Wedding Matilda (Redcakes Book 6)

by Heather Hiestand

  “I’ll do it,” Ellen said. “Go about your business, Daisy.”

  The maid curtseyed and trotted out of the room.

  “Read the note,” Gawain said.

  Matilda unrolled the paper, her hands seeming to work separately from the rest of her body. She couldn’t make the words resolve at first. There was only a vague impression of thick black marks against the white.

  “Focus,” Gawain ordered.

  She blinked three times, then, slowly, the marks began to form words. “i am rite you want yer baby. You goin to pay for the littl one. 5000 pounds.”

  The writing was all but illiterate, the spelling horrendous. The money demand offensive.

  “There’s no proof of anything,” her father said.

  “They had the dog,” Gawain pointed out. “Though I admit a lad finding him in the park, rather than the kidnappers sending him to the door, is a bit odd.”

  “Could be an opportunist,” her father suggested.

  “They don’t even say where to take the money, or when,” her mother said, pouring tea. She sighed as she added milk and sugar, then held the cup and saucer out to Matilda. “It’s cool enough. Drink it right away.”

  “I don’t think I can,” Matilda said, squeezing her eyes shut. She hugged the puppy tightly, until it beat its tail against her arm and she had to soften her grip. He might have been the last creature Jacob hugged.

  “You need to keep your strength up,” Gawain said. “And warm yourself.” He took the cup and saucer in one hand, reached under the puppy with his other, and traded the damp animal for the warm cup.

  Her hand shook as she lifted it to her lips, but she managed to swallow the first sip of the sugary fluid. In all these years her mother had yet to doctor a cup of tea to her satisfaction. When she was younger, Mother never added sugar to a girl’s tea because she needed to protect her figure. Now, it seemed Mother had given up on her ever finding a husband. And no surprise.

  Her father glanced at his pocket watch. “I can get you the money by Monday afternoon. I’ll go down to London to my bank, then bring it back. If we’ve heard something more by then we’ll be ready.”

  “I think I should storm the Gipsy camp,” Gawain said. “That rabble is not likely to give an ex-soldier a fight.”

  Tea slopped as Matilda forgot her cup. “Don’t you dare, Gawain. Jacob could be killed!”

  Gawain’s gaze turned on her with no hint of sympathy. She knew he must think Jacob already dead. Her stomach lurched at the thought, but no, she mustn’t think such things about her child, her baby. Gawain wouldn’t think them about his own son if the situation were reversed. He wouldn’t admit the truth until he held Noel’s tiny body in his own arms. And she wouldn’t either.

  “It doesn’t matter for now, until we find out where it is.”

  “You will not go near that camp,” Matilda told him, using her most emphatic voice. She didn’t use it often because she mostly employed Greggory to give orders, knowing the men in her employ would take direction better from him directly. So often the men she met with refused to even look her in the eye, their gazes hovering somewhere around her bosom.

  Gawain shrugged. “We’ll do what makes sense at the time.”

  “We don’t even know the Gipsies have Jacob, not yet,” her father said.

  “Or why,” her mother chimed in. “That Izabela may be as much a victim as our boy.”

  “I still think Mr. Bliven is behind this,” Matilda mused. Could he have charmed Izabela into helping him? She stared into her murky tea. She wondered what her fortune would reveal if she took her teacup into the Gipsy camp and asked one of the women to read it. Doom, perhaps?

  But it was an idea. A woman, a tourist really, could probably enter a camp, claiming to look for a fortune-teller. She’d have to be accompanied. Mrs. Miller might go.

  “I assure you, he is not,” Gawain said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Let’s go to London tomorrow,” he suggested. “I know where he is. You can talk to him.”

  “He wanted his son quite desperately, once.”

  “I know,” Gawain growled.

  “He sent Jacob a wooden train for his birthday and a matching boat for Christmas. He hasn’t forgotten his son.”

  “Did you give them to him?” her mother asked.

  Matilda nodded. “As long as he isn’t present in our lives, I don’t mind Jacob receiving the gifts. I’ll have to explain the situation someday. I hope by then I can explain it.”

