“Eleven.” She saw his brows lift, and added defensively: “You think I am refining too much upon a prank by a boy of that age, but Theo has never been strong, and has only lately recovered from a serious illness. I cannot help fearing that he may have had a fall, or even have been overcome by exhaustion, and not heard me calling to him.”
“You do not think he may have heard you, and remained silent out of sheer devilment, just to tease you? Boys do play such tricks, you know.”
“Not Theo,” Dione replied with conviction. “Oh, he might have done so in the garden, but not after I had followed him all the way through the woods. And he had certainly climbed that path, or I would not have found the button from his jacket.”
“Very true. If we do not find him at Garth House, or on the way there, a search must be made for him immediately. My name, by the by, is Varleigh. Sir Greydon Varleigh, of Rushbourne Abbey, just beyond Brambledon. I take it that you, ma’am, now reside at Garth House?”
“Yes, I am Dione Mallory. My father was Mr. Jonathan Mallory’s cousin, which is how Theo came to inherit the house.” She paused, but after a moment added in a low voice, “It was my notion to come here. If any harm has befallen him, I shall never forgive myself.”
She had forgotten that she was addressing a stranger—was scarcely aware, in fact, that she had spoken her thought aloud and was therefore almost startled when Greydon Varleigh answered her. Both tone and words were matter of fact, but she was aware of a welcome note of sympathy in his voice.
“There is very little reason, ma’am, to suppose that any harm has befallen him, but if he really is missing, it will be the simplest thing in the world to have a search made for him. I will see to it immediately should it prove necessary.”
“You will?” Dione was taken aback. “You are exceedingly kind, sir, but I could not permit you to be put to so much trouble on our account. We are not even acquainted.”
“We are neighbors, are we not?” he countered in an amused tone. “I was under the impression that we are becoming better acquainted every minute, and besides, you would find it very difficult to organize such a search yourself since you are a stranger in Brambledon. I cannot feel that Jack Ibstone would be of much assistance.”
“I am sure of it, even if he were at home, which he is not,” Dione agreed roundly, “but even so, I—that is, Mama would not wish to place herself under such an obligation.”
“Miss Mallory,” Sir Greydon informed her calmly, “you are talking nonsense, which I can only ascribe to the fatigue and anxiety which you must undoubtedly be feeling. We must hope that the necessity of arranging for a search party will not arise, but if it does, you will leave the entire matter to me.”
There was a pause, during which a sidelong glance at the lady informed him that she was laboring under strong emotion, torn between indignation and a sense of obligation for the assistance he was already rendering her. His lips twitched, for he possessed a lively sense of the ridiculous, and though he could sympathize with her anxiety he could not really believe it to be justified. Before she could think of anything to say, however, they rounded a bend to see two youthful male figures a hundred yards or so ahead of them, walking in the same direction.
“Ah!” Sir Greydon said with satisfaction. “Miss Mallory, is either of those young gentlemen the brother you have mislaid?”
“Yes, it is.” There was overwhelming relief in Dione’s voice, but a touch of perplexity also, for though the smaller boy was undoubtedly Theodore, there seemed, even in the gathering darkness, to be something a little odd in his appearance. “What in the world has he been up to?”
The boys looked round as the curricle approached and then moved to the side of the road, and as Sir Greydon brought the carriage to a halt beside them, Theodore’s curious appearance was explained. He was soaking wet, his clothes sodden and dripping, his cap gone and his fair curls plastered to his head.
“Theo!” Dione exclaimed in distress. “Good heavens, what have you been doing?”
“Dee!” Theodore was staring at her in the blankest astonishment. “What are you doing in that bang-up curricle?”
“Looking for you, you abominable boy! I have been searching for you all through the woods, and it is only thanks to this gentleman’s kindness in offering me a seat in his carriage that I am not trudging along the road after you as well.” She glanced at Sir Greydon. “This is my brother, Theodore, sir. Theo, make your bow to Sir Greydon Varleigh.”
