Wedding Matilda (Redcakes Book 6)

by Heather Hiestand

  “When did you see her last?”

  The man shrugged again and strolled toward the nearest campfire. He bent over the open flame and puffed on his cigar until it lit. Matilda’s lips were tight.

  “I want a look in that vardo,” she said.

  “Has Izabela ever been here?” Ewan asked.

  The man turned to them with a feral grin. “How would she have the time for that, all but enslaved to that one?” He pointed at Matilda, and tilted his lean hips in her direction. “Such a polite household for that bastard child of yours.”

  “What do you know about him?” Matilda asked in a voice that might have been chiseled from ice. Ewan pulled her arm closer to his body.

  “I know his name,” Majewski said. “That’s a dangerous thing, you know, sharing a name with the world. People can use it to hurt him.”

  “Who do you know who wants to hurt my son?” she asked, taking her arm from Ewan’s hand and stepping toward the campfire. Ewan stayed close.

  The man smirked. “Anyone who is jealous of such a fine healthy boy and his rich mother, I suppose.”

  “Where did Izabela take him?” Matilda asked. “Is she a victim or a kidnapper? You know I can pay you plenty for the information.”

  “I know you can call the police. Have them come in here with clubs and send us into the wind. Maybe we’ll go now and save you the trouble.”

  Ewan heard a muttered imprecation in a language he didn’t understand, and an older woman stepped forward, majestic in numerous brightly colored shawls, though her dress underneath was a plain mourning gown.

  “We haven’t called the police,” Matilda said. “I want my son back, quietly. I won’t cause any trouble to your people. Just give me my son.”

  “We don’t have your son, Miss Redcake,” the woman said. Her air of dignity matched Majewski’s. Was he her son?

  “You know my name?” Matilda rejoined.

  “My son has heard Izabela speak of you,” she said, confirming her identity. “But the girl has not been here, nor has your son. Andrzej broke with her last month.”

  Ewan narrowed his eyes at the man, who nodded significantly. He swore as insight hit him. Had the break spurred Izabela into some folly? “Was she expecting a child of her own?”

  The old woman muttered something that sounded foul, whatever language it was in.

  “It wasn’t mine,” Majewski muttered, sounding abashed for the first time. He puffed hard on his cigar stub and gazed at the sky.

  Matilda put her hand to her forehead. “There is yet another man, then.”

  Mrs. Miller shook her head. “I cannot believe all this was going on under my oversight. I am so sorry, Miss Redcake.”

  The housekeeper seemed kindly enough, but she’d had a blank spot in front of her eye where the nanny was concerned. She had found the girl the job, though she was apparently little more than a whore, and ignored her doings.

  Matilda swayed, and Greggory grabbed her arm. She slumped, and Ewan, shocked, caught her with one arm behind her back, then slipped another behind her knees as they buckled completely.

  Majewski pointed to the vardo impassively. “Take her in there.”

  Ewan followed the old woman into the vardo. It was difficult to balance on the steps, which were as much ladder as staircase, but thankfully, he only counted to seven before his feet touched the boards of the wagon itself. He saw the bed on the far wall but decided to set her down on a narrow, cushioned bench built into the side wall, opposite the stove, for fear that beasties would be lurking in the bedding. While Majewski and his mother looked clean enough, the black-bottomed soles of the Gipsy girl made him question camp hygiene. Miss Redcake didn’t need lice or bedbug bites on top of her other woes.

  The vardo was crowded with all six of them inside. Majewski cursed and pushed a small table aside, then gestured to his mother and Mrs. Miller to sit across from Matilda’s prone form. First, though, his mother went to a cabinet and pulled out a vial. After she opened it, she pulled out a bit of dry leaf and crumpled it under Miss Redcake’s nose.

  Ewan watched as her eyelashes, ginger like her hair, fluttered. Her lips moved. He thought she said her son’s name. The old woman muttered something and capped the vial, then put it back in her cupboard.

  “I’ll tell you that one’s fortune,” she said in English. “She’s going to waste away without her son. Isn’t she eating? Sleeping?”

