“You mean if that ugly fellow with the red face comes back?” Frank asked shrewdly, pouring ale into two glasses.
John did not ask how Frank knew about the visitor. Frank had a habit of being everywhere and knowing everything. It made him invaluable.
“Exactly,” he said. “I hope we won’t see him again but just in case –”
“But isn’t that him over there?” Frank asked, pointing.
John groaned as he saw that the ill-tempered stranger had just come through the front door and was making his way to the office. John saw him rattle on the door, scowling angrily and then head for the taproom.
John busied himself serving some customers, forcing him to wait, which did not improve his temper.
“There you are,” he barked when he reached the front of the queue. “I’ve had a fruitless search, thanks to you. The man in charge of the bathing huts says she has not been there.”
“Oh, dear,” John said, raising his glass for a welcome sip of ale.
Scowling the man snatched up Frank’s glass, which Frank had been about to lift.
“Let me see if your ale is any better than your information,” he snapped.
“Our ale is world famous,” John informed him, without the slightest basis for such an assertion.
“Yes, everyone likes to try our ale,” Frank declared, adding under his breath, “including me.”
The man drained the glass and shoved it across the counter.
“It’s not bad,” he said. “I’ll have another one.”
He stared at Frank, who was regarding him with horror.
“You! Don’t stand there staring at me like a halfwit. Fill up my glass.”
“I will do it,” John answered quickly. He had the gravest fears about what his enraged valet might put into the ale. “Be off, Frank.”
Still glaring, Frank slipped away. John pushed the full glass back across the counter.
“Are you certain she’s not here?” the man demanded. “Perhaps I should visit the bedrooms.”
“I am afraid you cannot do that, sir,” John declared at once.
“Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? Do you know who I am?”
“No, sir, but I know who you are not. You are not my employer. He pays my wages and gives me orders, and he would skin me alive if I let you insult guests in this hotel with questions as to who they are and who they have seen.”
“He doesn’t have to know, damn you!”
“I am sorry but I owe him my loyalty.”
“Oh, loyalty is it?” was the sneering reply. “Here then.” He took out a gold coin and laid it down between them.
“What’s that?” John said, looking at it.
“That is a sovereign. It is the price of your so-called loyalty and probably ten times what it’s worth.”
“But my loyalty is not for sale,” John replied quietly.
“Oh, be damned to you for a thieving knave! All right, all right. Two guineas!”
John picked them both up and studied them. Out of the corner of his eye he could just see Frank, half hidden around the corner, watching everything.
“Three would be better,” he said at last.
Swearing vilely the man pulled out a third guinea and slammed it down.
“Now then,” he growled.
“Now then what, sir?”
“Take me upstairs and then disappear.”
“I could not do that, sir. My employer would not like it.”
The man’s face assumed an alarming colour.
“Now look here –” he howled.
Smiling, John raised his hand holding the coins and let them fall from his palm, straight into the man’s full glass of ale, causing it to slop over the side.
“Look what you’re doing!” the man bawled, dabbing at his waistcoat.
“I am very sorry, sir,” John said apologetically. “I cannot think how I came to do that.”
“Clumsy oaf!”
“Yes sir, but look at it this way. At least you now have your money back.”
The man eyed him balefully. Then he seized his glass and drank the liquid, just as it was, complete with grubby coins, which he retrieved at the last minute. John made a face of disgust and just caught sight of Frank doing the same.
“Look here, I have to find her and that’s that.”
“You must take my word for it that she is not here,” John insisted. “There are many other hotels in Brighton. She could be at any one of them. Of course, if she turns up, I could tell her your name, if you would give it to me, and inform her that she is being sought.”
“That would only make her go further afield, perhaps to London.”
John made an expressive gesture with his hands before he said,
“I am sorry, but I cannot help you.”
“I may come back later to see for myself. But if you do see her, tell her that she must return home immediately. If she doesn’t it could be to her disadvantage to remain here or anywhere else.”
He spoke the words loudly and disagreeably, and his voice rang out through the taproom.
“I will certainly pass on your message, if I should see her,” John said, “but what name shall I tell her?”
The man looked at him as though regarding a worm before drawing himself up to his full height.
“My name,” he announced loftily, “is Sir Stewart Paxton. Have you got that? Sir Stewart Paxton.”
“Sir Stewart,” John repeated, apparently awed. “Fancy that! A real Lord.”
“That’s right. I don’t suppose you get many Lords in this place.”
“Don’t reckon I ever saw one before,” John responded humbly. “Are you a very great Lord?”
“Very great,” declared Sir Stewart. “I sit in the House of Lords in London, and help to pass the laws of this country. So now do you understand why you must do as I tell you and give me all the help I require?”
“Oh, yes, sir.” John tried to sound impressed.
“So what have you got to tell me?”
“About what, sir?”
“About the missing lady?”
“But there is no missing lady here, sir.”
Sir Stewart drew in a long, slow breath, then let it out again just as slowly.
