Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “’Scuse me, milord. Can I get you aught, milord? Draught of ale, p’raps?”

  “No. I’m waiting for Lady Anne. Please feel free to go about your business.”

  She curtseyed and stirred the pot over the fire. To try to put her at her ease, he asked, “What are you cooking? It smells very good.”

  “Broth, milord, fer Mrs. Jackson.”

  “She’s recovering?”

  “Yers.”

  She seemed ill at ease. He sighed and paced, thinking that if there had been a sitting room of sorts, he would have gone through to it, but the layout of the cottage seemed unusual, to say the least. And he did not want to run into Anne’s brother without an introduction from her. As little as he liked to admit it, he was concerned about the meeting, uncomfortable with infirmity of any kind. He didn’t know what to expect.

  “What are in those glass jars along the sill?” he asked, stooping and peering into the murky depths.

  The maid made a face and said, “Stuff as what Mrs. Noonan ’as sent down to the cottage, milord. She messes about the kitchen at t’Hall. Sez she’s makin’ summat fer her ladyship.”

  “Like what?”

  “Milady is fond o’ mushroom catsup. Mrs. Noonan were tryin’ to make some, but she said as how it never turned out right, so she’s bin givin’ the failures away. Sent some of it down here. Mrs. Jackson said as how it weren’t no good for mushroom catsup, but cooked it made a lovely broth. Mr. Jackson, ’e didn’t like it, but the missus did.”

  “Is that what you have been giving her?”

  “Oh, no, milord, this was afore she got sick.”

  Darkefell congratulated himself on bringing the woman out of her shell. Feeling a little more relaxed, he said, “I’ve never been one for condiments or relishes. Good food, well prepared, should need no sauce.” But that was about all he could think of to say, and luckily Anne appeared just then.

  “She seems much better. Perhaps we’ll never know what it was that made her so ill.”

  “Aye, milady,” the maid said.

  “Come, Darkefell, meet Jamey. Is he in his room, Dorcas?”

  “He’s in his garden room, milady. Lookin’ at some kind o’ insect with his lens, ’e said.”

  “Thank you, Dorcas. You’ve done an excellent job. Have you been getting along with my brother all right?” she asked, examining the young woman’s broad, cheerful face.

  “Yers, milady. Lord Jamey seems to like me.”

  “Perhaps, if you are not averse, we may make this arrangement permanent. I would like to give Mr. and Mrs. Jackson some help, now that they are getting older. It would mean living here.”

  The woman nodded, but her expression dimmed.

  Anne watched her for a moment. She thought of a snippet of gossip relayed to her by Mary about Dorcas and a certain young groom in the earl’s stable. “If you had a sweetheart,” she added, “it might even allow you to marry.”

  The woman’s cheeks turned pink and her pale blue eyes widened. “I’d be obliged, milady, if’n you’d consider it, then.”

  “We’ll speak about it another day.”

  The maid curtseyed.

  Together, Darkefell and Anne headed back in the cottage along a wide passage to a large oak door, shiny from a century or more of polish. She rapped on it. “Jamey?” she called, leaning her ear close. “May I come in?” There was no answer. “He probably can’t hear me,” she said, glancing back at Darkefell. “If he is involved in his studies, he is deaf to the world.”

  “Studies?” The marquess appeared perplexed. “I thought you said he is slow; what ‘studies’ do you mean?”

  Anne turned the latch, saying, “I don’t know how to explain it, Tony, other than to say that which he is passionate about, he knows all. He can relate Linnaeus’s Latin names of every creature near and far, and most of the plants, too. That for which he cares nothing, he won’t remember for a single second. Unfortunately most of the common everyday things fall into the second grouping.” She opened the door. “Jamey?”

  It was a large room and two walls were completely glass, showing a view of a tropical garden, or what appeared to be so in his eyes. He followed her as she called her brother, and gazed around at the bed in the corner, the clothes neatly folded. The garden was accessed by a glass door set in an oak frame. It was open, and humid air and sunshine flooded the bedchamber.

