The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

by Stephanie Laurens

  Kit halted before the door and reached for the bellpull.

  “Don’t bother.” Sylvia smiled at him, grasped the doorknob, and opened the door. “It’s never locked.”

  That was one of her father’s dictums—that he was always available to his flock.

  “Trusting,” Kit murmured, as he pushed the door fully open and ushered her in, “but admirable in a vicar.”

  Sylvia thought so—and then she saw her father standing in the middle of the hall with Deacon Harris beside him. With one swift glance, she confirmed that Nunsworth’s tale had been a complete fabrication; her father’s lean figure appeared as sprightly as ever, with the soft tufts of his white hair framing his face, and his blue eyes alight with the curiosity concerning all God’s creatures and their doings that had marked him throughout her life.

  Her smile deepening—indeed, wreathing her face—she went quickly forward, hands outstretched. “Papa!”

  He opened his arms, and she went into them, and they closed, enveloping her in warmth and the faint scent of tobacco—his secret vice.

  She hugged him back, ineluctably relieved to feel muscle and bone so strong beneath her palms.

  Clearly recognizing the unusual intensity of her greeting, he eased his hold, then patted her shoulder. “My darling Sylvia, is everything all right?”

  She uttered a short laugh and drew back from his embrace. “It is now.” She went up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then turned to Deacon Harris—who looked every bit as curious as her father. She put out a hand. “Uncle William—it’s lovely to see you as well.”

  William took her hand and patted it. “It always does my old heart good to see you, my dear.”

  Smiling still—she couldn’t seem to stop—she squeezed the deacon’s fingers, then drew her hand from his clasp.

  With a swish of her skirts, she half turned and held out her hand to Kit; he’d remained just inside the front door, which he’d closed. “Papa—allow me to present Lord Christopher Cavanaugh.”

  Kit came forward and offered his hand. “Reverend Buckleberry.”

  Kit had an easy smile on his lips and a relaxed expression on his face, but Sylvia was now sufficiently attuned to the nuances of his behavior; he was just a tad nervous over meeting her father—and that lurking vulnerability only made her love him all the more.

  Beaming, she watched as her father welcomed Kit “to his humble abode,” then introduced William Harris.

  As Kit and William shook hands, Sylvia’s father looked her way, brows arching in interested query.

  Kit saw Sylvia hesitate, but this was not a subject on which to spare her father distress; he would be more distressed if she didn’t tell him of Nunsworth’s motives. “There’s been an incident,” Kit said, catching Sylvia’s eyes as she looked at him, “and although we would have been heading this way shortly, that incident is why we’re here today.” Succinctly, he related the facts of Nunsworth’s actions, concluding with, “We left him trussed inside the mill. The foreman—Gibson—is watching over him until we can return with the authorities.”

  “Great heavens!” Although understandably deeply shocked, with the evidence of his daughter’s continued good health before his eyes, Reverend Buckleberry quickly came about. He looked at Harris. “We’ll need Quigley and Jenkins.” To Kit, the reverend explained, “Our local magistrate and sergeant. Both live just along High Street.”

  Harris filled his lungs, then grimly nodded. “I’ll go.” He started for the door, then turned and asked, “Shall I bring them here?”

  Reverend Buckleberry thought, then shook his head. “No. We’ll meet you at the mill.”

  What followed was far more fuss than Kit had anticipated. For a start, the vicarage butler, Henley, had been standing in the shadows of the front hall and had heard their story; he, in turn, informed his wife, the housekeeper, who came sailing into the hall to reassure herself that all her charges—in which category she plainly included Sylvia—were coping with the shock and, Kit suspected, to cast her eyes over the gentleman-lord her chick had brought home.

  From Mrs. Henley’s slowly evolving but ultimately approving smile, Kit surmised he’d passed inspection, but reassuring the redoubtable housekeeper that Reverend Buckleberry and his daughter were truly bearing up required the good reverend’s focused attention.

  Sylvia tugged Kit’s sleeve. As he moved with her down the hall, she called to her father, “We’ll harness the gig and wait for you in the stable.”

