by Liz Carlyle
On a sigh, he returned to the bed and lifted one hand to touch her hair. But in that instant, an awful clatter arose from deep in the stairwell beyond the door. Oh, Lord. His hand froze, and his mind raced. A servant? Yes. With a mop bucket? No. No, a coal scuttle, more likely. His eyes shot to the window. Daylight was almost upon them. He had no way out. A servant would shortly pop in to build up the fire, and Freddie would be irrevocably, hopelessly ruined.
The scuttle clattered again, closer. A little desperately, he strode to the casement window, popped the latch, and swung it wide. Two stories up. Rhododendron and holly beneath. Well, he’d had it worse. At least this time there wasn’t an irate husband with a pistol to his back. Snatching up an armful of boots and clothing, Bentley hurled it into the breaking dawn, then hitched himself onto the windowsill. Afterward, he never could remember having actually jumped, yet he must have done, for he landed with a crash and a thud, twigs and shrubbery splintering all about him.
But no one seemed to hear, which was a bloody good thing, for it took him all of two minutes to suck the wind back into his lungs. His right leg was bent awkwardly but not broken. His face was bleeding; an unmistakable warmth was trickling down his temple. Gingerly, he elbowed himself up, the Essex scenery whirling about his head as if he were a top spinning slowly off balance.
Somehow, he staggered to his feet and fished his boots and coat out of a patch of ivy. One stocking was caught on a sprig of holly, and his trousers had sailed over the garden path to land on the lawn beyond. With rough, impatient movements, Bentley gathered them up and jerked them on. He glanced back up at the window just as a draft caught the white underdrapes, billowing them outward. Good Lord, someone really had opened the door! The close call almost buckled his knees.
Unfortunately, it now occurred to Bentley that having escaped the house, he had no way to get back in. Had he been in his right mind, he would have simply crawled under the boxwoods out back and claimed to have passed out drunk, which, given his proclivities, would have been perfectly plausible. But he was not in his right mind. And so he did something unutterably stupid.
It might have been his hangover. Or his guilt. Or a mild concussion. Or—and he hated to admit this—it might have been just a plain old fear of the inevitable. But whatever it was that drove him, in that moment, it somehow seemed as if his best alternative was to start walking, or limping as it were, in the direction of the stables. And to keep on going until he’d hitched up his horse and got the hell out of Essex.
In all likelihood, no one at Chatham Lodge would notice or care. He often came and went without invitation or announcement. And he’d already told Gus that he had to take his leave directly after breakfast, for in less than three days he was due at Chalcote Court for the christening of his newest niece, a child whom he had inexplicably been asked to godparent. Besides, his note told Freddie very plainly where to find him.
Yes, it explained everything, and sweetly, too. The words had been charming, confident, and laced with just enough honesty to make his offer sound sincere. Not one word of trepidation or doubt could be elicited from his carefully crafted lines. He would await her response, he had said. And he hoped, or so he had claimed, that Freddie would soon make him the happiest man on earth.
And so the soon-to-be happiest man on earth slung his cravat round his neck and hobbled off in search of his horse. But just as he turned the corner, the wind kicked up again, riffling through his hair and flapping at his coattails. Too obsessed with thoughts of marriage, lust, and fear, Bentley just bowed his head and pushed on toward the stables without ever noticing that the breeze had caught something else, something far more important than his coattails. A folded slip of paper came sailing through Freddie’s curtains. Away it drifted, like a butterfly just set free, spinning and fluttering as it made its way high above the gardens, over the lawn, and off into the woodland beyond.
The scene at Chatham’s breakfast table was usually one of mildly subdued mayhem, for the household was generally large, busy, and informal. Each morning from eight until half-past, teetering trays laden with steaming bowls were toted up and down the kitchen stairs and plopped directly onto the table, rather than the sideboard. It was safer that way, claimed the ever-practical housekeeper Mrs. Penworthy, what with so many hungry young men rushing haphazardly about.
On this particular day, however, only a half-dozen places had been laid round the big table. Mrs. Winifred Weyden, the household’s doyen, had not yet taken her seat. Instead, she was pacing back and forth along the windows and talking to herself, her head bowed over a letter. “Oh, my!” she said on a spurt of laughter. “How shocking!”
