by Joan Smith
The carriage glided to a smooth stop and within seconds Sykes appeared at the window. He didn’t wait for a question, but spoke at once.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he said, smiling.
“You do mind reading as well?” Salverton inquired.
“No, your lordship. After h’investigation, I concluded there’s nothing in it. It’s a bogus sham. But I fancy I know what’s troubling you. You’re wondering why you don’t see water. I’ve taken a shortcut.”
“I fail to see how there can be a shortcut when the road from Brighton to Rottingdean is straight. The shortest distance between two points—”
Jonathon nodded to indicate his knowledge of geometry, and spoke on before Salverton had finished his lecture.
“You’ve not heard of the construction work going on. I wager it’s not important enough to be bruited about London, but nothing else is spoken of in Brighton. There is a detour set up that takes you four miles out of your way. I’ve avoided it by taking this back road a mile north of the main road. I’ll have us back on the main road before you can say Jack Robinson, and the little lady will have a fine view of the moon shining on the water.”
“How did you know!” Samantha exclaimed in delight. “I believe you are a mind reader, Mr. Sykes.” Salverton stiffened to hear his coachman promoted to Mr. Sykes.
Sykes peered through the shadows at her. “I know a romantic lady when I see her. I’m a bit inclined that way myself.” He lifted his hat and smiled.
“Thank you, Sykes. You may proceed,” Salverton said in a stiff voice.
Sykes returned his hat to his head and resumed his place on the box. As the carriage moved forward, Salverton turned a grim face to Samantha.
“It may be the custom for a servant to treat his employers as equals in Milford, Miss Oakleigh. In London, it is not the thing.”
“Sykes is not the usual sort of servant. He worked as a secretary for Lord Egremont, so he must be educated. He seems quite gentlemanly.”
Salverton made no claims to mind reading, but he knew instinctively it was not any gentlemanly quality on the counter jumper’s part that had caught Samantha’s interest. It was his bold, handsome face and flirtatious manner.
“He’s a forward fellow. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. He’ll be asking if he may call on you if you go on treating him as an equal.”
“I doubt he would drive all the way to Milford to call on me. Sykes is the sort who would have a string of girls in Brighton. Oh! There is the sea now, just as he said. How beautiful it is.”
Salverton was not the romantic sort who had ever taken much aesthetic interest in the sea. When he was a boy, he wanted to be a pirate. As a grown man, his interest in the sea was limited to storms that might ravage shipping or troops on their way to Spain. He looked at the sea now, and was struck at its beauty. The fat white moon cast a net of sparkling ripples on the black surface. He wouldn’t have been much surprised to see a mermaid emerge and flaunt her long tresses at the moon. One lone ship was scudding toward Brighton. Its white sails looked ghostly in the moonlight.
“Wouldn’t you love to be on that ship,” Samantha said in a softly yearning voice.
He looked at her, and saw the air of enchantment she wore. “I know a romantic lady when I see one,” Sykes had said. How had Salverton not sensed that streak in her? He had looked and seen only a provincial greenhead who was too outspoken for propriety. He hadn’t seen the provincial whose one trip to London had been spoiled by a foolish brother. If she had come to him when she arrived, he could have given her a romantic visit to remember for a lifetime.
When he asked her why she hadn’t come to him sooner, she had said she came to have fun, so she hadn’t bothered him. There was a facer! Was that how his relatives saw him—an object of overweening ambition, too busy to enjoy life? Worse—were they right? He usually spent a few weeks in Brighton every summer, but he had never before stopped to admire the moonlight on the water.
He suddenly wanted to talk to Samantha, to tell her he was not so averse to fun as she thought. But it was clear she was in no mood for conversation. She just sat gazing at that moon with such a wistful expression on her pretty face. It couldn’t be just the moon and the water. Only a love affair could cause that rapturous look. Who was she picturing on the boat with her? She said she didn’t have a beau.
After a mile of silence, the carriage drew to a stop at a gatepost. “The Laurels” was written in wrought iron in an arch spanning the stone gateposts. In the near distance behind the gate, a few lights could be seen between the swaying branches of trees that lined either side of the drive.
