But if she were to escape again, she would have to pay attention. She might not know where they had been when the carriage was attacked, but at least she could try to remember how to get back to that place. If Colin were wounded and they hadn’t brought him with them, she needed to be able to find him. If he were dead, then she prayed she would find his body—she didn’t have the heart for another lover lost and never returned.
The carriage began to move.
To keep from panicking, she counted her heartbeats and converted them to minutes. One minute. Five minutes. Twenty minutes. At this pace, that was one mile. At six miles, the carriage slowed, turned a hard left, then stopped. She heard the creak of rusted hinges. A gate perhaps?
The carriage moved forward again, this time slowly. The road was uneven, and the carriage bumped and swayed. Another five hundred heartbeats, and the ground turned to gravel, crunching under the wheels as the carriage stopped. An inn? An estate? Voices met the carriage, but their words were indistinct. The carriage swayed as it was unpacked, then moved very slowly again. The smell of straw and manure told her it was a stable yard. The carriage swayed again as the horses were unhitched, then the carriage was pushed backward into a carriage stall.
Then silence.
She waited, trying to think through it logically. From all the angles, it was clear that she would have to act to save herself—and Colin, if he were still alive.
Her best chance was night, still several hours off. But until then, she should sleep, following her father’s advice to conserve her energy for whatever circumstances she encountered.
* * *
The sound of men putting animals into their stalls woke her. The light through the drill holes had dimmed. Night, then. She didn’t know how much noise the bolt would make unlocking. She felt the lock. It was sticky with grease. But to be safe, she would wait.
Again, she counted her heartbeats. An hour after the last sound she heard, she slid the bolt open and pushed against the lid of her coffin. It moved silently. No creaks. She held it up slightly, heard the sounds of animals more clearly. And crickets. So, they had gone on to the coast. One could only hear the sound of crickets in the southeast. That was at least some information. She tried to remember if Archibald had held properties nearby. And suddenly she knew where they were . . . or had a very good idea.
Clearly, the men had waited to ambush them until they were close enough to a place where they could be easily hidden. But she knew the house, knew how to escape. She tucked the gun—already loaded—into the waistband of her trousers at the back. She stuck the knife in her boot as James had taught her.
If they’d brought Colin with them, he could be anywhere in the house. Luckily, it wasn’t too large, and most of the lower-floor rooms had a window to the outside. She walked around the perimeter at a distance, keeping to the line of the woods that encroached on the house from all sides.
It didn’t take long. She saw him through a window, tied to a chair. Blood was caked on his forehead, on the side of his face, and down the front of his shirt. His clothes were torn, and his head was hanging to the side. From the window, she could see his chest rise and fall, and she almost wept with joy. One of the windows was already open, and she lay her pistol on the sill and climbed through.
He smelled of whiskey, on his shirt, his hands, his hair, his mouth. There was a whiskey stain down his trouser legs. But in the carriage he hadn’t been drinking. She’d seen the ploy before: rub yourself with whiskey to appear a drunk. It explained his distorted speech when he’d left the carriage—he’d deliberately slurred his speech.
She used the knife to cut his ropes, waiting to speak until he started to waken. Then she put her hands across his mouth. “Shhh, I’m here. Be quiet.”
His eyes when they opened were angry. “You were supposed to wait.”
“You were supposed to come for me. But don’t worry: I know this place. I know how to get away. Just let me get your hands free. How many men? And where are they?”
“Four. Remember the wine we were carrying for the wedding?”
She nodded while she whittled away at the ropes.
“We’ll need to get more.”
In a few minutes, she had him free, but he stumbled against her. “Are you drunk or hurt?”
“Just a bit beaten up. I’ll be fine.”
“Can you ride?”
Since he could not exit easily the way she had come in, she preceded him into the hall. The door to what had been a drawing room was open, and two men lay on the floor snoring. She led him to the back entrance. As she had before, they moved immediately to the line of trees circling the yard, then back into the barn.
Six horses were in stalls.
Colin stumbled to the stall where the two horses from his carriage were housed together. “Help me climb the stall wall.” From there, he crawled onto one of the horses’ backs. “I’m not going to be able to ride, Lucy. My head is spinning and my vision is blurred. Just hide me here, and go for help.”
“Again, what regiment were you in? I’ll just tie you to your horse. I’m not letting you go, Colin Somerville, not another time.”
The night seemed enchanted, with very little sound. She moved swiftly, tying his feet around the horse’s belly and his arms around her neck. Then she let the other horses go and mounted her own.
She waited over and over for one of the men to appear, but they never did. It seemed too easy. She decided that she could cope with something being easy.
* * *
The magistrates caught the men, still sleeping off the whiskey and wine they had drunk. They admitted to having sabotaged the coach of Colin’s protective guard, then waiting to attack Colin’s coach until it was alone on the road. The highwaymen couldn’t tell who had hired them, only that he had promised them more than he had paid . . . which was why they had chosen to drink the alcohol they found. And why, though they had been told to destroy the carriage, they had kept it to sell.