  “He’s been missing since Wednesday,” Ewan said. “That’s a very long time to be separated from your child, especially under the circumstances.”

  “Wednesday?” Majewski said. “Are you certain?”

  Ewan remembered that day so clearly. He’d been kissing Matilda, feeling like his own world was falling apart, sensing that she might anchor him back to earth, and then it rocked again and she was cast onto the waves as well.

  “Why do you ask?” Greggory said sharply.

  The horse dealer exchanged a glance with his mother. “I saw Izabela on Thursday.”

  “Holy Mother,” Ewan swore. “Where?”

  Matilda moaned, and he knelt beside her. “Listen if you can, Miss Redcake; this is important.” He rubbed her hand between his palms.

  “On Corn Street, in front of the bank.”

  “Was she alone?” Ewan asked.

  “I was on my way to the Commercial Rooms to meet with a merchant about a matched set of grays,” Majewski reflected. “She saw me, stuck her nose in the air, and turned away.”

  “What was she wearing?” Mrs. Miller asked.

  The man shrugged. “Just her everyday blue dress. No apron.” He blinked. “No shawl either, now that I think of it.”

  “It was raining heavily that day,” Ewan remembered. Who had she handed Jacob over to? There could be no more doubt that she’d been involved. She hadn’t returned to Matilda’s home.

  “She might have just come from the bank. I don’t remember her looking damp. Must have been a break in the weather. She seemed to be alone, but I’m not sure.”

  “You had no reason to speak to her,” his mother said.

  “No. I broke with her,” Majewski confirmed. “I hadn’t seen her from the time we argued until Thursday.”

  “You didn’t try to get her back, promise a scheme that would bring you the money to marry her?”

  Majewski waved his arm around the neat room. The places where there were bare walls showed fine wood. Everything looked fresh and clean. Nothing needed repair. “By the standards of my people I am a wealthy man. I want for nothing.”

  “This is your place, then, not your mother’s?”

  “I have my own vardo,” the woman said. “Parked in the trees on the eastern edge of our camp. I do not like all this gaudy paint, and mine blends into the landscape.”

  “You are the fortune-teller,” Greggory said, frowning. “Don’t you need to draw attention to yourself?”

  The woman smiled. “I have all the trade I need, young man.” She stood and walked toward him, the floor creaking underneath her feet, then lifted her chin to stare into his eyes.

  Ewan watched Greggory flinch as the woman took his hand, as if she’d shocked him with electricity. Shaking her head, the drabarni said, “You have a rough road ahead of you, gadjo. Much to endure before you find peace.”

  Greggory’s expression went stony. “Shouldn’t I cross your palm with silver first?”

  She chuckled. “That prophecy was free.”

  Matilda struggled into a sitting position. Ewan wondered if she hoped to escape before the drabarni inflicted a doom-filled prophecy on her as well. Instead, the old woman took the small table and pushed it toward the bench where Matilda was, then took a small pouch from a drawer. A card-shaped pouch.

  “For the love you bear for your child, and the sorrow I feel that a member of my people is involved, I will give you a free reading.” She opened the pouch reverently and placed the deck in front of Matilda. “Ask your question.”

  Matilda sat up and placed her hand on th
e top card, then squeezed her eyes shut. Ewan was surprised that she acquiesced, but perhaps she thought it the quickest way to get out of the vardo. A moment later, she took her hand away.

  The drabarni nodded and placed three cards from the deck in front of her, then frowned in concentration. “In your past, the hermit. You have done this alone, the birthing and raising of your child, Miss Redcake. You have been willing to do anything for the baby. You were wise to follow the course you did.”

  Matilda’s eyebrows rose, and Ewan wondered if she thought of her recanted decision not to marry Theodore Bliven.

  “Here in the present, we have the Nine of Cups.” The old woman frowned. “This is a happy card. It symbolizes that you have everything you want.”

  Matilda shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “We both know that isn’t true.”

