Brain fever indeed. As the woman spoke on, entertaining herself and her sister with a shared memory, Georgette turned over the sheet of foolscap. With the bit of pencil in her fist, she scrawled I’ll get you for this. In nice big letters, so he could read it without his spectacles. The pencil tip broke with the force of her writing.
With a sweet smile, she thrust the paper back at him.
“What did she write, Mr. Lark?” Mrs. Drupe was all curiosity.
“My cousin writes that she is most pleased to make your acquaintance.” He did not look at Georgette as he said this. Wise man.
“Isn’t she a dear!” Mrs. Brundadge twinkled at her. “Would you like an apple from my hamper, Miss Snow?”
As a matter of fact, Georgette would. Today’s travel had taken priority over food, and she realized she hadn’t had a real meal since breakfast. She offered her most thankful smile to the older woman.
As she sat back and crunched through the apple’s red skin, Hugo took the broken-tipped pencil from her hand. Rummaging through his leather case again, he pulled forth a folding knife.
“Oh!” The plump Mrs. Drupe choked back a little shriek. “A knife, sister! He has a knife!”
“Never you fear.” Mrs. Brundadge snatched back the hamper and rooted through it. “I have one too. I shall protect us. Here, Mr. Lark!” With a flourish, she pulled forth . . . a fork.
Hugo had begun shaving bits off the pencil end, and he looked up blankly at her. “I beg your pardon? Do you want me to have that fork?”
“Heavens! No, no.” Looking about in some desperation, she finally handed her sister the fork. “It’s here somewhere. . . .” Next she pulled forth a pie, another apple, and a packet of cold chicken; these too were piled into her sister’s lap. “Only wait, Mr. Lark, and I shall find it.”
“I am all eagerness.” Hugo held up the pencil, squinted at it, then trimmed off a few more slivers of wood.
“Here it is! Oh—no, that is the bone from the chicken we ate earlier. Sister, did I leave the knife in the—ah!” Mrs. Brundadge pulled forth a knife from the depths of the hamper. “There, Mr. Lark! You see?”
Georgette had not seen such entertainment since her last outing in Vauxhall Gardens. By now, Hugo had stowed his penknife again and carefully disposed of the wood shavings out the carriage window. When he shut it again and looked back at his traveling companions, Mrs. Brundadge thrust the knife toward him. “Ha!”
“Oh, thank you. How kind.” Hugo took the knife from her nerveless fingers, then took the apple from Georgette and cut off a sliver. Returning both knife and apple, he then popped the slice into his mouth. “That’s a fine apple, Mrs. Brundadge. Thank you for sharing it.”
Georgette kicked at his foot.
“And thank you, Miss Snow,” he added. “Also for sharing it.”
“Oh!” The widow regarded the knife replaced in her hand as if she were not sure where it had come from. “That is—you are welcome, I’m sure.”
“You don’t intend to threaten us?” Mrs. Drupe sounded disappointed. “Not even to try? I assure you, we could protect ourselves.”
Georgette smiled. This woman had, she guessed, read as many storybooks as Georgette herself.
“I would be a fool to attempt it,” said Hugo. “And a villain, after you fed my cousin so nicely.”
With that, all, it seemed, was forgiven. “Now, isn’t that kind?” Mrs. Brundadge eyed the contents of the hamper, all spilled out in her sister’s lap. “Would you two like some of this pie? It’s made from the same apples you like so much. Ah—I’ll do the cutting, if you don’t mind.”
The kindly, if agitated, widows shared out a sweet, flaky-crusted pie, then sliced into the remaining chicken. From his surprisingly capacious leather case, Hugo found a packet of roasted almonds and handed them around. Georgette alone had nothing to contribute, yet they let her partake all the same.
So she looked her gratitude at them all—though more toward the sisters. And she enjoyed the spectacle of Lord Hugo Starling making awkward chatter with two middle-aged ladies. He’d thought to make his journey easier by muting her, but . . . what was the saying? Hoist with his own petard. Yes, Georgette had learned her Shakespeare.
