suggesting Annabelle and I need to flee?’
‘I am insisting,’ said the captain.
Caroline stared at him in disbelief. ‘Insisting?’ she said.
‘I must.’
‘Am I dreaming?’ she asked, her chin up.
‘It ain’t the moment to indulge in dreams, marm, but to remove yourselves from Cumberland’s reach.’
‘Oh,’ breathed Caroline, ‘how has this change in our relationship come about? I am now expected to take orders from you, to do what you tell me to?’
‘Why, of course not, marm,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘but if you could make preparations to leave tomorrow with Annabelle—’
‘I will not, sir! You are above yourself.’
‘You’ll probably take a late breakfast, in which case you could leave after that.’
Caroline really did not know whether to laugh at him or retaliate. There was a natural feminine urge to rebuke, but just as natural an urge to laugh.
‘Ridiculous man,’ she said. ‘I have said I won’t leave, and I shan’t.’
‘Then I must tell you of a conversation Annabelle overheard. That is, part of a conversation.’ Captain Burnside repeated Annabelle’s account of the dialogue between Cumberland and his secretary Erzburger, which seemed to concern a person being held secure by Erzburger, and the secretary’s strange reference to the importance of silence. It was, said the captain, an unhappy fact that Annabelle was certain Cumberland knew she had overheard this.
‘Oh,’ said Caroline in changed mood.
‘There, marm, you’ll concede the advisability of you and Annabelle leaving London? Cumberland is bound to believe Annabelle has confided in you, and to contrive in some unpleasant way to ensure silence in both of you. Perhaps the intended hold-up was an attempt at abduction. I’d say, from what Annabelle overheard, that Cumberland’s engaged in one of his devilish plots. Great Wivenden will be far safer than London.’
Caroline, now worried, said, ‘I see. Yes, very well. We will leave tomorrow, all three of us.’
‘I’m unable to accompany you myself …’
‘Captain Burnside,’ she said firmly, ‘you are still under commission to me, and I command your attendance. I declare myself roundly opposed to any specious argument from you, and under the circumstances, why, sir, it’s your duty to protect Annabelle.’
‘Quite so,’ said the captain, finishing his stimulating tea, ‘but I’ve one or two matters in hand of a distinctly pressing kind. Be assured, however, that I’ll follow later. In the meantime, I’ll arrange for a friend of mine to escort you and Annabelle to Sussex and to remain with you until I arrive. He’s a commendable gentleman, sharp as a needle, and as handy with his dabs as with a pistol.’
‘A cut-throat?’ said Caroline, disliking very much her hireling’s intention to desert her, however temporarily. ‘We are to be placed in the care of a cut-throat?’
‘He ain’t a cut-throat, dear lady, but a merry young gentleman full of stuff, and renowned for his chivalry.’
Caroline did laugh then. Sarcastically. ‘I am to believe you own friends of a chivalrous kind?’ she said.
‘Life has its pleasanter surprises,’ said the captain, as suave and bland as ever. ‘Now, I recommend you retire. It’s almost morning. I must go out myself, to catch my friend before his day begins and puts him out of my reach.’
‘You are going out now?’ asked Caroline.
‘In a little while. Much the best thing, the situation being what it is.’
‘I trust,’ she said a little bitterly, ‘that during your absence we shan’t be murdered in our beds.’
‘Come, Lady Caroline, it ain’t going to be as bad as that. I care excessively for your sweet sister, and won’t lack to ensure her safety. Now I must go and change.’
They both rose from the table. Caroline showed a slight flush.
‘Your excessive care for my sister is not preventing you placing her and myself in the hands of an escort we do not know,’ she said. ‘And if you remain in London, are you not putting yourself at risk? I have told you how dangerous Cumberland is.’ Her lashes dropped and her voice became a little unsteady. ‘You have shown many times that there is good in you, that you are not wholly worthless, and I – I should be distressed if anything truly unpleasant happened to you on my account, or Annabelle’s.’
