Necessary for Charlotte, and for their benefit. If she was thought to leave her family behind, Randolph’s attention would leave the vicarage.
Once the servants had returned to their cooking, Charlotte said quietly to Benedict, “Potter at the Pig and Blanket saw me—I mean, Barrett—with influenza. Only put it about that I’ve fallen ill again—Barrett, I mean—and I shall be able to stay in the house without arousing suspicion.”
“The pronouns are perfectly clear,” he said drily. “But what have you gained by this plan, if you’re only to be trapped again?”
“I’m not alone this time. I get to be with all of you. And together, we’ll decide what to do.” She dared a brush of fingertips over his cheek, surprising a smile from him. “Maybe we’ll find that treasure yet.”
Chapter Sixteen
Aha. There she was: Georgette Frost. After searching three different coaching inns, Hugo knew at once when he’d found her. That improbable fairy-pale hair was unmistakable, though she’d tucked it up under a cap.
She seemed to think she’d disguised herself as a boy. Not only the cap, but breeches and a strange short jacket. Sitting on her traveling trunk, chewing on a straw, chatting with a grizzle-haired burly fellow in rough workman’s clothes.
And she was spitting.
Hugo gritted his teeth.
He shouldered through the crush of impatient travelers, grimacing as an inebriated man weaved into him and splashed . . . something . . . onto his coat.
Wonderful. Now he reeked of cheap liquor and his coat was stained. He’d have to return to his town house to change his clothing before his afternoon meeting with Banks, the President of the Royal Society, at Somerset House. Another unexpected errand; another window of time snatched from his day of scholarship.
Still. It had been unthinkable not to go in search of Georgette. And now that he had located her—well, when he reached her at last, perhaps his hand came down on her shoulder more fiercely than he had intended.
“See here, Georgie,” he growled. “You can’t think to leave like this.”
She jerked, the straw falling from her lips to the ground. “Lord Hugo! How—what are you doing here?”
Her newfound friend regarded Hugo with great suspicion. “You know this man, eh, young fellow?” he asked Georgette.
“Of course sh—he knows me.” Hugo caught hold of the collar of Georgette’s jacket. “He’s my nephew.” That sounded plausible. There had to be at least ten years’ difference between his and Georgette’s ages. Warming to his tale, he added, “He stole his dying mother’s silver and broke her heart. I’ve come to bring him home to make amends.”
“I never did such a thing!” she gasped, a tolerable impression of a youth with a cracking voice. “Look at the state of him. He’s drunk. As usual. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
When she started to squirm out of her jacket—wouldn’t that give the other travelers a show—he put a warning hand atop her cap. One gesture, and all that hair would be falling down around her shoulders.
She knew it, and went instantly still. “So drunk,” she repeated, pleading.
The burly man looked doubtful. “But you called him Lord something-or-other?”
“He likes that,” she said ruthlessly, “but he’s really nothing of the sort. I do it to make him happy so he won’t hit me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Hugo folded his arms. “Yes, Lord, and here is my signet ring. I do not hit, I am not drunk, and this young criminal ought not to be here.”
Georgette coiled as if ready to make a break through the crowd, and Hugo’s hand shot out and collared her again. “See? He wants to escape the consequences of his lies. Can’t believe a word out of his mouth.”
A pretty mouth. He could hardly believe she had fooled anyone into thinking she was a boy. But he supposed people saw what they expected to see; most weren’t as skeptical as Hugo.
The chunky gold ring had its usual dampening effect; the grizzle-haired man’s sympathy turned toward Hugo. “Look here, young fellow,” he said to Georgette. “I can’t be involved in the affair of a lord. If he’s your uncle, you’d best go with him.”
Hugo hauled her to her feet. When she managed to kick him in the shin, he put a warning hand atop her cap again. “Come along now, Georgie. No need to make a spectacle of ourselves.”
Half walking, half dragging her, they pushed through the crowd—until she set her feet. “Wait. My trunk.”
