“You know he’s going to want to leap from that bed and go make sure Sophie is safe.”
“There is that small problem. The rest of the men made the decision to stay with the Howick carriage until they are back in town and then to keep close guard duty over Sophie until the captain is well again. There was not even a second’s indecision. We all decided on the spot that was what he would want everyone to do.”
“How long should he stay here to recover before it is safe for him to move back to town?”
“That depends on how well he listens to my advice. I’d like to see him stay here for at least a week, but knowing him, once he returns to consciousness, we’ll have a tough time keeping him down.”
“Thank you for being his friend, and for saving his life, Dr. MacCloud.”
“Saving his tough hide was easy. Being his friend? Now that is something he makes a constant challenge.”
Honore smiled. “You should try being his maman.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sophie leaned as far over the stairway railing at Howick House as she dared and was rewarded with the sight of young John, the footman, rounding the corner with a tray laden with a stack of the morning mail. Everyone in the household called him young John to differentiate him from his father who had retired the year before. At that moment, he glanced up at Sophie and gave her a broad grin while lifting the tray.
That was their signal. A letter from Clifford Park.
In her race down the steps, she took the last set from the final landing by tucking her skirts close to her legs and sliding down the baluster. That was a childish whim she and Lydia had indulged when they were about nine and eight years old respectively. She hoped no one had seen her adult self flying past. She slid on around the corner on the polished marble floor following young James to the door of Lord Howick’s study.
At the footman’s soft tap, Howick intoned, “Come.”
When John opened the door, she followed in close behind.
“Are you in training as second footman now, Sophie? I wasn’t aware there was an opening on the household staff.”
“Please, my lord,” she begged. “There’s a letter from Clifford Park…”
“From Sir Thomas, the man who’s asked permission to court you?” He said nothing more but sorted through to the letter she was anxiously awaiting. He ripped open the object of Sophie’s concern and settled spectacles at the edge of his nose. “It appears the indefatigable Captain Bellingham is on the mend, but Dr. MacCloud and the captain’s mother are trying to convince him to rest a few more days before attempting the trip back to London to join the rest of his men.”
He peered over his spectacles. “I’m sure you’re really waiting for Sir Thomas’s endearments directed to you at the end of the letter. ‘Yours very truly, etcetera and so on, Sir Thomas James.’ The postscript says simply, ‘Please advise Miss Brancelli I await her thoughts per our last conversation at Clifford Park.’
“And, have you decided, Sophie?”
“Yes, my lord. I’ve made a decision.”
“Are you ready to share that decision with me?”
“Not at this time, but soon. Soon. There are a few things I need to attend to first. If you’ll excuse me, I must get to them right away.”
With that she ushered herself out of his study and climbed the stairs toward her chamber. If Arnaud was on the mend, she had to move quickly. She knew what she had to do.
As soon as Sophie left the room, Howick yanked at one of the bell pulls behind his desk. He did not trust Sophie to stay safe. Although the young woman was very self-sufficient, there were limits to what she could bring to bear against the dark forces gathering against her right to her grandmother’s inheritance.
In a few moments, his valet, Sergeant Randall, quietly let himself into Howick’s study and stood awaiting orders.
“We need to follow Miss Brancelli.” Howick spoke slowly and clearly, facing Mercer’s former artillery sergeant who suffered deafness after Waterloo but had taught himself to read lips. “Do not let her out of your sight. I think she knows more about this sorry business than she wants to tell us. Take one of the footmen with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Randall said and vanished back through the doorway.
Sophie had Lydia help her get out of her fine muslin morning dress. The dress sprigged with bouquets of violets would never do for what she faced now. Instead, Lydia pulled Sophie’s old mourning dress out of a trunk, along with a plain black bonnet with a dark net veil. For extra courage, she plucked the shawl her father had given her from the trunk at the foot of her bed. She lifted it from the protective tissue and lavender and draped it around her shoulders.