Sykes dismounted and decided to open the carriage door for the young lady. “Is the lad likely to do a flit if he hears us coming?” he asked Salverton.
“He might if he thinks it is Sir Geoffrey,” Samantha said to Salverton.
“I’ll draw the rig under the trees and we’ll go ahead on foot,” Sykes said.
“You may remain with the carriage, Sykes,” Salverton said. “You come with me, Samantha.” He offered her his arm. He hadn’t meant to call her Samantha. It was Sykes’s forward behavior that caused this need to display his closer relationship with her. Was he really sunk to competing with that jackanapes?
She linked her arm through his, smiled at Sykes, and she and Salverton began the walk up the roadway to The Laurels. Dark trees whispered on either side as the wind breathed quietly. In the distance, the lapping of water on the shingle beach echoed softly. The tang of salt and seaweed hung on the air. Salverton noticed none of this romantic atmosphere.
“When did you tell Sykes why we’re here?” he asked.
“At Winkler’s. Why? Should I not have done so?”
“I had some hope we might keep this excursion quiet.”
“Oh, is that all you’re worried about? I told Mr. Sykes it was a private matter. He won’t tell anyone,” she said unconcernedly.
“You put a deal of faith in a perfect stranger.”
She just shook her head at his jaundiced view of mankind.
As Sykes had said, the house was a little thatched cottage, done in the half-timbered style of the Tudors, and appeared to be of that ancient age. The place had a derelict air. Dust dulled the windows and the grass had grown long. Climbing roses had lost their grip and tumbled to the ground, where roses bloomed in profusion, filling the night with their cloying sweetness. No lights showed below stairs, but on the top floor two curtained windows emitted a dull glow.
“At least they’re sleeping in separate bedrooms,” Samantha said.
Salverton made no reply to this. He thought Darren an even greater fool if he was not even enjoying the woman’s favors after all his scampering about on her behalf.
“We'll frighten them to death if we knock on the door at this hour,” Samantha said.
“What are you suggesting—that we break in, or go away after coming so far?”
“No, we cannot leave.” She stepped up to the door and tapped timidly. The door knocker had been removed to prevent theft.
Salverton reached over her shoulder and delivered a much harder knock. They waited and repeated the knocking three more times.
“By God, I’ll kick the door in,” Salverton said, his ire rising at this shabby treatment.
“Allow me,” a voice at his shoulder said. It was Sykes.
“I told you to stay with the carriage,” Salverton barked.
“It’s safe as a babe in its mama’s arms. I drew into the roadway, just inside the gate. I thought you might need a strong arm.”
Salverton considered his own arm, or more probably his foot, quite capable of battering down the door.
“I’ll just open the door for you,” Sykes said, and drew out a ring of keys. He fingered them a moment while examining the lock. Then he selected one and inserted it. After a couple of jiggles the door opened.
“After you, Miss Oakleigh,” he said, ushering her in.
“The fellow’s a
ken smasher,” Salverton said in a low voice to Samantha as he followed her in.
Sykes overheard and replied. “No such a thing, milord. I only use my passe-partout in cases of necessity.”
They all went into the dark hallway. Samantha called up the stairs, “Darren! It’s Samantha. Come down.”
Salverton took one step after her and immediately received a blow on the head from a poker. It was administered by a servant in his nightshirt. It didn’t fell Salverton, but it hurt like the devil. A shower of red stars danced before his eyes. A string of expletives flew unbidden from his lips.
Before he could retaliate for the blow, a small, gray-haired gentleman in a silk dressing gown stepped out from the shadow, leveling a pistol at him. To complete the welcoming party, an elderly lady with an ordinary blue pelisse thrown over her nightgown and with her hair done up in papers advanced, wielding a riding crop.
“Send to Rottingdean for a constable, Gratton,” the man said to his footman. “Martha, get some ropes to tie them up. What is the world coming to, gangs of thieves and thugs breaking into a gentleman’s house!”