  She tapped the card with a long fingernail. “There is some deeper truth here. In the past, you trusted the wisdom of friends. Perhaps friends will lead you to the truth again. Now, in the future, the card is the Two of Swords, symbolizing the decision you will make. The figure is blindfolded. You are missing some important piece of information, something in front of you that you are refusing to see. You have to understand things as they are and act quickly, before disaster strikes.”

  “Information like you and your son are charlatans and Izabela is hiding in your caravan in the woods?” Matilda snapped.

  The woman spread her arms, palms up. “You are welcome to look. Indeed, I insist. I do not want you calling the police and disturbing our peaceful camp. I gave this reading to you freely and I ask courtesy in return.”

  Matilda reached into her coat and pulled out a handful of coins. She dropped them onto the table, a shower of silver shillings. Queen Victoria’s dour image glared sternly at the Gipsy woman.

  “There, I have paid, and I grant you nothing.” Her face glowed with pale fire as she stood, a hint of red circles on her cheeks. “Greggory, Mr. Hales, please take a look at this woman’s vardo. We cannot risk my child for courtesy.”

  “I do not want to leave you alone,” Ewan said.

  “Mrs. Miller is here.”

  He nodded and gestured to Greggory. They went down the steps and walked through the camp in silence.

  “I really thought we’d find them here,” Greggory said as they reached the woman’s caravan. “I cannot believe there is yet another man in this picture.”

  “Mrs. Miller needs to lose her position,” Ewan said. “She is in charge of guarding the servants’ chastity.”

  “It doesn’t sound like there is any hope of controlling this one’s,” Greggory said with a laugh.

  Inside, the plain vardo was just as tidy as Majewski’s, if less ornate and perhaps a decade older. “No one could be hiding here.”

  “I didn’t see any movement in the trees, as if someone ran away when we approached,” Greggory agreed. “Lord, but that old woman spooked me. She didn’t even bother to look at my palm or read cards or anything before predicting doom.”

  “She must think she’s a true clairvoyant.”

  “Do you believe in any of that?”

  Ewan regarded the younger man. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he remembered that the missing Jacob was his cousin. “It is best not to believe. This is just the situation where charlatans can get a toehold, claiming they know how to find a missing child. And Jacob’s father is dying as well. Now we’ll get people who claim they can contact his shade for information.”

  “Is Matilda really going to marry him?”

  “I think she will if she can find the time, but I think she should stay in Bristol. Something tells me Jacob is near. He could even be in a neighbor’s house, not that we could ever get inside.”

  “Who would shelter Izabela?”

  “Her lover, perhaps.” Ewan shrugged. “Though who would want a flighty, inconstant, immoral girl like that?”

  Greggory grinned. “You haven’t seen Izabela. Even in shapeless nanny garb she’s a stunner. Has the proverbial smile that could launch a thousand ships.”

  Ewan pursed his lips. “She could hang, you know, if the child is found dead and she is caught.”

  Greggory shuddered. “Let’s go tell Matilda the bad news. Tomorrow we need to start over. If neither Bliven nor Majewski are responsible, who is?”

  “We need another ransom note,” Ewan stated. How else would they find another path through the situation?

  Back at Majewski’s vardo, the men collected Matilda and Mrs. Miller. They returned to their carriage, feeling the weight of the Gipsy’s unhappy gaze on their backs.

  “Did you think we’d find him there?” Greggory asked, staring pensively at the lantern that swung in the corner of the carriage.

  “I am not thinking anymore,” Matilda said. “It is too hard.”

  “At least we found Majewski. I can stop walking Bristol, searching for taverns and camps.”

  “Izabela’s lover might be another Gipsy,” Matilda said. “Who can say?”

  Ewan watched Mrs. Miller. Expressions flitted across her face. Studiousness, confusion, recognition. She blinked hard, as if something had landed in her eye, but then her head turned.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I remember seeing a man in a fine suit pacing in front of the house the day before Jacob vanished,” she said. “I thought he was waiting for Miss Redcake to return.”

  “But he wasn’t?”

