Pierre stepped forward. “Ah, poor Father,” he drawled, ignoring Caroline’s demands. “You have just been reprimanded; quite gently, but reprimanded none the less. We will be happy to excuse you, of course, if you wish to go to your rooms and change out of your dirt.”
“No, we won’t,” Caroline piped up, quickly sitting up, as if ready to bound from the bed and physically restrain the man.
“We won’t?” Pierre questioned, eyeing her warily. “Are you going to prove tiresome, brat?”
“We won’t,” she repeated firmly, ignoring his insult. “What you will do is gather round my bed like good little soldiers—as I am reluctant to leave it until my back feels less like Lady has stepped on it with all four feet—and tell me just what the devil is going on!”
“She seems a bit grumpy, my son,” André commented kindly. “One can always tell, because her language slips a notch. Rather endearing, don’t you think? Yet, all things considered, perhaps another visit from the good doctor is in order?”
“Yes, she does seem sadly out of coil,” Pierre agreed. “I suggest we retire, you to change and me to summon Doctor Burgess, while Victoria fetches a cold cloth with which to bathe Caroline’s fevered brow.”
“Don’t bother the doctor, Pierre,” Caroline broke in, her voice rather strained. “I believe my agitation is easily diagnosed. As a matter of fact, I am convinced it is due to something I almost drank.”
Victoria stood. “Oh, give it up, gentlemen,” she told them, laughing. “The time has come to make a clean breast of things. Caroline wants some answers. As she has borne the brunt of the thing, being subjected to attempts on her life, I do believe she is not making an out-of-the-way demand. Besides, knowing only half the story thus far, I too am curious. André, have you been able to discover her identity since last we met?”
Caroline couldn’t be sure, but she thought André hesitated for a moment, less than half a heartbeat actually, before shaking his head. “I am mortified to admit that I have not—at least not definitely.” He brightened slightly as he looked directly at her and added, “I’m close, I am convinced of it. I lack only one last verifying communication from my man in Leicester, where I am fairly certain you lived. I would have traveled there myself, except for my strong desire to be back with you here at Standish Court.”
“Leicester?” Victoria questioned, turning to Caroline. “That would explain the pieman.” She turned to the older Standish. “Your ‘man,’ André? He is on his way here now, I trust?”
“On winged feet, my dear,” André assured her, winking.
“Leicester. That is miles north of London, I’m sure, and so far away from here,” Caroline added, looking puzzled. “Surely I could not have traveled from there barefoot. It must be some mistake. I couldn’t possibly have come from Leicester.”
“You make it sound dreadful, imp. Leicester is a lovely place,” Pierre broke in smoothly, “although its history is sometimes bloodthirsty. If I’m correct, Richard III passed the night before the Battle of Bosworth there, in the Blue Boar Inn, and his body was buried in the Grey Friars’ church. Poor, abused man. Eventually his remains were exhumed and tossed into the Soar from Bow Bridge and his stone coffin turned into a horse trough, possibly for use at that same Blue Boar Inn. Still, all things considered,” he ended as Caroline’s steely stare threatened to skewer him where he stood, “it is, as I said, a delightful city.”
“Founded by King Lear, I believe, on the site of the Roman Ratae,” André, barely containing his mirth, added helpfully, earning himself a steely stare of his own.
Pierre nodded. “Ah, yes, there is a wealth of history in Leicester. But we digress. I believe I hear dearest Caroline gnashing her teeth.”
“I think you are both abominable!” Caroline declared vehemently, reaching behind her to toss a pillow in their general direction. “Ouch! My back! Now see what you’ve made me do! There are times when I think I have lost my memory, and other times when I’m equally convinced I am only suffering from delusions, and that none of this is real. I’m not in Sussex, surrounded by village idiots—save Victoria, who has been the best of good friends to me. I’m actually in Bedlam, imagining all of this!”
Victoria retrieved the pillow and placed it behind Caroline, gently pushing her against it while asking her to please not exert herself any further. She, Victoria promised in an undertone, would handle matters from here.