‘Dear lady,’ he said quite gently, ‘I care excessively for both of you, and you have my word I’ll take no risks, for I’m set on seeing Cumberland don’t get the better of us. Allow me to go about my business, which is to do with ensuring your safety.’
‘If I must, then I must,’ said Caroline, but with some reluctance. She was worried, inexplicably, about his own safety.
‘Is it possible you could use one of your tenants’ cottages instead of your manor?’ he asked. ‘That would put you even more safely out of Cumberland’s reach.’
‘I cannot believe we are truly in that kind of danger,’ she said, ‘but I see you are sure we are. Yes, there is a cottage just fallen vacant, and we can use that.’
‘Do so, Lady Caroline, and tell no one.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘I dare swear Cumberland is the devil himself,’ said the gentleman of impressive bearing, ‘but I doubt he’d go so far as to abduct a lady of the quality and her sister. A pretty serving wench of insignificance who won’t come to heel, such a girl Cumberland might well carry off for a week, and then send her back without a thought for the consequences. But Lady Caroline and her sister? ’Pon my soul, Burnside, are you so convinced?’
‘Fearful,’ said the captain.
‘Fearful?’
‘By reason of the overheard conversation, Your Grace. Nor would he leave proof of his own part, but ensure their silence in a way so devious as to escape any finger of suspicion himself.’
‘Well,’ said the gentleman, ‘though I’d elect to say your fears are exaggerated, I ain’t inclined to argue with you. Preventive measures shall prevail, even if they be unnecessary. So, then, proceed with your ploy and have Lady Caroline and her sister move to Great Wivenden.’
‘I’ve spoken to our versatile friend, Jonathan Carter.’
‘Your friend, I fancy,’ said His Grace.
‘He’ll escort the ladies to Sussex and take good care of them.’
‘He had better, Captain Burnside, he had better, or I’ll have his head. And warn him to show none of his impudences. I shall, by the way, come close to hanging the pair of you if Lady Caroline and her sister come to any harm.’ His Grace mused. ‘I’m not sure it wouldn’t be preferable if they were to return to the Americas.’
‘H’m,’ said Captain Burnside.
‘What? What?’
‘Assure you, Your Grace, it’s a wise thought, but
I ain’t sure the ladies would agree with it. You’ll be aware that Lady Caroline has a mind of her own, while Annabelle has a will of her own.’
‘Find me any woman who has neither a mind of her own nor a will of her own, and you find me a phenomenon,’ said the aristocratic gentleman. ‘What of Mr Carter? Has the irreverent laggard made no progress at all with the Irish fellow?’
‘The Irish fellow, sir, is proving uncommonly resistant. So far he ain’t confided a single whisper, though Jonathan is willing to lend him as caring an ear as his own mother.’
‘When I remark motherly qualities in Mr Carter, mountains will be flying as gracefully as larks. You still feel, do you, that all will come to light on the twenty-ninth?’
‘It’s a feeling,’ said Captain Burnside.
‘A feeling? Remarkable,’ said His Grace drily. ‘I had a notion we owned only suspicions. Now we have a feeling. Equatable with a woman’s intuition?’
‘I ain’t sure anything can equate with a woman’s intuition, Your Grace. But my feeling prompts me to tangle with the Irish gentleman myself now that Jonathan is quitting his post to take care of the ladies.’
‘If you intend to go fishing, sir, be sure your hook is baited,’ said His Grace.
Captain Burnside ventured a smile. His Grace received it aloofly.
‘The bait shall be sweet,’ said the captain.
‘Your Ladyship?’
Caroline had only just finished dressing, although it was almost noon. But it had been five in the morning before sleep claimed her.
‘What is it, Helene?’
Worriedly, Helene said, ‘I’ve spent another twenty minutes looking, after searching for hours last night, but your hair clasp, milady, it still can’t be found.’
‘But it must be in my bedroom somewhere,’ said Caroline.
‘Yes, milady, but it still won’t come to hand.’ Helene’s worry increased, since she knew it would be all of unpleasant for suspicion to fall on one of the servants, or even on herself. The clasp was priceless. It adorned Lady Caroline’s auburn hair as brilliantly as a tiara.
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