All would look away as long as the public peace remained undisturbed. Minor infractions could be covered over and frequently were, but a major breach of the peace, the kind which brought interest from outside the district, even the military, might force them to act against him on the grounds of self-preservation. It was essential no word of this night’s events should spread and this indicated the need for drastic measures.
This did nothing to resolve the problem of his sister’s relationship with Edward Brazier. Perhaps he would be required to reprise a notion previously put aside, given the disposal of a post captain in the King’s Navy could not even be considered: the ramifications of such might go anywhere. Could he have Elisabeth locked away as mentally deficient, which would serve two requirements, first to keep her out of her paramour’s clutches, the other allowing him to continue to control both her affairs and her considerable personal wealth?
Grady was waiting to open the front door as soon as his master came into view, there to disrobe him once indoors. The suspicious glare the servant got as Henry Tulkington stood, waiting to have his coat and muffler removed, did not register. Grady kept his gaze firmly fixed on a point just above his master’s head.
‘My sister?’
‘In her room, sir, and the door locked once more.’
‘Do I sense an opinion, Grady?’
‘Such a thing is far from my place, Mr Tulkington.’
‘Keep it that way and ensure you’re not alone. I won’t abide gossip, d’ye hear?’ Taking assent for granted, he added, after a weak cough, ‘Hot brandy and sugar in my study.’
‘Henry.’ The sharp call from halfway up the staircase obliged him to respond. There, wrapped in a dressing gown and under a mob cap, stood his Aunt Sarah, her face lined with concern. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Going on?’ was a growl, one which sent Grady off to do his master’s bidding.
‘Shooting, Henry, which I could not help but hear, then everyone rushing out of the front door as if we were under attack.’
‘It’s not something with which you should concern yourself. Indeed, it would be best if you go back to bed.’
‘Do I not qualify for some kind of explanation?’
Henry lost his temper then, the frustrations of the night building to boiling point. Before him stood someone he could shout at without fear of response or sarcasm.
‘I am not required to explain anything in my own house, which you would do well to remember, since you so recently have felt the need to set such a constraint aside.’
‘Your tone is unbecoming,’ was delivered in a hurt tone.
‘Have a care your being here does not render itself unbecoming. You reside at Cottington Court on my sufferance, which is mine to grant or withdraw.’
There was so much Sarah Lovell wanted to say in response but dare not. Henry had bellowed the plain truth; she was wholly dependent on his goodwill for the room she occupied and the food she ate. Yet there had to be some kind of retort, one to imply she was not totally submissive.
‘I will do as you ask, nephew, and wait until the morning, when I hope your mood will be more congenial.’
Henry replied as the weight of all which had happened this night bore down upon him. ‘It would be best not to presume it to be so.’
CHAPTER TWO
Such a loud exchange could not but penetrate the locked door of Elisabeth’s room. Her brother, normally icy cold in his relations within these walls, was clearly troubled enough to shout at their aunt. This might induce some comfort, but it did nothing to relieve her major anxiety; her lover had tried to rescue her for a second time and had, once more, failed. What would happen now?
There were many things beyond the door to trouble her, not least Henry being in control of matters. Then there was the threat from Harry Spafford, the man she had been drugged into marrying, a person she’d never met prior to the nuptials. He’d declared his intention to come and claim those rights which fell by law to a husband, however questionable the marriage.
She detested him and would have done so however they’d encountered each other. In his utter dissolution, he stood in total contrast to everything in which she believed, as well as the manner of her prior existence. This was based on only what she knew; the truth of his debauched way of life was likely many times worse, so it was terrifying to imagine him brutally forcing himself upon her in a place where there existed no protection.
Such thoughts, as well as visualisations of the ordeal, were whirling through her mind, only to be disturbed by the soft knock at the door. Startled, she immediately concluded it could not be Spafford: he, no doubt full of wine and brandy, would have banged and demanded entry, thus it must be a servant or more likely her Aunt Sarah. Even so, there was a whispered obligation to make sure, added to an assurance of her being alone, before the key was turned. Face to face with her did not incline Elisabeth to being benign, given Sarah Lovell was as complicit in her difficulties as her brother.
