“Anything I may do to speed you in your quest for justice is, of course, yours to command,” the baron assured him with a wave of one well-manicured hand.
“It has come to my attention that before Sir Thaddeus hired him, Tom Pratt worked in your own stables, is that correct?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“When did he leave your employ, and why?”
Lord Buckleigh picked up a penknife and idly turned it to and fro in his hand, watching the play of firelight on the blade. If his intention was to recall to Pickett’s mind the sight of Tom Pratt’s throat slit open from ear to ear, he succeeded admirably. “When? That would have been the summer of ’96, if memory serves. As for why, I suppose your own father-in-law would know that better than I. If you have learned anything about Sir Thaddeus at all, you will have noticed that he thinks very highly of his horses, and would spare no expense for their care. I suppose he must have been impressed with Tom Pratt’s skill, and offered him a higher wage than he earned on my payroll.”
“Summer of ’96,” Pickett echoed thoughtfully. “Almost thirteen years ago. That would put it right around the same time the first Lady Buckleigh disappeared, would it not?”
Lord Buckleigh lifted his head and looked down his nose at Pickett, his light blue eyes like chips of ice. “My good fellow, is it possible that you have the effrontery to interrogate me? What the devil could a mere stable hand possibly have to do with my wife’s disappearance?”
“Perhaps nothing,” Pickett acknowledged. “Or perhaps he knew things about that disappearance that made him judge it safest not to remain in your employ.”
Chuckling under his breath, Lord Buckleigh shook his head wonderingly. “I must say, you have quite an imagination, Mr. Pickett. Even if I were inclined to hold a stable hand responsible for the loss of my wife, is it likely that I would wait thirteen years to exact my revenge upon him?” His lordship tossed the penknife aside and leaned forward over the desk, his face dark, his voice low and menacing. “Make no mistake about this, Mr. Pickett: in London you may be regarded as something of an enfant prodige, but amongst these old County families, you are nothing but a jumped-up mushroom who contrived by hook or by crook to marry above himself. If you make any attempt, even the slightest, to besmirch my name, it will go very, very ill with you. Do I make myself clear?”
Pickett, refusing to be intimidated, looked him squarely in the eye. “Perfectly, your lordship.”
“Excellent.” Lord Buckleigh rose to his feet with feline grace, once again the congenial host. “Now that we understand one another, I suggest we join the ladies.”
Chapter Sixteen
In Which a Trap Is Set
“He didn’t even bother to deny it, except for a token protest against my effrontery in daring to question him,” Pickett recounted bitterly the following morning.
He and Julia had made another trek to the gamekeeper’s cottage, and Julia now sat beside her sister on the worn horsehair sofa. Jamie stood next to the fireplace leaning his broad shoulders against the mantel, while Pickett paced the floor and considered his next move.
“As you said, Major, he’s a cool customer.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “And why not? Even if I could produce indisputable evidence tomorrow, I can hardly ask him for a warrant to arrest himself—and he knows it.”
“Then Buckleigh will never have to pay for his crimes,” Claudia said with a sigh of resignation. “Some things never change.”
Pickett took another turn about the room, his chin sunk in his hand. “Perhaps not, at least not where Tom Pratt is concerned,” he said slowly. “But if he felt threatened, if he felt compelled to take some new action, and if there were witnesses on hand to catch him in the attempt ...”
“John, you are not thinking of accusing him publicly!” Julia exclaimed.
He shook his head impatiently. “No, for I don’t think it would do the least bit of good if I did. He would merely laugh it off and dismiss me as—I’m quoting here—‘a jumped-up mushroom from London’ who married above himself.”
“But he threatened you! Surely he would not have done so unless he thought he had something to fear from you.”
“I am convinced he only thought to frighten me into dropping the investigation. I don’t believe he would take any action against me, for he is persuaded I don’t represent a great enough danger to make it worth the risk. But if there were someone whom he had a very real reason to fear, someone whom he judged it necessary to remove by whatever means ...”