When she turned to face the Standishes, she was no longer Victoria Sherbourne, Countess of Wickford, but Victoria Quinton, master sleuth. “All right, gentlemen,” she began, pulling herself up to her full height and glaring commandingly at them from behind her spectacles, “let’s get down to cases, shall we? Restricting ourselves to only what is known for a fact, and not straying to conjecture or supposition—or even enlightening lessons in ancient history—just precisely what do you know?”
André made a great business of clutching at his chest and tottering to a nearby chair. “Good gracious!” he exclaimed wonderingly. “I do believe I am mortally wounded. Pierre, my only son, please, I beg you, take up the sword and defend your fallen sire.”
Pierre lifted his hands to softly applaud his father. “Well done, sir,” he complimented dryly. “Not that I am surprised you have chosen to retire to the fringes and leave me to make your explanations for you. My felicitations, Victoria, you remain as sharp as ever; even marriage to Patrick has not dulled your fire. Caroline,” he continued, turning to face her. “I agree that you deserve some answers. However, before I tell you anything, I would ask that you promise you will listen very carefully to what I say, and then likewise promise to allow your friends to settle the situation for you while you remain out of harm’s way.”
Caroline very deliberately folded her arms across her stomach. “You’d have to be totally to let in the attic if you’d believe me, no matter if I swore those promises on a stack of Bibles piled high as the Tower of London,” she pointed out reasonably. “Just get on with it, Pierre, please. Why don’t you begin with Mrs. Merrydell, my dearest chaperone, if you need a place to start.”
“All right, Caroline. I do begin to believe it would be performing a kindness to tell you something, so let me tell you what my father, through brilliant investigation, has learned—and then forwarded by way of discreet messengers almost daily to his son, who had been ruthlessly left behind here to act as resident nursemaid.”
Pierre sat down familiarly at the bottom of the bed, as if the telling were going to take some time. “Mrs. Merrydell’s meeting with you in the village was no accident,” he began, much to Caroline’s relief. “The entire incident was staged so that you would engage her services as chaperone, and the importuning dandy she beat heavily about the head and shoulders with her reticule was none other than her son, Ursley Merrydell. I had recognized them both a week earlier walking together outside the inn in the village, as Father—who had discovered their presence before leaving for London—had prudently warned me against them. I had been keeping them under observation ever since, long before Mrs. Merrydell so graciously helped me by imposing her way into this house.”
“And you revealed none of this to poor Caroline,” Victoria concluded quietly, shaking her head. “How infuriatingly typical of you, Pierre. At least André shared his knowledge of Mrs. Merrydell and Ursley with Patrick and me.”
Pierre slanted her a smile. “Explanations are so tedious, Victoria,” he explained softly, but without apology.
“Ursley?” Caroline exclaimed in disbelief, her mind whirling with this onslaught of information. “It is no wonder then that he grew up twisted, as if having Amity Merrydell for a mother were not inducement enough. Whoops!” She put a hand to her mouth as Pierre frowned. “Please,” she urged, “forgive my interruption. Go on.”
“Ursley was also the man Caroline first saw in the gardens—and the one who shaved the leather on her mount’s cinch,” Victoria interposed, her quick mind racing ahead to meet logical conclusions.
“One
and the same, dear lady, I’m sure,” André supplied from the corner. “We can only be thankful he is as incompetent as his mother is obnoxious—and that Caroline is an excellent rider who obviously knows how to take a fall.”
Caroline frowned, then voiced a protest. “But—but he couldn’t be! The man in the cobbler’s was not very tall, and quite thin, although still rather strong, in a wiry sort of way. The man in the garden was huge!” Her frown deepened. “At least, I thought he was. Maybe it was his sack that was huge.” She looked at Pierre. “And just maybe I was more frightened than I thought,” she ended in a small voice.
“Now there’s a revelation,” Pierre told her, his smile taking any sting from his words.
Caroline immediately blushed to advantage, at least to Pierre’s mind. “He’s really such an unprepossessing little man. I feel foolish.”
