by Mary Nichols
‘What do you know about them, boy?’ Harry asked.
Joe glanced at him and then turned back to James. ‘What d’yew want to know?’
‘Anything you can tell us.’
‘They used to come into the tavern where Ma worked. That’s ’ow they got to know her and I ’eard them talkin’.’
‘Go on,’ James said quietly.
‘They said they ha’ heard there was treasure hidden at the Manor, but they didn’t know ’ow to get at it and then they heard about Sir Gerald being related to the ladies at the Manor and went and talked to ’im about it. ’E got real excited, they said, and dashed off to Highbeck. Didn’t do no good, so he bought those two a new suit of clothes each, so they could call on the old ladies and pretend to be interested in arch…’ He hesitated over the word.
‘Architecture,’ James supplied for him.
‘Tha’s it.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘They old ladies were too fly for them and they didn’t get past the door. They told Ma the ol’ fellow was furious he’d wasted his money on their rigs. But they meant to ’ave another try.’
James gave heart felt thanks that he had caught them before they could harm anyone at the Manor. ‘Thank you, Joe, you have been a great help.’ The gig was ready and he and Harry climbed in and drove off.
‘What was all that about?’ Harry demanded.
James explained about Sir Gerald’s sudden recently revived interest in the Manor and now he under stood why. ‘Smith and Randle followed us to Highbeck after they held up our coach, convinced Mrs Macdonald knew where the gold was, but they had no idea how to get into the Manor, nor where to look when they did. Somehow they discovered Sir Gerald was related to the Hardwick ladies and had been trying to claim the estate, and they set out to make his acquaintance. It would have been easy enough to play on his greed by talking about gold being hidden there. I am only guessing, but I am fairly sure that is what happened.’
‘And the boy?’
‘Joe? I once did him a little favour. He heard I was searching for them and helped us track them down.’
‘So for that you have taken him under your wing?’ Harry commented.
‘Yes. He didn’t exactly say so, but from what he told Sam, I am persuaded his mother is a lights kirt and not particularly careful of her son. I would give him a better start in life.’ James turned the gig into the yard of the jail and pulled up. ‘We shall soon see if my guess is right.’
Amy woke that night to see a dark shadow pass across the window. She thought at first it was a branch of the tree, moving in the blustery wind, but then realised with a start that it was inside her room. There was someone creeping towards her bed!
She sat up and screamed at the top of her voice and kept it up until the intruder dived at her and clapped his hand over her mouth. ‘Be quiet, can’t you.’ She recognised Gotobed’s voice and bit his hand but, though he cursed loudly, he did not release her. ‘Where is it?’ he demanded. ‘Tell us where it is, and I will not harm you.’
She could not answer him for the hand over her mouth; the only sound she could make was a series of grunts as she tried to wriggle free of him.
‘Come on, tell us where ’tis hid.’ He twisted her arm behind her back, but took his hand from her mouth, holding it over her, ready to put it back if she began screaming again.
She gasped air into her lungs. ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’
‘Course you do.’ He jerked on her arm, making her cry out. ‘The gold. The gold your no-good husband promised me.’
‘I…I know nothing of any gold,’ she told him.
He raised his hand to strike her, but suddenly released his hold when Susan burst into the room in night gown and nightcap, brandishing a poker. Behind her was Harriet in a dressing robe and without her wig. Gotobed dived towards them, pushing them roughly aside as he passed them and took to his heels.
Harriet turned to Amy. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, Susan stopped him.’ She could not stop shaking. ‘But how did he get in? I checked on all the doors and windows before I came to bed. Where has he gone?’
‘We must rouse the men servants,’ Harriet said, picking up Amy’s warming pan and, taking the poker from Susan, beat it loudly. ‘Come on, men,’ she shouted, banging away near the open door. ‘He cannot be far away. Have at him.’
