“He can make up his own tale. He’s wonderful at that, as you well know.”
“Yes, don’t I? I cannot count the number of people who have asked me about my red spots or my broken leg, which seems to be perfectly mended in only a matter of days. We need also to consider your mother. She will quite fuss if she thinks you ill. I doubt she’ll leave your side.”
“Maybe not at first. However, we can tell Jefferson what we’re doing.”
“We can. But he’ll want to come, given everything that has been done against him.”
Heartfelt sympathy for her brother coursed through Victoria. “And I wouldn’t blame him a bit. But we’ll tell him he can best serve his own interests by staying here—he’s already been missed once today—to reassure Mama. She adores him and will do whatever he says. But should Mama linger in our bedroom, you can always order her out.”
“Well, that should certainly solidify our relationship admirably, me ordering her out of her own house.”
“Don’t be silly. She’ll go willingly. Mama is only too happy being the hostess. With Jeff’s encouragement, she’ll return quickly to her scene of triumph, God love her. She’ll be so proud of my wonderful and titled husband who insists on tending me himself. She won’t miss the opportunity to tell all her friends, either, how the titled duke dotes on his wife, and isn’t it so sad that their daughters don’t have such wonderful husbands with titles.”
Spencer’s frown veed his brows done right over his nose. “Dear God, mothers can be brutal. Maybe we ought to just send yours to Savannah in our stead.”
“Spencer, even in a time of war, we did not allow General Sherman to level our fair city. We’re not about to allow Mama to do so now.”
“You make a good point.” Firming his lips together, obviously in thought, Spencer said: “On the whole, though, your plan might work.”
A bolt of excitement, shot through with fear for the danger they would face, raced through Victoria, propelling her even closer to her husband. She rested her palms on his coat’s lapels. “It will work. Rosanna will keep everyone out and won’t tell a soul if we slip away. She’s as good a guardian as is Neville.”
“That’s true. So is Hornsby. I could discreetly send him around to the stables to have three horses readied.” Spencer rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes … clearly putting a plan together. Now that he agreed with her desire to act today, in good wifely form Victoria waited quietly and expectantly, allowing him to come up with the rest of the plan, which she would amend or veto if it didn’t meet with her approval, of course. “And Mr. Milton, surprisingly enough, is quite the attraction today. I could instruct him to divert anyone who proves curious. No doubt there will be—”
“Excuse me, Your Lordship and Your Ladyship, but can I take these here plates for you?”
Along with Spencer, who cursed softly, Victoria jerked her attention to the girl standing behind her and next to the thick tree trunk. Tillie. She executed a rough curtsy. How long had the stringy-haired girl been standing there? How much had she heard? She’d probably been standing just out of sight on the other side of the tree and eavesdropping … for all the good it would do her. Her freedom of movement would very soon be restricted.
“Yes, Tillie, take the plates,” Victoria said brusquely, not even pretending to be polite.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m just doin’ my job, is all.” With a sullen, sidelong glance her and Spencer’s way, the maid curtsied again, picked the plates up and quickly walked away.
“That damned girl was everywhere,” Spencer fussed. “Always in the way. I cannot tell you how many times I very nearly tripped over her.”
Victoria watched, along with Spencer, the maid hurrying over to a knot of people, one of whom was Jefferson. He’d returned from Miss Cicely’s just in time for the start of the barbecue and had explained his absence as having had to pay a quick call on a business acquaintance who hadn’t been available until now. Not exactly ingenious, but an excuse their harried father, in charge of the men barbecuing the meat and the others setting up tables, had accepted distractedly.
“You weren’t the only one tripping over her,” Victoria said. “Rosanna told me numerous times she found the girl in places she shouldn’t be and nosing around, but with no real reason for being there. I should have suspected her from the outset.”
“I don’t know how you could. We didn’t know until this morning that she’s been, in effect, a spy, recounting our every move to our villain.”
“Ooh, I’d like to just tie her up out in the swamp and leave her there, she makes me so angry.”