Sophie and Lydia were so familiar with the routine of Arnaud’s fellow squadron members, they knew exactly when Captain Neville went to the kitchen for a cup of tea before turning over his watch to Lieutenant Bourne. A few minutes after he disappeared down the back stairs, Sophie sneaked down the same steps, knowing he would be kept busy for a few minutes by Cook’s fussy ministrations with tea and her bottomless supply of ginger biscuits. She darted out of the lower level tradesmen’s entrance and headed straight to the walk through the park at St. James Square. There were usually a few hackney carriages for hire at the entrance to the circle around the wooded park.
She had utterly no fear or indecision over what she had to do. None of the men in her life who cared for her and had tried to protect her deserved her uncle’s ire, least of all the man she loved. She would not allow the duke to destroy Arnaud and his men or, God forbid, Lord Howick.
Once in the carriage, she gave the driver the address of the elegant mansion on Piccadilly her uncle made his lair when he was in town. She knew he was there, because she’d bribed young John to question some of her uncle’s servants on his day off. Members of the House of Lords were still tying up loose ends in the sad matter of the queen, and, of course, Wolford needed to stay in town all the better to control her life.
She was tired of all the cat-and-mouse attempts to ruin her. She’d face her odious relative. He could kill her and get it over with if he so craved his mother’s inheritance, he would commit high crimes to keep the funds for himself. The people she cared about had to stop suffering for his endless greed.
Lost in thought, she realized too late the shabby carriage had made too many turns to the left, and now, by her calculation, they were headed south and east toward the river, not toward Wolford House on Piccadilly. Jupiter.
“Christ, you’re a stubborn bastard. You’ve lost your mind. Maybe that thump on your head was worse than I thought.” Cullen sat on the top step of the entrance to the house at Clifford Park. He gave the several days’ beard stubble on his chin an angry rub and then stood, hung his head and extended his hand out toward Arnaud. “How many times have you argued the merit of keeping injured crewmen a few extra days in the surgery to make sure they were full ready for service?”
After a long, loud argument, Arnaud lowered himself out of his saddle, walked back, and pulled his longtime friend and surgeon into a bear hug before re-mounting the horse. “It’s only a dozen miles, Doc. I’ll be fine.” With that he pulled on the reins to turn the horse Sir Thomas had lent him and trotted down the lane.
Cullen turned to Honore Bellingham. “Did ye know he’d be this stubborn and wrong-headed when ye birthed the swab?”
“I knew his father and my father. Both of them were extremely difficult men. I had no reason to expect a reasonable son.” She gave him a sunny smile. “He will be fine. He’s on his way to claim the woman he loves. He doesn’t care how much money she has, or how many villains he has to fight for her.”
Cullen shook his head.
“And you should have known me as a young woman. My father used to have to take me out sailing for hours off Martinique to calm my temper. I was responsible for every single silver hair on my mother’s head.” She shaded her eyes and stared at the clouds of dust stirred by Arnaud’s horse for as long as she cou
ld, and then took Cullen’s hand to lead him back into the house.
“Physician, heal thy whiskers,” she admonished with a chuckle. “I’ll have some hot water sent to your room. You’ll want to look your best when you chase him back to London.”
Sophie did not need to see where the hack carriage was headed. She could smell the docks - the foul, earthy scent of the muddy silt of the Thames mixed with the smell of decay - fish and other things she didn’t wish to consider too closely. But there was also the scent of exotic goods being unloaded from faraway ports, fragrant, spicy, and pungent.
She and her father, Paolo Brancelli, had sailed once to Venice when she was about fourteen. He’d lucked onto a particularly wealthy woman’s patronage and wanted to show Sophie the home of her once-wealthy, noble ancestors. All that remained of the Brancelli relatives were an elderly couple who lived in a small apartment in the former family palace on a tiny street near St. Mark’s Square. If she leaned a certain way from the terrace, she could look out over the Grand Canal. The scent of the sea had been especially pungent in Venice. Her father had completed many poems while they were there but had been forced to return to London, the greatest source of income from his work.
