The Water Nymph: The Arboretti Family Saga - Book Two

by Michele Jaffe

  Two other false alarms revealed more compartments with jewels—more emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds than Crispin had ever dreamt of possessing, not to mention the pearl tiara or the aquamarine doublet clasps. Even then he had still had enough energy to indulge in the savory image of Sophie draped in the gems, outshining their luster with her own. But by the time the last door had been found, the one that led to a long tunnel with four cells off it, ending in a large, round, chamber beneath his garden, Crispin had to admit that he was tired. And anxious.

  At the beginning of the search, Crispin had not actually been concerned that it would uncover its object. Sophie was well hidden, Thurston had seen to that. But as the time wore on, as minutes turned to hours and hours to half a day, as the thoroughness of the searchers continued to turn up hidden compartments and rooms, his concern grew. Could she possibly be that well hidden?

  When the nagging of this thought managed to suck the pleasure even out of tormenting Basil about his lousy alibi, Crispin knew he had to do something. Part of him thought it would be better to get away from Sandal Hall, to take a walk, to pay another visit to Lawrence, to do anything but pace back and forth as the walls, floors, moldings, and furnishings of his house were dismantled. But he could not bring himself to leave. If Sophie was going to be found, if she was going to go back to prison, he wanted to be there.

  It was not her going back to prison that concerned him the most, although that would be unpleasant. It was what could be waiting for her there. The warrant that Basil had shown him was authentic, but it was also suspicious. To begin with, it was not the normal warrant that would be issued to find an escaped criminal. In addition, Crispin knew that it was no easy task to get a warrant to search a nobleman’s house, particularly one as wealthy as he was. It certainly would have taken more than the anonymous tips Basil alluded to. It would have required influence, significant influence inside the Queen’s Privy Council. And perseverance.

  Whoever was the real impetus behind the warrant had to be both powerful and powerfully taken with the idea of finding Sophie Champion. Not in the interest of justice, but for some other reason. And Crispin did not like that thought at all.

  Nor, if he was being especially honest, did he like the thought of not spending the night with her that night. Or of not hearing what it was she was going to say before Thurston had interrupted them on the bank of the Thames.

  Crispin was startled when a shout from the adjacent room signaled the discovery of some new hollow panel or other, but his heart stopped racing as soon as he saw that it was just more jewels. He decided to forgo the extraordinary thrill of watching the rest of the search for the much more mundane pleasure of digging in his garden and was just heading to his apartment to change when a brisk voice called out to him.

  “Nephew,” Lady Priscilla chirped, beckoning him into The Aunt’s sitting room. “We have drawn up a list of candidates to be your wife, and we want to go over them with you. Now.”

  “I cannot thank you enough, but just at the moment I have an appointment,” Crispin improvised.

  “No appointment is as important as settling this question of your marriage,” Lady Eleanor informed him, pointing him into a stern-looking straight-backed chair. “Now, sit down and we shall describe the girls to you, and you will pick one. Who is first, sister?”

  “Althea Bordine,” Lady Priscilla read out from a pile of papers in front of her as soon as Crispin was seated. “A very good family, the Bordines, from Hertfordshire. Althea eats only cabbage.”

  “Eats only cabbage?” Crispin repeated, shifting in the narrow seat.

  “Yes. She says that our modern diet, with so many ingredients, ruins the palate and corrupts the digestion,” Lady Priscilla explained. “Think how salubrious that will be for your children.”

  “Not to mention economical,” Lady Eleanor added. “Your father, our brother, dear Hugo, was a great one for economy.” She paused to sigh in the great man’s memory. “Who is next, sister?”

  “Anconia Rasher-Rasher, of the Rasher-Rasher’s of Norfolk. Your father, dear Hugo, went to school with her father,” Lady Priscilla told Crispin.

  Crispin looked grim. “What does she eat?”

  “Oh, Anconia eats everything. But she will live only in a gray house. That is, a house in which all the furnishings are gray. She believes color dulls the senses and blocks the path to spiritual salvation.”