Visions of court, a scandal, losing his promotion and his bride reeled in Salverton’s head. He had never in his life been involved in anything so déclassé, and for it to happen at this time seemed extraordinarily perverse of fate. He was determined to keep his identity a secret at all costs. He’d pay the fine and hopefully escape with his reputation intact.
Martha lit a candle, the better to see the intruders.
“I'm so very sorry!” Samantha said, advancing to the gentleman. “This is a dreadful mistake. We thought my brother was here.”
The lady of the house mistrusted that fond smile that seized her husband’s face when he beheld Samantha. “A doxie!” she said in disgust. “You should be ashamed of yourself, miss.”
Sykes shouldered his way to the front of the group. “See here, my good lady, this is Lord Salverton and his friend what you’re deeneegrating.”
Martha held the lamp in Salverton’s direction and gasped. “Good God! So it is. Harold, this is Lord Salverton! Milord, I’m so sorry. But what are you doing here?”
Salverton recognized the woman then. She looked quite different with her hair screwed up in papers. He was more accustomed to seeing her in a feathered bonnet in assorted saloons. It was Mrs. Abercrombie, a bishop’s niece who had a precarious foothold in the homes of the great. Salverton cast a look of loathing on Jonathon Sykes.
“Mrs. Abercrombie,” he said, and bowed punctiliously while he rifled his mind for an acceptable excuse for breaking into her house in the middle of the night.
Chapter Five
Mrs. Abercrombie subjected Samantha to a hard stare that concentrated on her bonnet. “Who is your friend, Lord Salverton?” she asked.
“My cousin,” he said without giving a name.
Samantha, eager to ingratiate herself, stepped forward and curtsied. “Miss Oakleigh, from Drumquin, near Bath,” she said.
Mrs. Abercrombie made a careful note of the accent—provincial but decidedly ladylike. But then, no lady would be caught dead in that bonnet. “And are you on your way to London, Miss Oakleigh?” she asked.
“To Bath, from London,” Salverton replied. “A death in the family. Miss Oakleigh’s aunt passed away.”
“Who would that be, milord? Surely not your aunt, Lady Edith Blythe? I hadn’t heard she was ill.”
“Not my aunt, Mrs. Abercrombie. My cousin’s. I doubt you would know her.”
“But Brighton is hardly on the way from London to Bath.”
“I had planned only to deliver Miss Oakleigh to her—godfather,” he said, clutching at straws.
“Harold, pour his lordship a glass of wine while I slip upstairs and put something on,” Mrs. Abercrombie said. She was thrilled to death to have Salverton at her mercy, and determined to discover all the interesting details of this nocturnal visit.
Salverton was equally determined to thwart her. To forestall further questioning as to why he had chosen this cottage, he said, “You are too kind, ma’am, but we wouldn’t dream of disturbing you further. We were under the misapprehension that this was Sir Geoffrey Bayne’s cottage.”
“It is! We hired it from him for the summer. Our son, Peter, made the arrangement for us. The place has gone to rack and ruin. The gardens—but it’s impossible to hire a decent place in Brighton. I insisted I must get away from London. This is the best we could do. So Sir Geoffrey is Miss Oakleigh’s godfather, you say. I had no idea he was a friend of yours, Lord Salverton.”
“We are not close, as you may have guessed from my thinking he was holidaying here.”
“Is Miss Oakleigh actually related to Sir Geoffrey?” the lady persisted.
“Connected,” Salverton said. He reached to shake Mr. Abercrombie’s hand, bowed to the lady, and exited on a series of apologies for having disturbed them, and apologies from Mrs. Abercrombie for having coshed him.
“Well, that was a fine how-do-you-do!” Salverton exclaimed in disgust when they were safely outside.
“You were wonderful, Cousin!” Samantha exclaimed, and reached up to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for leaving Darren out of it.”
His look of surprise was for the unexpected kiss. Samantha misinterpreted it. “Oh, that’s not why you did it—to protect Darren, I mean. How foolish of me,” she said, her admiration fading. “It was Louise you were thinking of. But surely she would understand your helping a cousin.”
“Not in this manner. And not such a pretty female cousin.”
They began the walk down the road to the carriage. Jonathon Sykes kept pace at Samantha’s other side.