  They reached the stable to find that a similar chaos had taken hold there, courtesy of the boys’ colorful retelling of their tale. Apparently, several ostlers from the local inn had been visiting the old stableman, and they were all avidly drinking in the drama. Thinking of poor Gibson waiting alone in the gathering dark—and who knew what reaction Nunsworth might provoke from a man he’d left nursing an aching head—Kit quickly put the ostlers to good use, setting them to help Smiggs reharness the bays to the curricle and Egbert to put a neat chestnut between the shafts of the reverend’s gig.

  Kit hadn’t intended for the boys to return to the mill, but they rebelled and insisted, and Sylvia pointed out that it would be better for them to tell of their parts in her rescue—and the facts about Nunsworth that they had ferreted out—to the magistrate and sergeant now, rather than having to remain in Saltford overnight.

  She glanced at Jack and Ned. “Your mother,” she said, looking at Jack, “and your aunt and father,” she said to Ned, “will be wondering where you are.”

  Kit saw both boys’ faces fill with sudden consternation and not a little guilt and took pity on them. “After we return from the mill, Smiggs can drive the three of you home in the curricle.” Smiggs could return with the carriage for Kit and Sylvia tomorrow. Given they were at the vicarage, given the events of the past hours and their outcome—the impact of Nunsworth’s scheme on Sylvia and him—Kit saw no reason not to take advantage of where Fate had landed them.

  Then Reverend Buckleberry came hurrying from the house, and they sorted themselves into the two carriages. Jack and Ned squeezed in beside Sylvia’s father, and with the others following in the curricle, the reverend led the way back to the mill.

  They drew up in the clearing outside the mill, with the magistrate and the sergeant in the magistrate’s gig on their heels. After securing the horses and exchanging greetings and introductions, they walked in a group to the mill’s open door.

  Gibson, the foreman, had lit several lanterns inside the mill. They entered to find Nunsworth exactly where they’d left him, the pail still on his head; at the sound of footsteps, he started to thrash and call for help.

  Seated on a narrow bench along the inside wall, Gibson had recovered some of his color. He snorted. “He’s been silent until now. Not a peep, even when I asked him what he’d planned for me.”

  When Reverend Buckleberry inquired as to Gibson’s state, Gibson gave a gap-toothed grin. “I’m on the mend. Can’t wait to tell the wife that there’s benefits to having the hard head she’s always bemoaning.”

  The reverend smiled and patted Gibson’s shoulder, then turned to where the magistrate and sergeant had halted on either side of Nunsworth. Reverend Buckleberry sobered.

  Nunsworth, accepting that whoever had come in was not going to help him, had fallen silent, although his arms still tensed and shifted as he strained at his bonds.

  The following minutes were an exercise in futility. At a sign from Quigley, the magistrate, the sergeant cut the rope connecting Nunsworth’s bound hands to his feet, then hauled the miscreant up to sit, at the last, removing the pail from his head.

  The boys, peering around Kit, Sylvia, and Smiggs, sniggered at the sight of Nunsworth, with his expression enraged, his color high, and ashes in his hair and in streaks down his face and dusting his shoulders and chest.

  The boyish sound drew Nunsworth’s attention.
He glared at the boys, then noticed Smiggs. Nunsworth looked at the magistrate. “I want to lay charges against those boys and, I believe, that man there.” He nodded toward Smiggs. “They attacked me and tied me up and subjected me to a humiliating experience. I’m a man of the cloth!”

  Quigley, an older gentleman Kit judged to be the sort frequently referred to as the backbone of a county, studied Nunsworth, then succinctly replied, “No, you’re not. If you recall, it was I who allowed myself to be persuaded by the good reverend here and his bishop to allow you to be defrocked and run out of the parish rather than send you for deportation as your stealing from our villagers warranted. It seems I have lived to regret that decision.”

  With his hands still tied behind him and his feet, also tied, before him, Nunsworth scowled, uttered a sound very like “Pshaw!” then stared straight ahead at the floor.

  After regarding him for several seconds, Quigley raised his gaze and surveyed those gathered inside the door. “Very well. Now, which of you would like to start telling me what this is all about? Just the facts, if you please.”

