“Nor wanted to! What’s that?” The priory ruins loomed up ahead of them, darker amid the darkness. And, somewhere to their right, came the unmistakable sound of harness rattling as a horse stirred impatiently.
“Trouble. Look!” They had rounded a bend in the lane to see a barricade dark across its chalk whiteness. Too close to jump and the lane too deep-cut for the horses to be able to get round it. “Cover me, while I clear it.” But as Warren jumped down from his horse, the attackers were upon them, leaping down from the bushes above the lane. Kate, whose trembling hand had cocked her pistol at the first alarm, fired almost point blank at the man who had tumbled down on to the road beside her, and was amazed to hear him fall. But George Warren, caught between, stirrup and ground, was now struggling with two other men who had come down on his side of the lane. What should she do?
“Ride for help! Back to Glinde!” George Warren panted it out as the three of them heaved and granted in the narrow lane.
She could not abandon him to the unequal contest. Brown had been right. There was murder in the air. She could feel it. “Help’s coming!” Anything to distract the attackers as she edged Boney forward, hoping for a chance to strike one of them from above with her now useless pistol. And then, suddenly, miraculously, realised that it was true. Horses, were pounding towards them from the direction of Glinde.
If it was help? For an instant, the sounds of struggle ceased as all of them listened to the rapidly approaching hoofbeats. “Kit Warrender?” came a voice Kate thought she knew. “Are you there?”
“Yes.” The horses were very near now, two of them, she thought, and saw one of the men who had attacked George Warren leap for the shadows of the hedge and vanish.
“Not you,” growled George. “You’re staying right here to explain yourself.” A grunted curse from the other man suggested that he had him powerless. “Watch yourself. Kit,” he went on. “Your man’s stirring.”
And what in the world was she supposed to do about that? Jump down from Boney and catch him in some kind of wrestler’s lock? She edged the horse back towards where her victim was trying to drag himself up the bank, and at that moment, mercifully, two other horsemen rounded the bend in the lane and were upon them. Steel gleamed in their hands. “We’re armed.” Now she recognised the voice. It was the stranger she had encountered down at the Tidemills. The man called Ned Ludd. “Stay quite still, all of you.” And then: “You’re not hurt, Mr. Warrender?”
“No. Thanks to you. And you, Mr. Warren?”
“Nothing to signify.” His voice came from the darkness of the barricade. “That was good shooting, cousin.”
“Lucky shooting,” she said, with perfect truth.
“So, who’ve we got?” said the man called Ludd. “Bring your man forward, if you would, Mr. Warren, and you, Bill, get the other, while I show a light” There was the click of flint on steel, and a tiny flicker of light from a taper made the surrounding darkness more absolute. “Let’s see him, Bill. Never mind his leg. Ah,” on a note of satisfaction, “just as I thought: Tom Bowles. And what might you be doing acting highwayman, Mr. Bowles?”
“That’s my business,” growled the shopkeeper.
“I fancy you will find it is mine, too. And the other man?” He leaned down to scrutinise the captive’s blackened face. “Yes, I know you. I’ll remember you. But I doubt if you’re important. What do you say, sir. Shall we let him go?”
“Who are you?” asked George Warren.
“Shall we say a friend?”
“Not the law?”
“Well, no. If it’s all one to you, sir, I’d as soon leave the law out of this. Tom Bowles laid for you, for his reasons. We’ve got him, we’ll deal with him. He won’t trouble you again, I promise you that. Nor you won’t have any trouble if you’ll just stay home in the dark nights.”
“Oh,” said George Warren. “It’s like that, is it? What do you say, cousin? Shall we thank our friends and leave them to deal with their own problems in their own way?”
“I believe that would be best.” Kate did not understand any of it, but every instinct urged her to be gone. Time enough in the safety of the Dower House to wonder about Ned Ludd’s obvious connection with the smugglers. Any minute now, she thought, her teeth would begin to chatter with delayed terror, and then where would Kit Warrender’s reputation be? She must get away. She must get home “We owe you a million thanks,” she told Ludd. “And I am sure you will know best how to deal with these men. It’s very late. I will see you to your turning, Cousin George.”