Theodore obeyed. Sir Greydon, who was having some difficulty in keeping his countenance, solemnly acknowledged the introduction, but added briskly:
“I fancy, my lad, that the sooner you are at home and out of those wet clothes, the better it will be. Stubbs, help him up.” He removed the light rug that covered his legs, and which the groom had carefully arranged around Dione also. “I think we must sacrifice this, ma’am. Your brother’s need is clearly greater than ours.”
She agreed gratefully, for though Theodore appeared to be in good spirits he had spoken through chattering teeth, and when the groom helped him up to the seat beside her, she could tell how violently he was shivering. While she wrapped the rug closely about him Sir Greydon surveyed the other boy, a sturdy, ruddy-complexioned lad as fair as Theodore himself.
“You are young Durridge, are you not?”
“That I be, your Honour. Jem Durridge.” The boy knuckled his forehead as he spoke, then nodded toward Theodore. “I were just taking him home. He asked me the way to Garth House, but I thought as I’d better see him safe to the door, him being a stranger, and nobbut a young ’un.” He was no more than thirteen himself.
“Very proper,” Sir Greydon agreed gravely, and Dione smiled warmly at Master Durridge and thanked him for his help. Then, as the curricle moved off again, she asked in a resigned tone:
“What happened, Theo? I suppose you fell into that pool?”
He nodded, rather shamefacedly. “Yes, I was climbing up the bank to see where the water came from, and I slipped. Then I tried to go back home through the woods, but I couldn’t get down over the fallen tree.” A thought appeared to strike him. “Dee, you did not climb up over that, did you? I don’t see how you could, in those long skirts.”
“Well, I certainly did not fly over it!” Dione spoke with some asperity, for her close proximity to Sir Greydon, occasioned by Theodore’s additional presence in the carriage, informed her that his shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. He must have a very clear idea of how she had managed the climb, she thought, and felt her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. What a hoyden she must seem to him, scrambling about in woods, and accepting without hesitation a seat in the carriage of a stranger.
The journey back to Garth House was soon accomplished. The lane descended the hill in a series of sweeping bends, and at the foot of it joined the road along which the Mallory family had approached their inheritance two days before. Sir Greydon maintained a brisk pace until the gates of the house were reached, but was then obliged to restrain his horses to a walk, for it was almost completely dark beneath the trees, while the rutted drive and overhanging branches were additional hazards.
The house, when they reached it, looked almost as inhospitable as when Dione had first seen it, except that the front door stood open and a light was burning dimly in the hall. As hooves and wheels crunched on the gravel there was movement there also, and Edwina appeared in the doorway, peering rather nervously into the gloom. Dione spoke quickly to reassure her.
“We are home, Edwina. Fetch Mama, if you please.”
The curricle came to a halt and Stubbs jumped down and went to the horses’ heads, while Sir Greydon lifted Theodore down and assisted Dione to alight. As she led the way into the hall, Mrs. Mallory, with Edwina and Cecilia at her heels, came hurrying from the direction of the parlor, to utter a cry of dismay as she saw the state her son was in.
“Mama!” Dione broke in firmly upon the flurry of anxious exclamations and questions. “This gentlema
n is Sir Greydon Varleigh, who has been kind enough to come to our rescue and drive us home. My mother, sir, and my sisters, Cecilia and Edwina.”
The girls curtsied. Mrs. Mallory acknowledged the introduction in a flustered way and thanked Sir Greydon profusely, but her thoughts were clearly centred upon her son. Sir Greydon felt that he could not blame her; seen in the light, Theodore’s face was white and pinched with cold, with an ominous, bluish tinge about the lips, and he was shivering uncontrollably.
“I am happy to have been of service, ma’am, but pray do not let me intrude upon you now. Theodore needs dry clothes and a warm bed if he is not to take a chill, so I will not delay in bidding you goodnight.”
She agreed with relief, thanked him again and hurried her son away up the stairs. Sir Greydon turned to Dione, adding with a smile:
“And I trust that you, Miss Mallory, will suffer no ill effects from this evening’s misadventure.”