The miles unrolled outside, and the sun slipped away like a lost gold sovereign. As the sky darkened, the waxing half-moon took its place in cool silver. The coach lamps winked outside, like fireflies bobbing alongside the travelers.
When the food was eaten and the refuse packed away, when night blanketed the coach, Georgette began to drowse and droop. She fought it for a time, holding herself up straight and clenching her jaw against yawn after yawn. The widowed sisters had fallen asleep already, their heads lolling toward each other as if their conversation continued even now.
She didn’t hide her fatigue as well as she intended, for Hugo chuckled. “Tired, are you, cousin? It’s been a long day and will be a longer night.”
In the dim silver light, she saw him ease out of his greatcoat, then fold it carefully. He wedged the thick garment between himself and Georgette, up his side and atop his shoulder. “Sleep,” he then murmured. “I’ve got you. Sleep as long as you like.”
She folded her arms of habit—but at this hour of night, she could not disagree for long. She curled into the thick wool of the greatcoat, her head supported by the solid breadth of his shoulder beneath. The carriage swayed, and Hugo was solid and silent, and within minutes she was asleep.
In her dream, she lived in a tidy cottage, and she grew a garden of rampion that was lush and green. Whenever she wished, she plucked the leaves, and nothing was lost when she did.
In her dream, she was home, and she was safe. And when she opened the door to the cottage, someone who loved her greeted her from within.
Chapter Five
I’ll get you for this, she had written.
And, Hugo thought, she certainly had. Through the ink-dark hours of night, Georgette had pillowed her head on his coat. She had rested on his shoulder for hours on end. She had slumped against him, a tender weight gone peaceful and slack. The floral scent of her hair had teased his nose; the line of her thigh had pressed his.
Such trust was beguiling.
Of all this, she was unaware. Innocent in sleep. Yet he was beguiled—and this was most annoying, for he had no time to be beguiled.
He drifted off himself, but awoke each time the mail coach stopped during the night. These were quick halts, lasting only for the amount of time it took to toss bags down and receive new bags from the coaching inn. For Hugo, the night progressed in fits and starts. By half six in the morning, the other travelers were waking. The sun had risen more than an hour before, and the sky was a fresh, tentative blue. When the coach stopped in Northampton for a rest and change of horses, Hugo and Georgette and the most talkative sisters in the world piled out.
Inside the coaching inn, he saw to his more urgent bodily needs, washed his hands and gritty-eyed face, then bought a pair of meat pasties from the innkeeper. He searched for Georgette, finding her at last to one side of the bustling courtyard. She was flicking through a newspaper with the sort of eager look he was directing toward his meat pie.
“Breakfast,” he said, handing her one of the steaming pies. It was a fat, fragrant semicircle of golden-baked crust. When he bit into his own, he found it full of pleasantly spiced beef, potato, and onion. Hot and savory, it silenced his querulous belly, and he gobbled it in greedy bites.
The distraction of hunger eliminated, he turned his attention back to Georgette. She was chewing at her pasty, but her attention remained on the paper.
“Hugo,” she said. “I don’t think we ought to continue on to Derbyshire. Look at this!” She extended the paper toward him. “A maid has been arrested in Doncaster for possessing gold jewelry. It’s crude and heavy, and she says it’s ancient jewelry she dug up by chance. But surely she stole it. So says the local magistrate.”
He squinted at the page, finding the article in question. “And?”
“‘Or,’ I think, is a better one-word question. Or, she had it created out of other gold. No one in the area has reported missing jewelry, according to the article.”
He folded the paper and handed it back. She dusted the last crumbs of pastry crust from her fingers and took it from him. “You look puzzled,” she said.
“Not at all. I always look like this at half six in the morning when I’m surrounded by carriage traffic and Doncaster is unexpectedly mentioned.” He looked over his shoulder, locating their coach among the early-morning flurry of vehicles and vendors. No, their driver wasn’t back at his seat yet; they had a few minutes before the coach left.
