by Joan Smith
“Good Lord, you mean there really is a Kitty?” he asked.
“I, sir, am Miss Catherine Empey, aunt to the late John Knightsbridge of the Knightsbridge Museum in Edinburgh,” she explained.
“Oh, Miss Smith,” he remarked, nodding and honoring her with only the minutest of a glance.
There followed a long and confused period of explanations, with everyone interrupting and correcting everyone else except Lorraine Grafton, who just looked, and occasionally nodded her approval of Kitty’s recital of the infamous affair. Having heard it once already, I listened closely for those rare occasions when Ludwig got a word in over Kitty’s head. When she turned to Mr. Williker to start in on the utter lack of help Bow Street had been in the business, I got Ludwig aside to demand why he had chosen to describe me as a bitch, and why I had been summarily tossed into the attic of Bay House.
I received not a single word of apology, but a very brief account of the reason, which I felt did deserve an apology as he had knowingly subjected me to danger.
“After you took to your bed that day Morley called, he came back with a detail he’d forgotten to mention, a letter for Mrs. Knightsbridge from London. The clunch hadn’t the sense to open it, but we tore it open then and discovered some people from London called Mayhew were worried that you had not returned to them. It was pretty clear then that Miss Empey was at the Graftons’ under an alias, and that you were to go to her. After the attack in the park and seeing Uxbridge skulking around Wickey again—Miss Wickey pointed him out to me as the man who had asked for you at the rectory—I figured he was after you. We first planned to sit tight at Granhurst and wait for the demand for ransom money, hoping to catch him that way, but the note, received later that same day, asked for the money to be deposited in a bank account in Paris, and this made capture so difficult and delayed that I came up with another plan.
“Uxbridge seemed reluctant to come after you at Granhurst, so I decided to let him see you were leaving, going to a nice isolated spot. He was watching, of course, and saw us leave for Bay House. It was the plan that he would try to get to you there, and Peters and myself, hiding in the stable, were to catch him. It threw me for a loss when you went out after him. Why the devil did you?”
“I wasn’t going after him! I thought I was a kidnapper, and only wanted to run away and hide somewhere. And if you knew who I was, you might have told me and set my mind at rest.”
“I wanted to, Rose. Especially in the carriage I wanted to, but Fell thought the best way was to let you remember for yourself. He felt it would be too confusing to just try to tell you—it would delay your recovery even more.”
“And what if Uxbridge had decided to kill me while he had the chance?”
“He wouldn’t have had the chance. You were guarded better than a diamond. There was some doubt as well, that first day and night, as to Mrs. Knightsbridge’s total innocence in the affair. Williker told me it is said in Edinburgh that Mrs. Knightsbridge chaffed under the shackles of polite society. Her fortune being tied up so tightly led her relatives to believe she was trying her hand at getting some cash to enable her to marry a certain Mr. Soames, who sounds a proper jackdaw, I must say.”
“They would think that! And on the word of a pack of total strangers you took into your head to believe me a criminal?”
“That combined with the fact that you were running away. And I still don’t understand why you were running. Just where did you plan to go, without a penny in your pockets?”
“Why, to some bachelor’s establishment, of course! What did you think?”
“Well, to tell the truth, Rose, when your eyes grew an inch at the sight of Mrs. Knightsbridge’s handwriting, and when Abbie told me yours was the same, I suspected you might have gone astray a little. Oh I don’t mean I thought you had disposed of Kitty and Miss Grafton—though really, now I have met Kitty . . . I only meant I thought maybe you had picked up a family necklace or some such thing and bolted. I didn’t blame you.”
“So you went back to Granhurst that first night, did you?”
“Lord no, I told you I hid in the stables at Bay House. I sent a groom from Bay House back to find out what was going on, and he had Williker come along to me. I only went back the next day, after I had you locked in the attic. And I don’t know why I did even then, except Williker kept chattering about the ransom. We turned around and came back almost as soon as we got there, only to find you gone. Peters had discovered you went to Wight, and at Hythe we learned that our mysterious, insignificant-looking gent had joined you, and from there it was follow the hare, to enquire after Mr. Colroy, the name he used on the mainland. No relation to the real Colroy, of course, who will very likely press charges of his own for using his name in vain.”