“Oh, I do not suppose it, sir! I am very rarely ill.” She held out her hand, looking up at him with that frank directness that had appealed to him at their first meeting. “Thank you for everything. I am very sensible of the debt I owe you.”
He shook his head, but grasped her fingers lightly for a moment before bowing and turning toward the door. Dione hesitated, then took a pace after him, saying in a low voice:
“One more favor, Sir Greydon. Can you tell me if there is a reliable physician in this neighborhood?” She cast a worried glance over her shoulder toward the stairs. “I fear we may have need of one.”
“Dr. Barnfield lives in the village, ma’am. He has attended our family for many years, and I have heard my grandmother recommend him in the strongest terms. Do you wish me to send a message requesting him to call upon you?”
She assented gratefully, and watched him go down the steps and mount into the curricle. The light carriage swept round in a smooth semicircle and disappeared into the dark mouth of the drive. Dione closed the door and turned to confront the critical gaze of her youngest sister, Cecilia having followed their mother and brother up the stairs.
“You look the most complete romp, Dee,” Edwina informed her candidly. “There is dirt on your face, your hair is coming down and your gown is badly torn. It is as well Mama was too fussed about Theo to notice, but what such a tremendous swell as Sir Greydon must have thought I cannot imagine.”
Dione usually took sisterly criticism in her stride, but on this occasion she gave way to a most unaccustomed spurt of temper. “Be quiet, Edwina, and do not use such vulgar expressions,” she said irritably. “I am tired and I am hungry and in no mood to listen to impertinence from you. Go and see if you can make yourself useful to Mama.”
Edwina blinked, and went. It was debatable whether she or Dione was the more surprised.
Rushbourne Abbey, where Sir Greydon arrived just after dark, had been the home of the Varleigh family ever since the first Sir Greydon married the heiress of Rushbourne in the closing years of the sixteenth century. He had been something of an adventurer, that Elizabethan Varleigh, one of those English seadogs who continually challenged the might of Spain in order to plunder the rich lands of the New World, and he had plundered to some purpose, founding a fortune that he augmented by that advantageous marriage. Thus he had risen from being merely the younger son of an obscure country squire to a position of wealth and power, master of one of those broad estates wrested from the church by King Henry VIII and bestowed upon certain of his loyal and trusted followers.
Of the original abbey nothing now remained above ground, and only its name and a labyrinth of stone-vaulted cellars recalled its monastic origin. The Tudor mansion that had replaced it had been embellished and added to by successive generations, and was now a sprawling pile composed of many different styles of architecture that somehow blended into a picturesque and not unpleasing whole. The main entrance was in the imposing west front, and it was here that Sir Greydon alighted, telling his head groom to drive the curricle round to the stables.
Stubbs obeyed in a thoughtful and perplexed frame of mind, a state that had been growing upon him ever since they had left London a week before. Most members of the huge staff of servants needed to keep Rushbourne functioning smoothly were not very well acquainted with the adult Greydon Varleigh, for he had entered the army at the age of eighteen, and served under Wellington throughout the Peninsular Wars and the Waterloo campaign, only selling out after the final defeat of Napoleon, but Stubbs had been with him since his boyhood and throughout his military career. He was completely devoted to Sir Greydon’s interests and could be depended upon to obey any command, no matter how eccentric, and keep his inevitable reflections to himself, but he was sorely puzzled by his master’s present behavior.
During the past three years since he had left the army, Sir Greydon had become one of the acknowledged leaders of fashion, yet here he was, at the height of the London Season, isolating himself at his country seat for no reason that Stubbs could discover. They had left London at a moment’s notice, immediately following a visit from Mr. Mayhew, Sir Greydon’s agent at Rushbourne, and Stubbs had naturally supposed that something was very much amiss at the Abbey, and yet all appeared to be well. Stubbs was at a loss, just as he was at a loss to understand why the past week had been spent riding or driving from place to place in the surrounding countryside and never halting for long at any of them, but he knew beyond doubt that Sir Greydon was worried, and that his disquiet was increasing as time passed. It was true that this evening’s encounter with the rather odd Miss Mallory and her tiresome young brother had briefly diverted him, but almost immediately after leaving Garth House he had relapsed into his former preoccupation.