  “It started,” Kit said, “when Miss Buckleberry sensed that someone was watching her.”

  Quigley took the cue and looked inquiringly at Sylvia. In a clear, steady voice, she recounted the various incidents and what she’d thought at the time—that the person was watching her with malevolent intent.

  “But you never saw who the watcher was?” Quigley asked.

  “No,” Sylvia admitted.

  Kit then explained that he’d mentioned those incidents to his business partner, and that Jack had overheard. He glanced at the boys. “That led to Jack, Ned, and Ollie deciding to spend their spare time trailing after Sylvia, trying to spot who it was that was watching and unnerving her.”

  Quigley demonstrated his sound sense in the way he drew the boys’ information from them. In short order and with surprisingly little extraneous detail, they’d related all they’d learned about the man others living near his lodgings knew as Nunsworth—the same man who had accosted Sylvia, calling himself Mr. Hillary.

  The magistrate paused and looked at Nunsworth. “Well, Hillary Nunsworth, do you deny anything these boys have said?”

  Nunsworth didn’t look up. “It’s all lies—every last word,” he spat. “I deny everything!”

  Quigley was unimpressed. He moved on, drawing out all that Smiggs, Kit, and Sylvia had to report.

  Nunsworth’s only contribution was to loudly and frequently proclaim his innocence, insisting that he knew nothing of the events the others described.

  Several times, Sergeant Jenkins was moved to cuff Nunsworth over the head to silence him.

  Kit, Sylvia, Smiggs, and the boys told all to the point of them tying up Nunsworth.

  Quigley nodded sagely, then asked, “Does anyone have anything more to add?”

  To everyone’s surprise, Gibson called, “Aye—I have.”

  They all turned to where the watchman still sat on the bench along the wall.

  “Seems to me that having a local’s word on it won’t hurt. That blackguard”—Gibson nodded at Nunsworth—“knocked me out when he arrived, right enough, but like I said, I’ve a hard head. I came to m’senses—enough to hear and see—as he finished tying Miss Buckleberry to the railings. I couldn’t lift me head to save meself, mind, but I heard and saw everything that followed, and it was exactly like these people have told you.” Gibson’s gaze rested heavily on Nunsworth, who made no attempt to meet it. “If it hadn’t been for Miss Buckleberry getting one hand free, enough to avoid Nunsworth’s first blow, and if the gentleman hadn’t arrived and flung himself in front of her... Well, Nunsworth would have had his way and left nothing but tragedy behind.”

  That, Kit felt, was an excellent summation and final word.

  Quigley seemed to think so, too. He nodded to the watchman. “Thank you, Jake.”

  Then Quigley looked down on Nunsworth—at the top of his head as Nunsworth was still belligerently staring at the floor. “Hillary Nunsworth, currently of Bristol, I’m binding you over to the next assizes, where, without a shadow of a doubt, you will be judged guilty of kidnapping and attempted murder.” Quigley paused, then gestured to Sergeant Jenkins to haul up his prisoner. “Take him to the cells. We can keep him there until the judges arrive—the assizes is only a few weeks away.”

  The sergeant bent and cut the rope tying Nunsworth’s feet.

  Quigley waved the others to precede him back into the open air. Gibson waited until the sergeant passed, dragging his uncooperative prisoner along by main force. Then Gibson doused the lanterns, pulled the door closed, and joined the small crowd outside.

  Reverend Buckleberry had arranged for Jack and Ned to squeeze into Kit’s curricle; he turned as Gibson came up. “Come along, Jake—I’ll drive you home. Your wife will be glad to see you.”

  Gibson grinned. He directed a bow at Sylvia, Kit, and the others, then addressed the reverend. “Aye, I’m thinking to make the most of the lump on me head. Just as well if you come along and vouch for how I got it.”

  With smiles and chuckles, everyone dispersed. While Jack and Ollie squeezed onto the box seat with Smiggs, Sylvia shooed Ned into the curricle. Then Kit helped her up and, reins in hand, followed.

