He merely nodded now. He tried to look bored, but he was eating Mrs. Horsely’s sea-kale, and it was so good that all he could do was look blissful.
When Toby burst into the dining room with two footmen at his heels and Mr. Fitz following more sedately, his white hair standing on end, Rohan bounded out of his chair.
“Oh, my goodness,” Toby gasped, panting hard. “Sir, hurry! Susannah, you, too.”
Rohan didn’t have a chance to ask what the devil was the matter. Toby was already out of the room. He could hear his pounding footsteps going back up the stairs.
“My lord,” Mr. Fitz said, then abruptly stopped, for what was there to say? “I will come along,” he said and motioned to the footmen to follow him.
Susannah nearly passed Rohan on the stairs. At the landing, they heard a shriek.
“Oh, God.” Susannah grabbed her skirts up to her knees and ran as fast as she could toward her bedchamber, where she’d put Marianne down for the night some three hours before.
Toby was standing in the doorway, dancing up and down, waving, calling out, “Hurry, hurry!”
Rohan simply picked the boy up and moved him behind him. He ran into the room—only to draw up. At first he didn’t see anything. Then he saw the open window. Then he saw Marianne crouched outside on the narrow balcony, humming, waving her hands.
It was a drop of a good thirty feet to the ground.
Susannah lightly placed her fingers on his sleeve. She called out quietly, “Marianne? Lovey, what are you doing out there?”
The little girl looked back at her mother. “The man opened the window. He said I’d have fun out here.”
What man? But Rohan didn’t say it out loud. He saw the panic in Susannah’s eyes, and ignored it for the moment. “Marianne,” he said very quietly, “Your papa used to sit on that ledge when he was a little boy. It is fun. However, it’s late now. It’s dark. A sharp wind might blow up and whisk you right over the Channel to France. You don’t want to go to France without your mama, do you?”
“Maybe,” Marianne said after a moment of thought.
“Lovey,” Susannah said quietly as she began walking toward the open window. “I don’t want you to move. I don’t want you to whisk away to France without me. When you whisk anywhere it will be with me. Now, don’t you move. I’m going to bring you back inside.”
“I’ll get her,” Rohan said.
But Susannah was already at the open window. It was set high off the floor and she frowned at that. She managed to pull herself up onto the window ledge. “Don’t move, Marianne.” Susannah crawled out onto the balcony, slowly, very slowly, speaking quietly to Marianne all the while.
Toby stood beside Rohan, the two of them stiff as boards, not speaking. Mr. Fitz and the footmen stood silent as the dead just inside the nursery door.
“That’s it, lovey, that’s it. Now, turn around and come to Mama. Don’t look toward France. I don’t want you to whisk off. That’s right, crawl to Mama. Good girl, that’s it.”
“Oh, my,” Toby breathed out when Susannah had Marianne pressed against her. “Oh, my.”
“Indeed,” Rohan said. He stepped forward, took Marianne from Susannah, and tucked her under one arm. He gave Susannah his other hand and hauled her back through the window.
Rohan sat down in the elegant rocking chair in the corner of the room. “Light more candles,” he told Fitz. Then he began rocking Marianne. After a while, he said, very quietly, “What man was here, Marianne?”
6
SHE REARED BACK IN HIS ARMS. SHE RAISED ONE DAMP finger that she’d been sucking to touch the cleft in his chin.
“Come, Marianne, what man?”
Still staring at that cleft, she said, “A nice man. He said he’d let me sit on the ledge if I would stop yelling. He said he had to find something. He said it was all right for him to be here because he knew you.”
“He opened the window for you?”
Marianne nodded.
“He set you on the window ledge?”
“No. He put a chair next to the window. I got up all by myself.”
Good Lord. “Did you stop yelling?”
She grinned at him. Naturally she’d stopped. What a forbidden treat the man had offered to her.
“Marianne, can you tell me what the man looked like?”
“You,” she said, pressing her middle finger against the cleft in his chin. “He looked like you.” Tired. She collapsed against his chest. Sucking was the only sound in Susannah’s bedchamber. Rohan said quietly, “Do you think she’ll sleep through the night now?”