Sir Greydon, meanwhile, unaware of his henchman’s anxious speculation, had gone up the wide, shallow steps to the door, both leaves of which were thrown open at his approach by a pair of footmen. The dignified form of his butler advanced to greet him, and announced, as he relieved Sir Greydon of hat, gloves and driving coat:
“Mr. Calderwood arrived during your absence, sir. He is in the library.”
He saw Sir Greydon’s black brows come together in a frown, as though the arrival of his cousin was unwelcome as well as unexpected, but he merely said:
“Thank you, Dobson. I will have a word with him before I go upstairs.”
In the library a dark haired, fashionably attired young man was lounging with long legs outstretched and a glass in his hand, but he set this down and rose to his feet as Sir Greydon came in. He was nearly as tall as his host, but of more slender build and four or five years younger, with sufficient resemblance to Sir Greydon to mark him as a member of the same family. He threw up one hand like a fencer acknowledging a hit, and said with a grin:
“Don’t eat me, Grey! I’m here under protest, and if I am intruding upon you will go away at once, with no more said.”
“That I find difficult to believe,” Varleigh replied ironically, waving his visitor back to his seat. “Upon what do you imagine you are intruding?”
“My dear fellow, how can I tell? What’s more, as I told Mama, it’s no concern of mine if you choose to cancel all your engagements in the middle of the Season, and take yourself off to Rushbourne without a word to anyone.”
“I take it that my aunt did not agree with you?”
“Well, you know what females are for curiosity, and besides, she was depending upon you to attend the ball she was giving for my sister. Charlotte, too! She’d set her heart on dancing with Cousin Greydon at her come-out. Been puffing it off to her friends for weeks.”
Sir Greydon struck himself lightly on the forehead. “Confound it all! I did promise her that, didn’t I? Poor little Charlotte! I’ll have to find some way to make it up to her.”
“Oh, that will be easy enough!” Mr. Calderwood replied airily. “Squire her to Almack’s one night instead, and she’ll soon forgive you.”
“I trust that she will, but this does not explain, my dear Vivyan, what brings you here. Surely you
did not drive all the way from London merely to take me to task for Charlotte’s disappointment?”
“No, nor to pry into your concerns, coz, I give you my word. At least—” he corrected himself hastily—“I would not have done if our respected grandmama had not busied herself in the affair. She’s devilish displeased with you, Grey! I can’t recall seeing her more put about.”
Greydon frowned. “I wrote to her the day after I arrived here.”
“Yes—telling her that a matter of business had obliged you to go into the country for a time. You can’t have been fool enough to suppose that would satisfy the old lady?” He did not wait for a reply, but added rather uncomfortably—for Greydon was looking decidedly grim—“In the end, nothing would do but for me to agree to come and find out what is going on. I didn’t want to, and told her you wouldn’t like it, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was working herself into such a fury I thought I’d better agree, for Mama had told me it doesn’t do now for her to get into a fret.”
“No, it does not. Her doctor warned me, after that attack she had last summer, that another would almost certainly prove fatal, and that we must do all in our power to see that she is not upset in any way. You were right to do as she wished, though I cannot for the life of me understand why she should be so put about simply because I absent myself from town for a week or two.”
“Cannot understand?” Vivyan stared at him. “Dash it all, Grey, you know this obsession she has about the name not dying out! ‘The last of the Varleighs’ and all that flummery.”
“I know, but I do not see—!” Greydon broke off, staring in his turn. “Good God! She has not taken it into her head that I am involved in an affair of honour?”
“Don’t think that had occurred to her,” Vivyan said hastily. “At least, it hadn’t when I took leave of her.” He eyed his cousin warily. “You’re not, are you?”
“Of course I am not,” Greydon relied impatiently, “but if our grandmother is not imagining me slain in a duel, why is she so disturbed by my absence?”
The Varleigh Medallion Page 5