He laughed. “First we must clear this barricade.” She could hear him shake his captive till his teeth rattled in his head. “Before I let you go,” he said, “you will clear this for us.”
Five minutes later the lane was clear. “We’re for Glinde,” said the stranger. “You’re not coming, Mr. Warrender?”
“I think I’d best see my cousin on his way,” said Kate.
“Very good.” It was almost as if she had given him an order. “Don’t worry about him.” Sam had loaded Tom Bowles on to his own horse. “They’ll need a new shopkeeper down at Tidemills in the morning.”
“You’ll not—”
“Kill him? No need. ‘No violence’ is the word, and no violence it is. Goodnight, gentlemen both.”
“What did he mean by that?” asked George Warren as they rode away, “‘No violence is the word and no violence it is.’ ”
“God knows,” said Kate.
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Oh,” said George Warren, and rode on in silence until they reached the turnoff for Warren House. Then, drawing rein. “I rather think I owe you—and your friends—my life, Cousin Kit. Thank you. It was lucky for me we met tonight.” And then, as the thought struck him: “Won’t you dine with me tomorrow, to meet that cousin of yours you say you like?”
“I thank you, no.” What next? “We don’t meet socially,” she explained.
“I’m sorry. Very sorry. Kit?”
“Yes?” How she longed to be safe away.
“Did you really mean it? What you said about Lucy Penfold?”
“Good God, yes. Make her talk to you, man. Listen to her, and then ask yourself if you want that for life.”
“I will. Thanks, cousin. For everything.”
Chapter Eight
“I’m going to cut my hair.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Warrender looked up in surprise from her breakfast chocolate.
“It’s getting too tedious. All this pinning on of braids. And no need anyway. Lord Hawth never looks at me! I could dress in Christopher’s breeches and I doubt he’d notice.”
“The children would.”
Mrs. Warrender was looking anxious again and Kate hurried to reassure her. “Not that I care whether our enigmatic employer looks at me or not. It’s convenient as it is. But, to tell truth, mamma, I thought I might try and make Cousin George Warren notice me just a little when we dine there tonight. To get his mind off Lucy Penfold.”
“A shocking affair,” said Mrs. Warrender. “I thought better of Mrs. Penfold. But can it be true that the girl is holding out for marriage?”
“Deplorable either way. One really finds oneself compelled to be sorry for Cousin George. Is it true, do you think, that he is as much ostracised as we are?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, I forget. Nurse Simmonds perhaps. You know how faithfully she brings the gossip back from Glinde. Someone certainly told me that we are to be the first guests since he settled at the Warren. So we must do justice to the occasion.” A ruthless hand reached up and pulled off the braids that crowned her head, unloosing a tangle of curls. “It’s grown! You’ll have to cut it for me, dearest. Can you manage the Brutus do you think? Remember how you used to cut it for Chris and me?”
“And how you used to wriggle! I do indeed. We’d best hurry our breakfast if I am to do it before you go over to the children.”
Arriving br
eathless and a little late in the schoolroom, Kate was greeted with cries of delight by her pupils. “Miss Warrender, I didn’t recognise you,” said Giles.
“Quite a transformation.” Was there the hint of a sneer in Sue’s voice?
“Darling Miss Warrender,” said Harriet.
Only Nurse Simmonds, rising with her token curtsy, looked disapproving. “I hope you won’t catch cold, Miss Warrender. Driving home in the dark tonight! Are you sure you are wise to go, miss? There’s rumours running today.”
“Rumours?”
“Something happened last night. No one seems to know what. But Tom Bowles has left the shop at Tidemills. Gone. Vanished.”
“Vanished?” asked Giles.
“Run away, I expect,” said Kate. “After that beating Mr. Warren gave him, I wonder he could show his face at Tidemills. His bullying days are done, that’s for sure.”
“Do you think so?” asked Nurse Simmonds.
“I think it’s time lessons started,” said Kate.
“I beg your pardon I’m sure, miss, for keeping you with my chat. And it is late already.” With a meaningful glance at the schoolroom clock and another mock curtsy she left the room.