  “I don’t see him,” Anne said with a frown. “Wait here, and I’ll look the whole breadth of the garden room. He could be down on his knees in some corner, not paying attention to aught but the insect world.”

  Darkefell dallied while Anne went in search of her brother. There was a bookcase, but the books were all dry tomes of plant culture, insect encyclopedia, and calf-bound notebooks. An enormous wardrobe took up one wall, the other of the two that were solid. But the wardrobe had a note stuck to it with a penknife. Desultorily, the marquess read it, not meaning to interfere.

  But even a cursory scan proved horrifying, as the meaning sank in. “Anne, Anne!” he yelled. “Jamey is gone! He’s been kidnapped!”

  Eleven

  Anne scrambled back through rows of potted plants and flowers at Darkefell’s hoarse cry and scanned the page he held out to her, rambling paragraph after rambling paragraph. She began to think that it could not possibly be a threatening note. It began with the salutation “To Whomever Should Peruse this Missive,” and went on and on, accusations, recriminations, complaints of heinous deeds done to him, clearly Hiram Grover. But where was the threat? Where … oh! She choked back a cry of dismay and read aloud the last line: If You wish to see this Young Man, Lord James Addison, again Pay Heed! He meats with a Terrible Fate, but for the Lady Anne and her infamous Escort meat us at the Oat House Beyond the Dell.

  The note was signed, simply, “H. G. esq.,” but from the content of the letter it had been obvious who wrote it from the first line.

  Darkefell put his arms around her. “We’ll get him, Anne.”

  “Jamey!” she cried out, turning around in his arms and bowing her head against his chest. “Oh, my poor Jamey,” she cried, her voice muffled. “That I have brought this terror down upon his poor innocent head.”

  Mr. Jackson came to the door and peered in. “Milady, we heard you scream,” he said, gazing at the marquess with suspicion, and at Anne clutched closely to his breast. “Are you well?”

  “No, Mr. Jackson, no! When did you or Dorcas last see my brother?”

  Mr. Jackson stared at her. “The young master?”

  “Yes, yes,” Anne said impatiently, tearing herself from Darkefell’s grasp. She flew to the door and waved the note in his face. “Mr. Jackson, Jamey is gone! I don’t have time to explain, but someone has kidnapped him. Now attend me closely; when did you last see him?”

  Mr. Jackson’s thin face squinted in alarm and he cried out, “Master Jamey? Where is he?”

  Anne bit back her impatience and the earnest desire to shake him. “Dorcas! Come here, this minute.”

  The young woman came to the door, wiping her broad hands on a cloth. “What is it, milady? Is aught wrong?”

  Anne explained and Dorcas immediately said, “He were in his garden, milady, lookin’ at a bug in his lens, as I tole you, not an arf hour ago, give or take a few minutes.” She frowned, still wiping her fingers, but her gaze turned inward. “Lessee … I was out in the yard doin’ the laundering and I did think I heard somethin’. I looked up and around, but saw naught. I looked toward the glass room, and saw Lord Jamey in there, though I couldn’t see what he was about.” She shrugged. “That were it.”

  “It must have happened within the last short while, then,” Anne said, turning to Darkefell. “We have to find him! Oh, poor Jamey!” Terror clawed at her at the thought of her naïve brother begin lured away by such a man as Hiram Grover.

  “How would Grover have gotten your brother away?” Darkefell asked.

  “That would not be so difficult as it seems. He must have lured him on some preten
se,” Anne said. “Jamey is very strong and robust. No one could have carried him away, nor even led him away violently. But he’s an innocent, Tony. If someone said they had a pretty butterfly for him to see, or asked him to identify a beetle, he would have gladly gone along, and wouldn’t see the trap until it was sprung.” That was why the retired cottage of Farfield Farm was chosen, Anne thought but did not say. Jamey had little contact with anyone but the Jacksons.

  “I don’t understand what Grover means by the ‘Oat House beyond the Dell.’ What the devil is that?”

  Anne stared at the paper for a long minute. “Not oat house, but oast house. Tony, he means one of the oast houses, where the hops are dried and kilned!”