  “She is a terribly spiritual person,” Lady Eleanor went on before Crispin could express his dismay. “It is said that she regularly communes with Archangel Michael. That sort of spiritual upbringing would be wonderful for your children.”

  “Wonderful,” Crispin muttered. He could have sworn his chair was getting more narrow.

  “Do you like her, nephew?” Lady Priscilla asked enthusiastically. “Shall we stop, then? Is she your selection?”

  “No.” Crispin was surprised to note that he almost shouted the word. He tried to shift in his seat but found that he was stuck. “No, pray go on,” he said, gesturing awkwardly. “You went to such effort, I should really hear them all.”

  “Very well.” Lady Priscilla consulted the list for the next name. “Appollonia Saint Alderghiest.”

  “Saint Alderghiest.” Crispin experimented with crossing one ankle over the other and decided against it. “Is she another spiritualist?”

  Lady Eleanor shook her head indulgently. “No, no. If anything, she is a bit of a rebel.”

  “Yes,” Lady Priscilla picked up. “She will not touch water.”

  “Do you mean she does not know how to swim?” Crispin asked.

  “No,” Lady Priscilla went on. “She won’t take a drop of water. Not to drink. Or to bathe in. She does not believe in it. She has not bathed in, oh, how long would you say, sister?”

  “I believe she said twelve years. Ever since she was out of swaddling.”

  Crispin’s genuine interest in this incomprehensible behavior, as well as his very real fear that The Aunts had contrived to hold him hostage by pinning him to his chair, were both suddenly overtaken by a chilling realization.

  “How have you organized this list?” Crispin asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Alphabetically, of course,” Lady Priscilla replied. “Your father, our brother, dear Hugo, always said that was the only way to organize a list.” .

  “Alphabetically by first name,” Lady Eleanor expanded.

  “Alphabetically by first name,” Crispin repeated, thinking that those were the four most terrifying words in the English language. “And we have reached Appollonia.’ How many names are on the list, would you say, dearest aunt?”

  Lady Priscilla did not answer right away. Instead, she shuffled through a tall sheaf of papers on the table in front of her, her lips moving as she counted the names down. This had gone on for a long time, an ominously long time, when she looked up. “I lost count for a moment, but I should say not more than one hundred.”

  “One hundred.” Crispin pronounced each syllable carefully.

  “Shall we continue?” Lady Eleanor asked, then frowned. “Nephew, why are you sitting like that?”

  Lady Priscilla, not wanting to miss an opportunity to improve Crispin, joined in. “Yes, why are you slouching? Your father, our brother, dear Hugo, never slouched. ‘Posture makes the man,’ he always used to say. Now, going on to Arianne Corner-Bludstone—”

  Crispin did not wait to hear more. He rose abruptly from the chair, almost taking one of its arms with him, executed a quick bow to both Aunts, spluttered something about not feeling well, and was out of the room before they could comment or even realize what had happened.

  He stalked down the hallway like a madman, greedily drinking in the air of freedom, and almost ran over Basil and the sheriff as he rounded the corner to his apartment.

  “There you are,” Basil pronou
nced, pulling back as if from a venomous snake.

  Basil’s discomfort restored a large part of Crispin’s good humor in a flash. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked convivially.

  “I have just come to say, Lord Sandal, that we have finished.”

  “Must you go so soon?” Crispin shook his head. “Pity, it is nearly time for dinner and my cook really is superb. Tell me, did you find her?”

  “Not this time.” Basil tried to make the words sound threatening.

  “Does that mean I can count on a return visit from you tomorrow?” Crispin asked hopefully. “If this is to be a regular thing, I will have to restock my cellar.”

  “Where have you hidden her?” Basil demanded.

  “My dear neighbor,” Crispin said, jocularly, “I assure you that I have not hidden Sophie Champion anywhere. I have no more secrets from you than you do from me.”

  Basil tried to look menacing and ignore Crispin’s last comment simultaneously. “I will be back,” he said, clenching a fist. “I will be back with another warrant, I promise you that.”

