Sir Ashley's Mettlesome Match

by Mary Nichols

  ‘And because you write about adventures, you want to have them in real life.’

  ‘Sir Ashley,’ she said, suddenly serious, ‘this is not an adventure for me. I am in deadly earnest to find my brother. He would not deliberately stay away from home, I know he would not.’

  ‘But he is not being held against his will. You heard the mate say he had left the ship as soon as they docked.’

  ‘The man could have been lying.’

  ‘That I intend to discover.’

  ‘Without me.’

  ‘Most decidedly without you. Matters may become violent and I might need to move swiftly.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I would not wish you to put yourself in danger on my behalf. I should feel dreadful if anything happened to you.’

  ‘Would you, my dear?’ he queried softly.

  She felt the colour rising in her cheeks. It annoyed her to think that Philip King, supposedly a man, could blush so easily. ‘Of course. I should feel guilty.’

  ‘That, my dear, is why a lady could not possibly do the work of a Piccadilly Gentleman. Sensibilities do not enter into their work.’

  She did not immediately answer. He was doing the work of the Society and if that ran counter to her needs, then she knew which way he would go. He was on the side of law and order. But then she had thought Sir Felix was too. Until Sir Ashley mentioned him to the Sally Ann’s mate, she had almost forgotten about that proposal. No wonder he said he could get the charges against Ben and Nat dropped.

  ‘I would never have believed it of Sir Felix,’ she said suddenly. ‘He is a magistrate.’

  ‘That does not seem to be a barrier. He is not the only one. Gentry, parsons, magistrates, pillars of society—all indulge in a little free trading, but it is the big fish we are after.’

  ‘You think Sir Felix might be such a one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you know what he was up to before today?’

  ‘I suspected, but I had no proof. I still have no proof. I need to find someone to testify against him.’

  ‘I do not think any of the villagers would dare.’

  ‘No. Nor the sailors.’

  She laughed suddenly. ‘That’s where a woman might come in useful. I could try to get Sir Felix to let down his guard and confess all.’

  ‘Do not be so cork-brained, Pippa. He will swallow you whole.’

  ‘No, for he has set his heart on marrying me. I could pretend to agree—’

  ‘No!’ He turned and grabbed her arm. ‘You will not do anything of the sort, do you hear me?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I say so.’

  Her spirits, so low a few minutes before, shot skywards and then came down again with a thump. Sir Ashley was not for her either. ‘And who are you to say whom I should marry?’ she demanded, pulling herself from his grasp. ‘You overreach yourself, sir.’

  ‘I beg you pardon. You are quite right. But you see, in the last few days I have come to look upon myself as your guardian, since no one else seems to be looking out for you.’

  Guardian! Was that why he called her his dear Pippa? He fancied himself in loco parentis, and he not more than seven or eight years older than she was. Well, she wasn’t having that! ‘I look out for myself,’ she said. ‘I have been doing it for nine years now and have come to no harm.’

  ‘But you haven’t been mixed up with smugglers before, have you? They are not the romantic heroes of your novels.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Did you go sailing with pirates for your last book?’

  ‘No, of course not. But this is different. My brother has been taken in by the smugglers and must be rescued before he is in deeper trouble.’

  ‘I understand.’ His bantering abrasive tone was gone and he spoke softly, as if he genuinely did understand.

  She did not know how to handle him when his moods changed so lightning fast: one minute teasing, one gently concerned, another almost distant, as if they were strangers. Would he find Nat? And would he help him or have him thrown into gaol? Was he friend or foe? She still did not know the answer to that. She had been so engrossed in their conversation, she had not noticed that they were back in the more salubrious neighbourhood of the west end of town and would soon be drawing up at Trentham House. And nothing had been achieved.

  ‘Tell me where will you continue your investigation?’ she said.

  ‘So that you can follow me?’

  ‘Would you have me, if I did?’

  ‘No, I damned well would not!’

  ‘Then I won’t try to come, but please, for my peace of mind, tell me what you intend to do.’ She hated herself for begging, especially as it made him smile.