The smells at the dock brought back many bittersweet memories. Her father had died a year after their return.
Sophie set aside her bonnet and fingered two of the four hat pins she’d hidden inside. Another set lay in one of the pockets of her mourning gown. Her parasol lay close by on the seat.
She knew the ton and her uncle considered the circumstances of her birth a public embarrassment. But she also knew she was an intelligent woman worthy of care and respect. She refused to give in to the ugly forces bent on destroying her.
Arnaud entered the far west environs of London, passing by Hyde Park Corner and Apsley House. He headed on east toward St. James Square and Howick House. He’d had hours to think about who might have attempted to kill him and had determined a course of action.
But first, he had to deal with Sophie. He had to see for himself she was still safe and get reports from his men on how they’d fared in the week since someone had tried to end his life. He could no longer lie abed in the country at Sir Thomas’s estate and be coddled by his mother and Dr. MacCloud. Whoever intended Sophie harm had become desperate. They’d tried to take her from a barrister’s estate full of armed guards.
After he’d satisfied himself Sophie was safe, he would re-visit the street urchins off Piccadilly who’d been selling what they knew to the highest bidder. It was time to rattle them a bit and see what they might cough up. He also intended to go back to Seaton’s landlord and question her son. He had a hunch the lad knew more than he was willing to say the last time they’d talked.
And then there was Sophie. He knew her life was none of his business, but he needed to see her face-to-face when he asked the question that had seared his soul throughout his week’s convalescence. Was she truly happy with the decision she’d made to accept Sir Thomas’s suit?
Sophie woke with a trickle of blood running down her forehead and a small lump on her head. The last she remembered, she’d slashed the back of the hand of the man who’d tried to snatch her out of the carriage when they’d pulled up near a berth at the London docks. A merchant ship bobbed alongside with the lapping of the incoming tide. Dock workers wheeled carts laden with provisions up wide wooden gangways onto the ship. Sailors bustled at chores on deck in preparation for the ship’s departure, probably as soon as the tide began the surge back out to sea.
After she’d gouged the man’s hand, he’d slammed something into the side of her head, and she’d seen nothing more until waking up in a minuscule cabin on an uncomfortable wooden bunk with a thin straw pallet. A slop bucket in the corner was the only other furnishing. Since she’d lashed out first with her faithful hat pins, the man had confiscated her parasol. After he’d sworn at her and jerked her out of the carriage, she’d hoped one of the sailors would come to her assistance, but all of them pretended not to notice a woman being forced aboard their ship.
The cabin had no porthole, but a small sliver of light shone beneath the door. Carts periodically rumbled past, so she assumed she was being held somewhere along the passageway to the hold of the ship. Sophie tried to ignore the frequent rustlings inside the cabin. She refused to consider what sort of creatures might be making the noise.
The sight that greeted Arnaud at Howick House was not encouraging. When the butler ushered him into the first-floor sitting room, Lord Howick, as well as all three of Arnaud’s men at guard duty - Captain Neville, Lieutenant Bourne, and his valet, Artemis, waited for him. And they all stood with ashen faces. His chest might as well have been flat. His heart had shrunk to nothing.
The curt question, “Where is she?”, tore from his lips like a cannon broadside.
Lord Howick was the first to speak. “We don’t know, but Sergeant Randall, my men, and runners from Bow Street are all over town. We’ll open every door, turn over every rock. She can’t have gone far, and a woman like Sophie…” his voice broke. “To see her once is to remember her. Artemis has drawn a number of sketches we’ve been circulating.” Arnaud’s valet nodded.
“Where is Lady Lydia? Surely she remembers something.” Arnaud’s voice trembled slightly.
George Neville spoke first. “All she knows is Sophie was adamant there was something she had to do, and she had to sneak out for an hour on her own to do it. She would not tell Lydia where she was going.” Howick quirked an eyebrow at Neville, but did not contradict his version of Lydia’s confession.