  “And I shall look forward to it. It is a joy to see a gentleman take such undisguised—one might even say naked—pride in his patriotic duty,” Crispin commended him. “Indeed, if you were any more eager to get Sophie Champion arrested, I would think you had murdered Richard Tottle yourself and were trying desperately to pin it on her.”

  Crispin had spoken his parting words to the man’s back, but Basil now swung around to face him. “What did you say, my lord?”

  “Nothing.” Crispin smiled widely. “Just a little banter between neighbors. Good day, Lord Grosgrain.”

  Basil stood, quivering for a moment, then turned and stomped down the stairs and out of Sandal Hall in the company of the sheriff. The searchers followed, and Crispin had a broad, fake smile for each of them, especially the beady-eyed one. When they had all gone, when the front door was closed and bolted, Crispin turned and hollered, “Thurston!”

  There was no answer.

  “Thurston,” he called again.

  Nothing.

  This was bad. “Thurston, man, where the devil are you?”

  “I believe he said he was going for a walk with a lady, my lord,” a timid serving boy told Crispin.

  “A walk?” Thurston never went for a walk. “Why? Where? When?”

  “I do not know, my lord. Not long ago, my lord. I am very sorry, my lord.”

  Crispin prided himself on being terrifying to his enemies, but not to fifteen-year-old serving boys. “Thank you,” he said politely, taking himself in hand. “You have done very well, and you need not apologize.”

  “Thank you, my lord. I am sorry, my lord,” the boy repeated, simultaneously bowing and running down the hall.

  Crispin cursed under his breath as he crossed the threshold into his library. Thurston was the only person who knew where Sophie was hidden, the only person who knew how to bring her back, and now he had disappeared. Gone for a walk? Idiocy! What if something happened to him? Crispin wondered with alarm. What if he got run over by a carriage, or trampled by a horse, and never came back, and Sophie wasted away from hunger? It probably would not take her long, she was most likely wasting away already, and if Thurston delayed any longer…

  Crispin’s mind spun round and round ridiculous hypotheses of the terrible harm that might at that very moment be befalling Thurston, while Grip chattered by his side. “King of France,” the bird called out. “Get the ax, King of France, forty-two, pull the daisy, King of France, get the girl.”

  Still devising terrible ends for Thurston, Crispin toyed idly with the items on his desk. There were quills, papers, a statue, a book about plants, and a short dagger some aged relative had given him when he was ten, which he now used to open correspondence. The desk had been his father’s, along with the statue, and he had not bothered to change or move either of them when he inherited the library. It was not that he was sentimental in any way about his father’s possessions, or even about his father. “Dear Hugo” had always been much more of a mythic construction propagated by The Aunts than a real figure in Crispin’s life. Not only did he seem so perfect as to be unapproachable, but he had also been too busy to pay any attention to his sons. Crispin’s most frequent memories of his father were of discovering him in one of the pavilions on the family estate in the country, completely lost in the buxom embraces of a wildly moaning chambermaid.

  “Get the girl, King of France, pull the daisy,” the raven chirped.

  When he had inherited that estate, Crispin had picked up where his father had left off with the chambermaids, proud that at least he could emulate the great man in something. But his father must have heard something in those moans, found something in those buxom embraces, that Crispin did not. Those affairs, those years of affairs, had left him unfulfilled. Crispin had wondered about “dear Hugo” after that, about the man who could be content with such passing pleasures, and had even asked himself if perhaps it was not a deficiency on his part that he could not be.

  Grip hopped up and down. “Bring the ax, King of France, forty-two,” he chorused.

  Crispin had sold that estate before leaving England two and a half years earlier and had sold off most of his father’s furnishings at Sandal Hall, but he had kept the library desk because it was commodious. And the statue that stood on the corner, because it was there. He looked at the statue now, almost as if he were seeing it for the first time, and was struck by how very ugly it was.