  “I agree that he might be involved,” her father said. “His behavior was not that of a sane man in the past.”

  “Yet you wanted me to marry him.”

  Her father frowned. “You can understand why, Matilda. Jacob’s prospects would be much improved. But I wouldn’t want my daughter tied to such a man.”

  “I can’t leave Bristol right now. If—I mean when—Jacob is found, he needs his mother.” As if the thought gave her strength, she took a sip of the tea.

  “I think it is important that you see Theo as soon as possible,” Gawain said.

  “Can you bring him here?” She drank again.

  “No, I cannot,” he said in a monotone.

  Matilda stared at her brother as she considered.

  “I think we should bring in the police,” her mother said. “Now that money is involved.”

  “No,” Matilda said. “They might react as Gawain has, and want to storm the Gipsy camp. I can think of no way better to lose Jacob forever.” As she said it, she knew she had decided. “Will you stay here while Gawain and I take the train to London to see Mr. Bliven? Then, when we return, you can obtain the money from your bankers, just in case.”

  “We need more people looking,” her father said. “Clearly these Gipsies are elusive, if Greggory cannot find the tavern.”

  “What about Lady Elizabeth’s husband, the one who is the private inquiry agent?” her mother asked. “He might be able to help.”

  Lady Elizabeth was Lord Judah’s sister. But she and her husband lived in Edinburgh. He wouldn’t have any local contacts, though he did have strong opinions about kidnappers. “He might help,” Matilda conceded.

  “I’ll contact him,” Gawain said.

  “I want to search the park,” Matilda said. “Has anyone done that since Sir Barks was found?”

  “You haven’t the strength,” Gawain said. “I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll pack a few things and check the railway timetable,” Matilda said. Resolutely, she drank down her tea, every sugary drop, then popped a biscuit into her mouth. “There, I’m restored.”

  Her defiant glance fooled no one, but it was the best she could manage. She did feel steadier as she went up the stairs to her bedroom, however.

  The next day, Matilda and Gawain, in the Redcakes’ best carriage, pulled up in front of a row house near Grosvenor Square. She had dressed in a black coat, feeling already in mourning. If she could make Mr. Bliven understand her pain, surely he would tell her where he was keeping Jacob. She didn’t discount the idea that her baby was being kept in a Gipsy camp, just thought that Mr. Bliven was behind it. With his dark eyes and mahogany curls, who was to say he hadn’t been hiding some Gipsy blood himself, despite his ties to an earldom?

  Sleep had been hard to come by the night before. She kept wishing—imploring God, really—that Jacob would be in his bed by morning and this nightmare would all be over.

  When Greggory had returned from another useless day of searching for the White Horse tavern, she’d sent Mrs. Miller to visit with Izabela’s mother again, but she hadn’t seen the girl. Mrs. Miller reported that the woman had seemed very frightened and properly concerned for her daughter’s well-being.

  Truthfully, though, Matilda wondered about the character of a girl who had attracted three followers despite spending most of her time indoors, tending to a young child. It seemed absurd to be able to manage to attract three men with so little effort.

  As Gawain helped he
r down the step, she wondered if it was only petty jealousy due to her having no suitors to Izabela’s three. No one had shown any proper interest in her . . . well, ever, really. She imagined a tall man next to her in this time of trial, someone like Ewan, her head leaning gratefully on his shoulder. It sounded lovely to have support like that, yet it wouldn’t make the situation any better, not really. Not when Jacob was missing.

  She pressed her glove to her mouth, stifling a moan as they went to the door of the house. Gawain checked her face, his expression passive.

  “Hold it together, Matilda. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  She glanced away, not wanting to ask what he’d meant. After this, he’d probably go home to Battersea and kiss little Noel and be so very grateful he wasn’t her. Her bitter thoughts carried her past the parlor maid who opened the door and allowed them into a waiting room, then a male servant who took them up two flights of stairs, past the public rooms and into a private section of the house. She didn’t listen to anything Gawain said, but as they went down the hall, she smelled strange animal odors that had no place in a properly run house. Blood and waste and old food.