“When did you discover she was missing?” Arnaud’s words punched out like gunshots.
“After an hour passed and Sophie hadn’t returned, Lydia came to me with Captain Neville to reveal what she knew.” Lord Howick sat down hard onto the striped silk settee in the corner of the sitting room and reached for his pipe. “Apparently, she slipped out of the house through the tradesmen’s entrance when everyone was busy in the kitchen.”
Neville came close to Arnaud and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Tell us what you want us to do. We will not sleep until she’s found.” Bourne and Artemis fell in behind the marine captain, as if waiting for orders.
Arnaud surveyed his loyal men, and his tension eased a bit. Together, they’d done the impossible before. They would do it again. He would not contemplate failure.
He turned and motioned for them to follow. When Lord Howick made as if he’d fall in with them, Arnaud said, “Many thanks, my lord, but your strengths can serve us better by staying here to manage the lads you’ve sent searching.”
Howick followed them to the door and gave a slight salute before they spilled out onto the road around St. James Square.
“Where are we headed, Captain?” Neville kept pace with Arnaud and whistled after he took a long look at the bandage dressing circling Arnaud’s head. “Are you sure you’re well enough for this sortie?”
“It’s just a scratch.” Arnaud gave the bandage a tentative touch where the bleeding was worst when he overdid. “Still dry.” He motioned for the others to stop for a moment when they reached York Street. “We’ll go up to Piccadilly, spread out, and look for those street sweep urchins. They sell what they know to the highest bidder, and I mean to extract all they know about the ‘nob’ they said has been seeking information on Sophie.”
“How will we know we’ve found the right sweeps?” Bourne’s forehead furrowed in a frown.
“You won’t have to find them. They’ll find you if you linger long enough and look as if you’ve got the blunt to pay for what they know. Mention my name. They’ll remember all the coin I’ve passed along this street.” Arnaud couldn’t help smiling, the first time since he’d discovered Sophie was missing.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After a wretched day in the cramped cabin, Sophie had a feeling for the routine of the ship’s crew. They’d brought her breakfast porridge and watery tea at exactly nine bells, a thin soup at twelve
bells, and a bit more substantial tea at four.
The crewman who brought meals and emptied the crude slop bucket in the corner had demanded she turn over her pendant watch to him the first time he entered the cabin. He insinuated things would not go well for her if she resisted.
She did not even bother to demand to see the captain. She was sure her uncle had paid him well to make her disappear. She was curious, however, as to where the ship was headed. Why her uncle did not simply have her killed and dumped into the Thames was a mystery. Why all the subterfuge? Surely the man was devoid of any conscience.
The constant movement of carts loaded with provisions and cargo had abated somewhat, which boded an ominous possibility. The ship was prepared to sail soon, perhaps at the next tide. Each time the crewman entered the cabin, she tried to put forth a shy, fearful demeanor. Would not do to make him think she still plotted an escape. The first time she’d fought back, retribution had been swift and violent. She would not make that mistake again.
Her afternoon tea had been even more bitter than the early morning version. And now she was tired and feverish. Her last thought before she passed out on her bunk was that her uncle had more backbone than she’d thought. He’d finally given the order to have her poisoned.
Once Arnaud had his men spread out along Piccadilly to look for the young street sweeps, he moved quickly west at a trot toward Seaton’s old boarding house. This time he would not be put off by Mrs. Lambert’s son. He would get to the bottom of how Seaton had plotted with the cabal of thieves bent on destroying Sophie.
He ignored the carts and carriages clogging the busy street, so intent was he on watching for street sweeps along the way. He dropped a coin into the overturned hat of a man still dressed in ragged uniform issue, one of his sleeves empty and tied off at the wrist. Arnaud shook his head at the thought of the never-ending coil of wars followed by lack of work, and respect, for returning soldiers and sailors.
Pride Of Honor: Men of the Squadron Series, Book 1 Page 22