Miss McHenry waited.
“Ashburton,” he said. It was Mother’s maiden name.
“Now you, Mr. Ashburton, seem to be a very helpful young man. And strong of back. And fluent in Arabic.”
“Parsi—the gentleman is Persian,” he said. “And I can speak only very little of it.”
Though he had become quite literate in that language.
“And modest too. I like that. Therefore I would like to propose that you come into our employ and be our…”
“General dogsbody?” he supplied.
Miss McHenry chortled. “Oh, goodness, I was going to say our valued assistant. Unfortunately we can’t pay you very much—it takes money to see the world. But we can provide for your food, lodging, and transport—everything decent, of course. And you will have fifteen pounds a year, in quarterly installments, for three years running—that’s how long we expect to be traveling. Don’t you think it is a tremendous opportunity? To be compensated for seeing the world?”
He couldn’t disagree. “I do very much think so, ma’am. Unfortunately I am traveling myself and have a tight timetable to keep.”
Miss McHenry’s face fell, a disappointment that felt genuine—and greater than what he would have expected on her part, for what must be an impulsive offer to a random stranger. Her sister, on the other hand, seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief.
“Are you sure we cannot tempt you?” said Miss McHenry rather urgently. “Eighteen pounds a year? Introductions to the lovely daughters of our friends in Cairo and Bombay?”
“It’s most kind of you, but I must regretfully decline.”
“Oh, well.” Miss McHenry’s shoulders sagged a little. “We don’t sail until day after tomorrow. You can always ask the reception to give us a message, if you change your mind.”
“I will remember that. Thank you for your generous offer, Miss McHenry.” He offered her his hand to shake. “And I hope you have a wonderful journey.”
Leighton debated with himself.
He could take a P&O liner on the eastern route via the Suez Canal. But the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company had a steamer leaving in two days that would deposit him at Colón, Panama, where he would take a train across the isthmus and then get on another steamer on the Pacific side. And that particular steamer would call upon San Francisco.
Did he dare visit Mother and Marland before setting sail across the Pacific?
Hobbling a little—his feet hurt with every step—he visited the ticket agent for the P&O line. Then, spying a chemist’s shop, he bought some bandaging and sticking plasters and dressed his feet so that they wouldn’t chafe so badly. Feet somewhat better and more than a little bold, he called on the ticket agent for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for more details concerning its passage to Shanghai via Panama and San Francisco, of which only the most skeletal information had been given in the Bradshaw.
As he was about to walk into the ticket agent’s office, a meaty hand took hold of him by the arm. “There you are, young Master Leighton. If you would come with us nice and easy, we will take you back to your uncle.”
For a moment his entire vision turned black; his head roared as if a tornado hurtled through. He turned to see a beefy man with a red face.
“Kindly unhand me,” he said. “You have the wrong person. My uncle is dead and I don’t see how you can possibly reunite me with someone six feet underground.”
“Cool as a cucumber, ain’t he?” said the beefy man to a smaller man next to him.
Leighton took an instant dislike to the other man, who had cold, calculating eyes. Compared to him, the beefy man looked almost jolly.
“My name is James Ashburton and I suggest you take your hand off me this instant.”
The beefy man chuckled. “Or what, young master? You are going to knock old John Boxer on his back?” He turned to the other man. “Show me the picture again, Jenkins.”
Jenkins brought out a framed photograph, an excellent likeness of Leighton, from Christmas last. Leighton had always thought Sir Curtis’s promise to send the pictures to Mother too much kindness. Now he knew he was right: Sir Curtis wanted his image captured only so that Leighton would be more easily found, should he choose to run away.
“See? That’s you. I’ll wager my last farthing,” said Boxer. “So why don’t you come with us, young sir? If we are wrong, then no harm done.”
“Of course there could be harm done! You could make me miss my steamer’s sailing.”
“Then I’ll have you booked for the next passage,” Boxer answered cheerfully.
There was no malice to his words—he was but going about the task he had been assigned, retrieving a wayward child and returning him to the bosom of his family. But there was also no room for bargaining: He clearly considered Leighton a minor who could not be relied upon to make his own choices.
And now he propelled Leighton firmly forward, toward a waiting carriage.
Leighton braced himself to face Sir Curtis, but the carriage was quite empty. Boxer and Jenkins sat down on either side of him, wedging him in tightly. At the railway station they each held one of his arms. On the train they again sat closely together, packed like matches in a box.
Leighton veered between panic and misery. He considered somehow breaking the window of the train and throwing himself outside. He considered screaming kidnap. But the former would probably give him broken limbs, and the latter would only bring him to the attention of the law. And the law, unfortunately, was squarely on Sir Curtis’s side.
He felt faint as they approached London, even fainter as they piled into a hansom cab. But he persisted in his protest. “You’ve got the wrong man, I tell you one last time. Aren’t you going to be embarrassed when whoever this uncle fellow is has to apologize? And make no mistake, I am going to report this to the police.”
“Then why haven’t you?” said Jenkins, his voice reedy and unpleasant.
