by Joan Smith
“You will try to remember you’re with a lady, Sykes, and keep a civil tongue in your head,” Salverton growled.
“Seems to me it’s the gent what’s h’upset.”
On this cocky speech he strutted up the driveway and disappeared behind the back of the house. Salverton, thoroughly irritated, went toward the front door. Bad enough they had made this trip for nothing, without Sykes flaunting his lewdness in front of Samantha. He lifted his fist to hammer at the door, as there was no knocker.
Samantha twitched at his sleeve. “Don’t alert her we’re here, in case they’re in bed,” she said. “Never mind scowling like an angry mule, Edward. I’m twenty-two years old. Just try the door and see if it opens.”
“If they’re upstairs, it is only common courtesy to give them an opportunity to arrange their toilettes before we go barging in on them.”
“You’re right. And Sykes will catch them if they try to sneak out the back way.”
Without further ado, Salverton banged on the door. After a moment he banged again, and again, until it was clear the house was either unoccupied or the inhabitants chose not to answer the door.
When knocking failed, he tried the doorknob and found, to his considerable surprise, that it opened. Darkness had fallen during the interval since leaving the tearoom. Once inside, they advanced into pitch blackness. When Salverton bumped into a table, he felt about and found a tinderbox and lamp. He lit the lamp and held it aloft, looking all around.
They were in a wood-paneled entrance hall with a staircase leading above. Salverton called a few times. Upon receiving no reply, he looked around the hall. An archway opened on to a saloon on the left. A closed door giving on to another room was on the right. A glance showed him the saloon was unoccupied, but a clutter of journals on the sofa table and a wineglass spoke of recent occupancy.
Salverton went to the journal and picked it up. “It’s today’s Morning Observer,” he said to Samantha. “They’ve been here today. London’s morning paper wouldn’t be here until afternoon, I shouldn’t think. They can’t have left long ago.”
“There’s only one wineglass. It might be the caretaker’s. Shall we go upstairs and see if their things are here?”
“Very well.”
Samantha picked up a lamp and lit it before leaving. Even two lamps did not quite succeed in keeping the menacing shadows at bay. She feared a dark form would fly out at them, or a bullet. There were four bedrooms upstairs. In three of them, the beds hadn’t been made up. The bare mattresses, the dusty dressers, and general air of neglect spoke of long disuse. In the largest bedroom, however, the bed had a full complement of bedclothes tumbled in a heap at the end of the bed. A pair of gentlemen’s boots stood on the floor by the bed. A soiled shirt and cravat had been thrown onto a chair.
Salverton set his lamp on the dresser and took a quick look through the drawers.
Samantha put her lamp on the bedside table and examined the boots and linen. “These aren’t Darren’s. You could put two of him in this shirt. Sir Geoffrey’s a large man, isn’t he?”
“He’d weigh fifteen stone at least.”
“These must be his clothes. Have you found anything?”
“Just his spare linens.”
She looked at the bed and picked up a nightshirt, also of a large size. “This has been a complete waste of time,” she said in exasperation. “Oh, where can Darren be, Edward? I begin to fear Miss Donny is right, and that wretched female has lured him to Gretna Green.” Her voice quavered in fear.
When Edward looked at her, he saw her shoulders slumped despondently. Unshed tears glazed her eyes, but it was the trembling of her lips that caused the wrenching inside. He felt his heart twist in sorrow to see brave, lively Samantha so close to tears.
He went to her and put a consoling arm around her shoulders. “Don’t fret yourself, my dear,” he said softly. “We’ll find them.”
A hiccoughing sound issued from her throat. She daubed at her eyes with her knuckles. Salverton brought out his handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she said meekly. “I can’t ask you to waste any more of your valuable time on this. You have your work and—and Lady Louise.”
His arms tightened around her. At that moment the last place he wanted to be was with Lady Louise. “We’ll finish what we started,” he said.
Samantha looked up, and saw the glow in his eyes. She suddenly felt shy. “That’s very kind of you, Edward,” she said.
