Music Master

by Barbara Miller

  Maddie let Lady Haddon lead her to her room numbly, while desperately trying to think how to get word to Leighton. It was half past eleven and he might even now be sitting in that courtyard awaiting his death. And she might have just sent one of the conspirators there looking for him with a pistol. But if Sir Phillip were in on it, he would already know where the meeting was, wouldn’t he? Perhaps not.

  As soon as she was alone, she dug through her closet for her old dark cloak and threw it about her shoulders, then put out the lamp and slipped down the back stairs. Her escape from the garden was not so easy, for the gate still creaked but she managed it and began to run. She lost herself among the last of the guests straggling away from the party.

  She forced herself to be calm as she strode toward the hotel. Her sister’s house was on the way. Perhaps Leighton’s father was there. He could do something to stop this madness if she confronted him about his crime. She knocked loudly, wondering if she would be heeded at this time of night. To her surprise the door popped open.

  “Maddie?”

  Maddie rushed through the door before she realized it had been opened for her by her mother. She was still panting from running down the hill and blurted out, “Where is Lord Longbridge?” She was glad that she was in such a hurry, for it did not allow time for any awkwardness between them.

  “I came home with Patience. He followed Leighton.”

  Maddie looked from her mother to her sister.

  “You…you look frightened,” Patience said.

  “It’s Leighton. I’m pretty sure he has gone off by himself to try to catch the spy.”

  “Spy?” her mother asked. “Oh, that. It is nothing.”

  “Nothing? Leighton got a note. I think it was meant for his father, setting up a meeting.”

  “That must be why William followed him but there can be no danger. He means to—”

  “No danger? But I thought Lord Longbridge was the spy.”

  “What? Are you mad?” her mother asked. “He is here to put an end to the plot.”

  “If that is true, Leighton might be safe. If not, he may be in the gravest danger.”

  “Do you really think it can be dangerous?” Her mother went to a trunk standing in the hall and brought out a case.

  “There is no time to explain. I must find him.”

  “Wait.” Her mother grabbed her arm. The contact was warm and poignant with memory. Maddie remembered the last time she had touched her mother. She’d found her crying in the garden and she would not say why.

  “Please let me help,” Rachel now said. Then she set about loading the gun, a thing Maddie had never seen her mother do before.

  “It was that code he sent Leighton, the one in the music. Leighton got the same sort of message tonight. That’s why I thought it was from Lord Longbridge.”

  “Did you decipher it?”

  “No, he wouldn’t give it to me. But I’m sure they are to meet in the courtyard at the hotel.”

  “Is there no one else we can confide in?” Patience asked. “Dr. Murray, perhaps.”

  “I have already told far too many people. Lieutenant Reid knows but not the precise location. Leighton feels we can trust him. Sir Phillip is on his way but I am not sure he is innocent, though he acts as though he is.” She felt herself on the point of tears.

  “Come, we do know we are to be trusted. We can take care of this ourselves.”

  “You are so different from before,” Maddie said.

  “That’s what six years of love can do for a woman. All I needed was to know you do not hate me.”

  Maddie felt herself sway. Then she was in her mother’s arms and their embrace rivaled the one Leighton had bestowed on his father.

  “I am so sorry I doubted you,” she said.

  “I should have taken you with me.”

  “No, Leighton needed me.”

  A brief knock at the door preceded Lucy’s desperate entrance. “What has happened? Why did you leave at night? Are you eloping? And where has Father gone with a pistol? Is he going to shoot Leighton?”

  “We’re not sure,” Maddie said, “But how did you get here? You must go home.”

  “I can’t go alone.”

  “Well, come with us then.” Rachel threw a cloak about her and caused Lucy to blanch when she flourished her own pistol.

  “But stay behind us,” Maddie warned.

  “I’m coming too,” Patience said.

  Lucy was perfectly happy to bring up the rear of the expedition, though she continued to badger Patience with questions.

  Leighton entered the dark courtyard and sat at one of the more obscure tables, not his favorite one near the fountain. Anyone who came in from the outside, would have to use the gate at the bottom of the stone steps and he would hear it creak. He questioned the wisdom of meeting in such a public place but certainly no one inside the hotel could see him where he sat.

  How odd. He felt perfectly at home here even though he could see only the splashing fountain by the moonlight. He was so proud of Maddie he could burst, not just her performance but her courage in accepting her mother in her new life when it went against everything she had been taught. He had a feeling that no matter the challenge, Maddie would always be there for him.

  There was no sound but the splashing of the water. Or was that the scrape of a shoe on stone? He stared into the dark corners of the courtyard but he would have heard anyone enter from the hotel and certainly from the lower gate that let out onto the alley. Unless they were already here.

  “Don’t move,” a voice grated as a knife point dug through the fabric of his coat to prick him near the spine. He would hear about that hole from Tibbs if he survived.

  “Mrs. Scrope-Nevins. You’re a bit old to be waiting about in a garden in the middle of the night.”

  “Are you the Stone from America?”

  “My name is Leighton Stone and to be sure I have American connections.”

  “That is what I wanted to hear. And do they have an interest in inconveniencing the present government?”

  “They might. What did you have in mind?”