Jamie frowned. “What are you thinking, Mr. Pickett?”
Pickett did not answer, but turned instead to the sofa where Claudia sat. “I hate to ask such a thing of you, Lady Buckleigh—”
She shuddered in distaste. “Pray do not call me by that despicable name! ‘Claudia’ will do.”
“Claudia, then. Lord Buckleigh knows you are alive, thanks to Tom Pratt, but if he were to discover that you were right here in Norwood Green, and that you intended to make your presence known—”
“No!” Jamie’s shoulders came up off the mantel. “No, I’ll not have it! I won’t let you put Claudia in danger.”
“She’s been in danger ever since Lord Buckleigh learned of her existence,” Pickett pointed out.
“He’s quite right, Jamie,” Claudia concurred.
“Yes, and his lordship may well come here looking for her anyway,” Pickett said. “We may consider ourselves fortunate that his in-laws’ presence has placed demands on his time, else he might have done so already. After all, I told him I believed there was someone living here.”
“Why the devil did you do that?” demanded Jamie.
“I had no reason to suspect him at the time. After all, he is the Justice of the Peace. He’d just given me permission to investigate—given it rather reluctantly, too, now that I think of it—and asked to be kept informed as to my findings. How was I to know he was trying to pump me? Besides,” he added in growing indignation, “if certain persons hadn’t insisted on being so mysterious when I tried to investigate that day, and had told me plainly of the danger his lordship posed, I might have been forewarned against him.”
“I’d only met you the night before!” protested Jamie. “Why should I have trusted you?”
“Boys, boys! Play nicely,” chided Claudia, with a twinkle in her eye. She looked up at Pickett. “Tell me, Mr. Pickett, what do you want me to do?”
“If you could send for Lord Buckleigh, arrange for him to come here,” Pickett said, ignoring Jamie’s noise of protest, “the major and I would be just out of sight, both of us armed—you do have a pistol I can borrow, do you not, Major?—if you make it plain to him that you have had enough of hiding, he would have to do something to get rid of you permanently—”
“What he means is that Buckleigh will try to kill you,” Jamie interrupted. “I tell you, Mr. Pickett, I won’t allow it.”
“Perhaps you will not, Jamie, but I have taken no vows to obey you, at least not yet,” Claudia reminded him. “As it happens, I have an old score to settle with his lordship, and he may be surprised to discover that I am no longer a frightened and bullied young girl. But what excuse should I give, Mr. Pickett? Not blackmail, surely, for that has already been tried—I know! I shall ask him to petition Parliament for a divorce! He could not agree, for to do so must be to acknowledge that his first wife is still alive, and his marriage to that girl is not valid.”
Jamie scowled. “That should certainly provoke him.” He turned to Pickett. “I am more accustomed to giving orders than following them, but since it appears Claudia is determined on this course, I must do all I can to ensure its success. Where shall we position ourselves? I don’t see that this place offers many vantage points where we might hide and still keep his lordship covered.”
Pickett cast his gaze about the small room, and recognized the force of Major Pennington’s argument; the furniture was insufficient to hide anything larger than a cat. The loft would conceal them adequately, but i
t would also put Lord Buckleigh out of range of their pistols. A narrow door in the back wall offered a possibility; Pickett strode across the room to open it, and discovered a second room which served as a kitchen. He stepped into the kitchen and closed the door behind him, then put his eye to the narrow gap between the door and its frame. He could see Claudia and Jamie, but of Julia there was no sign, even though she sat next to her sister on the sofa. The other side of the door, the hinged side, presented a slightly different view. From this vantage point he could see Julia, and Jamie’s left arm and shoulder, but Claudia was blocked from his sight by the wooden panel.
He opened the door again. “We can conceal ourselves behind the door, but the angle is not good. If we’re to have a clear shot at his lordship, he’ll have to be standing directly in our line of vision, which will be narrower than I could wish for.” He looked at Claudia. “If we were to calculate the lines and mark them off on the floor, do you think you could keep him from moving beyond them?”