“I will be back,” he said at last. “Do you understand that? I will be back!”
He left, slamming the door behind him.
“Yes, I am afraid you will,” John sighed.
Frank reappeared.
“Why didn’t you slaughter him, sir?” he wanted to know. “Why didn’t you take a sword and run it through his gullet?”
“First, because I don’t have a sword and second, because to put an end to his miserable life, while possibly justified and even perhaps a service to humanity, might attract unwelcome attention.”
“I suppose so.” Frank sounded disappointed.
“Pour yourself a fresh glass and get this mess cleaned up.”
“Yes, sir. By the way, sir, did he pay for the ale he drank?”
“I never thought of that,” John replied guiltily. “I don’t think nature designed me for this sort of work.”
“I think nature designed you to be an actor, sir. Blowed if I’ve ever seen a finer performance. How did you know how to act so daft?”
“I learned it from you. It is exactly what you do when I ask you a question you don’t find it convenient to answer. You put on a suspiciously innocent, wide-eyed expression – that’s it! The one you’re doing now.”
“I am sure I don’t know what you mean, sir. But don’t you worry about not being used to the taproom. I am happy to work in here, any time you want.”
John grinned and departed, slipping quietly into the hall to see if his unpleasant visitor had left, or was perhaps talking to the servants.
But the man had gone straight out to the yard where a cab was waiting for him. John waited until he had climbed in and departed before running upstairs to tell ‘Miss Smith’ that she was safe.
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He knocked on the door, calling softly,
“It is John Milton here and it is quite safe to let me in.”
At once the door opened and she looked up at him fearfully.
“Has he gone? Really and truly?”
“Really and truly.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” she cried fervently.
“I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me why you are so frightened of Sir Stewart Paxton, and why you are running away.”
He spoke very softly and gently.
There was silence for a moment. Then Miss Smith said, “Perhaps, because you have been so kind and so helpful to me, it is only fair I should tell you what I am doing.”
“You don’t have to tell me, but I really would like to know what this is all about. And, of course, the more I know about your enemy, the better chance I will have to defeat him.”
She laughed and it struck him as a delightful sound.
“How cleverly you put it,” she said. “I will of course tell you everything.”
John sat down on a chair beside the bed and prepared to listen.
“I had to flee Sir Stewart because I was not strong enough to keep on fighting and I was quite certain that, if I had stayed, I might find myself married against my will.”
He looked at her in astonishment.
“Married!” he exclaimed. “Is this fellow trying to force you into marrying him?”
“That is exactly what he is trying to do. He is determined to force me up the aisle one way or another.”
“But why?” he asked, regarding her with astonishment.
“Because I am rich, very rich,” she replied with a sigh. “He has a title but no money, so he needs a rich wife. He was a friend of my father, although I don’t think he was a real friend. Papa liked gambling, but he wasn’t very good at it. He often played cards with Sir Stewart and lost a lot of money to him.
“I tried to make him see that Sir Stewart was merely making use of him, but I am afraid that dear Papa was rather blinded by the title. He would have loved to have been titled himself and he was more impressed by Sir Stewart than he should have been.
“He used to say that we were honoured to have ‘a great man’ condescend to us. That used to make me very angry, because I do not think Sir Stewart is a great man at all.”
“Neither do I,” John agreed with feeling. “He is a vulgar bully. As for his title – a mere Knight. Or is he a Baronet?”
“No, I know he is a Knight, because he used to describe himself as ‘a Knight of the Realm’ in a very grandiose way.”
“Well, that is barely a title at all,” John observed, “except, I suppose, to people who don’t have one. Just now, when he told me his name, you would have thought he was a Duke or something like that, instead of being the lowliest rank of all. He actually told me that he sits in the House of Lords, which no Knight does. He obviously thinks I am too ignorant to know.
“Mind you, I played up to him, in a way that flattered his vanity. I called him ‘a real Lord’, sounding as overwhelmed as I could make it, like the stupidest kind of bumpkin.”
He spoke without thinking, from the lofty heights of his Earldom, forgetting that she did not know his rank. Then he realised that she was staring at him, bewildered.
“But you do know,” she said. “You must have spent a lot of time around aristocrats. In fact, you are more of a gentleman than some people with titles.”
“I have met some men of rank in the army, younger sons and so forth,” John muttered vaguely.
“You were in the army?” she echoed, delighted. “Oh, how wonderful! Were you in the war in the Crimea?”
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
She saw the look on his face and her manner changed.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I was thinking of the excitement, but that was stupid of me. It must have been horrible for the men who were actually there.”
“It was,” he said. “But let us leave it at that.”
“Yes,” she agreed gently. “We don’t have to talk about the war if you would rather not.”
Something in her voice made him look up. He saw on her face a look of kindness and understanding and, in some inexplicable way, he felt his heart ease.
CHAPTER FIVE
John felt as though he could have stayed forever, just looking at this wonderful girl with her sweet face. But he forced himself to return to reality. What was he thinking of to be indulging in dreams?