“Suitably gruesome, my dear. I suspect she’d have a quick conversion if we did. But never mind her. She can do no more harm now. We’ll have the law deal with her later.”
Victoria nodded her agreement, but her mind was racing with the details of the plan she meant to set into motion. The chips would simply have to fall where they may … on the innocent and guilty alike. As much as she hated knowing that, she also knew there was a greater good here to be served than her own feelings, or even those of her family. She must come to terms with that, as much as she hated being the one on whom this responsibility had been thrust. But there was no way out now. She’d come back to Georgia to do this. And now, it was time to act.
Though many emotions roiled inside her, all of them tempered with regret and resignation, Victoria smiled up at her husband. “Spencer, stand ready to catch me, sir. I intend to swoon.”
* * *
Grim, determined, and half scared out of her mind now that they had left River’s End behind them in a clean getaway, Victoria’s heart pounded with each beat of her horse’s galloping hooves over the sandy road that roughly paralleled the southeasterly flow of the Savannah River. She realized now that she would never have had the courage for the coming confrontation in the city that shared its name with the river if Spencer, mounted on her father’s favorite black gelding, hadn’t been by her side as he was now. He was armed, as was Edward, who rode on her other side and made a slender brown-haired figure atop a sturdy roan. Victoria, no fool herself, had her brother’s pistol tucked into the waistband of her britches, also Jefferson’s—and rode his big, rangy dapple-gray, as well.
Jefferson. Victoria firmed her lips as she recalled what had been revealed to her and Spencer this morning. She’d been so relieved to learn her brother was not a heartless villain. Neither was he weak-willed or uncaring. Or even callous. In truth, his coolness and seeming meanness toward her had been a sincere effort on his part to get her to leave River’s End and go back to England where she would be safe. What was more, had he succeeded in getting her to leave, his own life, and he knew this, would have been forfeit. Poor Jeff. A tale of greed and twisted love had held him paralyzed—and all in her name.
She knew now who had been lurking in the dark that night when she and Jeff met on the dock. And she knew why. The evil, monstrous man, to use Jeff so and to trade on his friendship and confidences as he had. How could anyone be so heartless? But what about her part in this? She’d been just as blind. Wracked now with guilt for her own silly innocence and crusading spirit, she condemned herself for thinking she could simply sail into town and play the heroine by rescuing them all with the strength of her will alone. How stupid. She had played unwittingly into the hands of the awful man she intended to confront today—and placed all their lives in greater danger.
Yes, all their lives. Even her mother’s and father’s lives. How horrible. And true. Should she and Spencer and Edward fail today, she and everyone she loved could conceivably then be killed in a violent spree the likes of which Savannah had never seen. But even should they succeed, the truth that her parents would have to learn of their son’s duplicity could very well kill their spirits and split her family apart. What Victoria had to face was there was no possibility of a clean win here. The most awful truth was it was all for love, too. She exhaled sharply, feeling suddenly depleted of strength … and maybe her will for this coming
battle.
No. Immediately she steeled her spine, telling herself she must think of her loved ones and not herself—
“Wait! Hold up! Stop! Stop right here!”
Terrified, Victoria looked over at her husband. Already he was reining in and signaling her and Edward to do the same, which they did. Victoria’s excited horse sidestepped and whinnied and arched his neck. Spencer immediately grabbed its reins and held on, speaking softly, soothingly to the dapple-gray. Under other circumstances Victoria would have been highly indignant and told him to unhand her horse. In this instance, however, she wanted only to know one thing. “What is it, Spencer? What’s wrong?”
He looked at her but cocked his head as if listening for something. “You don’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” Edward asked before she could.
“That.” Releasing her reins, his brow lowered with obvious perturbation, Spencer twisted in his saddle until he peered toward the heavily forested and winding road behind them.