  What could his father possibly have seen in the bronze casting of a lass, naked but for a ridiculous bonnet, standing in the midst of three very unrealistic looking sheep? The whole menagerie was mounted on a hillock, at the base of which was a garland of flowers. Crispin could not imagine what his father was doing with such an item and was on the verge of removing it once and for all from the library when a voice behind him said, “Pull the daisy get the girl.”

  Crispin turned slowly to look at the raven and could have sworn it winked at him. Then he turned slowly back, pulled the only flower that matched the description “daisy” on the base of the statue, and watched without surprise as a panel in the side of his father’s desk slid open.

  “Hello?” he called into the darkness behind the panel. “Hello, is there someone down there?”

  The sound of absolute silence greeted him. Followed by more silence. Followed by a distant flickering of light. Followed by the emergence of four fingertips from the hole. And then another four. And then two thumbs. And then, after a bit of grunting, the face he most wanted to see in the world.

  “Are they gone?” Crispin only had time to nod before Sophie went on. “So nice of you to ask. No, nothing big, just a snack. Let’s see, perhaps two pheasants? Oh, and a whole cow. And a pig. And a lamb. And six sticky puddings.”

  “Are you sure that will be enough?”

  “For me. You should bring some for yourself, as well. And then come down here. I have a marvel to show you.”

  Crispin was backing up to execute her orders when she called out to him, “Wait. There is something I forgot.”

  “What?” He bent down to hear better.

  Sophie stood on her toes to kiss him. “Oh, Crispin,” she breathed against his lips, “I missed you so much.”

  “I missed you too, tesoro.”

  She brushed her mouth over his lightly. “I love you, Crispin,” she told him. And then, not waiting to hear the words she knew would not come, she rushed on. “Now go, hurry, get the food before I die of hunger and wanting you.”

  Crispin ransacked the kitchen, taking every mobile piece of food he could find until the cook threatened to chase him out. It was a motley feast he assembled, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to wait while the whole pig, lamb, goat, goose, sheep, and whatever else Sophie had requested were prepared. He nearly ran in
to The Aunts, who seemed to be in search of him, but a well-timed duck into a service corridor he had not known was there before saved him. He peeped out to ensure that the way was clear, then emerged stealthily.

  Before he had taken more than three steps, a discreet clearing of the throat echoed behind him.

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” Thurston said, as if there were nothing in the least bit unusual about his master creeping around with all the food and half the plates in the house. “I know you were looking for me while I was walking Miss Helena back to Hen House, my lord, and I wanted to tell you that I am returned and that this arriv—”

  “Not now, Thurston,” Crispin said urgently. “I have an appointment.”

  “I can see that, my lord. But—”

  “No,” Crispin said positively, continuing down the corridor. “I am busy.”

  “I understand, my lord, however—”

  Using his elbow, Crispin shut the door of his library in his steward’s face. He had never before been so rude to Thurston, and he would pay for not stopping to listen, pay for it dearly, later. But at the time no message could have been nearly as important, no missive as urgent, as his need to be with Sophie.

  He set the tray on the floor under the desk and whispered her name. At first nothing happened, but soon a candle flickered into view and her smile floated above it. “Food?” she asked.

  “Food,” Crispin confirmed. A decanter of wine was handed through the panel, followed by a braised leg of lamb, a plate of sautéed sorrel, half a steak pie, a tureen of something green, six pork chops topped with walnut sauce, two capons roasted until golden, rice with almonds and cinnamon, three oddly shaped melons, a plate of cold asparagus, cherries, trout in brine, six candles, two spoons, a knife made out of sugar left over from last Easter, a loaf of bread, a tray to carry it all on, and Crispin. His legs went first, guided by Sophie’s hands, which not accidentally strayed over his thighs when he was only halfway through. He wanted to protest as he felt her fingers unhooking the lacings of his breeches, but he could not find the breath. He should stop her, he thought to himself, he should not allow her to do this. He opened his mouth, but his cry of “halt” turned into something closer to “Alaaahhhh” when her lips touched his shaft. All thoughts of opposition, along with all thoughts of breathing, left him then, and he gave himself up to the sheer pleasure of her touch.