  Gawain stopped in front of the open door instead of following the servant in. He wrapped his hand around Matilda’s upper arm. “Buck up, old girl. He isn’t what you remember.”

  She frowned at him and wrenched her arm away. Didn’t he realize that the worst thing had already happened to her? She was wrapped in the cotton wool of horror already.

  Ignoring his presence in the doorway, she stepped around him and slid into the room. The stench of the sickroom hit hard. Not just the animal smells but camphor and lavender and laudanum. Coal and smoke, too, which seemed to hover under the ceiling thanks to an unopened window and insufficient flue.

  She approached the bed, ignoring all of this. The figure under a white sheet and multiple wool blankets was unrecognizable. Patches of scalp showed under graying, curly hair. Cheekbones and the overall shape of the skull were visible. The mouth was the dried rictus of a mummy. But the papery eyelids fluttered open and she recognized those eyes. Theodore Bliven.

  Oh, God. She put her hand to her mouth. This man was far too ill to scheme. To think, he’d wanted to marry her and manage the Redcake’s factories when this was his fate. He’d already been ill then, but nothing like this.

  “Can you speak?” she whispered.

  His corpse’s head moved restlessly on his pillow. She noted the incongruously cheerful yellow daisies embroidered along the open edge of the pillowcase. “Ears buzzing.”

  She raised her voice. “Mr. Bliven, it is Matilda Redcake.”

  His eyelids fluttered. He still had thick eyelashes, though his eyebrows were wispy, threaded with gray. “Matilda?”

  “Yes. I came to see you about Jacob.”

  His arms were bent, his fingers placed along the top of the sheet, which was folded over the blankets. They fluttered. “My son.”

  “Yes.”

  “How old?”

  “Two and a half.”

  “It’s been more than three years since you loved me.” His lips curved upward, and she was afraid they would crack open. “Why visit me now when . . .”

  She wondered what he meant to say, but it seemed he had fallen asleep.

  Behind her, Gawain exhaled and put his hand on her shoulder. They had become close in a way they never had been since he had helped teach her the business. Over time, she knew her older brother had learned to respect her. His irritation and disgust had turned to a grudging admiration and friendship. She welcomed the comfort he offered, now that she realized the gravity of her situation.

  “I’ll marry him now,” she said, remembering what her mother had said. “Take responsibility for burying him.”

  “He won’t last long enough for that. Malaria, you know.”

  “We can afford the special license,” Matilda said. “Would it give him comfort?”

  Bliven’s eyes opened a fraction of an inch. “Want to see Jacob.”

  “He’s gone,” Matilda said, her voice catching. She could say no more.

  “Not dead,” Bliven whispered, his dry gray tongue touching the center of his lip as if to try to moisten it.

  The servant leaned over the edge of the bed and attempted to spoon water into Bliven’s mouth. Most of it went down the side of his lips onto the pillow, but it seemed to restore the dying man.

  “Not dead,” Gawain rasped. “Missing. Kidnapped.”

  “Who?” Bliven’s eyelids fluttered.

  “We don’t know. The nanny disappeared, too. We’ve had a ransom note but no real details yet.”

  “Not me,” Bliven said in a faint whisper. “I don’t need money. I have plenty.”

  “I know,” Gawain said. “That was a good shipment you brought me.”

  “And my corpse, ready for burial,” Bliven said, a hint of his old humor showing.

  “Do you want a wife?” Gawain asked. “Matilda will marry you now.”

  “Very kind of you,” Bliven murmured, “but find Jacob. That’s important. I left money.” He frowned.

  Matilda glanced at Gawain. He shrugged.

  “My will,” Bliven continued. “Money to Jacob.”

  Matilda sighed. Her son had no need for money. Their son. “Our marriage would help his prospects.”

  “Then do it. I have a cousin who is a vicar,” Bliven said, the words slowly spaced. The servant leaned over with another spoonful of water.

  “He can’t take food anymore.” The servant and Gawain shared a significant glance.