“Have you still not caught Uxbridge, then?”
“You haven’t kept your eyes open, Rose. Williker skipped out the door five minutes ago, headed for Uxbridge’s place. He will go back there to check on his various prisoners sooner or later—Uxbridge. Bow Street will be waiting for him when he does.”
“Shouldn’t someone have gone with him? Dobble will be there, too, I suppose.”
“Williker mentioned picking up a constable at the station here before leaving. He has a gun, anyway, and could probably handle a pair of them alone. We don’t know exactly where Uxbridge is at the moment. He followed us to Bay House and obviously hung around there till he met up with you by lucky chance. I suppose that as Peters and I guarded you so well, he meant to desert you, and skip to France on his profits from his other two ladies. He might be out booking passage now, but he’ll go back to that house first, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so. Dobble’s wife is there, so they must plan to return.”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed often that Kitty was looking at me, and soon after Williker left, she interrupted my tête-à-tête with Ludwig to begin making plans for returning to the mainland. We none of us wished to go in our filthy rags, and with our stomachs empty.
“Have you plenty of money with you?” she asked Ludwig, her tone implying she doubted he had any, either with him or anywhere else.
“Just put it on my bill,” I told him aside.
He took out a reassuringly heavy purse. With this to go on, we hired a pair of rooms. I was told by Kitty I was to go out and purchase clean clothing for herself and Lorraine Grafton. The quality was not important, providing it was clean and decent. I nodded obligingly to be rid of her, but it was a serving girl at the inn who performed the errand while I tidied my own appearance in the other room, finishing up two hours before herself and Lorraine, who had a month’s scrubbing before them. Then I joined Ludwig below for a private dinner in our parlor, a trick that primed Kitty for an hour’s rant when she discovered it. Any little points that bothered either Ludwig or myself were explained in detail, along with some of my ancient history, that period preceding John and Italy.
“So now you know exactly who I am, Ludwig, and you can stop calling me Rose Trelawney and Miss Smith. And I can write you a check for all the money you were kind enough to loan me.”
“Better attend to it, before your fortune is cut down to a hundred pounds, eh?” was the only hint I received as to my future.
By the time Kitty and Lorraine descended, the hour was so far advanced that we decided to go no farther than Bay House that night. We were all anxious to get off the island. Lud managed to get ahold of a boat, and not long after nightfall we were at Bay House. The next morning we went on home, in Ludwig’s traveling carriage.
Kitty was determined I should go to the Grafton’s with her, and I equally determined I would not. We took her and Lorraine to Gillingham, and I went on to Granhurst.
“I hope you can talk him into marrying you,” was her parting shot, delivered in a voice loud enough to be overheard, low enough to pretend it was for my ears alone. “You have certainly managed to ruin your reputation, otherwise.”
“You hear that?” I asked him as we closed the do
or behind us and went to the carriage to continue our journey.
“Certainly puts me in the driver’s seat,” he informed me. “I shall draw up a list of my conditions for marrying a penniless widow of unsavory reputation and managing disposition.”
“And expensive tastes! That grass rug in the morning parlor . . .”
“Very expensive tastes,” he agreed. “I shall work out my list and let you know.”
“Don’t make it too stringent. You will remember Mr. Soames and Ivor Knightsbridge waiting for me at home. And I won’t be quite penniless after paying you my hundred pounds either, for I have Papa’s piece of the triptych.”
“Its sale might re-cover the morning parlor floor,” he suggested.
“Ludwig, I shan’t sell it! You must try to get the other pieces from Gwynne and Miss Grafton.”