“No, we can’t leave that much to chance,” Jamie protested. “We’ll have to use the window.”
Everyone turned to regard the single window in the wall adjacent to the front door. It was not promising, hung with thin muslin curtains that stopped fully three feet above the floor.
“I’m sure Lord Buckleigh won’t notice a bulge behind the curtain, never mind the fact that the window has grown legs,” Pickett said, his voice dripping with irony.
“No, he won’t, for he won’t see them,” the major replied. “We’ll make a thicker curtain from the counterpane on the bed upstairs, one that goes all the way to the floor. I’ll fashion a rod that will stand out farther from the wall, making a sort of embrasure behind it.”
“Can you do that?” Pickett asked, impressed in spite of himself.
“I’ve been in the army for almost thirteen years,” Jamie reminded him. “If I’ve learned anything during that time, it’s how to improvise.”
“But what of Claudia’s bed?” Julia protested. “She’ll be cold, with no blankets.”
“You forget that Claudia is an experienced campaigner. She’s endured discomforts far worse. Mind you,” he added, giving Pickett a stern look, “I still don’t like it.”
Pickett nodded in understanding. “I know you don’t like it, Major, but I promise you, we shall take every precaution to see that no harm comes to your wife.”
Jamie’s frown was erased, and when he spoke again, it was in a very different voice. “Thank you for that, Mr. Pickett.”
“For what?”
“For calling her my wife.”
Pickett shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “I call it as I see it, Major.”
* * *
By the time Pickett and Julia left the cottage half an hour later, all the plans were in place. Alas, one little detail had not yet been addressed, one of which Pickett was unaware until the pair of them were walking across the downs toward Runyon Hall.
“One thing still puzzles me,” Julia said. “What will I do?”
“What do you mean?” asked Pickett, all at sea.
“While Claudia is confronting Buckleigh and you and Jamie are tucked away behind the curtain with pistols trained on him, where will I be?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rather taken aback by the question. “I suppose you’ll be with your parents, doing whatever it is they’re doing that day.”
“John!” She stopped in her tracks and wheeled about to face him. “You cannot mean to leave me out of it!”
“That is exactly what I plan to do! My lady, we’re talking about a confrontation with a murderer! Do you really think I would expose you to that?”
“You didn’t think twice about exposing Claudia!”
“That’s different.”
“Oh?” Her voice could have frozen water. “In what way?”
“She’s rather more closely involved than you,” he pointed out. “After all, the man is her husband.”
“And I am her sister!”
“And you are my wife.” Seeing that this tracing of the family tree was getting them nowhere, he tried a different approach. “The whole purpose of this meeting is to provoke his lordship into making an attempt on Claudia’s life. He is unlikely to do so with her younger sister present.”
“But I could hide, like you and Jamie,” she said coaxingly. “I know the window is not large, but I don’t take up much room.”
She didn’t. In fact, she fitted rather nicely beneath his arm, with her hair just brushing his chin— “That isn’t the point,” he said, putting aside an all too distracting train of thought. “I won’t put you in unnecessary danger.”
“You told Jamie that Claudia would be perfectly safe!”
“Yes, with both him and me looking out for her. But if you’re there, I won’t be thinking of Claudia, at least not entirely. If you’re there, my first priority will be your safety, not hers.”
Her expression softened. “That’s very sweet of you, John, but perhaps I could stay in the loft, well out of harm’s way—”
“My mind is made up, Julia. Unlike Claudia, you have taken a vow to love, honor, and obey. I don’t intend to abuse the privilege, but I’m afraid I must insist that you obey me in this.”
She opened her mouth to voice an indignant protest at such high-handed treatment, but the words stuck in her throat. It was just as she had told her mother: he was no boy, this young man she’d married. He would not allow himself to be browbeaten, not threateningly by Lord Buckleigh, nor even lovingly by herself. And strangely enough, she discovered she preferred it that way.