Susannah could only nod. She stood there, stiff with shock, nearly as frightened as she’d been for those endless hours she’d spent with her mother in labor. There’d been nothing she could do then. But now, she was the mother. Marianne was her responsibility. And she could have died.
“Susannah? Just stop it. Marianne is fine. Can’t you hear her slurping on her fingers? Get hold of yourself. That’s better. Now take her and put her down. I will have one of the maids stay with her until you come to bed. I’ll have two maids come if you would like.”
“Two maids,” Susannah said.
“At least,” Toby said, so white in the face Rohan thought he would be ill. “Make one of them a man. With a gun.”
By nine o’clock that evening the house had been thoroughly searched, all the doors and windows secured, and footmen set to patrol the house throughout the night.
The baron, Susannah, and Toby sat in the Mountvale drawing room, a lovely room that smelled of fine old silk, rich oak, and lemon wax.
Toby was saying, “You told me, sir, just to look in on Marianne before I went to bed. Well, I just walked in, sir, and there she was, sitting out there, singing and talking to herself until she saw me. Then she wanted me to come out and play with her. I told her no, told her to come in this minute, but she wouldn’t. I tried to get her in, but the little nit just scooted closer to the edge. It nearly flipped my heart over. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be silly, Toby. You did precisely the right thing. My own heart was in my throat when I saw her. You did well.”
“Do you have any other brothers, my lord, except Vicar Tibolt?” Susannah said. She was seated so quietly, her eyes never leaving Marianne, who was all tucked up on a settee in the shadows of the corner of the drawing room, the maid on one side of her and the footman on the other.
Rohan slowly nodded. “No, just Tibolt. But he wouldn’t harm any of God’s varmints, as he calls children. He’s got humor about him, although our parents never admitted to it, and he positively reeks of goodwill. No, Tibolt isn’t the man who opened that window and put the chair next to it for Marianne to climb out on the balcony.”
“Tibolt?”
“Yes, Toby. My father gave the naming of one boy to my mother and he named the other. My mother was the one who selected the name George. My father likes the unusual, the extraordinary even. I believe Tibolt was a bishop in ancient Constantinople. Perhaps George told you that our father was renowned for his, ah, benign wickedness. He thought it a great joke. Naturally, he wanted Tibolt to be just as wicked as he was. My father hoped the irony of it would amuse him until he stuck his spoon in the wall.”
“Goodness,” Toby said, “I’m glad Papa didn’t do anything like that to me.”
“It appears that there ended up being no irony at all,” Susannah said.
“Indeed.”
Toby gave a loud yawn.
“It’s time for you to go to bed, Toby,” Susannah said.
Toby stood up immediately, but he didn’t move. He looked down at his toes.
“What’s the matter, love?” Susannah asked.
Toby blurted out, “Could I sleep in your bedchamber, sir? It’s not that I’m scared, but, well—”
“I was going to suggest it, Toby. I think it might make me feel a good deal better if you were to sleep in my bedchamber,” Rohan said. He sighed. An eight-year-old boy sleeping in his chamber? Well, th
ey’d done it for the past three nights. The boy didn’t snore. If Rohan did, Toby hadn’t said anything. Rohan rose. “I’ll tell Fitz to fetch a bed to my room.”
“I don’t like what happened, sir.”
“Neither do I. On the morrow, I will see if I can’t figure out who visited Marianne. It certainly wasn’t my brother Tibolt.” It couldn’t have been Tibolt. Marianne was just a little girl. She was wrong about the man looking like him.
He looked over at Susannah as he spoke. Again, he saw the stab of panic in her eyes. And something else. Fear? What the hell was going on here? He didn’t say anything until Toby had left the room. “Now, perhaps you’d like to tell me what this man was looking for?”
His voice was soft and soothing, just the sort of voice to make one spill one’s deepest secrets without hesitation. She shook her head, shaking that damned voice away. She didn’t know what to do. She picked up the sleeping Marianne and settled her over her shoulder. Then she left the drawing room, Rohan behind her.