“Chafing dish!” sang Mrs. Penworthy, hurling a covered platter onto the table. “Hot kidneys!”
Winnie was undeterred. “Listen to this!” she said to the three young men gathered round the table. “Lady Bland writes that last week the King’s hounds chased a stag through the middle of Paddington, and then through the canal, and right into the church!”
“Catching up on all the gossip, Mama?” murmured Gus Weyden, watching his cousin, the Earl of Trent, and praying to God the lad did not disgrace himself over the steaming pile of kidneys which Theo had just uncovered.
“And then there’s this!” said their mother, turning Lady Bland’s missive a little toward the light. “This coachbuilder—oh, Theodore, what is that name?” She thrust the letter at her son Theo.
Theo glanced at it. “Shillibeer,” he supplied, forking up kidneys and plopping them onto his plate. “George Shillibeer. Keeps a good livery in Bury Street.”
Winnie smiled dotingly. “Yes, Shillibeer. Anyway, it is all very queer, for Lady Bland says he has inventing this thing…”
Already chewing, Theo thrust out his fingers and snapped them.
Winnie surrendered the letter.
“An omnibus, Mama,” said Theo, glancing at the page as he swallowed. “Got ’em all over Paris. Gus and I rode one once.”
“Did you indeed, my dear?” marveled Winnie. “Well, this one is meant to haul passengers up and down the New Road, twenty at a time for one shilling six!”
“Just a bob if you ride up top,” corrected Theo, tossing a glance at Lord Trent. “I daresay that’s where the bolder fellows ride, eh, Michael? Of course, they jostle and sway like a ship at sea, but you—oh, what?” He had forked up the last kipper as he spoke, and now thrust it, still dripping, at Lord Trent. “Sorry, Michael, did you want this?”
With a faint gagging sound, Lord Trent shut his eyes. At once, Winnie tossed down her letter and rushed to him, barely missing Mrs. Penworthy and a bowl of boiled eggs. “Michael!” She bent over the young man in a crush of pink silk, pressing her hand dramatically to his forehead. “Oh, my dear child, you look dreadful! Have you a fever? Is it your throat? Your lungs? Oh, pray do not take ill just now! You don’t even have an heir!”
“An heir?” choked Michael.
“He’s sick, Mama, not dying,” scoffed Theo.
“Still, Rannoch will think me at fault!” complained Winnie. “He’ll scowl and say that perhaps I’ve not watched all of you properly, but really, I’m quite sure that I have tried to do so.”
It was clear that Winnie’s guilt was speaking, for she was a notoriously lax chaperone and easily distracted from her duty. “Michael is almost of age now, Mama,” Gus reminded her. “And I am sure neither Evie nor Elliot expects you to watch anyone.”
At Winnie’s elbow, Michael drew a ragged breath. “Don’t fuss, Win,” he managed, easing back his chair. “I’m just a tad dyspeptic.”
Theo jabbed a fork in his cousin’s direction. “Best go back up to bed, old chap.”
Michael rose unsteadily, and Winnie sank into her chair. A knowing look passed over her face as her gaze shifted back and forth between her sons. “I see the way of this,” she said crossly, once Michael was out of earshot. “No, no! Do not dare play the innocents with me! Michael is still too young to fall in with your riffraff crowd. And Bent
ley Rutledge! I shall strangle him, too! Where is that rascal?”
Gus and Theo shrugged just as Frederica’s shadow fell across the table. “Good morning,” she said. The gentlemen stood at once, and Theo pulled out her chair. “If you’re looking for Michael,” she continued, “he just passed me on the stairs.”
“Not Michael,” said Theo dramatically. “Rutledge. Mama has sworn to kill him.”
Frederica gasped. “Oh, no!” she said, half rising from her chair again. “Indeed, Winnie, he did not—I mean, it was all my—”
Winnie cut her off. “My dear, you are very kind to take up for these scamps, but Rutledge is a bad, wicked man. And I know perfectly well that they were all four in their cups last night.”