  “Putting things right in France again. I have the ships in train. I need money, a small enough amount and a promise from your government not to interfere.”

  “It is always easy not to interfere.”

  “You dance with me, boy. You have not said one thing to convince me—”

  “Hold. You are both under arrest. And to think, I avowed your innocence not an hour ago, Longbridge.”

  “Reid?” Leighton said gladly.

  “You have said enough to make you gallows bait,” Reid vowed as he came toward them with a pistol leveled.

  Since Reid had not shot him on sight, the pistol did not worry him so much but Leighton was still sitting rigidly, wondering at what moment Mrs. Scrope-Nevins might plunge the knife into his back or decide to cut his throat.

  As Reid got close enough to check Leighton’s pockets, he thought belatedly about the incriminating note.

  The knife delivered a nick to Leighton but Reid was the one in trouble, for in a lightning move the old woman had buried the short blade in his arm. He staggered backward without discharging the pistol, trying to reach the blade with his other hand. Reid fell into the pond, sloshing water over the flagstones. Leighton leaped around the table. “What have you done?”

  “Come, we must get away from here,” the old lady said. “It’s not safe.”

  That was an understatement. “No, he is drowning.” Reid was still under water and thrashing. Leighton had no confidence he would not pass out and drown himself in no more than two feet of water.

  He hauled Reid up onto the edge and helped him toward a chair, the knife still protruding from his biceps.

  “What do you plan to do with him?” Scrope-Nevins asked.

  Leighton was glad he realized she had picked up the pistol before he answered her. “Nothing for the moment but he might be useful later.”

  “Let me dispatch
him now.”

  “When I have been to such pains to save him?” Leighton turned his back on her, then whipped around and grabbed the pistol, wrenching it upward from her grasp and pulling her off her feet in the process. He caught the old woman in his other arm and coiled in around her, taking a multitude of kicks in his shins and hearing some colorful profanity, mostly in French.

  Dr. Murray came hurrying out of the hotel with his bag and made Reid lie back. “I was watching from your window,” he said as he used his handkerchief to stop the bleeding. “Need any help, Leighton?”

  “Only for Reid but she is stronger than I thought. She had better stop biting me, or I’ll have no compunction about whacking her over the head with this thing.”

  “You can prove nothing,” she growled. “I gave nothing in writing. It will be my word against—”

  “Yes, I know, a music master’s.”

  “And a surgeon in the employ of the army,” Murray added.

  “Reid, you are supposed to say something reassuring,” Leighton rasped out as the old woman struggled in his arms.

  Reid gasped as the knife was extracted. “You had me convinced you were making a deal with her.”

  “I was leading her on to get her to reveal her contact,” Leighton growled. “You might have waited.”

  “Very well. It will be her word against one of Wellington’s staff.”

  “See. Ow.” Leighton finally put the pistol on the table and pinned both the woman’s wrists behind her. Murray left Reid to hold his own compress while he came to bind her hands with linen strips.

  “Thank you,” Leighton said. “How is Reid?”

  “It missed the artery though it nicked a vein. He’ll live. Another scar for your collection, Reid.”

  “Happy day. I need a brandy. This is my first experience of nearly being killed by an octogenarian.”

  “I demand to see a magistrate,” Mrs. Scrope-Nevins said.

  “You are awfully eager to get out of this courtyard,” Murray said. “I wonder who else is coming.”

  “Gag her,” Reid said. “We don’t want her giving us away if there is anyone else involved. Sorry Stone, I leapt to conclusions.”

  “There are more than two parties, I figure,” Leighton said as he crammed his handkerchief in her mouth tied it in place with a strip of linen. He dragged her behind a shrub and dropped her there. “She’s the contact with the ships, unless I miss my guess, to carry Napoleon and his men away from Elba. So the money is still missing, as is the information on the location of the fleet.”

  “Why would she need that?” Murray asked as he bundled the used linen away and helped Reid to a concealed chair.

  “To avoid the British navy, one must know where it will be and where it will not be.”

  “So are we waiting for two others?” Reid asked, his breath hissing through his teeth as the doctor deposited him on a chair.

  “Yes, I fear.” Leighton was beginning to wonder what he was going to do if one of them was his father.

  The gate creaked. The man who walked into the moonlit courtyard did not seem at all perturbed by the quantity of water splashed on the flagstones nor by the darker splashes of blood.

  “Fath— Uncle!”

  “Leighton? What are you doing here? I think that message was meant for me.”

  “Not minding my own business. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to meet a British spy. I believe you have her there under restraint. But who spilled whose blood?”

  “She stabbed Reid,” Leighton said as his father came over to have a look, completely ignoring the pistol Murray was pointing at him.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Leighton said. “It looks bad, three grown men not able to manage one old woman but she did take us by surprise.”

  “I am the American connection, the American Stone if you will.” He got out his cigar case but hesitated. “If we are still waiting for someone, I don’t suppose I will have time to smoke.”

  “No,” Leighton said in a strangled voice.