“Go fetch it, then.”
She folded her arms. “Aren’t you going to help me with it?”
“You can carry it yourself, you strapping lad.”
Because she smiled at this—just a touch at the corners of her lips—Hugo took the trunk’s handles for her once she wrestled it from the waiting area over to him.
Just for the sake of expediency. His carriage wasn’t far, but their progress would be quicker if he carried the trunk. As soon as they came within sight of it, the coachman hopped down and helped them stow it.
They clambered into the carriage and sat facing each other on the soft velvet squabs. In the comfortable interior, Georgette’s disguise looked even more pitiful, her ill-fitting boy’s clothing shabby and her shoes split and worn.
As the carriage wheels began to turn, Hugo drummed his fingers impatiently on his thigh. “Where did you get the money for the ticket?” The question came out harsh.
She raised a pale brow. “I stole my dying mother’s silver, remember?”
Hugo glared.
She rolled her eyes. “I had money enough saved for my ticket and these clothes. Cousin Mary pays me a bit.”
“Not enough.” Hugo had called at Frost’s Bookshop once out of duty to his friend Benedict, and he’d been startled to find the man’s sister carrying a stack of books and baby laundry. Again and again, up and down the stairs the entire time he was in the shop. Georgette Frost worked harder than any housemaid he’d ever encountered.
After that, Hugo stopped in as often as he could. After all, a fellow had to buy his books somewhere.
“Imagine my surprise,” he said, “when I called at Frost’s Bookshop this morning and learned you had left to visit me in the country.”
She pressed herself back against the squabs, tucking her chin. “What did you tell my cousin? Did she fret much?” She sounded worried.
Not for herself, but for someone else’s sake.
Hugo sighed, his annoyance ebbing as he exhaled. “No, you wretched minx. I told her that my travel plans had changed and that I’d be driving you.” He frowned. “Apparently I was so excited about seeing you that I forgot to send a note. My apology was abject.”
“She must have been exhausted if she believed all that.”
“She was glad to believe it. She wants you to be all right.”
Georgette looked out the window. “That makes one person, at least.”
“Your brother wants that, too.”
“Right.” She scoffed. “Benedict is so concerned about my welfare that he can’t be bothered to call on me when he’s in London.” She shook her head, turning to fix Hugo with ice-blue eyes. “And yet I planned to meet him in Derbyshire. I really am as wretched as you said.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.” Hugo had a distinct feeling he’d be missing his appointment at Somerset House that afternoon. “And yes, I know where your brother is. But where do you wish to go?”
* * *
The week that followed was, Benedict thought, like the eye of a storm. On one side lay the conversation Charlotte had dreaded; at the end of it would come the exhibition of Edward Selwyn’s portraiture.
Tension vibrated in the air, making the fine hairs of his arms prickle and stand on end. It was contagious, Charlotte’s worry. Despite her brave words upon her return from Leeds, he could not imagine what they were to do next. She could not leave the house, since she was meant to be both Barrett and ill.
Benedict made his way into Strawfield once, but no matter whom he asked, he
’d been unable to find Lilac to ask after the dagger. And there was no purpose to searching for gold alone; it had no smell or sound, and he could be literally atop it without knowing.
So the week felt like a waiting time, with nothing to do but exist. And a waiting time always made Benedict think about leaving. About where he could go next, because going somewhere—even if he turned right around when he reached his destination—was better than feeling the cage close in around him again.
There was no more chance for him to be alone with Charlotte. With Barrett gone from the household, everyone had more to do. Still, one evening, they found a few minutes to settle in the parlor with his manuscript, and she read a bit out to him.
“‘Behold me then, in France! surrounded by a people, to me, strange, incomprehensible, invisible; separated from every living being who could be supposed to take the least interest in my welfare, or existence . . . But I had determined not to give way to gloomy reflections.’”
“Pompous ass,” muttered Benedict.
