Henry held up a hand to silence the physician, his mind whirring urgently.
"A material cutter, you say?" he pressed.
"Yes, Mrs Bates would have liked to keep it, for it is of a professional quality, but when I told her of its origins, she found that she was not so keen."
A material cutter. An embroidered handkerchief. A woman's voice arguing with Parsims in the rectory.
"Have someone saddle my horse," Henry ordered Bentley, "Did anyone see in which direction Miss Mifford went?"
"She turned left onto the Bath Road, headed toward the turnpike," Dr Bates offered, "I take it we're not having that brandy?"
Henry did not reply, for he was already halfway out the door by the time the doctor had finished speaking. In the courtyard, a groomsman was leading out a freshly saddled Arab hot-blood, whilst a footman followed with a mounting block.
"I am headed for the turnpike," Henry told the footman, as he neatly hopped from mounting block into saddle, "Gather some men and follow me."
Henry took off at a wild gallop, without waiting for the lad's reply. At the end of the drive he turned left onto the Bath Road, tracing the path which Miss Mifford had earlier taken. The wind was blowing a gale and rain lashed against his face, but Henry did not slow.
Mrs Fairweather had that morning refused the offer of a lift in one of his carriages to Stroud, though Henry had not thought anything amiss, in fact, he had thought her just not to show support for her husband. He knew now that her absence had not been a protest, but rather an opportunity to pack. The stagecoach for Bristol stopped at the turnpike every day, bar Sunday, at approximately three o'clock. If Mrs Fairweather were to make it to the bustling port city, she might disappear forever, never to face justice.
But before she went, Henry thought fearfully, she might have a chance to add another body to her list of victims.
Regret filled Henry as he recalled his wish the night before to carry Miss Mifford off into the sunset. If anything were to happen to her, Henry knew that this would be the second time in his life that he had regretted not taking action, but this time he would not be able to forgive himself.
The journey seemed endless, but in the distance, Henry soon spotted a gig abandoned at the end of the road. As he pushed closer, he was then able to discern through the haze of rain, two figures standing on the Hangman's Bridge. It was them!
Henry pressed himself low against his saddle, as he urged his Arab onward; the beast was slick with rain and sweat, and Henry was not much better, but there was life in them yet.
A woman's scream rang out, audible despite the thunder and rain. Henry was now able to tell the two figures apart, though it gave him little comfort.
Mrs Fairweather, her auburn hair loose and blowing wildly in the wind, was dragging Miss Mifford toward the bridge's low stone wall.
"Stop," Henry was close enough to hear Miss Mifford plea, "Don't."
Mrs Fairweather did not listen, she pushed Miss Mifford against the wall, and would have pushed her over had Henry not let loose a roar of anger.
"Don't you dare."
His cry was booming, startling Mrs Fairweather enough so that Miss Mifford was able to wrench herself free from her grasp. The seamstress eyed Henry like a frightened deer might eye a huntsman and before she acted, Henry knew what she would do.
"Mary, don't look," Henry called, as Mrs Fairweather clambered onto the wall of the bridge and threw herself into the raging waters beneath.
Henry pulled his steed to a halt and dismounted, breathlessly running to the wall to see if he could spot Mrs Fairweather in the water. He began to shrug off his coat and would have kneeled down to take off his boots, had a small hand not reached out to take his arm.
"Don't." Mary gazed up at him with eyes wide, pleading, and brimming with tears, "Please don't, you cannot save her."
She was right; the current had swept Mrs Fairweather away so quickly that she was no longer in view. If Henry were to plunge in after her, it would not be a rescue mission but suicide instead.
"Are you hurt?" Henry whispered, cupping her face with one of his hands.
"Just shaken," Miss Mifford replied bravely, "And soaked to the bone. How did you know where to find me?"
"I followed my heart," Henry whispered back, then--as a wave of English reservedness came over him--he hastily corrected his painfully romantic reply, lest he add nausea to Miss Mifford's current predicament. "Well, actually I followed Dr Bates' directions, if truth be told; he saw which way you went when you ran from the manor."
"Oh." Miss Mifford's shy smile faded a little, as Henry lapsed back into pragmatism.
"Nevertheless," Henry continued, willing himself--just for a second--to be a little more French in his approach to love, "That does not take away from the fact that it was my heart which led me to you, Mary. At the mere thought that anything might happen to you, it had already broken."
"Oh," Mary gave a happy sigh and placed her gloved hand against Henry's chest, "I am happy it is still whole."
"Not quite," Henry drew back to look at her, "There is one thing which can assure that it continues to remain intact."
"And what's that?"
"Your hand," Henry took Mary's hand, "In my hand, forever."