  Matilda frowned. She knew the end was near. And she needed to get back to Bristol. If they could marry today, or after Jacob was found, she would do it, but otherwise Bliven himself was correct. She needed to focus on the search for her son. If he wasn’t responsible, who was?

  An hour later, they had consulted with Theodore’s cousin, Hiram Bliven, who owned the house and had taken responsibility for him in his illness, and had him send for his younger vicar brother, who was somewhere in Surrey. Gawain went to inquire about a special license. Matilda found herself dropped off at the loading dock in the back alley of Redcake’s, with orders to eat something so she could get through the day. She intended to telephone Bristol and check on her family.

  When she reached the manager’s office, she found Ewan Hales at his desk, though it was Saturday afternoon and he probably had the afternoon off.

  She felt her back stiffen. “Mr. Hales.”

  He swiveled in his chair, his hair flopping over his brow. “Miss Redcake!” He leaped to his feet.

  “I wanted to use your telephone.”

  He peered at her. “Have you eaten? You’re white as milk. Better than gray, I suppose.”

  She did feel her legs wobble, but whether it was from hunger, shock over Theodore Bliven’s appearance, or the sight of this man, who had so insulted her, and in her own home, too, she could not say.

  “Sit down, Miss Redcake. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She heard rapid footsteps as he went into the hallway, and he was back in under two minutes.

  “There. I asked a messenger boy to run downstairs to fetch you a tray. Everything that’s been going on has taken the wind out of you, and no surprise.”

  “I am amazed you are being kind.”

  He frowned. “I hope I would always be so, Miss Redcake.”

  She scoffed.

  “I am sorry for what I said to your brother. I was trying to be thorough. It’s part of my position, you understand; to anticipate problems and prevent them.”

  Her hands shook as she tucked one over the other across her chest. “You thought I might have a lover because I let you kiss me?”

  “I am sorry,” he said again.

  “You think I have loose morals,” she said, louder.

  “I don’t know you well, Miss Redcake.”

  Her brain seemed to tilt when she turned her head from side to side. “It was only the one time, you know. On
e indiscretion with a man I thought would marry me. Everything happened because of that one time. It’s not so rare, you know. People do indulge themselves. Not everyone is so spectacularly unlucky. I’m sure you have engaged in such activities.”

  From the way his eyebrows rose, she suspected she had gone much too far. “Miss Redcake.”

  “Why did you kiss me?” she asked, closing her eyes.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Does it offend you to know that I scarcely remember? It feels like it happened a century ago.”

  “That’s why I asked.” She sighed. “I don’t remember either.”

  He cleared his throat. “Any word on your son? I dearly wanted to stay in Bristol.”

  “I know you did, and I appreciate that, Mr. Hales.” She had no energy for anger at him anymore. “No word since the ransom note. I was so sure Jacob’s father was behind everything, but he’s dying.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes. We were just there. Such a handsome, laughing rogue of a man. He was a school friend of my sister Alys’s husband. He was meant to be one of her suitors, but he liked me better. I was such a fool. A friend of ours from finishing school—she’s Lady Bricker now—told me how to get him to propose, and I thought Alys had done the same with her husband.” Her laugh sounded hollow. “It turned out Mr. Bliven already had a fiancée. My father is usually more thorough in his investigations.”

  “You thought he was a true suitor.”

  “Yes. We weren’t used to suitors. We didn’t know any better.”

  A knock came at the door, and Mr. Hales leapt up to answer it, then returned carrying a tray. “Let us get some food into you and we shall decide how to proceed.”

  He poured a generous amount of milk into her cup, then added tea. No sugar. He had remembered her preference.

  Chapter Seven

  Matilda stared at Mr. Hales’s head, bent over the tray. He looked up with a smile and handed her the tea.

  “Here, drink this, then your soup should be cool enough to eat. Cream of mushroom today.”

  Her hand shook slightly as she took the cup. Would this be how she remembered this time in the future? Every hand offering her endless cups of tea and no hope? She downed the beverage as quickly as possible, thinking she might become a coffee drinker when Jacob came home. If he ever did. And if he didn’t, she might just throw herself into the River Avon.