A shadow of a smile moved his lips. He didn’t speak, or even move, but just gazed at her a moment. She had the strange feeling they were alone in the universe, just the two of them, together. Not even the ticking of a clock disturbed the silent intimacy. Then he placed a fleeting kiss on her cheek.
“We’ll go back to London and try to pick up the trail there,” he said. “Wanda must have friends we could talk to.”
“Oh, dozens of them! She knows everyone—well, not the sort of people you would know, but she does have friends.”
They took up their lamps and returned below stairs. Salverton kept his arm around her waist. Their hips bumped familiarly as they descended. At the bottom of the stairs he looked at the closed door to the right of the entrance hall. On a whim, he opened it and peered into an oak-lined study with a big oak desk holding pride of place beneath the window. In the shadows he nearly missed the most interesting thing in the room. When he saw it, a gasp of astonishment hung on the air. He wasn’t sure whether it came from himself or Samantha.
He looked at her, and saw the lamp tremble in her hand. He grabbed it just before it fell to the floor. She clung to him as if he were a raft in a storm.
“Edward! Is he—”
“I’m afraid so,” he replied in a hollow voice.
There was no question that Bayne was dead. The quantity of blood on his waistcoat left no doubt, even if he hadn’t been sitting as stiff as a statue, his eyes staring blindly at the doorway. He seemed to be looking straight at them.
They backed out of the room and Edward set their lamps on a table. He didn’t feel capable of holding on to a lighted lamp.
“Was it Sir Geoffrey?” she asked, staring into the now-dark room.
Edward closed the door. “Yes.”
“Oh, Edward, you don’t think Darren—”
“We have no proof Darren was here.”
“But who else would kill him?”
“We don’t know what enemies he might have had.”
“We should report it,” she said reluctantly.
“Yes, but first I’ll get you out of here. I’ll take you to a hotel, and hire a carriage to take you to Miss Donaldson. We’d best extinguish these lamps.”
He turned the wick down until the flames guttered out, throwing them into utter darkness. Samantha clung to his arm as they headed for the front door. He was just reaching for the knob, when a loud knocking on the door brought them to a halt.
“Would it be Jonathon?” she whispered.
“He’s supposed to be at the back door. He wouldn’t knock.”
Without the necessity of further discussion, they turned and felt their way along the corridor, heading toward the rear of the house, stumbling over tables and chairs and finally banging into a closed door.
A loud voice echoed from beyond the front door. “Open in the name of the law!” Within two seconds the front door was wrenched open.
Salverton’s heart pounded in his throat. To his credit, his first concern was for Samantha as he wrestled with the door that had interrupted their flight. For a lady to be caught in such a predicament as this was unthinkable. He also realized it would do himself no good. He found the handle and got the door open just as Bow Street came pounding down the hall after them.
Once they were safe on the other side, Salverton held the door closed as the officer pushed against it.
“A chair!” he whispered to Samantha.
A wan ray of moonlight showed her they were in a dining room. She grabbed the nearest chair. Salver
ton wedged it under the doorknob, grabbed her hand, and they continued their flight. They soon found themselves in a kitchen. As they made a frantic search for the back door, they heard the chair under the doorknob give way. Footsteps came hounding after them.
“Stop in the name of the law! Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
“I can’t find the bloody door!” Salverton said in a frantic voice.
Even as he spoke, a door opened and a cool breeze entered the room. A sibilant whisper called, “Here, lads, this way!”
“Thank God for Sykes,” Salverton said, and pulled Samantha out the door into the yard, slamming the door behind him.
Sykes rammed a rake against the door to impede the officers’ progress. “Follow me,” he said, and led them off through a garden, trampling early peas and carrots as they fled. “I’ve got the lay of the land. Right this way. Watch your step now. Ha-ha.”
Salverton thought it a strange time to be laughing, but then, Sykes probably took all this for a prime joke. He didn’t know Sir Geoffrey’s corpse was in the study.
Sykes led the way, running pell-mell through a meadow, ducking around bushes and an occasional tree. “Watch your step—ha-ha,” he called, and vaulted nimbly forward.