  ‘First I shall go back to the docks and track down any members of the crew I can find. At least one of them should answer to the lure of a fat purse. If your brother is no longer with them, I shall go to the coaching inns and ask if he has boarded a coach for Norwich or Peterborough or anywhere where he can pick up a lift to Narbeach.’

  ‘If he had money, he might hire a chaise.’

  ‘That would cost him dear. Are his pockets deep enough for that?’

  ‘I do not know. He might have acquired some.’

  ‘I hope he has not,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It would mean he had been paid generously for his services and that might make it even more difficult to defend him.’

  ‘Would you defend him?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘I would defend any man I believed to be innocent.’

  ‘He is,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I hope you may be right,’ he said, as the hackney came to a stop outside Trentham House. He looked down at her male garb. ‘Are you going in the front door dressed like that?’

  ‘No, ask the driver to take us round to the mews. I’ll walk in the back way from there and hope I do not meet William or Eleanor.’

  He gave the order and they trotted off again. ‘Do you think Nat is still in London?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you?’ There he was, answering one question with another again.

  ‘I cannot think why he would stay in town. He must surely be anxious to go home to Narbeach. He must know how worried I am about him.’ She paused. ‘I think, if we do not find him in London soon, I shall go home,’ she said. She had sworn, when Edward had rejected her, that she would not allow herself to be hurt again, but she knew if she stayed close to Sir Ashley Saunders, she would be hurt. She had to regain the independence she valued so highly.

  ‘Once I have exhausted all possibilities in the Capital I will go back there myself, to continue my enquiries, you understand. It will be my pleasure to escort you.’

  ‘There is no need. I can go the way I came.’ To admit she wanted his company would be admitting defeat. And if Nat were at home and not as innocent as she claimed… Oh, what a dreadful muddle it all was.

  When they stopped again, he insisted on walking to the house with her, telling her that if they should come across Lord or Lady Trentham, his presence might mitigate their dismay at seeing her dressed as she was. But his theory was not put to the test because they met no one and she was able to bid him goodbye and slip in a side door and up the back stairs to her room where Teresa waited. The maid had not dared leave the room in case someone asked her where her mistress was and she was in fever of anxiety. Pippa soothed her and stripped off Nat’s clothes and dressed again in her own feminine garments. Then she went down to the parlour to join her cousin, just as if she had been working in her room all afternoon.

  But her complexion was pink and her eyes bright and she was bubbling up inside with what had happened. She was realist enough to know that without Sir Ashley she would have achieved nothing and might even have come to harm. They had learned very little, but he seemed undaunted and meant to continue his quest for her brother. She prayed, oh, how she prayed that Nat was as innocent as Ben. Only then could she think of Sir Ashley as friend and not foe. And she would be able to reject Sir Felix, waiting in Narbeach for her answer. She dare not think
any further ahead than that.

  Chapter Seven

  Ash strode home to Pall Mall deep in thought. Nathaniel Kingslake must be found and questioned. Of all the people he wanted to speak to, he was the most important. The young man could possibly point the finger at Sir Felix and give him the proof he needed. But what of Pippa? His feelings for her were in turmoil. Was she as innocent as she seemed? Had she come to London to meet her brother and been on her way to a rendezvous with him at the docks? If that were the case, she had retrieved the situation like a true Piccadilly Gentleman when he had come face to face with her.

  He smiled to himself at the thought of a lady belonging to that elite band. There was no doubt she had courage—too much, perhaps; that part of London, down by the docks, was a dangerous place for anyone not used to being there. Young man or single lady, she could have ended up in the river, simply for her clothes and the money she carried. How glad he was he had been there, even if it did delay his questioning of the Sally Ann’s crew. He hoped fervently she would not go there again. He might not be on hand a second time. His concern for her did battle with his sense of duty and left him muddled and out of sorts with himself.