“Well now, it seems to me you are rushing things. You haven’t talked me into having you, yet. I am looking forward to the conversation. Start talking, Rose,” he said, and immediately began the conversation by pulling me into his arms and kissing me so hard my lips hurt. We discussed the matter in this fashion the better part of the way to Granhurst, and by the time we arrived, I seemed to have talked him into it. He was devising schemes to help me get the two triptych doors in any case, while I implanted in his head the notion that his chapel, still unseen by me, would be a suitable repository for this religious artwork.
Annie and Abigail were at their wits’ end to hear what had happened. They both looked heartily relieved to see us enter arm-in-arm, laughing and talking.
“Well, and is she a crook or ain’t she?” was Annie’s happy salutation.
“Sorry Cousin, no,” Ludwig told her. “Only a very devious woman.
“Ho, I know very well she’s that,” Annie replied, “Damme, but I hoped you’d be a real criminal,” she added to me, a little wistfully. “And you never stole a thing then, nor kidnapped the little Grafton girl or browbeat Miss Smith into disguising herself?”
“No, Annie, but I have been poisoned and tied up and subjected to the greatest of indignities.”
“Oh Rose Trelawney!” she beamed. “Was you raped?”
“I don’t believe so,” I answered.
“I’ll bet you were. The very reason he doped you, I daresay. The villain. You want to break his nose, Lud.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Have you got any bumps to show us?” Annie pressed on.
“My wrists are all raw from the ropes,” I mentioned, for they were stinging, “but I have no bumps this time.”
She came to admire my red wrists, with the rest of the family following suit. “Get some bandages and medications, Abbie,” Ludwig said curtly. “Why didn’t you have Mrs. Peters attend to this last night?” he asked me angrily, but I was not deceived by this Germanic outburst. It was Uxbridge he wanted to shout at.
While I rubbed salve into my wrists, Ludwig sat by telling me I wasn’t using enough and voicing sundry complaints. Abbie looked on, then asked, “Now are we to hear the climax of the story?”
“That’s about it,” her brother told her. “Unless you refer to the clean-up of the affair when Williker captures Uxbridge.”
“But what is Mrs. Knightsbridge to do? Is she returning to Scotland?”
“No, she is staying with us,” he answered. That was our wedding announcement.
“For how long?” Annie asked.
“For good,” he said.
“He means till death do us part,” I expanded, which was clear to Abbie, who had soon relayed her information to Annie.
“Good. That calls for a drink, then,” Annie exclaimed.
“Yes, let us have a cup of tea,” Ludwig suggested.
I saw I had my work cut out for me, bringing a sense of style to this motley crew. For that one evening, however, I was too exhausted to assert myself, and settled in with the others for a cup of tea, while Annie rattled on, “That favorite spaniel of yours, Lud, the one that peed on the carpet, has got into your room again and ate up your slippers.”
“A pity it hadn’t been that old piece of lumber you call a desk. You would be well rid of it,” I mentioned, while Ludwig regarded me questioningly.
“I hadn’t realized you were planning on redoing my bedchamber,” he remarked. “That the plans were already under way, I mean.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kitty, Miss Grafton and Mr. Morley descended on us the next morning, almost before we had gulped our breakfast down, for we all arose very late. I was happy to see I was not the only person who knuckled under to her. Mr. Morley clearly went in mortal terror of her tongue, and Miss Grafton treated her as a sort of goddess, which is exactly the way she likes to be treated. It was soon out that she intended battening herself on them, under circumstances slightly altered from my own at Edinburgh.
“Lorraine is begging me to stay on,” she said, with a sapient eye to me. Here I am appreciated, the look said. “Certainly someone must be hired to oversee the running of the Grafton collection. Mr. Morley admits quite frankly he doesn’t know a thing about art.” The word ‘hire’ was slid in quietly, but it told me she meant to extract a salary for her help. He looked, as usual, worried.
“And Lorraine will be making her come-out next year,” Kitty spoke on. “She will require a respectable female for that job, and as her mother’s second cousin once-removed, I am well suited for the post.”