“Oh.” Frederica fell back into her chair and hid her trembling hands.
Just then, Mrs. Penworthy bustled back up the steps with a coffeepot and tipped it adroitly over Frederica’s shoulder. “Is it Mr. Rutledge you’re wanting, Mrs. Weyden?” she inquired, pouring a steady brown stream. “For ’tis a very queer thing, but Tess says he’s gone off without his valise, and nary a sign his bed’s been slept in!”
Suddenly, Frederica seemed to choke. Amiably, Theo reached out to pound her across the back, making her gasp. “All right there, Freddie?” he asked.
Eyes watering, Frederica pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and lowered her gaze. “Wh-what do you all imagine has become of Mr. Rutledge?”
“It’s a bit of a poser,” mused Gus.
Theo swallowed again. “Well, he certainly came back from the Arms last night. We left him on the terrace when we—”
“The Wrotham Arms?” interjected Winnie shrilly. “That ramshackle roadhouse?”
Gus smiled tightly. “Yes, Mama,” he said. “Anyway, we did go upstairs before him.” He turned to his brother. “Theo, you did not, I hope, lock the door behind you?”
“Someone did!” sang Mrs. Penworthy from the stairwell. “’Twas locked this morning.”
“Freddie!” Alarmed, Gus’s gaze went to her. “Freddie, you were not, by some chance, out late last night?”
Frederica’s bottom lip began to tremble. “Wh-what on earth do you mean to suggest?”
Gus looked at her strangely. “Nothing, Freddie. Nothing at all. It is just that I know how you sometimes like to—to walk of an evening.” From across the table, he tried to wink at her without his mother’s noticing it. “And I thought, or rather hoped, that perhaps you’d left the tower door unlatched. As, er, you sometimes do?”
Winnie waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, Gus, the child went to bed with the headache,” she reminded him. “Right after supper. Do you not remember?”
“Quite so,” said Gus swiftly. “And I hope, Freddie, that you are fully recovered?”
But Theo was not concerned with Frederica’s feigned headache. “So we left a guest locked out last night?” he interjected. “Is that what it comes to?”
“Do not be ridiculous,” said his mother, motioning impatiently for the toast rack. “Bentley Rutledge is not a guest.”
Gus laughed. “But does it not horrify you, Mama, to consider that we may have left him to sleep in the stables?”
It was Theo’s turn to laugh. “Oh, ho! That one never slept in the stables, depend upon it! More likely, he returned to the Wrotham Arms and bedded down with that red-haired wench he’d already paid.”
“Really, Theo!” Now Winnie was horrified. “Recollect, if you will, that there is an innocent at this table!”
Ingenuously, Theo looked about. “Who? Oh. Freddie.”
But Freddie did not look insulted, or even especially innocent. Instead, she looked quite ill. Awkwardly, she jerked from the table. “Your p-pardon,” she said weakly. “I am afraid my headache has returned.” And on those words, she bolted from the room.
Winnie’s face softened with worry, and she began to make maternal clucking sounds. “Oh, dear me, first Michael and now Frederica? Perhaps there really is something going round!”
Chapter Three
In which the Prodigal Son limps home.
“Dearly beloved, ye have brought this child here to be baptized, and ye have prayed that our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to receive her, to release her from sin.” Caught in a shaft of jewel-colored light, the Reverend Mr. Basil Rhoades droned on, his gaze flicking periodically to his prayer book.
Bentley Rutledge stood opposite the rector, with every intention of listening. But as with so many of his good intentions, this one slipped from his grasp. Somehow, he lost his place in the liturgy—another metaphor, no doubt—as his gaze drifted away from the squat Norman font in which countless generations of his mother’s people had been baptized. He found himself staring along the length of the nave and through the arch, until his eyes were focused somewhere in the murky depths of the chancel, and his thoughts were drifting deep into the shadows.
He had few memories of this place, the church of St. Michael the Archangel. There had been the occasional christening or wedding, yes. And in the Rutledge family, funerals aplenty, for they were prone to live hard and die young. But the very essence of this place, the smell of musty hymnals and cold, damp stone, felt unfamiliar, despite the fact that for most of his twenty-six years, he had lived in its shadow. The quiet cadence of the prayer book was like a foreign tongue. The refracted splinters of light which stabbed through the stained glass and spilt across the flagstones were almost otherworldly. His father hadn’t been much of a churchgoer, and Bentley had followed suit.