Amy, realising what her aunt was trying to do, picked up her candlestick and a metal tray and joined in the commotion. Soon doors were opening all along the corridor. Harry was the first to appear, followed by Sophie and her maid, who had stopped to put on dressing gowns. From the rooms above, the footmen tumbled down in their night-shirts. ‘Intruders,’ Harriet shouted. ‘After them.’
But no one knew in which direction to go. Then they heard foot steps running along the corridor, making for one of the turrets. Harry gave chase with the footmen close behind him.
Harriet turned back to Amy, who had slipped a robe over her night rail and was standing looking bewildered. ‘Are you certain you are not hurt, sweet heart?’
‘No, shocked, that’s all. I knew that dreadful man would not take no for an answer.’
‘He has gone now. Go back to bed and Susan will fetch you a tisane.’
‘I do not want to go back to bed. I know I shall not sleep,’ Amy said.
Harry returned without the fugitive. ‘What a rabbit warren this place is,’ he said. ‘You could hide an army in here.’
‘You mean you did not catch him?’ Amy whispered, eyes wide with fear.
‘Could not. He ran into the room above the draw bridge. Got out through the gap where the chain emerges. Went down it like a monkey.’
It was the one place Amy had not thought to check on her nightly rounds. ‘Will he come back?’ she asked.
Harry shook his head. ‘Not tonight.’
‘We must send for the Captain,’ Susan said promptly. ‘If anyone can catch him, he can.’
But James was already on his way.
Sam had spent the evening patrolling the grounds as the Captain had instructed him to do, pacing round the moat, and he had seen the man come down the chain and run across the grass. He had given chase, but had lost him in the copse and decided to wake James. ‘I never saw him enter,’ he said. ‘I reckon he went in earlier in the day and hid hisself.’
James had sent Sam to rouse the village men and institute a search while he ran to Blackfen Manor. The house was in an uproar, with everyone trying to talk at once, and it was some time before he could make sense of what had happened. ‘Amy, are you hurt?’ he asked, putting his arm about her and drawing her towards him.
‘Shaken, but not harmed,’ she said, feeling in finitely better now he had arrived. ‘It is thanks to Susan. She was so brave. If she had not heard my screams…’ She was shivering like an aspen. He took off his coat and put it about her shoulders, then led her to a sofa where he sat down beside her. ‘Better now?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
He blamed himself. He could have asked to stay in the house and would have been on hand to do some good, instead of taking Harry to Ely, where they had learned nothing more than they knew already; the prisoners had simply refused to speak. He had left Harry outside the Manor and gone home to his bed. Nothing would persuade him to leave her again until that miserable cur had been caught and arrested. He might not have had anything to charge him with before, but he did now and he would make sure the man felt the full weight of the law. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’
‘Gold, so he said. He kept asking me where it was. He said Duncan had promised it to him,’ Amy revealed.
Harry was looking smug. ‘I told you so,’ he said.
‘Gold!’ Matilda gasped. ‘We have no gold. Whatever was the man thinking of?’
‘The Arkaig treasure,’ Sophie put in. ‘Sir John hid it here.’
‘Nonsense!’ This from Harriet. ‘We would never have allowed it.’ She ushered the servants out to the kitchen to make a hot drink for them all.
/> ‘I know nothing of any gold,’ Amy said, looking from one to the other. ‘Truly I do not.’
‘But there was a bag of gold in your dream,’ James said, his heart in his mouth. The last thing he wanted was for Harry to be right.
‘But that was not treasure nor anything like it,’ she cried, looking from one to the other. ‘It was the proceeds of highway robbery. Jewellery and sovereigns taken from travellers. I remember now. It was what the men were quarrelling about. Duncan had been en trusted with looking after it, but he had disposed of it. It made the others very angry.’
‘But you said it was on the table in your dream.’
‘So I did.’ She paused as her brain suddenly cleared and she knew she had remembered everything. ‘But it was not there on the night Duncan was stabbed. I found it in the house several days before that and con fronted him with it. It was only then I learned the truth about what he had been up to. My dreams were so confusing, they merged the two events.’