“That explains it, then. And I shall explain what I mean. I think some of the stolen gold coins have been taken north.”
“But one has been spent in Strawfield. Derbyshire. Where we’re going.”
“That doesn’t mean all the coins are there. Six chests were stolen, correct? Fifty thousand sovereigns? They could have been sent in fifty thousand different directions.”
“That would do no one any good.”
“Well, they could have been taken to more than one place. And this bracelet? It’s made from the sovereigns. It has to be.”
He must have looked his doubt, for she flapped the paper at him, forestalling his interruption. “Hugo! Only think. If I had murdered a great number of people and stolen a fortune in gold coins, I should melt it down.”
“Ought I to be alarmed by how readily you enter into the criminal mind-set?”
“I hoped for impressed.”
“Fine. I’m impressed.” This wasn’t entirely false. He had not considered that the coins might be melted down rather than hidden away. “How would you melt it, then, you criminal woman?”
“With a . . . however one melts coins. Probably a blacksmith’s forge could do it.”
“And what would you do with great chunks of gold bars?”
She tossed the newspaper into the basket of a maid walking by, startling the woman. “Live the life of a spendthrift wastrel.”
“How foolish of me not to guess.” He wished he’d filled a flask with coffee while he was inside the inn. “Do consider, though: it would draw attention, a formerly poor person with a newfound fortune in recast gold. Especially with the theft from the Royal Mint known.”
“Exactly. It would. Thus the existence of this article about the maid in Doncaster.” She bit her lip, looking after the retreating newspaper. “It didn’t say anything about the stolen sovereigns, but we can’t be the only people to make the connection. If we don’t follow the trail at once, others will beat us to it.”
“We? No. Leave me out of this,” Hugo grumbled. “The notion doesn’t make financial sense. If the sovereigns were worked into jewelry and pawned, a pawnbroker wouldn’t give the thieves nearly what the gold was worth.”
“But they would get more than nothing. Which is the amount of gold they can spend in the form of sovereigns for the next month.”
This, he had to grant. But. “There’s a significant flaw in your hypothesis. The four thieves who stole the trunks from the Royal Mint were male. Not maids.” A call sounded from behind them; their coachman was climbing onto his box. “Georgette, we haven’t time for this. We must get back to the coach.”
“There’s one more thing.” She leaned closer to him, a confidential whisper. “That man over there? The one in the odd sort of slouching hat?”
He followed the direction of her gaze. “I see him, yes.” The broad-brimmed hat was the only feature that distinguished the man. Average in coloring, height, and build, he had the sort of appearance that slid from memory as soon as it was not before one’s eyes.
“I think he’s a Bow Street Runner. He had one of those newspapers too, and he was questioning one of the servants about her pay.”
“Oh, good. Intrigue. We’ve fallen into a gothic novel.” He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket. “Or there’s a simpler explanation: he wants to hire a servant.”
“Or maybe he’s wondering whether he’s found a clue to the stolen gold.”
Time was ticking; the talkative sisters were clambering back into the coach. “We’ve got to go, Georgette,” he said, stuffing the watch back into its pocket. “No matter where the coins are, this is the way to find your brother.”
She folded her arms. He groaned. “No. You are not disagreeing with me right now.”
“I want to go to Doncaster. Remember: I said first coins, then brother.”
“The coins are with your brother.”
“One coin, yes, and it might be no more than a decoy. And half of England is looking around Strawfield for the reward. But if we go north right now, we might be the only ones to follow that trail.”
This woman would be the death of him, or at least the death of his sanity. “You are proposing a gamble. I haven’t time to calculate the odds, but they’re too long for this to be a worthwhile pursuit.”
“Don’t call it a gamble, then. Call it a leap of faith.” A slight smile curved her lips. “Even if only one trunk was taken north, it’s worth pursuing. A trunk in the hand is worth six that aren’t found before the public release of the sovereigns, thus negating the Royal Reward. Or so goes the old saying.”
“That’s not an old saying.” He grabbed her wrist. “Come on. Our luggage is leaving on this coach, whether we do or not.”