She said finally, her voice quiet so as not to disturb Marianne, “There is something, but I can’t believe it would have anything to do with this.”
“Will you allow me to be the judge of that?”
“I think I’m being silly.”
“Tell me.”
“You sound, my lord, like a judge, all stiff and mean,” she said as they walked side by side up the front staircase.
“My lord?” He cocked a thick brow at her. “Surely after watching you climb through a window and out onto a balcony—your ankles all bare, your stockings showing to your knees—shouldn’t you give it up and call me Rohan again?”
She wouldn’t look at him. They stopped at her bedchamber door. She laid Marianne down on her own bed, and the child began sucking on her fingers.
“Tell me. Let me decide if it’s silly or not.”
There was no hope for it. Actually, she realized she wanted to tell him everything. She didn’t want to keep this to herself any longer. She said baldly, “The first break-in at Mulberry House was just before last Christmas. We were all out visiting neighbors. When we returned, we found papers scattered everywhere, furniture tipped over, several of my mother’s Dresden shepherdesses thrown to the floor and broken. Nothing seemed to be missing. Then, two months later, the same thing happened again. Only this time, Toby came home earlier than expected. He was struck over the head. And just three weeks ago there was another robbery.”
“Only nothing was taken.”
“No, but whoever did it made a horrible mess all three times. I guess that was another reason I didn’t argue so much about coming with you. I was terrified that one of us would be in the house if and when the robber came again. Toby wasn’t badly hurt, but it scared me to death.”
“You have no idea who the robber was?”
“No idea at all.”
“You have no idea what the robber was after?”
“No.”
“Well, since he returned to Mulberry House three times, he obviously didn’t find what he was looking for. It seems doubtful he found it the third time either. And you’re wondering if the man followed you here to Mountvale?”
She leaned against the wall next to the closed door of her bedchamber. They could see candlelight from beneath the door. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“Yes, of course. All we have to do is figure out what it is this man wants.”
“I’ve thought and thought. We have so little, nothing of any interest to anyone. No, I have no idea at all.”
“Perhaps you could have given me a bit of warning?”
His voice was low and gentle, but she wasn’t fooled. She saw the pounding of the pulse in his neck. He was very angry. “I’m sorry. I honestly believed that no one saw us leave. I thought everything would change when we left Mulberry House and came with you. I never wanted to place you in danger. Oh, God, Marianne could have fallen off that ledge.”
“Stop it. Marianne is fine. You can hear her sucking her fingers. Very well, now that I know what is happening, I can take steps. You are tired, Susannah. Why don’t you put yourself next to Marianne on the bed?” He gently touched his hand to Marianne’s soft hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll speak more about this tomorrow. I’m not blaming you, at least not too much. Good night, Susannah.”
“Good night, my lord.”
He grunted at that, turned on his heel, and took himself to his imposing bedchamber. He shaded the candle with his cupped hand to keep the light out of the boy’s eyes, the boy who was sleeping not three feet from him on a truckle bed. He looked too pale lying there, a shock of black hair falling over his forehead. A handsome boy certainly, but more important, Toby was a good lad, intelligent, and he deserved better than what his damned father would provide for him, which would be almost nothing, curse his blackmailing heart.
He shook his head at himself. Good God, was he now to play the role of the boy’s father? Rohan sighed. He was only twenty-five. A man of his reputation wasn’t supposed to even recognize the existence of children.
Life had become very complicated. Seducing a woman was surely boy’s play compared to this. He rather thought he would like to retire to Tibolt’s vicarage for a week or two, to relieve the strain on his nerves. Before he fell asleep he wondered why Toby hadn’t said anything about the breakins at Mulberry House. Because his sister had asked him not to. He had a lot to think about.
That night Toby snored.
All the servants were standing in a line in the entrance hall the following morning, obviously waiting for him.
He eyed them as he walked down the stairs. He said to his butler, in that easy way of his, “It looks to be a blowy day, Fitz.”