  Reid was still panting and holding the cloth to his arm. “In the name of the King, I arrest—”

  “You are in no position to arrest anyone,” William Stone said as he pointed the unlit cigar at Reid. “Hear me out. I have been asked by my government—that is, the American government—to ferret out this conspiracy and squelch it. This woman with her conniving is a danger to the peace process. Above all, we want no scandal and no hint that America was involved in this nonsense in any way.”

  “Brave words,” Dr. Murray said, “which you might have composed once you saw we had her captured.”

  “My orders,” he said, producing a packet from his inside coat pocket.

  The paper crinkled in Murray’s hands as he tried to read by moonlight. “I shall have to take you at your word until later. So America will have no part in this but that does not solve it. If Leighton guesses aright, someone is still selling England out.”

  “And it could be Sir Phillip Haddon,” Reid said.

  Another shriek of the gate hinges sent them all scrambling for hiding places. Leighton’s father sheltered behind the same bush he was using and gave a low laugh at the trussed Mrs. Scrope-Nevins. “This is almost as good as a play,” he whispered. At the last moment he flitted like a shadow to a column in the colonnade near the top of the steps.

  But it was not Haddon. Leighton saw Haddon’s cousin and heir Gifford come nervously into the moonlight with his hand in his pocket. He advanced past them and was peering into the far corner when Mrs. Scrope-Nevins ground Leighton’s hand under her heel causing him to grunt in pain.

  Gifford turned to flee but Lord Longbridge blocked his way and faced a pistol aimed at his head.

  “Out of my way, or I will use this,” Gifford warned.

  “That little thing? You should buy your pistols from America.”

  Leighton could see now that his father had a much larger weapon leveled at Gifford’s stomach. Where had he secreted such a pistol?

  “Well, that is the Navy connection,” Reid said. “Have we got everyone now?”

  Leighton abandoned the bound woman to advance across the courtyard toward Gifford. He should be able to draw the man’s fire away from his father.

  The gate did not creak but there were stealthy steps coming up the stairs. Haddon must have left it open. Leighton and his father glanced at each other. Surely no one else could be involved.

  “Be silent or I will fire. I will kill at least one of you.” Gifford backed toward the stairs, his eyes fixed on Leighton’s father as he positioned himself by the gatepost.

  The soft patter of female steps gave Leighton an uneasy feeling. Sure enough, Maddie in her old cloak appeared in the archway with Patience and Rachel behind her. And if he was not mistaken, that was Lucy looking over their shoulders.

  “Rachel, go back,” his father shouted but Gifford grabbed Maddie about the waist and held the gun to her head before Leighton could react.

  Then he froze. Resourceful as he considered himself, he did not know what to do. “Gifford, you can accomplish nothing by holding Maddie.”

  “I can make my escape.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “France. There is at least one ship in Bristol ready to sail to the continent.”

  “And I carry enough money on me to provision it,” Leighton said.

  “What?” chorused several voices.

  “But only if you let Maddie go. Take me instead.”

  “I don’t need to let her go to make you do what I want.”

  “I’d be less trouble to you than Maddie.”

  “Less trouble?” Maddie protested. She slumped as though in a dead faint and elbowed Gifford in the groin, giving Rachel the opening to wound him in the shoulder with her pistol.

  Leighton leaped toward Gifford and grabbed the pistol from his hand. Then lifted Maddie to her feet. “See, I told you I’d be less trouble.”

  “Oh, is that what you meant?” Maddie laughed.<
br />
  “Yes, my dear, you would never make a manageable hostage.”

  “I think I’m out of bandages,” Dr. Murray said. He coughed at the powder smoke hanging in the air.

  Gifford was moaning theatrically, making not the slightest impression on Leighton’s father.

  “Good shooting, Rachel,” he said as she went to hug him.

  “Maddie, are you all right?” Leighton hugged her tighter.

  In the relative calm, Mrs. Scrope-Nevins had regained her feet and scuttled toward the door into the hotel but Reid picked up his pistol and stopped her. “I’ll have no scruples to shoot you down, old woman. You would have sold me and my fellows into war again.”

  She stopped just as a brace of footmen emerged from the hotel with Sir Phillip. Reid directed them to hold her.

  “Lucy, what are you doing here?” Leighton asked.

  “I followed Maddie. I thought you were eloping.”

  “Not a bad idea but not tonight, I think. I’m afraid poor Reid has been wounded.”

  “Wounded?” Lucy rushed to him and knelt to add her insignificant handkerchief to the padding on his arm.

  Reid smiled at her. “You are an amazing girl.”

  “Imagine that,” Leighton’s father said. “You girls coming to our rescue.”

  “Lucy,” her father said. “How did you get involved in this?”

  “Never mind that now. Did you hear, Father? Gifford is a traitor. I don’t still have to marry him, do I?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And Lieutenant Reid is a hero.”

  Sir Haddon nodded. “So I noticed.”

  “Maddie, how did you all get here?” Leighton demanded.

  “We were in such a hurry we had to bring her with us. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you in danger.”

  “Don’t ever keep something like this from me again.”

  “I should hope not. If I ever get another coded message, I’ll burn it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “So how did you get involved in the plot to free Napoleon?” Leighton asked as Maddie, his father, Rachel and Patience were enjoying tea in Patience’s drawing room.