James took her drawing from his pocket and smoothed out the creases. The men were there and the table, but there was no bag. He handed it to Harry.
‘Hmph,’ he said, tapping it with a well-manicured finger. ‘But those two evidently believed in the treasure and so did Gotobed. Now, why was that, I wonder?’
‘Because Macdonald teased them with it,’ James said, hugging Amy to his side.
Harriet returned with a servant carrying a tray containing a jug of hot chocolate and a pile of dishes and poured a drink for everyone. After that, Sophie announced her intention of going back to bed.
‘Yes, I think we all should,’ Harriet said.
‘I do not think I could,’ Amy said. ‘I should lie in that room imagining all manner of horrors and will never be able to sleep.’
‘Then you shall stay here,’ James said. ‘I will sit with you. Tomorrow we will decide what is to be done.’
Harriet gave him a disapproving look and Matilda smiled broadly. He did not care. Amy was safe in his arms and that was all that mattered. And if Gotobed was so foolish as to come back, he would find James waiting.
After a blanket had been fetched for Amy and everyone had left them, he sat at the end of the sofa with her head in his lap. ‘Go to sleep, sweet heart,’ he said. ‘You are safe now.’
‘I know. The trouble is I am wide awake.’
He pulled the blanket up to her chin and bent to kiss the top of her tousled head. ‘Do you want to talk?’
‘Yes. You see, my memory is as clear as day now.’
‘No gaps?’
‘I do not think so.’
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
‘I must. You have been so good and kind and it is important you know everything…’
‘No, it is not. I do not need to learn anything more if it distresses you to recount it. I know I love you without that, and will do so to the end of my days. It is the future, not the past, that concerns me.’
Startled, she tipped her head up to look at him. ‘Love me?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’ He was looking down at her with an expression of such tenderness, her heart leapt with joy. ‘Can you doubt it?’
‘Oh.’ What she had been about to say fled from her mind at the wonder of this. ‘I did not think you could.’
‘Could not love you?’ He chuckled. ‘How could I not? You are adorable and I adore you.’
‘But I am not good enough for you. I have been tainted by wickedness. My husband was a robber, an accomplice to murder and those men… They killed your wife. You cannot possible want anything to do with me.’
‘None of that was your fault, was it?’
‘No, but when I finally found out about Duncan’s stealing, I did not turn him in,’ she confessed.
‘Because you loved your husband?’
‘No, of course not. I doubt I ever did. I was taken in by his good looks and charming manners. I did not even know he was a gambler, until I found we were becoming very short of money. And then he always had an excuse. His patrons had not paid him and he needed canvas and paint in order to do his work and they were more important than food and clothes. Like a fool, I believed him. My jewels went first, then my best clothes…’
‘Poor darling. You do not need to go on.’
‘But I must. One day when I was cleaning the house—the servants had all been let go—I found a carpetbag full of jewellery and sovereigns in the back of a cupboard. I hauled it out and put it on the table in the kitchen. Then I sat and waited for Duncan to come home. He was very late and the worse for drink, but I con fronted him. He blustered and said he had been given it to look after by a friend who feared being robbed, but for the first time I realised he was lying. I told him to take it away, I would not have it in the house. I swear I knew nothing of Randle, Smith and Billings until they came to the house and demanded their share of it.’
‘Oh, Amy.’ He bent to put his lips to her forehead. ‘This can wait until the morning.’
‘No, it cannot. Don’t interrupt, James, please, or I shall never finish.’ He was dedicated to keeping law and order, to handing criminals in for the law to take its course. She had to tell all and give him the chance to turn his back on her if he wanted to. ‘What I did not know, until after he was wounded, was that he had gambled the entire proceeds of the robberies and lost. He said he had hoped to recoup and begin a new life and was sure the cards had been marked for he should have won. Even lying there bleeding, he could only think of the game.