“Marner,” Lucy declared. “The only man who can repeatedly ruin his own revenge plot by being too stingy to pay for it.”
“Lucy.” Colin nuzzled her face. “The only woman I ever want to spend another moment with. Marry me, my star, and I’ll light up the skies with proof of my love.”
* * *
The day of the wedding, when the bells rang at the estate chapel, a display of fireworks as brilliant as those on Guy Fawkes Day filled the sky.
Chapter Forty-One
“Explain to me why we are still doing business with him. He lies to us, does not pay us, and tries to leave us the trouble of a body—then, when I finally find the girl, he once again takes matters into his own hands and once again loses her,” Flute growled
“He has something I want. A small piece of land, not more than a few acres, but located perfectly for a plan I have in mind.”
“But is it hers or his?”
“His. A bequest from an uncle. It’s bottom land, not valuable, on a canal. He has owned it for most of his life and ignored it. Ignored the possibilities of that one little piece of land. And I want it. Outright.”
“So all of this? The girl, the asylum, the . . .”
“Just a means to an end. I could have bought the land, but then someone could have wondered why I wanted it. This way, the line of ownership is muddled, and no one will think a thing about a piece of property lost in a gambling hell, or who ends up with it in the end.” Charters sat down at his desk, prepared to play the devil if necessary. He set his favorite knife—a Damascus blade—and Georges’ pumice stone in plain sight on the desk.
“Bring him in, Flute.”
The door opened, and Flute shoved Marner into the room. The man recoiled at the sight of Charters behind his desk.
“It was not wise to try to hide from us, Lord Marner. Now tell me: why should I let you live? Have you anything at all that I might find valuable?”
Marner stood, silently defiant.
“No, I didn’t think so. Just a defunc
t title that dies with you.”
“If you kill me, I can’t pay you.” Marner shuddered.
“Other methods of payment also suit me. Like a slow, painful death, after which no one will ever be able to identify your body. Pieces of you strewn all over the city, an ear here, an eye there. Or perhaps all fed to the hogs on your cousin’s estate. Missing but dead. Very dead. Your death will serve as a caution to others who think to take advantage of my . . . good nature.”
He took out the knife, played with it in the light, and held it out to Flute. “Would you like to do the honors, Mr. Flute? But slowly—I want him to regret his actions.”
“I have a piece of land,” Marner blurted out. “It’s a prime piece, good for grazing, water adjacent, near the coast.”
“Does it have a house?
He looked away. “No. It’s a ruin, not habitable. But there’s a cottage, small but livable. You could rent it out. There’s a tenant there already. . . . You could let her stay, though she pays almost nothing.”
“Her?”
“The ward of my uncle who left me the land. I’m not supposed to dislodge her, but if you own the land, there’s no violation of the will.”
“Let me understand you: you expect me to take a piece of land with a disputed ownership instead of a nice handy pile of money? Is there at least a barn?”
“No . . . a shed, but that’s all.”
“Then why would I want it?”
“It’s worth more than I owe you,” Marner argued. “It might be the only way I can ever pay you.”
“Fine. I’ll take the land.”
Marner’s hands fumbled about. “If you will give me a piece of paper, I’ll write a transfer of deed now.”
“No, you will go to the gaming hell below. Mr. Flute will show you to a table. When a white-haired man comes to the table and invites you to play, you will play. And you will lose. You will bet this piece of land, and you will lose. Do you understand?” Charters let the light fall on the decorations in the blade of his knife.
“Yes,” Marner stammered in fear.
“Good.” Charters picked up the pumice stone and walked toward Marner. He recoiled in fear. “Ah, I see you remember my friend Georges’s toy . . . scrapes the skin off so nicely and from such sensitive places. If you think to walk out without playing, Mr. Flute will stop you. If you think to play and win”—Charters tilted his head—“well, that would be foolish. Don’t you agree?”
Marner’s eyes never left the pumice. “Yes, yes, I agree. I will lose to a white-haired man who invites me to play.”
“Excellent. I see we have an agreement.”
Marner grew bolder. “After that, you will leave me alone.” “Of course. I will have no use for you.”
“I’ll be destitute.”
Charters turned. “For five years you lived on the largesse of your aunt, waiting for her to die, giving her a little bit of poison every day, watching her grow weaker, spending the estate accounts for your own purposes. But you never set anything aside—no, you expected to inherit, so you were spendthrift and foolish. Then, when your cousin returned from the Continent, you could have dispatched her quickly—you called on me, confided all you had done, then decided you didn’t want to spend the money. And now you have nothing. If you are to be destitute, it is not by my hand. Show him to the tables, Flute.”
* * *
“Have you read the paper yet today?” Aidan held out a barely mussed copy of the Times.
Colin looked up from his coffee. “Should I?”
“You might find it interesting. At least, your lady might.”
Colin held out his hand. “Any particular page . . . ?”
“Three. Under ‘Police.’”
“The magistrate determines that the man threw himself into the river, or fell in a state of intoxication. Nothing was found at the time, the man having no items on his person that would provide his identity. But in recent days, the absence of Lord Marner from his county seat . . .”