“Then we’d best take it off the coach.” Tugging free of his grip, she darted toward the coach as if it had been her idea all along.
He strode after her. When they reached the coach, he caught the driver’s eye and flipped him a shilling—then held up a finger. Wait.
Grudgingly, the man nodded.
Georgette was already calling up to one of the women sitting atop the coach, pointing toward her bag.
Hugo joined her. “If the merry widows inside the carriage hear you speaking, Miss Snow, you will destroy their faith in humanity.”
“I’m not the one who lied to them and said I was mute.” She gestured up at the woman again. “Yes! That’s the bag. Thank you.”
“Leave it there,” Hugo called up. “She doesn’t need it. We’re getting into the coach.”
“He’s teasing,” Georgette shouted back. “He loves to tease strangers at inopportune times. Toss it down, please.” She crouched—and when the woman tossed her valise down, she caught it neatly with a little oof. “There, Hugo, it’s too late. We’re staying.”
“This is recklessness, Georgette. Come, get back into the—”
“I’ll get your bag, too,” she said sweetly. “You’d best retrieve your hospital plans from inside the carriage, unless you want Mrs. Drupe to put them in her hamper.”
His plans! She was right; he’d left them within. With a curse, he growled, “You force my hand, Miss Frost.”
Wrenching open the carriage door, he blurted a quick explanation to the startled sisters within. His words made no sense, even to him, so he grabbed his case and bowed out as swiftly as he could. When he turned around, a man smacked into him, hard, then reeled away with a slurred apology.
Wasn’t that delightful. It was his fate this week to be assailed by drunkards.
He returned to Georgette, brushing off the sleeves of his greatcoat as he did. “All right. Here I am. With my plans. Are you buoyed by triumph?”
“Moderately so.” She held out his valise. “You don’t want to continue to Derbyshire? You’re certain?”
“To the contrary. I’m certain that I do want to continue to Derbyshire.”
“You can, you know.”
“The time for me to abandon you to your solitary fate was two minutes ago.” He shaded his eyes, watching ruefully as the driver cracked his whip and pulled the coach into motion. “Damnation. That’s more than half the fare wasted.”
“I thought you accounted the fare of no consequence.”
“I thought you were mute.” Had the coach driven that quickly when they were inside it? Already it was nearl
y out of sight around the bend of the dew-damp road. “This hell-bent impulse of yours has left us stranded. And on what evidence? Nothing. The evidence is all leaving us behind and traveling to Strawfield.”
“Maybe, but we have intuition drawn from the piecing together of unforeseen bits of information.” She scuffed a boot against the ground. “Or I have. You have a plan, and once you formulate it, you want only to follow it inflexibly. But the story about the maid, and the presence of the man in the slouchy hat—that’s evidence too.”
“It is a fancy, that is all.” He watched the carriage disappear entirely. “And I change my hospital plans all the time. When a better idea presents itself.”
“Ideas don’t present themselves. You have to snap them out of the air and stitch them together.”
“Ideas are not cobwebs,” he muttered. He knew she was being figurative, but he was feeling determinedly, rootedly literal. Not even the dust of the carriage’s wheels remained, his purse was considerably lighter, and he’d no idea in which direction this troublesome young woman would drag him next.
“Hugo.” All was silence for a moment; then she scuffed her boot again. “Hugo?”
He turned to look at her. “Is your vaunted intuition telling you nothing of my current mood?”
“It is, but if I waited for you to be cheerful and pleasant before speaking, I’d be your mute companion in truth.”
“I don’t see the problem with that.”
She waved this off. “I am sorry that you are missing the chance to visit my brother. You wanted to, didn’t you?”
What he wanted didn’t matter. “I said I would go with you. I’ll go with you.”
Setting her valise down at her feet, she tied the trailing strings of her bonnet in a neat bow beneath her chin. “I don’t think that’s what you said at all. I think you said you’d take me to your mother, and then you said you’d take me to my brother.”
Passion Favors the Bold Page 6