“Because you would have made a scene. And I have been taught to never make scenes,” said Leighton, with as much certainty and scorn as he could muster. “Now, where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
“I already told you, to your uncle’s house in Mayfair,” answered Boxer.
How tightly secured was Sir Curtis’s house? Would he be able to effect another escape? And if he couldn’t, would he be able to tolerate the next almost seven years before he came of age?
Sir Curtis’s house was situated in the middle of a row of town houses, with redbrick facing, a wrought-iron railing, and a green park opposite. To Leighton’s surprise—and a sudden burst of hope—when his captors rang the bell, no one answered.
“Didn’t you wire ahead to say we were coming?” Boxer asked Jenkins.
“I did. Maybe we traveled faster than the cable did?”
“No, we can’t have, you blockhead,” said Boxer casually.
Jenkins gritted his teeth. “I don’t mean we traveled faster than the electrical currents. I meant the post office still needs to write out the message and then send it for delivery.”
“Still, it’s been at least two hours since we left Southampton. Ring again.”
Jenkins did, his jaw tight.
This time the door opened. The two men both drew in a breath at the sight of Lady Atwood.
She looked at each of them in turn, Leighton included, in that haughty way of hers. “Who are you and why are you calling at this residence?”
Leighton almost gasped in astonishment. “I am James Ashburton,” he said immediately, willing his voice not to shake. “I have no idea who they are, but they keep insisting I am someone I am not.”
Boxer lifted his hat. “We are men acting on Sir Curtis’s behalf. We’ve brought back his nephew from Southampton.”
“I am Lady Atwood, and I can tell you I have never seen this boy. He is not my nephew.”
Leighton hoped no one could hear his heart pounding—to him it was as loud as explosions.
“Are you sure, your ladyship?” Boxer asked u
ncertainly.
“Are you telling me I don’t know what my own nephew looks like?”
Her hauteur was daunting. Boxer shrank a little. “No, no, of course not. But you will agree that he bears a remarkable resemblance to the photograph we’ve been given.”
He gestured at Jenkins, who produced the photograph and extended it toward Lady Atwood. But Boxer snatched the picture from him and handed it to her himself.
Jenkins’s jaw worked.
“That isn’t my nephew,” Lady Atwood said coldly. “You had better come inside.”
They followed her to a dark parlor, its curtains drawn. She reached for a large silver-framed photograph on the mantel and showed it to the men. “This is my nephew. See the family resemblance?”
This was a boy of about seventeen, who looked very much like Lady Atwood. One of her brothers, probably.
“What have I been telling you all this time?” Leighton said. “I told you and told you and told you that you made a mistake. One of my mother’s cousins is a judge. How would you like to be sentenced for kidnapping?”
Boxer blanched.
“Now, now, young man,” said Lady Atwood, as impersonal as ever, “there is no need for unnecessary threats. My father was a judge, and I can tell you that in such circumstances, when an honest mistake has been made, it is quite unlikely for anyone to be prosecuted. But you have my apology, and these gentlemen will kindly escort you to Victoria Station and buy you a ticket for wherever you need to go.”
“That’s it? That’s all the recompense I am to receive?” said Leighton, since it seemed a reasonable thing to demand, if he had truly been kidnapped by mistake.
“Very well then.” She left the room for a moment and returned with a reticule. Reaching inside, she took out a few sovereigns and dropped them into Leighton’s hand. “Enough recompense for you?”
She was extraordinarily convincing, almost as if she’d had time to— Of course. If Sir Curtis was out arranging for Leighton’s capture, she would have been the one to receive the cable—and she would have had a bit of time to prepare.
Leighton was beyond grateful. He would like to thank her profusely, but doing so would jeopardize his newly regranted freedom. So he only nodded. “Very decent of you, ma’am.”
“Then off with all of you.”
“What about the photograph, ma’am?” asked Jenkins.
Lady Atwood turned an arctic gaze his way. “You no longer require the photograph, as you no longer work for Sir Curtis. I’ve had to dip into my own funds to buy off this young man. Do you think he would tolerate that sort of incompetence? When he comes, I will tell him that you have found better employment elsewhere.”
Boxer looked both defeated and apologetic, Jenkins just as tight-faced as before. Leighton hoped he appeared vindicated and appropriately scornful, rather than boneless with relief.
In silence they arrived at Victoria Station. From his own pocket, Boxer paid for a second-class ticket to Southampton for Leighton. “Sorry about all that, Mr. Ashburton.”
Leighton took the ticket from him. “I hope never to see either of you again. Good day, gentlemen.”
The two men left. Leighton breathed for what seemed like the first time this day. He climbed into his rail carriage, sat down, and bowed his head in prayers of thanksgiving.
A hand gripped his arm. He started.
Jenkins.
“What do you want now?”
“I want you to get off this train nice and quiet and come with me. Boxer is a fool, but I can always tell when a woman is lying. You are the one we’re looking for, all right. And this time I’m going to take you straight to Sir Curtis himself.”
Leighton felt as shattered a glass hurtled across the room. Was there to be no escape after all? Was he doomed?
“What is it to you? Why do you care so much?”
“There is a nice reward for your return, don’t you know?”