  Mr. Jackson mused, “The oast house beyond the dell … why, that must be the abandoned one, milady, the one Mr. Destry was gonna have redone next year, if’n he got round to it.”

  “Where is this oast house?” Darkefell said.

  Anne opened her mouth, then clapped it shut. If he knew exactly where it was, he would leave her behind and go to confront Grover alone. “I’ll tell you as we go,” she said grimly. She sensed that he tensed, then relaxed.

  “Let’s go, and quickly.”

  Anne left instruction for Dorcas to take the Farfield Farm pony cart to Harecross Hall to retrieve Sanderson, who was to meet them at the abandoned oast house with a coterie of armed grooms. She scribbled a note for her driver, but warned him not to worry her father about the trouble. He was useless to help, and if they managed to solve the calamity swiftly, he could be told later in a way that would make light of the adventure.

  But Anne feared that this would not be solved easily.

  ***

  As frightened as she was, Anne would not be bowed by Hiram Grover’s wickedness, and Darkefell was impressed once again by her fortitude. And yet a little maidenly trembling would have allowed him to take the role of comforter. He didn’t wish her to be less than she was though, and those moments when she did turn to him for strength were precious. It showed him more about her reliance on him than he supposed she knew.

  They rode back the way they came, then Anne directed him along an overgrown path that shot away from the main carriage trail toward a hill, beyond which he could see the peaked roof of a building of some sort. He had seen oast houses in Kent before, he supposed, but never taken notice, as their property, Hawk Park, was a simple hunting box with no home farm or acreage beyond some unfenced pasture. The rest was kept wooded and natural with only a game manager and his wife in attendance.

  “Is that the place?” he asked, pointing to the peaked roof visible beyond the rise.

  “Yes,” she replied. “It is the first oast house on Harecross property, built when my grandfather began to plant the crop many years ago. I believe it’s used for storage right now.”

  “How long will it take Sanderson to arrive?” asked Darkefell. He well remembered how useful the laconic driver was in the trouble in Cornwall, lending his strength and silent presence whenever and wherever needed.

  “A half hour or more,” Anne said. “We can’t wait for him, though! Who knows what that man is doing to poor Jamey.”

  “Calm, my dear Anne!” He turned his mount left and trotted along the hill toward a wooded patch that appeared to run behind the oast house. He leaped off Golden and helped Anne down, then looped the horse’s reins over a nearby branch.

  “Why aren’t we closer?” she asked.

  “Do you want to announce our presence?” he said, taking her hand. “Stay close to the trees.” He hunched down, pulling her toward the edge of the woods. “Let’s observe for a moment. Nothing will be gained by blundering into trouble.”

  “Of course,” she murmured, stumbling over the brushy ground. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  They crept along the wooded edge, startling a covey of partridges that flew up from the grassy patch by a dead thorn bush. “Are you sure this is the building?” Darkefell murmured, after they watched it for a few minutes but saw no discernible activity. One part was a square brick tower, about twenty feet tall, and a long low building adjoined it. They crouched in the brush slightly to one side of the barn portion.

  “Yes. This oast house is further from the fields than the others, which is one reason Mr. Destry, my father’s land steward, has been considering having it torn down. It hasn’t been used for years.”

  “Why does it still stand then?” Darkefell said, irritated by such laxity in governing the estate. “Why has no decision been made?”

  “Mr. Destry is ill and too old to be effective, I think, but Father will not hear of pensioning him off, since he’s the sole support of a family. I’m going to try to convince my father to hire the man an assistant.”

  “For an estate this size?” Darkefell said, his tone dismissive. “Shouldn’t be necessary.”

  “Tony, it’s not your business,” Anne said sharply. “You pointed out it is not my property, but it isn’t yours, either. Can we just keep on the business at hand?”

  “I know you’re worried,” he said, putting one warm hand on her shoulder. “Let’s consider our course of action, as it will be some time before we can expect Sanderson and your men. If we tried to tackle this alone we could endanger your brother’s life, and I know you wouldn’t want to take that chance.”