‘When I asked him how he had come to such a pass, he said it was something he could not help. He had met those three men at a gambling den and was soon heavily in debt to them. When he could not pay, they offered him a way out—he must become a thief and pay them that way. He agreed and he used me to do it. He would take me to extravagant balls and concerts, where the wealthy gathered. I used to enjoy those occasions and assumed the money to pay for them came from selling his pictures. I never asked myself how it came about that at every function we attended someone lost valuable jewellery.’ She paused to look up at him, but his expression gave nothing away. ‘So you see, it makes me an accomplice.’
‘You did not know what was going on. I will fight to the death anyone who says otherwise.’
She smiled wearily. ‘Thank you, dear James, but that is not the worst of it. Duncan also confessed to me as he lay there wounded that one night, the four of them decided to hold up a coach on Hampstead Heath. What they did not know was that the coach had an escort. There was a fight and shots were fired. One of the guards was killed. Duncan and his friends fled in different directions, and because Duncan was the only one without a criminal past, he took charge of their loot, which was the bag I found. They waited until the hue and cry had died down, then came for their share. Duncan said he had hidden it for safety. They did not believe him and turned the house upside down searching for it. He taunted them, told them that that paltry bag of gewgaws was worth nothing, that he knew where there was a cache of gold bigger than they could ever imagine and it was all his for the taking. They demanded to know where it was and when he refused to tell them, there was a fight. Duncan picked up the knife to defend himself, but he was no match for them and they turned it on him. Afterwards they let me tend to his wounds while they played cards and drank them selves insensible.
‘It was then he told me to come to Highbeck, that he would give them the slip and follow me. If I had not been so angry with him, I do not think I could have left him but, God forgive me, I did. I slipped from the house and ran as hard as I could, intending to find help, but Billings had been listening to us and caught up with me. He said he did not want to hurt me, that if I helped him find the gold, he would make sure I was never troubled by the other two. He would not believe me when I said I knew nothing about it and forced me on to the coach to Highbeck.’ She gave a huge sigh. It had taken a great deal of courage to tell it all, reliving it as she did, and she was exhausted. ‘Now you know it all.’
‘My poor brave
darling,’ he murmured. ‘You have been through the fire, haven’t you? But it is all over now. No one will ever frighten you again, not while I have breath in my body.’
‘Oh, James.’ She reached her arm out of the blanket to put her hand to his face. He took it in his own and kissed the palm. It had the same devastating effect as it had before. She made herself think of something other than her undeniable desire for this man, this wonderful man who had said he loved her and had not condemned her. ‘But Gotobed is still free.’
‘Not for long. By now Sam will have the village men combing the whole village looking for him. They might even have found him.’
She sighed and leaned against his chest and shut her eyes. He put his arm about her and held her, remembering with a slight smile when he had held her like that on a horse, walking it daintily over the rutted road so as not to jolt her. He had had no idea at the time where that ride would take him and where it would end. He leaned over and gently put his lips to hers. ‘Go to sleep, my valiant one. Tomorrow we will talk of the future, not the past.’
‘Tomorrow,’ she murmured, half-asleep. ‘It is already tomorrow.’
He smiled, but did not answer. He might have dozed a little himself, but not for many minutes at a time; his ear was attuned to sounds from outside. But there was nothing except the rain beating on the windows.
When he heard the servants stirring, he woke her with a light kiss. ‘Wake up, sweet heart.’
She stirred and turned a sleepy smile on him. ‘James. Have you been here all night?’
He gently eased her into a sitting position and withdrew his cramped arm. ‘Yes, but now you must go upstairs and make yourself respectable before everyone swoons with shock at the sight of you.’
She turned to kiss him. ‘Did I dream it or did you say…?’ She stopped, overcome with shyness, which was not at all like her.
‘That I loved you? Yes, I did.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘But I do not remember you reciprocating.’
‘Oh, but I do, dear James, I do.’