“How much?”
“Fifty pounds.”
“Let’s make a deal,” he said, his voice strangely calm, even as his head throbbed and his palms perspired. “If you walk out of this train, I will give you sixty pounds.”
Forty pounds would still get him as far as Bombay. He would worry about the rest later.
“You don’t have that kind of money.”
Leighton removed his right shoe with a wince and pulled out the three twenty-pound banknotes he’d put in there in the morning. “I do have that kind of money.”
Jenkins’s eyes narrowed. He was not a particularly unsightly man, but to Leighton he was all ugliness. “Take off your other shoe.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Take off your other shoe.”
Thirty seconds later, Jenkins had the other forty pounds from Herb.
Leighton was beginning to tremble. What would he do with less than ten pounds and half the circumference of the Earth to cover?
“Now your waistcoat.”
Leighton couldn’t even exclaim in dismay—a giant fist seemed to have closed around his throat.
“That’s right. Don’t think I haven’t felt the coins in the lining. Now hand it over.”
Leighton felt as if his entire person had turned to wood. He could almost hear his arm creaking like a rusted door hinge as he struggled out of the waistcoat. What was he going to do with no money whatsoever?
“And now the money the woman gave you.”
Leighton had forgotten the four sovereigns Lady Atwood had dropped into his palm. With that memory came a sudden infusion of angry resolve. Slowly he turned to Jenkins. “No.”
Jenkins was taken aback. “No?”
“No,” Leighton repeated, his voice low. He felt the weight of the syllable as it left his lips, a thing of substance, as cold and hard as an artillery shell.
Jenkins’s expression turned nasty. “Then how would you like to come with me after all? Another fifty pounds for me on top of everything else.”
Leighton realized that it had been Jenkins’s plan all along to bilk everything he could from Leighton, and then turn him over to Sir Curtis for the reward.
Strangely enough, he felt himself smile. “Guess what I will tell Sir Curtis when I see him? I will tell him that you took two hundred fifty pounds from me. And guess whom he will believe?”
Jenkins blinked.
“Have you any idea the lengths he would go to?” Leighton went on, his voice soft but vehement. “And you don’t look like a particularly law-abiding sort to me. Within a week he will find something on you that will have you arrested, if you can’t pay him back double what you took from me. You have five hundred pounds to spare?”
Jenkins recoiled, as if Leighton had suddenly developed a highly contagious disease.
“If I were you I’d go right now, before I decide that I want to punish you more than I want to get away from him.”
Jenkins’s left eye twitched. He looked at Leighton long and hard, then rose and left without another word.
A minute later, the train departed the station.
Leighton set his face in his hands and shook the entire length of the journey.
It was only tea time when he walked back into his hotel in Southampton. He could not believe it—he could barely remember the hope that had luxuriated in his heart when he woke this morning. Now he was free by the skin of his teeth, but all his plans of a swift reunion with Herb—and with Mother and Marland—had gone the way of soap bubbles under the sun.
Four pounds, and perhaps a stray penny or two in addition—that was still enough money to get to France, but just barely. Was it better to find employment here and save up some money first—or safer to at least put the English Channel between himself and Sir Curtis?
His head pounded, and he was weak with hunger—Boxer had offered him a sandwich en route, but the thought of food had turned his stomach. He dragged himself into the dining room. He really should not be eating here, now that his circumstances had been drastically reduced. But he was tired and afrai
d. And his feet, to which he’d paid scant attention since his capture, were once again hurting badly.
“Oh, look, Violet,” said a thin, elderly woman in a hat trimmed with a stuffed finch. “It’s Mr. Ashburton.”
The rather well-upholstered woman next to her nodded regally.
Leighton stared at them dumbly. He had a vague memory of having spoken to them at some point, aeons ago, when the world had been an entirely different place.
Recollection jolted through him. He stared at them some more. Then he was next to their table, hunger and blisters forgotten. “Miss McHenry, Miss Violet, good afternoon. You wouldn’t happen to be still in need of a general dogsbody, would you?”
Chapter 18
The Tea Set
From Southampton, Leighton and the misses McHenry sailed to Madeira.
Given his employers’ age and ready confession that they were no sportswomen, Leighton had expected a gentle itinerary. But the misses McHenry wanted Adventure.
Each morning they rose at dawn and set out on horseback up narrow roads so steep that Leighton feared someone in the party would tumble backward. Then they would dismount, send the horses back, consume a hearty breakfast, and proceed on foot for the hike proper.
The landscape of Madeira was like nothing Leighton had ever experienced before, all sheer cliffs and precipitous gorges, unbearably breathtaking, and almost unbearably arduous for the uninitiated.
His first three days were sheer agony. Not his feet, thankfully—his blisters had healed during the steamer passage, and the misses McHenry had bought him a pair of laced-up boots made of soft, pliable leather, well suited to the demands of the terrain. But his muscles, entirely unaccustomed to the sustained exertion required for the almost vertical climbs and the equally steep and even more treacherous descents, screamed constantly in protest.
The Hidden Blade: A Prequel to My Beautiful Enemy (Heart of Blade) Page 18