Victoria gave the road her attention, too, seeing nothing but the expected sight. Loblolly pines and oaks and overgrown tropical vegetation, their broad leaves dusted with dried mud from the roadway and slouching over the rutted pathway to hide every curve but the last one they’d just rounded. Victoria strained her attention and her hearing … and suddenly heard a bloodhound’s excited baying growing louder and louder. Relief swept through her, slumping her in her saddle. “You scared the life out of me, Spencer. That’s just Neville.”
“I am aware it is just Neville. And who is he bringing with him, do you suppose?”
“He could simply be out hunting.” Victoria noted her husband’s raised eyebrow that put the lie to her statement. “You’re right,” she conceded. “He’s not simply out hunting. He’s discovered I’m gone, and he’s coming to join us. But I don’t think he’s bringing anyone with him. For one thing, we’d hear their horses, which we don’t. And I hardly think anyone at River’s End today is likely to take after a baying hound who does his own hunting all the time anyway.”
Not looking the least bit convinced, Spencer pushed the narrow brim of his black-felt bowler hat up. “I hope you’re right, or we’re about to have company and no believable explanation to offer for our presence out here. Especially given Edward’s ridiculous story that he must repair to his bedroom for his daily hours of prayer and meditation.”
“Miss Lucinda Barrett is a devout Christian woman,” Edward said primly, “and I thought only to impress her with my devotion.”
“God save us all,” Spencer muttered before turning again to his wife. “And you and I, my dear wife, are supposed to be sequestered in our bedroom with you in a swoon brought on by your delicate condition. And yet, here we are, the three of us—armed, on the road to Savannah and with my wife garbed as a man.”
Victoria raised her chin a stubborn notch. “It is the same as with the jonboat, Spencer. I could hardly ride or be ready for whatever might happen next while dressed in a silk gown. And I’m telling you, Neville will be alone.” She hoped. “In fact, we should have thought to bring him along in the first place. With his tracking skills, he could be very useful to us today.”
“I am well aware of the tracking skills of bloodhounds, Victoria,” Spencer said right down the end of his aristocratic nose. “We have them in England, as well.”
“Not as good as Neville.”
“Every bit as good as Neville.”
Edward’s throat-clearing noise garnered for him Victoria’s and Spencer’s angry attention. He raised his hands, reins and all, as if he were being robbed. “That was not meant for attention. I had a tickle in my throat. Believe me, I have heard ‘Shut up, Edward’ enough in the past several days to last me a—”
“Shut up, Edward.” Spencer said it right along with Victoria. Sighing, Edward retreated back into his posture atop his horse and looked everywhere but at the bickering couple.
“Well, what do we do with the dog?” Spencer wanted to know, still sounding testy. “He won’t go home if sent, will he?” Victoria shook her head no. “And he can’t run all the way to Savannah”—Spencer’s brow furrowed, apparently with his next thought, which he voiced—“Can he?” Victoria shook her head no. “I thought not … even for a Southern bloodhound.”
That last comment he had muttered under his breath, but not quite far enough under his breath.
“I heard that,” Victoria sharply let him know.
“And here we go,” Edward said fatalistically, quickly adding, “Never mind. I am shutting up. But first, may I just say that we make one devil of a frightening posse, stopped in our tracks by the baying of one hound. No doubt, the mere sight of us will strike terror into the villain’s heart.”
Just then, and perhaps saving them all three from themselves and the others’ sharp retorts, Neville came bounding around the last bend in the road and into plain view. Though he ran like all the demons of hell were after him, he was blessedly alone. His long ears flapped in a breeze his galloping gait produced and his tongue hung out one side of his mouth. Victoria chuckled. “Hold a tight rein on your horses, gentlemen.”
“What?” they both asked. “Why?”
“This is why.” Tightening her grip on her own horse, Victoria stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled a sharp, piercing blast that had Spencer’s horse rearing—and Spencer cursing; and Edward’s horse bucking furiously all over the roadway—and Edward screaming wildly. Victoria’s dapple-gray mount, an old hand at this trick of Jefferson and Victoria’s, had merely stiffened his knees and stood stock-still.
“Come here, boy!” Victoria cried out to Neville as she scooted off the back of the saddle cinched to her horse and hit her thigh encouragingly. “Up you go. You can do it.”