Salverton followed. Not realizing why Sykes had suddenly decided to leap like a deer, he fell into the ha-ha, pulling Samantha in behind him. She landed in a heap in his lap, her arms and legs splayed in a most unladylike pose. The bottom of the ditch held a few inches of mud after the spring rains. And to complete his misery, he feared he had twisted his ankle rather badly. It was the perfectly wretched conclusion to a perfectly wretched visit.
As Edward felt the cold mud ooze into his clothing, Sykes’s bold face leaned in over them.
“I told you to watch the ha-ha. Lucky I noticed it. When I saw the cows behaving so proper and not eating Sir Geoffrey’s clover, I said to myself, “There’s a ha-ha hereabouts, and surely enough, there was. Here, take my hand, love.” So saying, his long arm extended toward Samantha.
It was the last straw that this upstart should not only come to Samantha’s rescue, but suddenly speak to her in this grossly familiar manner.
“Don’t touch her or I’ll kill you!” Salverton growled.
Sykes grinned. “In a bit of a taking, ain’t we, melord? Best come along before Bow Street decides to join the party.”
“Don’t be so silly, Edward,” Samantha said, and lifted her hand to Sykes, who pulled her out of the ditch in a trice. Edward clambered out after her, unaided. Mud dripped from his jacket and the seat of his buckskins. When he made the error of putting on his hat, muddy water leaked over the brim to trickle down his face and besmatter his cravat. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. At least he could stand on his wrenched ankle. It hurt like the devil, but it wasn’t broken.
“Just come along to the carriage, Samantha. Here, take my coat. I don’t want you catching a chill,” Sykes said. He removed his jacket and put it around her shoulders.
“Oh, thank you, Jonathon,” she said, shivering into it. Sykes led her toward the carriage, with Edward limping along behind until Samantha made Sykes wait for him.
“What happened to put you into such a pelter, melord?” Sykes asked. “More than that bit of a tumble, I’m thinking.”
“Sir Geoffrey’s been murdered,” Salverton announced.
Not even this could phase the imperturbable Jonathon Sykes. “Good riddance,” said he. “Your brother did it, do you figure, Samantha?” he inquired with no air of condemnation.
“Certainly not.”
“Then we’d best get busy and find out who did, eh?”
Salverton drew a weary sigh. He could hardly cut up at Sykes as he wanted to, when he had just saved them from arrest, and would be required to help them out of this predicament.
Samantha noticed that Edward was limping, and began to make a great fuss over him. This did much to ameliorate his mood. He had stopped scowling by the time they were in the carriage and on their way back to Tunbridge Wells.
Chapter Fifteen
At the outskirts of town, Sykes stopped to discuss with melord where he wished to be taken.
“At least we don’t have to worry about reporting the death to the constable,” Samantha said. “Bow Street knows about it.”
“The thing to do,” Salverton said, “is to get you home safely, Samantha. I feel it’s my duty to stay here and tell Bow Street what I know.”
“You won’t tell them about Darren!” she said, aghast.
“They already know of Darren’s involvement. They questioned you regarding the theft, in London. My hope is to divert their suspicion to—other areas,” he said vaguely.
“Wanda has a finger in it, I don’t doubt,” Sykes threw in, and for once didn’t receive a scowl from melord.
“Very likely, and there’s Fletcher, as well, who was in the vicinity.”
“But how can I go home?” Samantha asked.
“I’ll arrange it,” Sykes offered at once.
It went badly against the pluck for Salverton to ask Sykes to drive her to London. There was no saying what advantage the scoundrel would take of a helpless lady.
“Lord Salverton will need you here, Mr. Sykes,” she said.
“Nay, I didn’t mean I’d drive you myself. I can arrange something with a pal.”
Conveyance by a “pal” of Sykes’s was not what Salverton wished, or was ready to accept.
“I’d rather stay here with you, Edward,” Samantha said with a wheedling pout. “I can’t go on the public coach in my present state of disarray. They wouldn’t even let me into a polite inn to clean up, looking like a scarecrow.”