And then he kissed her, but only momentarily, for a half-dozen footmen arrived on the scene, quite ruining the moment. Henry broke away from Mary to issue orders--notify Mr Marrowbone, set up a search party once the weather had abated, and the return of the gig to Primrose Cottage--then turned back to his bride-to-be and lifted her into his arms.
"What are you doing?" she squawked, as Henry lifted her up into the saddle, before hauling himself up behind her.
"I am riding off into the sunset with my lady love," Henry replied, which is what he had wanted to do last night, "Well riding off in the rain to Northcott Manor, where you might have a hot bath."
"And where I might explain to your mother my earlier madness," Mary wailed, burying her head in Henry's coat, "Will she ever forgive me?"
"Oh yes," Henry replied lightly, "Once I explain to her that we plan to provide her with dozens of grandchildren."
"We do?"
"We do," Henry smiled, "In fact, I am of a mind to ride to London in the morning to secure a special license from the Archbishop, so that we might set about our task as soon as possible."
"That's madness," Mary laughed, "We can wait for the banns to be read, surely?"
"My dear," Henry replied, drawing her close to him, "I cannot wait another second."
And he would not, for he was a man of action now, who knew that he would regret spending even one more day without her as his bride.
Epilogue
A month after Mary and Henry had wed, making her both the happiest lady in the Cotswolds and the Duchess of Northcott at the same time, Mary attended a meeting of the Plumpton Parish Ladies' Society.
"I thought our little meetings would be below you now," Mrs Canards said, by way of greeting, when Mary arrived into the hall.
Mrs Canards' face was twisted into an ugly grimace, as though she had eaten something particularly sour, and though it was not the friendliest of greetings, Mary simply smiled in reply.
Happiness, her father always said, was the best revenge, and Mary was brimming over with such joy that she was certain Mrs Canards would cast up her accounts with bitterness before the meeting's end.
"Isn't it just the most beautiful day?" Mary breathed, dreamily, as she slipped into a chair.
Mrs Canards scowled in reply, as raindrops began to lash against the window panes.
"Love makes sun where there are clouds," Miss Hughes observed, with an indulgent smile to Mary.
"It can also make people nauseous if spoken about too much," Mrs Canards interrupted, "And there are other things—far more important things—which we need to discuss."
"Such as?" Jane questioned, a smile playing on her lips.
"Damp mould," Mrs Canards bristled, "In the rear of St Anne's. Someo
ne will need to go at it with some vinegar water and a cloth."
"I shall do it tomorrow," Mary volunteered, eliciting a few startled glances from the assembled ladies.
"My dear," Mrs Mifford leaned forward in her chair, "You are a duchess."
"Just because I am a duchess does not mean that I cannot still muck in," Mary replied, a little irritated, "I almost miss cleaning; in Northcott Manor, if I so much as spill a drop of tea, a dozen servants come rushing over to tidy it up. I do not even turn the sheets on my bed down at night, for there is someone employed to do that for me."
Mary glanced at Mrs Canards, to see if her earnest wish to remain humble had sweetened her bitterness, but to her surprise, Mrs Canards looked even more cross than before.
"Fine," Mrs Canards snapped, writing it in the minutes, "Her Grace will clean the mould—or one of her many servants will do it if she decides it beneath her."
Ah; Mary realised too late that what had upset Mrs Canards so was that Mary had a household staff of thirty in Northcott Manor, and Mrs Canards had a household staff of none. She would remember not to mention them at the next meeting, she decided, nor would she mention the four other fully-staffed estates she was now mistress of....
The meeting carried on as usual, with cleaning duties of both churches divvied up between the ladies. The matter of the next assembly, which would be held at the next full moon, was then discussed. Mrs Canards, Mary noted, did approach its organisation with the same zeal with which she had approached the ball held for the duke.
"Should we reserve the seats at the top of the room for ladies of precedence of the rank of a Peer or Peeress of Great-Britain or Ireland?" Jane queried innocently, in a direct echo of Mrs Canards' words some weeks ago.
"I hardly think that necessary," Mrs Canards sniffed, her tune changed now that someone she had once regarded as inferior ranked above her. "There won't be any peers in attendance; a country assembly is not fitting for anyone of rank."
"Perhaps a person of rank is best suited to decide which events they will deign to attend," Jane answered, unable to hide her scowl of annoyance.
It looked as though the two were going to have a spat, Mary fretted, though, thankfully, before either Jane or Mrs Canards could speak again, Miss Hughes interrupted.
"I think it a good idea," she said, with a nod to Jane, "After all, with Lord Crabb now engaged it is expected that he will attend to show his bride-to-be off to the village."
As no one had known about the engagement, this news set the whole group off into a buzz of whispers and distracted Mrs Canards from her mission to vex any person with a pulse.
Mary, who was just as surprised as the others to learn that the octogenarian had decided to take one final stab at matrimony, listened curiously as Sarah explained all.