Neville stopped by the horse’s side and whined up at Victoria. She again signaled him to make the attempt. The dog bunched his muscles and, with a great leap, landed squarely in the middle of the saddle, nimbly keeping his feet under him. Holding on to him, steadying him, Victoria laughed out loud and Neville bayed his happiness. Spencer and Edward, though they were again in control of their mounts, were not amused.
Victoria innocently looked from one to the other of the men. “Jefferson taught him. We do this all the time.”
“Apparently.” Spencer’s complexion was suffused with the red of anger, yet the two little lines bracketing his mouth were white. “You cannot ride like that with that dog all the way to Savannah.”
Victoria scooted forward until she’d edged back into the saddle, which she now shared with Neville. The bloodhound hunkered down across her thighs, settling sideways to her. Victoria grinned at her husband. “Yes I can. I’ve done it before.”
When he didn’t return her grin and only continued to look grim, she added: “I can, and I will, Spencer—unless you wish to put him on your horse with you. If you don’t and I make him get down, he will attempt to run all the way to Savannah with us and it will be too much for him and his brave heart will burst and he will die. Are you prepared to live with me, should that happen to him because you chose to be hard-hearted and hard-headed, sir?”
An intense quiet followed her brisk laying out of the situation for her husband. Not too many sounds dared invade the silence between them. The occasional chirp of a bird. The twig-snapping sound of some small animal scurrying away through the underbrush fringing the roadside. From Victoria’s right, with Spencer being on her left, she heard what she believed were the muffled sounds of a laugh quickly covered by a cough.
At last, Spencer resettled his hat low on his brow and exhaled. Looking terribly serious and in charge, he said: “Let’s ride for Savannah.”
As he urged his mount into a gallop and shot ahead of his wife and his cousin, leaving only a dusty trail in his wake, Victoria exchanged a look and a grin with Edward, who shook his head and chuckled. “I bow to you, madam,” he said nobly. “In you, my cousin has met his match.”
CHAPTER 20
Spencer’s frustration
only increased once they made it to Savannah. The residential streets in the better parts of the town, though sunny and stately as always, were now also eerily quiet. The skin-prickling feel was that of a city suddenly abandoned in the face of an overwhelming danger. As he, along with Victoria, Neville, and Edward, had ridden around the many squares and made the many turns that had taken them to Chippewa Square, the only sound had been their horses’ hooves striking the cobbles on those streets paved with them. Only on the outskirts of Savannah had the mounted party passed any signs of human life, and that had been a desultory showing. A few tradesmen lazily loading their wagons; a fishmonger dispiritedly leaning against his cart; and three women of color ambling slowly along with young, dark children in tow.
The carriage trade these people depended on for their livelihoods were not at home today. They were all at River’s End. Rather ironic, Spencer had concluded, since they, the honorees, had hared off to Savannah.
And now, here they all were in the quiet and tastefully decorated front parlor of a brick Italianate residence on Bull Street and facing Chippewa Square. “This is ridiculous,” Spencer said to Victoria and Edward. “Look at us. We are casting about as if we expect a clue to a villain’s whereabouts to jump out at us from behind a chair.”
“Hopefully, not this one,” Victoria said, looking to both sides of and then behind the overstuffed chair she sat on. Neville, crouching like a bored Sphinx beside her chair, frowned at his mistress’s antics.
“What I find most disturbing,” Edward said, “is this beautiful house has not the first appearance of … evil or a rottenness of spirit.”
“You will have to explain your meaning, Edward, as it has defeated me.”
Settling his gaze on Spencer, Edward explained: “I mean I half expected, given the man’s criminal bent of mind, that his home would reflect his miscreant’s mentality. A darkened cave of a house with slovenliness and rats running rampant in every room. A dungeon, maybe. Anything but this beautiful, airy, and sunny place that hides a secret. Rather frightening. I wonder if we removed the walls, would we find his true foul-smelling and cobwebbed lair?”
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