Even in the shadowed carriage he could see she had not fared much better than himself in the ha-ha. Her bonnet was destroyed, her hair tumbling down, and her gown no doubt as dirty as his own buckskins. As Salverton wanted to keep her with him, it didn’t take much wheedling to convince him.
“I daresay you’re right. It will be for only a day,” he rationalized. “We’ll ask around and see if Wanda and/or Darren were here. They might have come planning to use The Laurels. They wouldn’t have stayed here when they found Sir Geoffrey at his cottage, but we might pick up some word of their destination at a hiring stable. I wonder why Sir Geoffrey did come to Tunbridge Wells at this time.” He looked to Jonathon.
“Chasing after Wanda and her lad, very likely. He might have known she brought fellows here in the past. We’ll never know for sure, nor does it matter a brass farthing to us. He came, worse luck for him. What you both need is somewhere to wash the muck off yourselves and get into some clean, dry duds,” Sykes said.
“Do you have anything to suggest?” Salverton asked.
“That pal I mentioned, Herbie O’Toole. Him and his missus run a rooming house. They won’t blink at the condition of your duds. I can get you a good price.”
“Never mind the price. Is it decent?”
“Top of the trees. They’ve had doctors staying there, and a schoolteacher.”
“High society, indeed!”
“Aye, it’s a flash ken. Herbie does a fair bit of business with priggers and prancers. He can sell you a change of clothes. A sideline, you might say, to change a fellow’s looks when he’s on the run.”
“Charming,” Salverton said. “Lead on.”
Sykes drove them to a rambling brick rooming house behind the Common. It was rigged up with a deal of crimson draperies and gilt trim and highly ornate, mismatched furnishings from second-hand dealers and estate sales. But it was cleanish, and there was plenty of hot water. The change of clothes was not only vastly expensive, but in poor taste. They regrouped in the gaudy saloon an hour later.
A jacket with wadded shoulders and a pinched waist lent Salverton the raffish air of a racetrack tout. Samantha wore a low-cut emerald satin gown that would have done justice to a demi-rep (and probably had). To tame its exuberance and conceal her bosoms, she wore a patterned shawl about her shoulders.
“That’s a bit of all right!” was Sykes’s opinion when he saw her. His blue eyes bulged an inch from their sockets. Then he turned to assess Salverton. “You don’t look so much like an undertaker in them duds, melord. Very niffynaffy, if I do say so myself. The muslin company will be all over you.”
Salverton hardly considered this a compliment, but Sykes meant well, and he accepted it with good grace.
“Was that the only gown O’Toole had?” he asked Samantha. He fully appreciated the effect of the gown. What brought that quick furrow to his brow was the knowledge that every hedgebird they met would also appreciate it.
“No, there was a bright red one as well, but I thought you might not like it,” she said demurely. “It was shockingly immodest. What should we do now?”
“Go on the strut on the Pantiles,” Sykes suggested. “If Wanda was here, that’s where she’d have been. Ask around of the ladies of pleasure.”
“I hardly think that’s a suitable thing for Miss Oakleigh to do!” Salverton exclaimed.
“Then I’ll do it myself, while you take Samantha for a glass of wine at one of the stalls. They play music at some of them in the evenings. She’ll enjoy that.” With a wink at Samantha, he added out of the side of his mouth, “You’d rather do that than sit here alone, staring at the walls, I fancy.”
Their discussion was interrupted by a loud banging on the front door. The clerk left his desk in the hall to answer it. Sykes put his finger to his lips to caution the others to silence. This seemed unnecessary to them, but as usual, Sykes knew what he was about.
“Bow Street!” a loud voice was heard to exclaim. “I have a warrant for the arrest of Jonathon Sykes.”
These were familiar words to Jonathon. He looked about the room for a door that wouldn’t pitch him into the arms of the law. Finding none, he headed to the closest window and raised it. Before leaping out, he said over his shoulder to Samantha and Edward, “Don’t worry about me if I’m caught. I’ll not mention you. You two get busy and find out who killed Bayne, or I’m for it.”