“Perhaps you had better tell me the rest of the story,” he suggested. “What did Sir Stewart do?”
“He offered for my hand. Papa was delighted and when I refused he could not believe his ears. We had the most terrible quarrels. He commanded me to say yes and when I wouldn’t, he said I was no daughter of his. He called me a disgrace and – oh, many other terrible things.
“I used to overhear him talking to Sir Stewart, promising to ‘bring me to my senses’ as he put it.”
John uttered a bitter oath. It appalled him that this delicate creature should be bullied by two strong men, each of them thinking only of himself and neither caring a rap for her feelings.
It crossed his mind that if she was his to protect, he would never allow even a breath of wind to harm her.
“Papa kept on talking about the wonderful chance I was losing,” she continued. “He so badly wanted to be the father-in-law of ‘a great Lord’ as he called him.
“Then he began saying that he did not feel well and asking me how I could grieve a sick man by my unfilial behaviour. But I still did not give in. I thought it was a trick.”
“Which I am sure it was,” John observed.
“Wait, let me tell you the rest. Papa sent for his lawyer and made a new will. He told me that he would leave all his money to Sir Stewart, so that I would have to marry him. I said I thought that was an excellent idea, as it would save me from any more of Sir Stewart’s pestering.”
John guffawed with laughter.
“Good for you,” he applauded.
“But then something terrible happened. At that time Papa and I were living in Brighton. Sir Stewart’s house is in London, although he spent so much time here that he almost lived with us. But he had returned to London when Papa and I had that last quarrel.
“Papa stormed out of the house, saying he was going to London to tell Sir Stewart about the change of his will. Two days later there came news of a terrible railway accident. The London to Brighton train had been derailed, several carriages had overturned and five people had died.”
“Yes, I remember hearing about the tragedy,” John said. “The newspapers talked of nothing else for days.”
“Papa was one of those who died. He was tossed out of his carriage. And I felt so guilty.”
“Why should you?” John demanded. “His so-called ‘illness’ really was a trick, as you suspected. His death was an accident and nothing to do with you.”
“I know but – he used to talk about not being long for this world and then it turned out to be true. Sir Stewart said Papa’s dying wish was for our marriage.
“He was with him on the train, you see. He said he held him at the end and Papa said, ‘Stewart, protect my darling child. Tell her my last wish is for your marriage.’ Did you say something?”
John had made a violent exclamation.
“What a lot of nonsense!” he said. “It comes straight from a bad novel or a sensational play. I could do better than that myself.”
“I must admit it sounded a bit flowery for Papa,” she agreed.
“Was this pathetic speech overheard by anyone else?” he demanded ironically.
“It seems not.”
“There you are. Sir Stewart invented the whole story.”
“But even if Papa didn’t actually say it, it was what he wanted. And, but for me, he would not have been on that train –”
“That’s enough,” John said forcefully. “My dear girl, you have to stop thinking like this. None of it was your fault.”
“I tell myself that, yet it just seems so terrible.” She flashed John her breath-taking smile. “But I can believe it when you tell me. You make me feel so much better.”
“What happened about the will? Did he leave everything to Sir Stewart?”
“No, but he did something worse. He appointed him as my guardian.”
“Damn him!” John said softly.
“Sir Stewart forced me to move into his house in London. Since that day he never leaves me in peace. He tells me over and over that Papa’s death was my fault, and that I must ‘atone’ by fulfilling his last wish. He also said that Papa died owing him a lot of money, but he would wipe out the debt if I married him.”
“But surely he cannot force you to marry him if you do not want to do so?”
“Oh, it’s so easy for a man to say that,” Cecilia cried with a touch of exasperation. “But I was a woman alone, in his house and in his power. There was nobody to help me and he is determined to drive me into this marriage by hook or by crook.
“I ran away after eavesdropping and hearing that he was bribing a local parson to help him force me into marriage. Sir Stewart is prepared to go to any lengths, even to drug me so that I would be helpless until it was too late.”
“It is the most ghastly story I have ever heard,” John exclaimed. “How can any man, who presumably calls himself a gentleman, force a woman into being his wife?”
“He doesn’t care what anyone calls him,” she said bitterly, “as long as he gets my money. And, as my guardian, he also controls my fortune and he is keeping the purse strings tight in an attempt to force me to give in.
“He dismissed my maid and said I should use a girl from his own house. But she is a slattern and useless as a maid. He just wanted her to spy on me and I often found her in my room going through my belongings.
“That is why I don’t have a maid with me. I know it looks strange, but I had to slip away when she wasn’t looking.”
“I can hardly believe my ears,” John said in horror. “How can any man behave like this? Of course you must not be married off by force.”
“I suppose it was not very clever of me to come back to Brighton, but it is the only place I know. I still own the house where I lived with Papa, although it’s shut up now. I thought I might hide there, but of course I couldn’t. It is the first place Sir Stewart would look.”
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