“Marner’s dead?”
“I viewed the body this morning to be sure. Apparently he lost what few possessions he had left at a gaming hell near London Bridge.”
“Then she’s safe. Well and truly safe.”
Epilogue
“Sir, it’s time to return home.” Joseph Pastin stood at the doorway of the office, looking in. No one would have been surprised to hear that the man at the desk had very nearly died in battle. One long scar ran from his temple down his cheek and to his chin, a reminder of the sword’s tip that had sliced open the once-handsome features. It had missed his eye, but not the edge of his mouth, and the parts had knit together unevenly, joined by a thick, raised scar.
“You never stop watching out for me.” When the man smiled, as now, the whole plane of his cheek, from the edge of his mouth to his ear, remained motionless, making him appear either clownish or terrifying, depending on the light.
“No, sir. The prince regent has made it quite clear that I am to take good care of the hero, who died for his country and now spends his afterlife in a hidden office suite, poring over information the way Wellington used to pore over maps. The others left hours ago.”
“Well, if no one is here, then you must stop calling me ‘sir.’ If any man has a right to my name, it’s you.”
“Then, Benjamin, it’s time to return home.” Pastin had already turned down the lights in the outer offices.
“You won’t ever get used to my new name, will you? I thought we picked Mr. James because you liked the sound of it.”
“No, we picked it because it was my grandfather’s name, and I thought it would be easy to remember. But I’ve found I’m too old to change. I’ve known you as Benjamin for my whole life. Or at least all of my life that’s worth remembering.”
“I suppose I must get up, but my leg is objecting to this change in weather.” Benjamin rose with difficulty, his good leg stiff from lack of exertion. He reached for the cane to steady himself, but began to falter. Joseph reacted quickly. Sliding his arm under Benjamin’s, the adjutant pulled his old commander against his body, helping the man to stand until he regained his own feet.
“It was a good day that I recruited you to join my regiment.”
“How could I not follow the fair-haired officer who promised to show me the world?”
Joseph helped Benjamin into his greatcoat, then offered him his arm. Benjamin took it. “Have you discovered anything else about Princess Marietta’s murder? Anything that might indicate who was behind the assassination or the Levellers’ riots?
“No, but I’m certain they are related. I just don’t know how yet. I simply hope we can sort it out before one or more of my brothers find themselves in a trouble from which I cannot extricate them. But at the same time, I certainly put Colin in the eye of danger.”
“Yet it turned out quite well—I met Lady Fairbourne several years ago when we were still on the Peninsula.”
“Her father was a good man. I suppose had I known she was in distress, Colin is exactly the brother I would have sent.”
“Are you still sure you are doing the right thing? Letting them believe you are dead?”
“If they know I’m alive, Aidan will refuse to remain lord. And I’ll be obligated to marry and provide an heir. And we both know I cannot take that chance. No, it’s better this way. And besides, spending my time in this office ensures that I don’t scare any children.”
Joseph extinguished the lights one by one behind them as they made their way slowly, arm in arm, out of the office and down the hall.
“At least you were able to intervene for Lady Wilmot. Your brother and Walgrave were able to find the planted papers before the magistrates arrived.”
“Yes, but I worry. What if that request hadn’t come to me, to this office? Would Lady Wilmot be in the Tower even now awaiting execution as a spy and forger?”
“But it didn’t happen, sir. All the information that has to do with the security of His Majesty’s kingdom comes
across your desk. As long as it does, you can look out for them.”
“As long as it does, Joe, as long as it does.”
Dear Reader,
I thought you might like a little more information on the background to Lucy and Colin’s story. I love history and words, and, when I’m not writing, I enjoy mucking around in nineteenth-century magazines to see what I can discover.
Mental Asylums
In 1818, a parliamentary committee visited all of the asylums in England, and the details about Matron’s house come from the report of that committee published in 1819. By the standards of that report, Matron’s house would actually have been one of the better facilities for the care of the mentally ill, providing fresh straw, flannel in winter, glass in windows, and fresh air (even if that air was accompanied by a strait waistcoat).
Word Games and Enigmas
A staple from the late eighteenth-century through the end of the nineteenth, word games were a common feature of women’s magazines and books for women and girls. I have used actual enigmas from nineteenth-century books, though not from the 1819 Lady’s Magazine itself. Though that periodical had for many years devoted a section of pages to various sorts of games and their solutions, by 1819 it no longer did so.
The question game that Colin attributes to an overly zealous matchmaking mother is drawn from The Querist’s Album, published by David Bryce in Glasgow between the late 1860s and 1890. The Querist’s Album asked players to offer their ‘confessions’ to thirty-six questions on personal topics, and the questions Colin recounts to Lucy are from that book. My favorite question of the whole list is this: “Is it acceptable for a woman to pop the question?” Until I read the Querist’s Album, I had no idea that the phrase (“pop the question”) or the practice (women asking for men’s hand in marriage) dated back so far as the late nineteenth-century.
Chasing the Heiress Page 32