Pierre reached over to pat the hands that now lay in her lap. “We are all allowed to be foolish from time to time,” he assured her.
She looked at him closely. “But not you,” she said flatly. “You’re always so composed.”
She was amazed to see a slight hint of color invade his lean cheeks and immediately sensed he was thinking about his reaction to hearing that she had been hurt. Victoria had been correct; he must have been greatly overset. Caroline didn’t know why, but it went a long way toward making her bruises less painful.
“We all have our moments, dear girl. Now,” Pierre went on quickly, “to get back to the story as I know it. Father and I first became suspicious of the Merrydells when they installed themselves in the village a few days after you arrived at Standish Court. There was no reason for their presence, as the village is not exactly a social center, boasts no restorative waters, or can even be said to house an interesting historic ruin or two. So, armed with their names—as they signed the inn register with their true names, which was a mistake only dedicated bumblers could make—Father deserted us to set out for London, to conduct a small investigation.”
“A very discreet yet intensive investigation,” André amended carefully, “as I did not wish to expose my reasons for the questions I asked. I found no end of officials willing to speak to me about Mrs. Merrydell and her son, although I would beg Pierre not to soil your ears with all the details of the tales that I heard. I then traveled to dear Victoria and her Patrick, to enlist their aid as well.”
“Do your best to appear flattered, Caroline,” Pierre advised with a small smile. “Father doesn’t go out of his way for people very often.”
“Thank you, André,” Caroline said dutifully. “Truly, I thank you all, for I have done nothing to deserve your interest in my dilemma. Now, with that out of the way, do you think, Pierre, that you could get on with it? I’m all but dying of curiosity.”
Pierre obliged, for he knew that the explanation was rough ground and he’d rather get over it quickly. “Mrs. Amity Merrydell, although she is commonly known as Mrs. Amelia Chumley, Mrs. Agnes Forester, and Mrs. Agatha Terwilliger—there may be one other, although it escapes me for the moment—has made a moderately successful career of chaperoning less well-connected young ladies from the more remote regions of the country who wish to enter society. She inveigles herself into the unsuspecting family with false but glowing credentials, then introduces her son into the picture in the hopes of making a match with the young lady in question.
“When that ploy fails—and with Ursley cast in the role of hopeful swain, failure is all but a foregone conclusion—Mrs. Merrydell then steals what she can from her employer and departs for greener pastures. Bow Street has been looking for her for quite some time. Do I have it right thus far, Father?”
André rose from his chair to take up the story. “As far as I can say for now, it would appear that you, Caroline, were to be her next victim, only this time with a twist. Your guardian died while Mrs. Merrydell was in residence, leaving you alone, but not penniless. Unfortunately, you were also left with Mrs. Merrydell as your legal guardian, an error in judgment I prefer to believe was caused by your previous guardian’s failing health.”
“But that guardianship was to terminate with the arrival of your twenty-first birthday, when you would take control of your inheritance,” Pierre added, watching her carefully for any signs of remembrance of the things they were telling her.
“Enter Ursley, the loving swain,” Victoria concluded intelligently. “Mrs. Merrydell would have to marry you off to her son before you reached your majority, or else lose everything. She must have been sorely tempted. A few pieces of pilfered silver were nothing compared to having your entire fortune for herself.”
Caroline raised her hands, wordlessly begging them to stop. “I may not know my own name, but I do know one thing—I would rather die than be married to someone with the name of Ursley Merrydell. And if that weren’t enough, the prospect of having Amity for a mother-in-law would be ample inducement to cheerfully slit my own throat.”
“Which, taking the thing a step further, leads us to the Merrydells’ problem. If not marriage, then what?” Pierre asked silkily.
Caroline’s mouth opened, forming a silent “Oh!”
“Yes, my dear girl; oh,” André said kindly. “We feel certain you were on the run from your prospective murderers when you stumbled into my son’s life. It is no wonder you lost your memory, as your memories included the death of your guardian and the prospect of falling victim to the Merrydells’ greed.”