It was hard to get much work done that day. The children were almost as excited by the prospect of Kate’s outing as if they were going themselves. It was a sad measure, she thought, of the dullness of their lives.
“May we come and see you when you’re dressed?” begged Harriet, as Kate put on her pelisse for the walk across to the Dower House.
“I don’t see why not, if you’d like to. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother had some of her spiced cookies for you.”
“Good,” said Giles. “Then I’ll come too.”
So Kate and her mother held their own little party before they set out. The children arrived while Kate was still dressing. The dark green sarcenet she had last worn the winter before to dine at Lady Beston’s needed altering. She had lost weight, and the dress, a style of her own contriving, must fit to a nicety. Putting it on at last, she remembered the compliments she had received the first time she wore it, a lifetime ago, it seemed. “A peacock among doves,” a poetically inclined young man from Hastings had called her.
Now, coming into the parlour where her mother, demure in widow’s black, was regaling the children with orgeat and spiced cookies, she got a whistle of amazement from Giles, and a surprise compliment from Sue. “Miss Warrender! You look as if you’d stepped straight out of La Belle Assemblée.”
“Clever of you.” Kate laughed. “In fact, I did. It seemed to me it would make a change from all those miles and miles of muslin.”
“It does.” But Sue had reverted to her usual indifferent tone.
George Warren dined early, so it was still daylight when the carriage came for Kate and her mother, and the children begged to be allowed to run back to the hall by themselves rather than wait for Nurse Simmonds, who was supposed to fetch them but had not yet arrived. “Why not?” Kate thought they needed more independence than Nurse Simmonds would allow. She let Giles hand her into the carriage, bent down to urge them to run straight home, then turned to her mother as the coachman gave his horses the office. “I feel just like Cinderella going to the ball.”
“Not much of a ball, I am afraid.”
“No. Goodness!” Kate laughed. “What do you think Cousin George will be wearing? I do hope not those checked trousers!”
Cousin George had not wasted his time in London. He greeted them in impeccably modern trousers and an elegantly fitted coat. “Weston?” breathed Kate, as she and her mother took off their shawls in a new-papered room that had been a glory-hole in their time.
“Schultz, I think.” Mrs. Warrender turned from the glass to look approvingly round her. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“He must be rich as Golden Ball,” said Kate. “Who would have thought it? I wonder Mr. Futherby never gave us a hint”
“Mr. Futherby is a very discreet man,” said her mother repressively.
Their host was waiting for them in what had been Charles Warrender’s study, or, to be exact, sulking room. Here, too, the change was astonishing. Brown paint and drab curtains had been replaced by white and gold in the style of Mr. Adam, and the room was brilliant with wax candles in sparkling chandeliers.
“I do hope you don’t mind it too much.” George Warren came forward to greet them all over again, his words for Mrs. Warrender but his amazed eyes for Kate in her dramatic green dress.
“Mind it?” Mrs. Warrender held out a friendly hand. “I congratulate you with all my heart, Mr. Warren. Who did you get to do it?”
“I wish you would call me Cousin George! To tell the truth—” he turned away from her to Kate, who suddenly wished she had taken the green dress in a little more drastically at the shoulders—“I did it myself. I have always thought it would be interesting to try one’s hand at it. I got some of Mr. Adam’s pattern books when I was in London, and this is the result.” He clasped Kate’s brown hand in his warm one. “May I, in my turn, compliment you on your dress, Miss Warrender, It’s just what the room needs.”
“Straight out of Mr. Adam’s pattern book?” asked Kate.
“Alas, Mr. Adam only provides the furnishings. Since I have had it done I have been feeling the need of company to fill my rooms. Ratafia, Mrs. Warrender? Miss Kate?”
“Could I have a glass of burgundy?” said Kate, and got a look of disapproval from Chilver, hovering in attendance.
“Burgundy? Yes, indeed, if you don’t object to run goods. I have been having a great inquisition in the cellars today, and seem to have surprisingly little that bears the mark of His Majesty’s Customs and Excise.”