“Yes, my lord, it does. Perhaps my lord would like a cup of coffee whilst Ben here tells you what he found near to the stables? And whilst you eat your scrambled eggs, Mrs. Beete can tell you what she heard in the middle of the night? You can chew thoughtfully on your toast whilst Elsie tells you what she knows, that is, if she knows anything at all. Indeed, I do not believe that I will allow her in the breakfast parlor. I will pass along her story.”
Fitz’s hair was standing a bit on end, and that was a shock. The Carrington butler of twenty-five years, who had himself set Rohan on his first pony, didn’t look at all content. As for Mrs. Beete, the Carrington housekeeper for longer than twenty-five years, who had come to the house when his mother had married his father, she looked at him like a vicar would look at a sinner who refused to renounce his wicked ways. It was odd, though, for she looked at Tibolt just the same way, and the good Lord knew that everyone believed him to be holy.
Rohan nodded. “Very well. Mrs. Beete, when Mrs. Carrington comes down, please see that she has all she needs for the little girl.”
“Just imagine, my lord,” Mrs. Beete said in her lilting soft country accent, “Master George being secretly married all these years. Such a timid, scholarly boy he always was. It still fairly noodles my brain.”
“It noodles mine as well.”
Fitz said in a very quiet voice, “I would have doubted it, my lord, but the little lass is the image of Master George. So wonderful it is to have something of Master George live on. Actually she’s also the image of your mother and you as well, my lord.”
“Yes, I know. Now, as for Toby—”
“I’m here, sir.”
“Ah, so you are. You were still snoring when I left you. Did you wash?”
The boy looked down at his toes. “Well, not exactly.”
“Go back upstairs with Rory. He will help you. He wants to become a valet. He can practice on you. Now, Fitz, Mrs. Beete, let’s go to the breakfast room and you can recount all the happenings of the night.”
Ben had found a swatch of dark blue wool snagged on a low tree branch near the stables. “So you believe that a man was riding too close to the tree and ripped this material off his coat?”
Ben nodded. “It looked that way, my lord.”
“It also looks fresh,”
Rohan said, turning the wool over in his hand. It was finely woven. No common scoundrel had worn this. This was a gentleman’s quality wool. He slipped the piece of fabric into his pocket.
“Now, Mrs. Beete, what did you hear?”
“As you know, my lord, my suite of rooms is at the far end of the house. I woke up toward the middle of the night. I realized that I must have heard something. I went to my window and looked down. There was a man there, my lord, tucked away in the shadows just beyond the second garden terrace.”
“Why didn’t you raise the house?”
“Well, my lord, I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, not after all the excitement, and so I shook my head a minute before I looked again. When I looked the second time, the man was no longer there. It’s possible that I imagined him, what with all those flowers of your lordship’s weaving about in even a slight breeze and the shadows cast by the forest trees.”
“And Elsie?”
“Oh, that silly girl,” Mrs. Beete said. “She is new to Mountvale, my lord, and doesn’t yet realize that she cannot indulge in Drama. She is known in Braisley as a flighty girl given to exaggeration and tomfoolery. She enjoys attention, my lord.”
“She’s very young,” Rohan said, remembering the skinny little redheaded girl peeking at him from behind a god-awful statue in the corridor on the second floor. “Let her be a bit flighty, Mrs. Beete.”
“Yes, my lord. That was my intention. Actually, my lord, I thought your mama would enjoy the girl, and that is why I have overlooked her lapses.”
“That is kind of you, Mrs. Beete. Now, Fitz, what did Elsie say about all this?”
Fitz cleared his throat. He looked plainly embarrassed. “She said, my lord, that she saw a man in the gardens. This man wasn’t alone. There was a female with him, a female with abundant yellow hair. They appeared to be in the throes of intimacy, my lord.”
“Ah. And what else did they do to arouse Elsie’s suspicions?”
“Well, it appears that Elsie decided to confront them. She wanted to know who they were, but when she got to the gardens, they were gone. That is her story, my lord.”
The Wild Baron Page 6