  He was about to give his horses the office when, through the encroaching darkness, they heard Quigley, who was standing studying Nunsworth as the sergeant lashed his prisoner to the rear of the magistrate’s gig, say, “It occurs to me, Nunsworth, that while I may regret not sending you for transportation all those years ago, you now have cause to regret that even more. While the punishment for thieving is a sojourn in the colonies, the punishment for kidnapping and attempted murder is the noose. You might want to dwell on that while sitting in your cell.”

  Kit flicked the reins and turned his horses. There was just enough light left to see the way. At a neat clip, he drove back to the vicarage.

  He’d barely drawn rein before the porch when Mrs. Henley appeared and declared that Smiggs and the boys were going nowhere without filling their bellies with the supper she and the cook had prepared.

  Having descended from the curricle, Smiggs and the boys looked at Kit.

  He refrained from rolling his eyes and nodded. “We wouldn’t want any of you fainting with hunger on the drive home.”

  That earned him four grins and another of Mrs. Henley’s approving nods before she spread her arms like a mother hen and chivvied Smiggs and the boys into the house ahead of her.

  With a resigned sigh, Kit descended and handed the reins to the groom who’d come running. “Walk ’em. They won’t be that long.”

  He handed Sylvia down.

  Smiling, she linked her arm with his and led him inside.

  His prediction of how long it would take the boys and Smiggs to sate their appetites proved accurate. Less than half an hour later, having entrusted Smiggs with a message for Mrs. Macintyre that Sylvia was safe and well and would return on the morrow, Kit and Sylvia stood on the front porch and waved the foursome away. Unsurprisingly, the boys were grinning, and even the normally dour Smiggs was smiling.

  The curricle passed the reverend’s gig on the drive.

  Sylvia and Kit waited for her father to join them, then together, they went inside. She’d expected that having Kit in her childhood home, under her father’s roof, would feel a touch awkward. Instead, he and her father seemed to get on famously. They settled comfortably in her father’s study. On learning that Kit’s new business was building ocean-going yachts, her father revealed a hitherto unknown-to-her passion for sailing.

  “Oh, yes. Quite a feature of my youth,” he assured her, then proceeded to engage Kit in a discussion of the various novel features he and Wayland intended incorporating into Cavanaugh yachts.

  Eventually, Henley arrived to announce that dinner was served, and the three of them adjourned t
o the dining room.

  Sylvia ate and watched the two most important men in her life as they animatedly described masts and sails, hull designs, and rudder conformations.

  Only after the meal, when they returned to his study, did her father notice her relative silence. “My dear, his lordship and I have been quite remiss—we’ve been chatting non-stop and must have bored you to tears.”

  She laughed and sat on the small chaise. “No, I assure you—it’s been quite a revelation.” She smiled at Kit as he sank down beside her.

  From the armchair opposite, her father looked on; when she glanced his way, she saw a glimmer of understanding and expectation in his eyes.

  “But tell me,” he said, looking from her to Kit, “how did you become acquainted? Bristol is a large city, after all.”

  Kit directed a laughing glance at Sylvia. “Actually, we first met at my brother’s wedding in August.”

  “Ah—of course!” Reverend Buckleberry nodded. “I remember now—the other Lord Cavanaugh who married Felicia.”

  “Indeed,” Kit returned. “Your daughter and I were partners in the bridal party. Sadly, Sylvia seemed entirely unimpressed by my beaux yeux.”

  He heard the soft snort Sylvia tried to suppress before she hurried to say, “Be that as it may, when the Dock Company withdrew their support from the school, saying we had to vacate their warehouse on the Grove in just days, I sought out the owner of the business displacing us to appeal for help in finding new premises, and lo and behold, the owner was Kit.”

  Kit shifted on the chaise so he could watch her face. So he could drink in the liveliness and underlying happiness that glowed in her features as she told her father of all the recent changes in her school for dockyard boys.

  “And,” she concluded, “we’ll shortly have a sign hanging above the door proclaiming that we’re now ‘Lord Cavanaugh’s School.’” She glanced at Kit, and he saw the affection in her eyes.