‘Henry is in a foul mood.’
‘I heard.’
‘I must ask if you know why?’
‘I have no more notion than you.’
‘I will not have him address me so. I will demand an apology come morning.’
The look accompanying this statement might be one of defiant determination, but Elisabeth knew it to be braggadocio without fear of consequence: Sarah Lovell would say nothing to further upset her nephew and, since Elisabeth ate in her room, her niece wouldn’t be there come morning to nail the lie.
‘Am I allowed to remark on your being up and fully dressed at this time of night?’ This came with a meaningful glance at the outdoor cloak, which had been thrown on the bed. ‘Also, awoken by the sound of guns going off, I saw you leave the house with the servants.’
‘Remark upon it by all means,’ was the cool reply.
Lovell’s age-creased lips pursed with pique. ‘So, I can conclude a purpose, which leads me also to think myself cruelly used. You must have had an arrangement to leave, which I suspect could only have been put in place by a deceit practised upon myself.’
There had been no arrangement, just a requirement she be ready, the only message her friend Annabel, with Sarah Lovell in constant attendance, had been able to pass on, and it had required a diversion caused by Annabel’s children so as to permit a whisper.
Yet what was exercising Elisabeth was the notion her aunt could in any way consider herself a victim, she who’d complied with Henry’s demand she witness the marriage to Spafford, pleading she had no choice. About to confirm the suspicion, Elisabeth held it in check; let her wonder without knowing the truth.
‘Please leave.’
‘Elisabeth, I’m doing my best to protect you.’
‘Given the damage your aid has so far visited upon me, please desist. If you do not wish to consider Henry’s invective just now as of no account, do as I ask.’
‘I’m the only friend you have in this house.’
A cold look was enough to oblige departure, leaving Elisabeth, once the key was turned again, to ponder what the future held: terror or release.
‘Please try again, Edward,’ was a whispered prayer before she lay down, still fully clothed, to try and sleep. Somehow the hooting of an owl promised disappointment and brought on a wave of despair.
The same sound was heard by the quartet who’d come to Cottington with Edward Brazier, one of whom had just advanced a questionable proposition, to which the reply was scathing.
‘Split up, is you mad?’ rasped Dutchy Holland. ‘With scarce a moon and who knows what might be lookin’ out to put a ball in our back?’
‘We can search wider,’ countered Peddler Palmer. ‘An’ so far no soul’s come after us.’
His tone lacking confidence, it was as good a way as any of telling Dutchy he was right. There might have been no evidence of a pursuit from the grounds of Cottington Court, as well as no more sounds of guns going off, but it did not render them safe. For now, their protection lay
in being out of sight, within the small wood in which they’d taken shelter.
‘We’s got to find the captain,’ Peddler insisted.
‘Be daylight in short order,’ Dutchy admitted. ‘We’ll look for him then.’
‘We’ll be easier to spot, sunup,’ was the piqued response.
‘Happen he’s headed back at the Navy Yard,’ suggested Joe Lascelles, as much to stop the argument as for any feeling it might be the case. ‘Would he not head for there if he could?’
‘So that’s where we should go.’ This came from Cocky Logan, the fourth of the old barge crew Brazier had called to his side when the town of Deal turned perilous. ‘Captain’s no an eejit.’
‘His horse might decide the way,’ Dutchy mused. ‘Recall the wound and the way he lost his footing from the blow? Took him in the shoulder is my guess.’
‘You’d ken, being hard by.’
‘Like I stopped to look, Cocky. He was slumped over the neck when we sent the mare goin’. Keeping it headed where he wanted to go might be beyond him.’