  He was in no mood to act the exquisite and go visiting, but a summons from his uncle, Lord Cadogan, was not to be ignored, if only for the reason that his lordship hardly ever communicated with him. The abrupt instruction to visit him at home that evening was unprecedented. ‘When did this arrive?’ he asked Mortimer, pointing to the letter he had just read and put down on the table in his dressing room.

  ‘This afternoon, Sir Ashley. A footman brought it round and said it was urgent. I had no idea how late you would be returning home so I could give no assurances except that I would see it was put into your hand the minute you arrived.’

  ‘I had better change and go round at once, though I cannot, for the life of me, think what he wants.’

  He stripped off the brown coat and breeches and handed them to Mortimer, who handled them as if they were alive and threw them in a corner. ‘I shall need them again,’ Ash warned him. ‘Put them away neatly.’

  ‘When I have you properly dressed, sir. What will you wear?’

  ‘The plum velvet and the pink waistcoat,’ he said after due consideration. ‘Everything else in white. And I had better wear a wig and all the other paraphernalia. My uncle is a stickler for dress.’

  ‘I am glad someone is,’ the valet muttered as he went to fetch the clothes, the wig, the quizzing glass, the fob watch and the lace handkerchief to be tucked ostentatiously in his master’s sleeve.

  Ash wondered what Pippa would make of the vision that faced him in the mirror when he was at last ready to go out. And thinking of Pippa, which, to his chagrin, he found himself doing more and more often, he was reminded that Edward Cadogan had offered her marriage and then reneged. A dastardly thing to do, if true. Could he learn anything about that on his visit?

  The chair he had hired deposited him in Hanover Square a few minutes later. He stood outside the railings and looked up at the house. There were black ribbons attached to the door and the curtains were drawn. Someone had died. It could not be Uncle Henry because he had written the letter. Surely not Aunt Gertrude? And here he was in plum and pink, too late to go back and change again. He took a deep breath, went up the steps and knocked.

  He was admitted by a footman and conducted to the drawing room, expecting the worst, but was relieved to find both his uncle and aunt sitting there. His aunt, a tiny woman hardly bigger than a child, was in deep mourning, and his uncle, as fat as his wife was tiny, wore black bands round the sleeves of his dark coat. Ash bowed. ‘Uncle Henry, Aunt Gertrude, I am sorry to find you in mourning.’

  ‘You have heard, then?’

  ‘No, I have not. What has happened?’

  His aunt began to weep and could not speak. His lordship looked at her and sighed. ‘She has not stopped crying since she heard.’

  Aunt Gertrude had always been a sensitive woman, given to fancies about ghosts and spirits and omens, but even she would not weep so copiously unless… ‘I am sorry, but what have you heard?’ He fancied he knew the answer.

  ‘Edward is dead,’ his uncle said flatly, while his aunt’s sobs became louder. ‘He died of a fever in India. We have only today heard and he has been dead and buried these two months.’

  ‘Oh, I am so very sorry,’ Ash said, sitting beside his aunt on the sofa and taking her hand.

  ‘I wish he had never gone out there,’ she said between sobs, taking the handkerchief Ash offered her. ‘Pestilential place.’

  ‘You sent him there,’ her husband said irritably. ‘If you’d left well alone, he would have tired of her and there would have been no need. He would have been safe and well here.’

  Ash, in the middle of digesting the news and concern for his relatives, registered the fact that his uncle had referred to ‘her’ which he took to mean Pippa. ‘I do not understand,’ he said to his aunt. ‘You sent Edward away?’

  ‘He had formed an unacceptable attachment,’ his uncle told him. ‘The woman was a nobody, had nothing, no money, no pedigree and was eccentric, to boot. Earned her living by writing, would you believe? Your aunt was convinced she would ruin Edward and required me to do something about it.’

  ‘Edward cannot have been all that attached to her if he allowed himself to be so easily separated from her,’ Ash suggested.