  “No,” Mrs. Miller said. “He was gone before Miss Redcake came, but now that I think about it, I didn’t see him after Izabela took Jacob to the park.”

  “He was there late in the day?” Matilda asked.

  “Late afternoon.”

  Matilda frowned. “I thought she took him at about eleven.”

  “Sometimes she took him twice, or I sent her out to do a bit of shopping. She’s a sharper girl than Daisy, and when my rheumatism was acting up, well . . .” Mrs. Miller’s hands fluttered above her skirts before settling again. Her head dropped. “I’ll be giving you my notice, Miss Redcake.”

  “Not now you won’t.” Matilda’s voice cut the air. “You are not going anywhere. I will keep my household together until my son returns. Who can say what any of us knows? Something small might bring Jacob home.”

  “Can you give us a description?” Ewan asked. “Of that man?”

  Mrs. Miller stared at her hands. “Dark hair. But he had a hat on, of course, so I didn’t see much of it. A neat beard. The clothing was nice, though. I recognize a bit of good tailoring when I see it. My husband was a tailor.”

  “Could you say what shop the suit came from?”

  “Not a shop. Not ready made.”

  “Someone wealthy, then. Where would Izabela meet a wealthy man? Did you take her to parties, Miss Redcake?”

  Matilda snorted. “Who would invite me? You’re sure it isn’t some man who lives nearby?”

  “I’ve never seen him before or since,” Mrs. Miller said.

  By then, they were at the tavern. Greggory jumped down from the coach and consulted with Gawain and Sir Bartley, then came back. “No help there. We’re all returning to the house now.”

  Ewan thought they must have all dozed on the dark drive back to the house. Every window of the four-story redbrick house blazed with light when they drove up, as if inviting the world to enter and tell their tales.

  Everyone exited the carriage, but Matilda held back as her family and Mrs. Miller went inside. Then she turned to Ewan. “Let’s walk.”

  “Where?”

  “It doesn’t matter, but I cannot go inside yet.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “You haven’t been well.”

  She slipped her hand around his arm. “You will keep me upright, Mr. Hales. I think I shall suffocate if I have to go in there again, listen to my mother flutter and worry about Rose’s wedding, hear Gawain complain about how difficult the situation is with Jacob, wonder if I should be on the road to London to marry Mr. Bliven befo
re it is too late.”

  “Don’t marry him,” Ewan said, squeezing her hand against his body.

  “Why, Mr. Hales, one might think you care.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I do care,” Ewan said. “I care very much.”

  “Then walk with me. I cannot breathe inside my own house,” Matilda said, with the confidential air of a confessor.

  Would she swoon again, or cry, or completely break down? Should he take her away from her family right now? Then again, they were the source of much of her immediate frustration. No one was focused on her. How could they be, with a missing child and a new birth and a canceled wedding? He needed to take her mind off her worries for a few stolen moments.

  He pulled her away. They walked two blocks, past houses similar in size and consequence to Matilda’s own home. They were the kind of structures Ewan could never have hoped to obtain under his previous circumstances, though he supposed that now he would become accustomed to something even nicer. Someday he’d be going from rented rooms to Fitzwalter House in Mayfair, and country estates.

  Matilda opened the gate to a private park, the same one where the dog had been found, the last place Jacob had been taken before he disappeared.

  “I don’t think we should come here,” Ewan protested. “It will just make you sad.”

  “How can I be anything but?” Matilda asked, releasing his arm and sitting on a bench where the nannies waited while their charges played.

  “You need a release from all the sorrow,” he said. He stepped behind her and began to massage her neck. It was too intimate a gesture, and yet she held herself so stiffly that he couldn’t resist. Beneath his gloves he could feel the taut lines of the muscles under her skin. He pulled off his gloves so he could touch her with his own flesh.

  She moaned softly when he palpated a particularly sore spot on the left side. It sounded like the noise a woman might make during the act of love, and it made him harden against the cold iron back of the bench. He felt guilty and more alive all at once. Could this be the way to give her troubled thoughts a rest?