‘Well I hope my bugger knows the way home,’ Peddler moaned, ‘since I’m never puttin’ my arse on his back again after this night.’
‘His?’ Joe scoffed. ‘She’s a mare too.’
‘Peddler never did ken the difference, Joe,’ joked Cocky, ‘man or beast when it came to comfort. Spent the odd night in the manger, he has.’
‘Havin’ elbowed you aside first, you Sawney Jock.’
‘Will you lot put your mind to what’s to be done and stop gabbing your nonsense.’
Having been Edward Brazier’s coxswain, the man who ruled aboard the captain’s barge, Dutchy was the man to be deferred to by those who’d crewed it. Thus, mumbled regrets were in order, as was a subsequent silence. This allowed Dutchy to think and eventually come to a conclusion, which, after a long silence, he passed on to his mates. With the time since parting being past half a watch, and many miles of open country around, there was no telling how far the captain’s horse, if he was in no state to control it, could have taken him.
But he could have managed its course, so it made sense to look first in the places he might be. Staying still and hoping was not wise; their escape had been blessed with luck while the threat of yet being pursued remained a reality. In daylight it would become more potent and, as Peddler said, they’d be sitting ducks in the open.
‘Joe, you need to go back to the Navy Yard an’ see if he’s there.’
‘On my own?’
Given his near-black skin, Joe’s face and reservations were invisible, but the tone left no one in doubt of his feelings: safety lay in numbers. Dutchy pointed out they messed with the sailors attached to the yard. Being Brazier’s servant, he could go places they could not, like the officers’ quarters where the captain had been given a berth.
‘And us?’ Peddler asked.
‘I say we call in at the Old Playhouse. The Riorden woman is a bit soft on the capt’n and she’d take him in if he turned up hurt. We’ll go by the other Irish cove’s stables first and drop off the mounts, which’ll tell us if the mare’s found the way home.’
‘Walkin’?’ Peddler demanded.
‘You can if you want, if’n you don’t mind being left behind.’
‘Remind me to dig out a better set of shipmates.’
‘Dinna exist, Peddler,’ Cocky responded. ‘An’ what others would put up wi’ ye?’
Once out of the copse and a moaning Peddler mounted, there was no doubt about direction: given a sky of mixed cloud, the sea reflected the half-moon when it showed, which fixed their course. Moving in such indifferent light was not without obstacles, these usually being sensed by the horses rather than seen by the riders. Thick hedgerows made a straight line of progress impossible, while drainage ditches were hard to spot when clouds obscured both moon and starlight.
Progress was eased once they made the marshes to the north of Deal. Joe Lascelles being sent on foot towards the flaring beacons of Sandown Castle. The others turned inland to skirt around the town, relieved when dawn began to show, a thin strip of grey light in the east. By the time they made the stables owned by Vincent Flaherty it was full daylight, with the owner already up and doing his work. A man who would normally have given them a loud and friendly greeting, such a thing did not materialise this day. The looks on the trio of faces didn’t allow for his customary cheerfulness.
‘I can take it, Mr Flaherty, Captain Brazier has not come by?’
‘You can, Dutchy.’
‘Thought Bonnie might know the way home.’
‘And why would she need to?’
Dutchy shrugged but didn’t reply, which got a jaundiced look, especially aimed at the long musket slung, like those of his companions, over his shoulder, as well as at the two spare mounts, Canasta being one. The pony had been hired by Brazier’s lady and, so fond had she become, she’d expressed a wish to buy him.
‘It might be a notion to tell me what it was you were all about last night, not that much of a brain is required to guess. And I ask again, why would Bonnie need to know the way home?’
‘Can I get off this damned animal?’ called Peddler.
‘Sure it’s a miracle you’re still on the cuddy.’ Cocky and Dutchy slid to the ground as Flaherty went to help Peddler down, before loosening the girth on the mare, speaking over his shoulder. ‘What you’re askin’ suggests Edward would struggle to come back this way unaided. It tells me also, since you’re enquiring of him, you’ve no idea where he is.’