"It is my cousin, Prunella," Miss Hughes told her captive audience, "She is the daughter of Sir Charles and just gone eighteen."
"A love match, by the sounds of it," Mrs Canards cackled, though Mary was inclined to agree with her crude assessment. One could hardly expect that a girl just out of the schoolroom could truly love a man with one foot in the grave. Perhaps, had Lord Crabb been charming or kind one might have understood it, but as he was neither—and a lot less besides—it truly did sound like a dreadful match for poor Prunella.
"They will be married next month," Sarah continued, pointedly ignoring Mrs Canards' remark, "And she will become Lady Crabb. I expect she shall want to join in on our meetings, I hope you will all make her feel welcome."
"I feel sorry for that lad who was supposed to inherit," Mrs Mifford sighed, having not listened to Sarah's plea for kindness from her fellow society members, "Imagine spending your whole life thinking you were set to inherit, then—bang!—a pretty face comes along and produces an heir at the last minute. I hope that he has not borrowed too heavily against the expectation that he will inherit a title."
"Thank you for that, Mama," Mary interrupted her mother before she could continue any further, "I am certain that Lord Crabb's current heir will wish the couple as much happiness as we do."
A few titters erupted at this statement—probably not the wisest choice of words on Mary's part—but Mary ignored them.
"Shall we continue on with our work?" she questioned, adopting the tone she had used when she had wanted to be Plumpton's most exemplary, upstanding spinster.
Her piety worked wonders on calming the assembled ladies, who each adopted innocent expressions as they carried on with the task of arranging the assembly. All matters of business were attended to easily, for Mrs Canards had now turned her attention away from Mary and onto Lord Crabb, and within a half-hour, the meeting had come to an end.
"I must dash, dear," Mrs Mifford said, apologetically, as Mary came over to talk to her, "Your father has a dozen things he needs helping with—he's been the same every day since the wedding. Honestly, if I didn't know any better, I'd think he was deliberately trying to keep me away from Northcott Manor."
"No," Mary assured her mother, as Jane struggled to hide a smile, "I think you're imagining that, Mama."
Mrs Mifford smiled brightly at her daughter's reassuring words, before bustling from the hall to help her husband. As the door closed behind her, Jane turned to Mary with a knowing smile.
"Who suggested it?" she asked.
"Papa," Mary shrugged, "He said that he did not have many words of advice to offer me on marriage but that, in his experience, he often found his own marriage was usually happiest when Mama was kept distracted, and that mine probably would be too."
"Charming," Jane snorted with laughter.
"Miss Mifford!" Mrs Jacobs, the Society's secretary, called from across the room, "Might I borrow you for a moment?"
Mary nodded and would have set off across the room, had Jane not placed a restraining hand upon her sleeve.
"I am Miss Mifford now," she reminded her sister, with a smile, "Or had you forgotten that you are married?"
Oh! Mary had borne the moniker for so many years that it was strange to think that—as the eldest unmarried daughter—Jane was now Miss Mifford.
"Perhaps you won't be Miss Mifford for long," Mary whispered to Jane, before she set off across the room, "For I intend to continue on with my mission to see my three sisters married well."
"Well start with Eudora or Emily, if you must," Jane grumbled, "For I am not the marrying kind."
"That's what you think," Mary whispered to her sister's departing back, before she herself took her leave of the hall.
Outside, a carriage and four awaited Her Grace, a fact which was slightly perplexing for Mary had not told them to wait.
"I did say that I would walk home, Johnathan," Mary grumbled, as the footman jumped down to open the carriage door.
"You did, your Grace," Johnathan agreed, "But when we returned home without you, His Grace decided that he was also quite taken by the idea of a walk."
Northcott—or Henry, as she now called him in private—emerged from the carriage looking painfully handsome and a little bit sheepish.
"Thank you, Johnathan," Henry brusquely dismissed the footman, "That will be all."
Johnathan nodded, unable to hide a smile as he leapt back up to his perch on the rear of the carriage. Henry sighed as he noted it and turned to Mary with a rueful smile.
"I am afraid that I have lost all authority with the servants now they know my secret," he said sadly, as he linked her arm through his.
"And what secret is that?" Mary asked, enjoying the feeling of protection his large frame offered.
"That I am completely, utterly, and totally in love with you," Henry gave a faux sigh, "And that loving you has turned me into a romantic fool."
"My romantic fool," Mary replied, squeezing his arm as they walked, "Shall we take the scenic path home? There's a darling little meadow—very private—that I think you might enjoy."
"Lead the way," Henry grinned.
And so she did, and the pair walked happily off into the afte
rnoon sun.
A Victim, A Viscount, And Miss Mifford is the next tale in the Regency Murder and Marriage Series.
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A Death, A Duke, And Miss Mifford (Regency Murder and Marriage Book 1) Page 16