Basil cleared his throat sharply. “Dost thou believe all the articles of the Christian faith as contained in the Apostles’ Creed?” intoned the rector. “And wilt thou endeavor to have this child instructed accordingly?”
Beside him, Bentley’s sister, Catherine, gave him a subtle nudge. His eyes caught hers in alarm. “I—er, I do believe them,” he said awkwardly. “And by God’s help I will…I will endeavor so to do.”
Basil’s lips thinned in mild irritation. “And wilt thou endeavor to have her brought up in the fear of God?” he asked, glancing at the prayer book. “And to obey his holy Will and Commandments?”
“I—I will,” Bentley managed. “By—ah, by God’s assistance.” Then he squeezed his eyes shut and waited for lightning to strike him dead.
But no lightning struck. It ought to have done, given such a dubious promise from such an unlikely instrument of the Lord. Basil seemed to have expected it, too, for he’d also lost his place. But somehow, the rector jerked back into motion and continued, eventually reaching out to take the babe from Bentley’s sister-in-law, Helene.
After settling the infant in his arms and draping the lace christening gown carefully over his elbow, Basil looked again at Bentley. “Name this child.”
Bentley felt a moment of panic. “Er—Alice,” he answered. That much he knew, for it had been his mother’s name. In desperation, he looked down at the words he’d scribbled in the margin of his prayer book, but his perspiring fingers had blurred them. “Alice Marie Emelyn Rutledge,” he read, rushing through the words and praying he’d got it right. He must have done, for Helene was smiling at him proudly.
“Alice Marie Emelyn Rutledge,” echoed Basil, dipping his fingers into the font, and crossing the child’s forehead. “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
But little Emmie took exception to the cold water. She went rigid on a loud squall, one fist swiping Basil across the nose, knocking his spectacles askew. Disconcerted, the rector moved as if to thrust the child out at arm’s length, but Emmie snatched hold of his surplice, requiring Basil to disentangle himself. Helene stepped forward to pry the fistful of white linen from Emmie’s hand with an apologetic look.
God help us all, thought Bentley. That one’s a Rutledge for sure.
Soon it was over, and they were flooding from the church and into the wintry sunlight. His elder brother, Cam, Lord Treyhern, led the way, carrying Emmie, who was marginally cal
mer now. Bentley’s sister, Catherine, and his cousin Joan herded the children out. They darted off into the sun like brightly colored fish in a pond. With a shy smile, Joan turned back and slipped her arm companionably through Bentley’s. They chatted quietly for a moment while Helene and Cam accepted congratulations all around.
It was good to see his pretty cousin. It was especially good to see her looking well, happy, and, if he was not mistaken, expecting again. Before his run-in with Freddie, Joan had been the only woman he’d ever considered marrying. Thank God she’d eloped with Basil and saved them both from his stupidity.
“You must call at Bellevue soon,” Joan said softly. “We will have a long walk, Bentley, and a long talk, too. I have a secret to tell you. It will be like old times.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Like old times, Joan.”
Only two months apart in age, he and Joan had once confided everything in one another. But they had been children then, and he was not at all sure he could endure those old times again. Drawing her arm from his, Joan slipped away to chase after one of her many children. Her husband, Basil, was still smiling benevolently at the small crowd which had finished filing from his church door.
Of course, all the village tabbies were there to scowl disapprovingly at Bentley. And then in turn—when each thought the others weren’t looking—the old girls would cluck, straighten his cravat, and then kiss him on the cheek as if magnanimously forgiving him for some mortal sin.
If they only knew.
Yes, he now carried one which was weighing a tad heavier than all the rest. Well, perhaps save one. Of course, what he’d done with Freddie wasn’t, strictly speaking, a mortal sin, but it bloody well felt like it. And after three days, he was tired of waiting for the ax to fall. He wondered just how hard on his heels the bad news was.