“Very well, if you insist,” she conceded reluctantly. “I suppose it would be just as well for me to stay behind this once, lest Mama or Papa become too curious about where we have been going every morning. But you must promise to tell me all about it the moment you return!”
He captured the finger she had jabbed into his chest and raised it to his lips. “Every word,” he said, and hand in hand they resumed their journey.
Chapter Seventeen
In Which a Trap Is Sprung
They were in position a full fifteen minutes before ten o’clock the next morning, the time appointed for the meeting. Jamie, having exchanged his scarlet regimentals for country tweeds, stood shoulder to shoulder with Pickett in the alcove created by the thick makeshift curtain, from which vantage point they could observe the proceedings through strategically placed slits in the fabric. These had been Jamie’s idea. In fact, it seemed to Pickett that, once resigned to the scheme, the major had taken charge of the entire operation; apparently Jamie had not exaggerated when he’d said he was more accustomed to giving orders than following them. Still, Pickett supposed he could hardly blame Major Pennington: if it had been his own wife who was being dangled as bait to catch a murderer, he doubted he would be content to leave the details to a comparative stranger, either.
“I wish he would hurry,” Claudia complained. Through the slits in the curtain Pickett could see her sitting on the worn sofa, pleating the folds of her skirt with nervous fingers. “I just want to have it over with.”
“Claudia, my love, you must be quiet. We can’t risk Lord Buckleigh hearing, should he come upon us unexpectedly.”
Although Jamie’s voice was gentle, Pickett could feel the tension emanating from the man at his side. He suspected they all shared Claudia’s sentiments, even if they were not at liberty to discuss them.
And so they waited in silence until finally, after what seemed like hours even though it could not have been more than ten minutes, a firm knock sounded against the wooden front door. Pickett and Jamie exchanged a look, and cocked their pistols.
“Come in,” Claudia called in a steady voice, her inner turmoil betrayed only by the compulsive smoothing of her skirts.
The door opened, and Lord Buckleigh entered the room, every inch the rural aristocrat in a russet tailcoat, buckskin breeches, and topboots. “So it’s true,” he said, confronting at last the wife he had not seen in
more than a decade. “It has been a long time, Claudia.”
She rose gracefully at his appearance, but did not move forward to greet him. “Not long enough, in my opinion.”
“And yet, you sent for me, not the other way ’round.” His long, appraising gaze took in her still-youthful figure, her blonde hair untouched by gray, her golden, sun-kissed skin. “You look well, my dear.”
“Do I?” she asked, mildly surprised. “I daresay it must be the lack of bruises.”
The familiar irritation crossed his face, and she willed herself not to flinch instinctively, as she had in the old days. She was not a terrified girl any longer, and although he was still legally her husband, he had no real power over her, not anymore. There was a man concealed behind the curtain—two, in fact—who would make sure of it.
“Surely you haven’t approached me after all these years merely to bandy words over some perceived grudge,” Lord Buckleigh complained.
Jamie’s pistol arm twitched at this cavalier attitude toward his lordship’s ill treatment of Claudia, and Pickett laid a restraining hand on his sleeve.
“No, not to bandy words, but to make a request.” She took a deep breath and clasped her hands tightly together at her waist. “I want you to petition Parliament for a divorce.”
If she had hoped to disturb his oppressive calm, she had the satisfaction of knowing that she succeeded, if only for a moment. “A divorce? Why the devil should I?”
“Because I am weary of hiding. I am ready to move forward with my own life, and I’m sure you must be, as well. I understand you have taken another wife, Buckleigh. I wonder, what would she say if she knew her marriage to you was invalid? I am credibly informed that you never bothered to have me declared legally dead.”
“No, for although I was almost certain you were dead—your shawl was found in the gorge, you know, covered in blood—there was always the possibility that you had merely flown, and had drenched your shawl with the blood of a rabbit or a squirrel to put me off the scent. I dared not take any legal action for fear it would flush you out of hiding, wherever you were.”
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