  Henry shrugged. ‘It was made very plain to him what would happen if he married her. He would lose his inheritance. On the other hand, reneging on an offer of marriage was bound to cause a scandal, but if he went to India for a short time, he would be given an allowance generous enough to live well while there and in due course, when society had forgotten the circumstances, he would be allowed to return home. He was accustomed to the best of everything and the thought of living in a garret and having to earn a living for himself and a wife was not to be borne, so he agreed.’

  ‘He was going to come home later this year,’ Gertrude put in. ‘Now, I shall never see him again.’ And she began to sob louder than ever. Ash sat beside her in silence, longing to ask if the lady had red hair, but not daring to, since no one else had mentioned it.

  Henry looked at her in exasperation. ‘We have business matters to discuss,’ he said to Ash. ‘Ring the bell for your aunt’s maid to look after her and we can go to the book room and talk in peace.’

  This was done and the two men went to the library where Henry poured them both a large glass of cognac. ‘Sit down, boy,’ he said, indicating a chair and lowering himself heavily into another. ‘A bad business all round.’

  ‘I am sorry for you,’ Ash said. He did not like being addressed as boy, but he supposed that was how his uncle, who was seventy if he was a day, thought of him.

  ‘You realise, of course, that you are now my heir?’

  ‘Good Lord, I never thought of it. I certainly never wished it.’

  ‘Well, you are, and there are certain matters I must point out to you.’ He paused, but when Ash did not answer, he went on. ‘You know I have never approved of your way of living, made no secret of it, but while you were simply my sister’s son and no closer to me, I did not feel it right to interfere.’ He paused to take a mouthful of cognac, while Ash irreverently wondered if he had paid duty on it, then went on. ‘As my heir, you must mend your ways.’

  Ash was not sure how to answer this. He hated to be dictated to, but at the same time it coincided with his own sudden desire to live a more conventional life. ‘How do you suggest I do that, my lord?’ he asked, pretending puzzlement.

  ‘You could start by ridding yourself of that woman.’

  His thoughts went immediately to Pippa. Surely, his uncle did not know that he even knew her? ‘What woman?’ he asked, cagily.

  ‘What’s her name? Mrs Thorn something or other. She is telling everyone you are going to wed her.’

  Ash breathed again. ‘I certainly am not.’

  ‘But you did make her an offer
?’

  ‘I did not. That is a fabrication.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. But it is time you were married and starting a family. How old are you? Thirty-four?’ Ash nodded and he went on. ‘As my heir I expect you to carry on the line. Find someone suitable, someone of breeding, someone like Lady Jane Ponsonby. I had been talking to her father with a view to matching her with Edward when he came home, but now…’ He shrugged. ‘You take her.’

  Lady Jane was the daughter of an earl, and though pretty enough, she was brainless and her conversation did not stretch beyond fashion and gossip. ‘She would have made a good match for Edward,’ Ash said slowly. ‘But I beg to point out, Uncle, I am not your son and I think I am old enough and wise enough to choose a bride for myself. Lady Jane is not to my liking.’

  ‘Pity. She has a prodigious dowry.’

  ‘That would not influence me. I am wealthy enough not to have to take a dowry into consideration, if my affections are engaged.’

  ‘Affections?’ His uncle sounded astonished. ‘You would marry for love?’

  ‘Yes, I would.’ For the second time he surprised himself. The first was when he had spoken to Pippa on the subject.

  ‘A recipe for disaster that would be.’ Henry shook his head. ‘Wives who think their husbands are in thrall to them tend to make impossible demands on a man’s purse and time. You are as bad as Edward. He thought himself in love until he realised what it would mean for his daily comfort and then love quickly flew out of the window.’

  ‘Then he could not have been in love in the first place,’ Ash said firmly. ‘I would not allow anyone to dictate to me whom I should marry and, unlike Edward, the threat of losing an inheritance will have no effect on me at all.’

  ‘You have someone in mind?’

  ‘No,’ he said quickly, too quickly to be convincing. ‘But it will certainly not be Arabella Thornley or Jane Ponsonby.’

  ‘Then make haste and look about you for someone else who will do. I should like to see the next heir before I leave this earth.’