Charlotte cleared her throat and continued on. “‘Therefore, I wished my host a good night, and being left to myself, soon regained that contented frame of mind which is indispensable to those who mean to pass smoothly, and happily, through this scene of mortality.’”
He sagged against the rigid back of the sofa. “It reads like it all happened to someone else.” He could hardly remember writing those words, could not remember feeling such rootless, determined optimism. Where to be, what to do next—all his own choice.
With no one outside himself caring one bit.
“I don’t know,” said Charlotte. “I did like the anecdote about the maid in Calais who insisted on helping you undress. This falls closer to my heart, though.”
“If it helps, living through the events, I liked the part where the maid helped me undress much more than I liked this part.”
She laughed, and read some more, and when she was done he was glad to put the manuscript away again.
Another day, a letter arrived for Benedict. Franked, which meant it was from Hugo.
Charlotte met him near the stable, where the breeze ruffled their hair and Captain barked a greeting, and she read out the letter’s contents to him. “He intercepted your sister, Georgette, on her way to Derbyshire, and he is taking her to stay with his mother.” She folded the letter with faint rustlings. “Lord Hugo’s mother is a duchess. How fancy for your sister. Will she like that?”
“Probably. I don’t know.” He took the letter from Charlotte and crumpled it, as though he could chastise his sister with the gesture. “She was on her way here? Honestly. Georgette.”
“I should have liked to meet her,” said Charlotte.
“I should have, too,” said Benedict. And he meant exactly that: he should have met her. He should have called on her, even if it would have meant stepping into a cage when he did so. “I haven’t visited her for a long time. I hate the bookshop.”
“Your family’s bookshop?”
“Yes.” Captain’s long chain jingled, and he crouched and held out a hand so the dog might come to him. “I was never able to read worth a damn. I learned the alphabet by heart as a child, and how to spell more useless long words than most scholars. Except Hugo,” he added drily. “As long as I worked aloud, I was all right. But on a page, letters squirmed and tipped like drunken snakes.”
“Can snakes become drunk?” She crouched at his side, and Captain jingled over to her instead. “Never mind. The image is vivid enough. I do understand, a bit, of—of not feeling like one belongs in one’s own family.”
“I know.” He squinted his sightless eyes toward the sun. “I know you do.”
“What about your sister?”
“She was only three when I went to sea, and she was already reading better than I. Georgette is a brilliant girl. She’s wasted in that bookshop.”
“Does she think so?”
Impatient, he stood, shaking out his legs. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she likes or doesn’t like. All I know is she doesn’t think I care for her or will provide for her future.”
“And so she intends to do it herself. That is admirable.”
“How is it admirable?”
She stood too, and Captain gave a whine of neglect. “Benedict, please recall to whom you are talking. I made my own fortune—and before you shudder with disgust, not entirely on my back.”
“I am not disgusted by anything you do. Or have done.” This was perfectly true, and he hoped she would believe him.
“Yet you would not want your sister to live my life.”
He hadn’t thought of that, exactly; he’d only been thinking that he ought to take care of his only living relative. But now that she asked the question: “Would you want that sort of life for Maggie, Charlotte? Not only the luxurious bits, but the sad and lonely parts? The parts where you had to say yes when you wanted to say no? Or how it all ended, with you selling off everything you owned and leaving your home of the past decade?”
She kicked at the chain, scooting it over the ground. “No. No, I would not want that.”
“Should it please the court,” he said, “I’m glad your life brought you to Strawfield so I could meet you. I know it will bring you somewhere wonderful next.”
He sighed. “As for my sister—damnation. If she’s with Hugo, he’ll keep her safe.”
He still ought to find the money for her, to secure whatever came next in her life. A visit to a duchess could not last long. One could not live eternally as a guest, sponging off the kindness of others.
As he knew, and felt more deeply every day.
* * *
As the week wore on, Charlotte became desperate to leave the vicarage and collect news. She ventured out veiled, in her Mrs. Smith guise, since she could be neither herself or a healthy Barrett.