“Jealous, is she? If worse comes to worst, you could introduce us,” she said. “Then she’ll see I’m harmless.”
Glancing at Samantha’s mobile face in the moonlight, Salverton didn’t think Lady Louise would understand at all.
Sykes said in a conspiratorial manner to Samantha, “Ladies never understand when their beau goes out of his way to help a lady prettier than themselves, Miss Oakleigh.”
“You don’t know I’m prettier than Lady Louise, Mr. Sykes,” she replied with an arch smile that infuriated her cousin.
“If Lady Louise was as pretty as you, ma’am—no offense melord—the whole world would be talking of her,” was his bold reply. Samantha’s smile led him on to greater heights. “Bonnets would be named in her honor, her face would decorate shop windows, ballads would be composed.”
Salverton released his ire by saying, “It wasn’t necessary for you to tell the Abercrombies my name, Sykes. They didn’t appear to recognize me at first.”
“They would have afore the constable arrived.”
“You know that is true, Cousin,” Samantha said. “And I must say, it certainly turned the tide in our favor. She even apologized for having her servant hit you with the poker. Does it hurt?” she remembered to ask.
He fingered his forehead. "Yes, very much.”
“I shall put something on it when we get to— Where are we going from here?”
“We'll try the inns in Brighton.”
Sykes cleared his throat. “Miss Oakleigh must be fagged. The ladies haven’t our stamina, melord. They’re delicate flowers. It’ll be getting pretty late before we’re back at Brighton. Why not call off the chase until morning? If you’ll give me the description of Miss Oakleigh’s brother and his bit o’ muslin, I’ll have a run around town for you. If they’re in Brighton, Jonathon Sykes will find them, never you fear.”
“What do you say, Samantha?” Salverton said. He didn’t notice that he had called his cousin by her name this time. His mind was fully occupied in conjuring with the recklessness of visiting some inn overnight with Samantha, sans chaperon. Samantha noticed it, and wondered if that blow had done more damage than he realized.
“That is very kind of Mr. Sykes,” she said with a smile at their benefactor. “I am tired. Auntie and I were up at the crack of dawn preparing for ou
r trip, you know. To say nothing of being up half the night waiting for Darren to come home. Actually, I didn’t sleep at all.”
“Then you shall sleep now, and I’ll find Darren,” Sykes announced.
Salverton was in the position of having either to take orders from his servant or appear a monster by insisting that Samantha continue searching that night.
“Take us back to Brighton,” he said to Sykes. “I shall think about it while we go.”
Sykes gave Samantha a commiserating glance. Before hopping up on the perch, he went into the road and looked up and down.
“It is no matter if we’re seen,” Salverton told him. “Mrs. Abercrombie will soon spread the gossip.”
“I was wondering if that rider who followed us from Brighton is still on our tail,” Sykes replied.
“What rider!” Salverton exclaimed.
“We picked him up at the detour. Likely he was after us before that, but the road out of Brighton was busy. I didn’t notice him until we turned off the main road. I blame myself entirely for not noticing him and taking evasive action. You’d expect a mounted rider to pass an old rig like this, but he never did. When I sped up, he sped up. When I slowed down, he slowed down. He was following us right enough.”
“Who could he be?” Samantha asked in confusion. “Surely not Sir Geoffrey, hoping to find Wanda by following us?”
“That’s possible,” Salverton said. “Keep an eye out, Sykes. If you see him again, stop. I’d like a word with Bayne.”
“It was never Bayne,” Sykes said with great certainty. “Bayne never rides. He’s too fleshy and too lazy.”
Salverton shrugged his shoulders and assisted Samantha into the carriage, away from Sykes’s big ears. “Sykes’s mysterious rider was probably a stray traveler afraid to pass this derelict carriage in case we robbed him,” he said.
“Highwaymen are usually mounted, not riding in a carriage. I wonder if he was a highwayman! How exciting!” Salverton gave her a damping glare and watched as her smile faded. “Why do you want to speak to Sir Geoffrey?” she asked.
“I am hoping that if we repay his thousand pounds, he’ll withdraw his charge.”