‘Best tell him,’ Cocky murmured.
The response wasn’t immediate; it had to be weighed, though the looks Dutchy was getting from his shipmates underlined there was little option. Without Brazier they were adrift, and this was not a comfortable place to be, especially when they had no idea what the repercussions of the night’s events would be. As he related his tale, likewise unsaddling his mount, it was to an increasingly incredulous Irishman.
‘Muskets you took along, for all love. Sure, I never had Edward for a fool, though I will own, passion makes eejits of us all.’
‘They were for threat, no more,’ Dutchy protested.
‘But loaded nevertheless?’ That got a nod. ‘He took a wound you say. How bad?’
It was shaming to admit they had no idea, having loaded him on to Bonnie, slapping hard on her rump to get her going without a care for where it might be. They were then obliged to look to their own safety, which meant aiming said muskets through the gate from which they’d just escaped, to deter anyone in pursuit. When none showed, they took the horses and retired, taking refuge in the nearby clump of trees.
‘And Bonnie?’
‘I’d say she was headed north to begin with; after that, who knows?’
‘From where she might turn in any direction?’ There was no choice but to acknowledge the truth of Flaherty’s conclusion. ‘The condition of Edward would dictate the matter.’
This got no answer either, even if already discussed, just head dropping so their eyes would not meet those of the man seeking answers. No one wanted to admit the obvious: with no certain knowledge of the nature of the wound, only a suspicion it might be serious, the possibility existed their captain might not still be alive.
‘Christ,’ Flaherty huffed, ‘we’ll know the truth of it soon enough, will we not? Expired or living, he will be found, wherever he’s ended up. A man with a wound can’t just disappear.’
Asked to answer for his whereabouts or his condition, Edward Brazier would have been unable to reply. He lay, face down and unconscious, on a straw-filled mattress as the man who’d found him at first light examined his naked back, more the small hole high on the shoulder with severe bruising around it, which he suspected had been made by a pistol or musket-fired ball. The soaked shirt testified to what blood had been lost already, this stemmed by pressure: in falling off his horse, the victim had landed on the wound.
No true assessment could be made while it was covered, which explained his bei
ng stripped to the waist, only a feeling that if left unattended it could prove mortal. There was bound to be cloth in such a wound, carried from the clothing this officer had been wearing when struck. If such extended to an unclean shirt, or part of his uniform coat, putrefaction would set in and it would, in time, prove fatal.
‘What brought you to my fence?’ was an oft-repeated comment from the man doing the tending. ‘And what’s a captain in King George’s Navy doing riding around this part of Kent at night, getting shot at, an’ you such a meaty soul to boot.’
It had been a struggle, once it had been established the flat-out figure was still breathing, to get this strange apparition indoors and disrobed. Zachary Colton was not the man he had once been; age had sapped the strength for which he had been noted. Catching a horse intent on grazing between the trees of the orchard had been easier, the fine bay mare now tied to a rail outside.
‘I say it must be God’s will to bring you here,’ he continued, bent over to get an up-close view of the wound, seeing the minute trail of trapped white thread, material from the linen of the shirt, clear to the naked eye now the sun was up, light streaming through the opened shutters. ‘Never thought to see a wound like this again, but seen them I has.’
Zachary then crossed himself, for he was a deeply religious man. ‘It will be his grace which sees you living or his wish if you should pass over.’
Colton wondered if he was seeking to absolve himself, should matters turn out badly, which was not Christian. He must do his best and, if it did not suffice, then some of the outcome must lay at his door. This accepted, he went to an old and battered sea chest with faded gold lettering on its front, which, when opened, revealed it to be lined in metal, sufficient to keep out vermin. There he knelt down to take out and lay aside much of what it contained: a meagre amount of clothing, spare shirts, an oilskin cape and a blue brass-buttoned jacket, plus a couple of blankets.
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