Caroline shook her head, trying to take it all in. She knew she should be feeling sorry for the loss of her guardian, but she couldn’t. She had no memory of any guardian. Instead, she concentrated on the question of her appearance in Sussex. “But—but I still couldn’t have gotten from Leicester to Sussex on my own. It’s impossible.”
“You weren’t in Leicester, my dear,” André put in quickly. “You were not thirty miles from here in a small, unpretentious town called Ockley, installed in a rented house to which the Merrydells had brought you, supposedly to recoup your strength after your guardian’s death. After all, they could scarcely murder you in Leicester, could they? People would be too suspicious. If you refused to marry Ursley, they would simply arrange for you to have a fatal accident. It’s all quite elementary, really, except that you must have discovered their plan and escaped, forcing the Merrydells to follow you here to finish the job.”
Pierre, André and Victoria exchanged glances while Caroline sat nervously plucking the bedcovers, deep in thought. Had they said too much, they asked each other silently. Had they said too little? Was this news too great a shock on top of her recent accident? Would they jolt her into remembrance, or block out her past forever?
At last, when the three thought they no longer could stand the silence, Caroline spoke. “You have to know my name. You know too much not to know my name. Why won’t you tell me?”
Pierre took her hand once more, squeezing it gently. “Only André knows the whole of it, and it is a secret he seems to delight in keeping. I know my father, and it is useless to press him, as he can be as close as an oyster when he wishes. Besides, Caroline, the doctor feels it would be unwise to tell you too much at once. He’d rather you remembered your past on your own.”
“Doctor Burgess said that?” she questioned in disbelief. “He didn’t seem to know enough about memory loss to make a judgement.”
“No,” Pierre agreed readily enough, “but the doctors Father consulted in London do, and it is their orders we have followed, and will continue to follow. We have given you some answers, some reasons for the attempts on your life. The rest will come back to you, Caroline, I’m convinced of it. Why don’t you lie back now, and get some rest? All in all, you’ve had a busy day.”
Pierre’s oblique reference to the goings-on in her chamber brought Caroline’s mind back to Mrs. Merrydell, and her eyes narrowed in sudden anger. “You knew,” she accused Pierre, her voice tight. “You knew who she was, and what she wanted, and you let her stay here anyway? You let the woman who wants me dead sleep
under the same roof with me—and never told me? Didn’t you think I would be vaguely interested?” Her voice rose shrilly. “Just who in bloody hell do you think you are, to use me this way?”
Victoria coughed discreetly, catching André’s attention, and the two withdrew from the chamber, leaving Pierre to face Caroline’s rightful wrath as best he could. It might not have been the right thing to do, or even the fair thing, but it was, they silently agreed, precisely what Pierre deserved. After all, he was the one who had been assigned to protect her.
“They’ve left you,” Caroline informed him tersely, having been forced to look away from his clear, unblinking gaze. “Like rats deserting a sinking ship, as the saying goes.” Her bravado left her, and her lower lip began to tremble. “Oh, Pierre, how could you? I know I have been a bother to you, but were you so uncaring that you could install a murderess under your roof just to watch the sport as she stalked her unknowing quarry? Victoria told me this morning how you teased her husband with what you knew about that poor, confused man—Quinton’s murderer—watching as he and Victoria ran about willy-nilly trying to find out what you already knew. Were you doing it again? Was this a diversion for you, a bit of sport? I thought—I thought you cared for me, if just a little bit.”
Pierre shook his head, his all-seeing gaze never leaving her face. “Just like a woman, aren’t you, throwing my past in my teeth. As Victoria has told you, I can be a wicked, wicked man. But, Caroline—my dearest Caroline—can you really believe I’d let anyone harm you? I allowed Mrs. Merrydell in this house because it was the one way I could watch her, and because I had hoped her presence might somehow serve to bring back your memory. You’ve never been in any danger from her. My only error was in underestimating the son’s ability to outwit my grooms, which led to your accident yesterday. For that I should be horsewhipped. But please, Caroline, don’t think your welfare is no more than a game to me.”
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