“Who has?” said Mrs. Warrender. “You are learning the customs of the country, I collect, Cousin George.”
“I am indeed.” He greeted her use of his name with a warm smile. “I had—” he paused—“a small adventure last night.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Warrender smiled at him enquiringly over her glass, unaware of her daughter, suddenly rigid at her side. Why had she not prepared herself for this?
“I think you could call it an adventure. To begin with, I encountered a young kinsman of ours at the Bell in Glinde”
“A kinsman of ours? At the Bell?”
“Why, yes.” Her amazement surprised him. “Young Kit Warrender.” And then, colouring richly from neatly tied cravat to cropped hair: “Forgive me. I had not thought. You do not mind my mentioning him?”
“Kit Warrender,” said Mrs. Warrender faintly. “No, no. Of course not. You met him at the Bell, you say?” This with a quick side glance for Kate.
“Yes. The landlord there, Brown, made him known to me. Charming young man. And not the milksop he looks, either, as I have cause to know. He rode part of the way home with me. Lucky for me that he did.”
“Lucky?” Mrs. Warrender and Chilver were both now staring fixedly at Kate, who took a distracted pull at her burgundy.
“I should just about think so. We were ambushed. By some of your engaging local ruffians, I take it. I had occasion to deal with one of them down at Tidemills village the other day. He and a couple of his friends were lying in wait for me up at the priory ruins. Do you know, I think I might be fitting for my shroud now, instead of entertaining you ladies, if that young cousin of yours had not been with me”
“Our Cousin Kit?” asked Mrs. Warrender in a dying voice.
“Yes. No need to trouble yourself about him, ma’am. That’s one can take care of himself. The landlord at the Bell had lent us a pair of pistols, see. Said the nights were getting, dark, and we should not be riding so late. So, when they came at us out of the ruins, young Kit up and fires, cool as you please, and gets his man. Tom Bowles, it was.”
“Shot Tom Bowles?” gasped Mrs. Warrender. “Our Cousin Kit?”
“In the leg. A dead shot, ma’am. Mind you, we’d still have been in trouble if a couple of strangers hadn’t come our way from Glinde. That s
ettled our attackers’ hash for them, and they were grateful to be let go.”
“You let them go?” asked Mrs. Warrender faintly. “Surprises you, too, does it, ma’am? I confess it did me a trifle. More of your quaint local customs, I take it. But suits me well enough. I don’t want any more enemies than I seem to have made already.”
“Tom Bowles has gone.” Kate decided it was high time she joined in the conversation. “I heard it this morning from the nurse up at the hall. Did a midnight flit, it seems, wounded leg and all.”
“That’s a comfort,” said George Warren. “With him gone, I reckon I can go on riding where I will, without calling on our valiant young cousin for escort.”
“Otherwise you would have been scared out of your wits, of course,” said Kate, remembering that sweating, cursing fight in the dark.
“Why, naturally, Miss Warrender, a stranger in a strange land. And, that reminds me, I would be grateful, ma’am—” he turned back to Mrs. Warrender—“if you could furnish me with young Mr. Warrender’s direction. I want to see more of that young man.”
“His direction?” Mrs. Warrender cast an anguished, appealing glance at Kate, who was having serious trouble controlling a fit of the giggles.
“Mr. Warrender’s direction?” There was only one way out of this difficulty and Kate took it with raised eyebrows and her haughtiest tone. “Mr. Warren, you can scarcely imagine that my mother and I associate with young Mr. Warrender.”
“You’re the losers, then.” He had thought her amazingly handsome when she first arrived, now decided that she was also amazingly disagreeable. “Oh, well,” he went on, again addressing Mrs. Warrender. “I shall doubtless, be able to get in touch with him through the landlord of the Bell.”
“Doubtless you will,” said Mrs. Warrender faintly, and let him take her arm to lead her in to dinner.
Here an even greater surprise awaited them. The dark and shabby room they remembered had been transformed into a Chinese pavilion, glowing in bamboo and gold,
“Good God,” said Mrs. Warrender.
Red Sky at Night, Lovers' Delight Page 11