That was the only light I perceived in the matter for Miss Grafton. Her position under Kitty’s thumb would be brief, if she found a husband who could stand up to the old witch. The collection would be in good hands, however, and as it made up the better part of the girl’s fortune, this was no small consideration.
“What are your plans, Elizabeth?” she demanded next.
“I plan to marry Sir Ludwig and remain here.”
She fairly grinned at this intelligence. Not that she was happy to see me nab a good husband. She would have been infinitely happier to see me make a runaway match with a penniless rake, but my marriage would put the Knightsbridge Museum back in the hands of the Knightsbridges, where she felt, perhaps rightly, it had always belonged.
“Ivor will take over in Edinburgh, then,” she smiled. The smile was followed closely by a frown. Her staying down south would put her out of close touch with Ivor and the museum, but then Ivor had a mind of his own, and she would play only second fiddle there, while she could be the maestra of the whole here. She was already speaking of a trip to London to appeal to the gentlemanly instincts of those who had purchased ‘her’ pictures, the ones Uxbridge had sold, to see if they could not be recovered.
Kitty still considered myself to be her responsibility, and her next move was to ascertain what sort of a man I was marrying. I was happy I had got the main saloon redone. It gave a good impression, but she was soon disparaging my future home. “Your facade, Sir Ludwig, is a poor copy of Schloss Ludwigsburg, I believe? Something of the main part of the original has been attempted out front, I think?”
He admitted it to be the case, and sat listening while she outlined where the builder had gone wrong. Entablatures were but inferior imitations of the original, the charming little oval window on the third story had been forgotten, statues were missing—in short, the worst had been badly copied while the best was omitted, but in the end she allowed it to be ‘a pretty little place, if one cared for that misapplied touch of Baroque on a basically Renaissance building.’ For herself, she would rather have a good honest cottage than a botched copy of anything. Ludwig allowed, with a raised brow to her befeathered bonnet, that there was certainly no accounting for taste. He had always found it repugnant that ladies reconstructed dead birds to wear on their heads.
She next tried to hint him into a disclosure of what capital and income I was marrying into. “Beth is used to the very best, you must know. That is to say, after she married John she became accustomed to the best. Had her own carriage and team and even a set of small diamonds. They will stay wit
h the estate, of course.”
“If my diamonds are too large for her, she is free to buy a smaller set,” he replied. “Nor have I any objection to her limiting herself to a single team for her carriages.”
Stymied on this score, she rushed in to ascertain what I had not yet got out of Ludwig myself, namely, when the great day was to be.
“That will be up to Rose,” he told her.
“Rose who?” she asked, ready to take umbrage, and glancing angrily to Abbie and Annie.
“Rose Trelawney of course,” Annie snapped. She had taken Kitty in dislike from the first moment. The dislike had mounted to hatred when Kitty told her she took too much sugar in her tea.
“Who is Rose Trelawney that she has anything to say in the matter?” Kitty demanded, struck nearly speechless at the idea.
Rose was explained, and received with disdain. “I suppose the marriage will take place at once?” she asked knowingly. She might as well have said what she meant. If you don’t nab him fast, he’ll shab off on you.
“In a few months,” I answered, when I wanted to do it as soon as possible.
Ludwig looked surprised, but he was coming to know me well enough to understand my answer, I think. “Perhaps in the summer,” he added, with a smile behind her back.
“You never want to wait so long,” she cautioned me. “I rather fancy a fall wedding myself,” I said, pushing the date ever farther away.
Abbie said, “Oh, Rose, you won’t want to wait so long!”
“Pooh, what’s the difference?” Annie scoffed. “They’re as good as married already.”
Kitty’s eyes were in danger of leaving her head. They flew from myself to Ludwig, in joyful condemnation. Annie rattled on, heedless of any indiscretion. “Mind you, Lud, Rose don’t care for the way your bedroom looks. She tells me she is not happy with it at all. She will be smartening it up now that she’s actually to marry you.”
“Yes, when she is legally mistress of the place, she may do as she pleases with our bedroom,” he answered, stolid as an owl.