  They crouched in the long grass, concealed by a cluster of bushes, and talked quietly for a few minutes while they watched the oast house for signs of movement, but when tears began to flow down Anne’s cheeks, all Darkefell could think to do was hold her. He pulled her into his lap and held her head against his shoulder, letting her sob out her worries.

  Not being a naturally weepy woman, she soon recovered and moved away, scrambling awkwardly off his lap and landing in a clump of yellow grass. She wiped the tears from her eyes and cleared her throat. “How I wish I had that devil here right now,” she said. “Why did he not just leave the country, once Pomfroy bungled everything and let him loose? That is what any sensible person would do.”

  “I’m afraid he’s gone too far to make me believe he is anything but insane now.”

  “For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do,” Anne said. “I am absolutely paralyzed with indecision. If we make the wrong move, Jamey could die.” Her voice caught and she choked back a sob. “I couldn’t bear that; I just couldn’t bear it!”

  “Look,” Darkefell exclaimed, rising up on his knees.

  Anne turned her gaze toward the oast house but didn’t see anything to warrant Darkefell’s excitement until a flash of red in the side window of the storage section caught her attention. It moved. “Jamey!” she gasped. “I think that’s likely Jamey’s favorite jacket, red wool. He’s army mad and had to have a red jacket. Damn that man … my poor frightened Jamey! We must go get him.”

  She began to rise up, but Darkefell grasped her habit skirt and she fell onto her bottom, pulled down by one sharp tug.

  “Stop!” Darkefell said, gripping her arm with one hand. “Anne, I’m the last person to preach caution, but we don’t know what Grover has in there. Or even that he’s alone.”

  She took in a long shuddering breath and slumped down. “You’re right, of course. It would do me no good at all to charge in there and become a prisoner along with him.”

  They waited. The rattle of a cart in the distance, approaching, caught her attention and she touched his shoulder. It was, indeed, Sanderson, though he approached circuitously. He had three of the sturdiest and most intelligent of the grooms in the cart, and two were armed with pistols used for dispatching sickly animals.

  Anne swiftly informed her driver what was going on, for Dorcas had given him only a vague and garbled account. Darkefell pointed out that as the oast house was on the edge of the woods, that back side was likely the best direction from which to approach it, with the trees to screen their movement.

  “There are no windows on the back side,” Anne added, “just on the front and sides to let in daylight.”

 
It would be pointless to tell Anne to stay out of the way, Darkefell knew. It was her brother, but even if it hadn’t been, she had shown herself intrepid, and willing to risk any danger in the pursuit of justice. His only choice was to do all he could to keep her safe. Sanderson took charge of the grooms, and the entire group slipped into the woods to approach the oast house from behind. Darkefell touched Anne’s arm and beckoned the others, once they got closer.

  “We are not at all sure how many may be in the oast house, or where in the house they are. We saw movement in the barn section.”

  Anne said, “The door between the kiln and shed could be open, so they could be anywhere inside.”

  “Our intent is this: first, we wish to free Lord James,” Darkefell continued. “You all know him by sight. Hiram Grover is his captor. He is an older man, stout, bandy-legged. I have not seen him since he escaped captivity, so I do not know what he wears, or if he is still bewigged.”

  “Sanderson,” Anne said, “while his lordship and I distract Grover and try to free Jamey, you and your men secure the rest of the oast house and make sure there are no others. You may be able to trap Grover, I don’t know. I can’t imagine they would be in the kell, for the upper floors are in terrible shape, likely to break through after a leak in the kell roof.”

  Sanderson nodded.

  “I beg your pardon,” Darkefell said, “but I’m not sure I understand what a ‘kell’ is?”

  “I’m sorry, Tony,” Anne said. “That’s a local word for the kiln. The upper floors of the kiln section—the tower, you know—are constructed of thin slats covered by horsehair to allow the heat to circulate through the hops and dry them for bagging. Walking on the kell floors, especially after years of abandonment, would not be wise, as they are inclined to be precarious.”