The arrival of illustrious guests, put up in the grand Selwyn House, had stolen the village’s attention from the reward seekers and the missing gold sovereigns. A lord in the hand was worth fifty thousand pounds worth of ephemeral coins with the king’s head upon them.
The day before the exhibition, before she ventured into Strawfield, she made Benedict promise to attend it with her the following day. “If it’s awful,” she said, “at least you will not know quite how bad.”
“Why should it be awful?”
She glared at him, which he seemed to feel. “Right, right.” He lifted his hands. “Randolph. Devilry. Strange place for an exhibition. It’s possible that—”
“Benedict!” She didn’t want to be talked out of her trepidation. Or worse, she did not want him to try to talk her out of it and to fail.
Randolph had promised to exhibit Edward’s portraiture. But Randolph’s promises weren’t worth the air it took to speak them.
“We could try to find the coins quickly,” Benedict suggested. “I’ll go stand outside at night, alone, and when someone comes to attack me, you can lay hold of him and beat the location of the money out of him.”
This vision was so ludicrous that she had to smile—for a moment. “You assume your attacker had something to do with the theft from the Royal Mint.”
“Stephen Lilac does.”
This was true. Yet neither of them had the heart for this plan, or one that made any more sense. What was the point of finding the coins, of collecting the reward and fleeing? As long as she kept ties to anyone, Randolph could find her. He was here, in the village. He was the cat, tail lashing, waiting to pounce. He was the sword of Damocles, waiting to fall.
Was she a mouse, then? Or a would-be queen? A bit of both. It was easier to be brave, to want things, when she was being brave for someone else. But when she thought of Randolph finding out about Maggie . . . she quailed, and she wanted to collect her precious girl and flee that second.
When Charlotte returned to the vicarage later that day, she ripped off her veiled bonnet and turned at once in the direction of the stable, knowing Maggie would be with her beloved dog.
&
nbsp; As she rounded the vicarage, she saw that Captain’s long chain lay slack. She did not see the dog, but only Maggie’s back. Her tangled hair, the back of her blue gown as she lay curled in the dirt before the stable.
Hurt? Dead?
Charlotte picked up her skirts and ran flat-out, gasping.
When she reached her girl, breathless, she noticed what she had missed before. Colleen, the kindly kitchen maid, was petting Maggie as the girl had so often stroked the dog. And Maggie was curled around the still body of the hound.
So. It had happened at last.
Knowing the day would come did not make it any easier to experience. Charlotte’s throat went tight, her eyes prickling.
Colleen looked up at Charlotte, her sweet face twisted with sorrow. “Poor Captain. Miss Maggie, she found the dog like this when she came out after lessons.”
Maggie lay still, her eyes fixed, her expression flat and without feeling. This was somehow more terrible than seeing her wracked with grief.
“Oh, dearest.” Charlotte sat in the dirt next to the girl, lacing her fingers through sun-warmed curls. “How sorry I am.”
“She was my mother’s,” Maggie said tonelessly. “My mother loved me, and now I have nothing left of her.”
Your mother loves you, thought Charlotte, but that same love kept her lips sealed.
Charlotte excused Colleen, who stood with a grateful nod. One’s work didn’t stop when a child needed comfort.
But if one were a mother, it should.
Maggie made of herself a cradle about Captain’s body. The dog’s paws were outstretched, head resting upon them. Captain looked comfortable, as though she were resting.
“You made her so happy,” Charlotte said. “My sister would have liked seeing how you treasured her pet.”
Maggie blinked, setting a tear to welling, and nodded her head. Her fine hair was ground into the dirt with every movement.
“Did you know that I named Captain?” Charlotte took up her favorite pose, knees folded and arms about them, sideways against Maggie’s back. In this way, they could see each other’s faces. They made a fallen stack of comfort: the old hound, the girl, the one who had been away so long.
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