“Thomas?” Fairly said softly. “We’re wasting time. Where would you like us to search?”
Everywhere, until Loris was found. Nowhere, because to find her meant Thomas might have to hear with his own ears that she’d choose the life of her father’s drudge over life as his baroness. He didn’t blame her, but neither did he want to watch as she threw his hopes and dreams back in his face.
And yet, Thomas needed to hear from Loris what her choice would be, needed know that she was in fact, making a choice rather than being coerced.
He need to know that rather desperately. “We widen the search. We don’t stop until we’ve turned every—”
“Mr. Baron,” a small voice called from the nearby hedge. “Mr. Baron, I found her.”
“Timmie,” Thomas said. “You can come out. You found Miss Tanner?”
Timmie, a leaf clinging to his sleeve, mud on the elbow of what was doubtless his Sunday jacket, dashed out of the bushes.
“Miss Tanner is behind the smithy, and she’s talking with her papa. He says they have to leave right now.”
“Good lad,” Thomas said. “Lady Fairly will take you to the dessert table, and then you can find the other boys and quietly let them know you found Miss Tanner.”
The boy skipped off at Letty’s side, and Thomas still could not blame Loris for the decision she’d made, even having heard the confirmation of his worst fears. His heart broke, for her, for them, for what she’d turned her back on.
“Damn it, Thomas, either we stop her now, or you’ve lost her,” Fairly said. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’ve already lost her,” Thomas replied, “but let’s make sure the lady’s choice is an informed one. Quietly, please. Tanner mustn’t know the Tenth Hussars have come to witness this touching reunion.”
Five men sauntered off as if to heed nature’s call.
Thomas was being an idiot—Loris had apparently left without a backward glance, had possibly even dressed for the evening with a Brighton departure in mind—but Thomas would at least get to tell her good-bye, and to deliver one stout blow to the father who’d abandoned her so cavalierly nearly two years before.
* * *
“Don’t you touch me,” Loris hissed.
Papa stopped mid-stride, arms outstretched as if to enfold her in a protective embrace. His expression turned predictably hurt, as it had every time Loris had refused to divulge the location of her egg money.
“I don’t lay eyes on you for two years,” he said. “I’m hounded from my own home, I live like a common laborer, barely keeping body and soul together, and that’s your greeting for me?”
Loris smelled no gin on his breath, which meant he’d at least recall this discussion in the morning.
“I’m glad you are well, Papa, but working for a living is the fate of many, including your own daughter.”
“You never shirked your duty,” he said, as if Loris’s sense of responsibility was his sole, cherished creation. “We can lay blame and exchange forgiveness at a later time. For now, we need to get to Brighton before anybody notices you’re missing. I do hope your worldly goods are stowed in an accessible location.”
Exchange forgiveness? Lay blame?
Loris was accustomed to being disappointed in her father. She expected to be disappointed in him, but mere disappointment didn’t come close to the fury seething through her.
“You abandoned me,” she said, moving away lest she slap him. “You simply hared off when your own stupidity once again brought trouble to our door. You never sent a note to let me know if you were alive, never sent word to join you elsewhere, and yet, you think to forgive me? You who left me without a word, no explanation, no farewell? Nobody behaves that way who has any claim to honor.”
Loris could not behave that way , not to Thomas of all people. The insight was a cooling rain to her overheated sense of worry for her father, and even to her rage.
Her declaration seemed to leave Micah Tanner bewildered. He blinked at her and gripped his lapels with both hands. Loris could see him rearranging the truths he couldn’t dodge and the half-truths he might get away with.
“I’m your father,” he said, his tone balanced between authority and apology. “Your place is with me.”
“You’re a disgrace,” Loris shot back, though that was a polite term for what she felt. “You were running Linden into the ground, damn you. The drinking itself wasn’t the problem. You failed one of the most beautiful properties in the shire, let the sheep nearly ruin it, let profit run away with your obligation to the land because you were besotted with the bottle and with the widow. I’m ashamed of you, Papa.”
Those words were so miserably, heartrendingly true, and yet, they put right a confusion Loris had lived with for too long. The shame was his, had always been his.
“You are out of sorts,” Papa said, though at least he had sense enough not to attempt another hug. “You are wearing finery such as I never thought to see on my own daughter, and Pettigrew had to have upset you. You’ll regret your words in the morning, for you should be proud of me. I haven’t over-imbibed since the day you last saw me.”
He spoke as if Loris should burst into a rousing chorus of “God Save the King” in response, when instead she wanted to kick him.
“Papa, clearly you are proud of yourself, and I don’t begrudge you that, but it’s me I’m most proud of.” Thomas had given her that gift. She would tell him so, too. “I’ve rescued Linden from your foolishness, and I’m not going anywhere with you. You must decide what to do about Mrs. Pettigrew’s accusations, but I won’t leave my home, my obligations, or the people who care about me. Not even for you, Papa.”
She’d surprised him, and she’d relieved herself. Micah Tanner had finally, finally proved he could manage on his own, free from drink, and without a daughter to tend his household and clean up his messes.
While Loris had found a man who was worth standing by, through all of life’s joys and sorrows.
“Claudia Pettigrew would have seen me hanged,” Papa said. “You want to watch your own father die that way, a public spectacle, disgraced, and mocked?”
Loris had been disgraced, a laughingstock, an object of pity and gossip in the churchyard. She’d been mocked for doing a man’s job, though she’d done it more conscientiously than her own father had.
Those realities left her tired and sad. She took one of the benches where men gossiped while waiting for a horse to be shod. The wood was rough through her silk dress, and the damp of the night’s dew-fall was seeping through her dancing slippers.
“Of course I don’t want to see you hanged, Papa, but Nick says you’re innocent of Mrs. Pettigrew’s accusations, and Matthew Belmont takes the administration of justice seriously.”
“Hell hath no fury,” Papa muttered. “You don’t know Claudia Pettigrew like I do. She will not recant her charges, and I’m bound for Lisbon.”
Loris leaned her head back against the hard wall behind her and waited for something—grief, relief, surprise, anything—to wrap around her heart, and yet, nothing came. Her father had left the shire two years ago. Perhaps in all the ways that mattered, he’d abandoned his daughter long before that.
“By reputation, Lisbon is a beautiful city,” she said. “I’d like to think I might one day visit you there.”
Papa came down beside her on a heavy, and possibly sincere, sigh. “You break my heart, Daughter.”
“You broke mine more times than I can count, but hearts can mend,” Loris said. “I suggest you be on your way, before somebody gets wind that you’re here, and Mrs. Pettigrew lays information.”
A figure stepped out of the shadows. “Mrs. Pettigrew won’t lay information. That was never the point. Miss Tanner, on your feet, please. Your dear papa must accompany us for a visit with my mama. She’s stolen a fortune from me, and he knows where it is.”
Giles’s earlier air of suppressed excitement, his sermonizing proposal, his determination to lure Loris out of sight of th
e gathering now made sense. She’d underestimated him, or been too distracted by the thought of ending the night dancing in Thomas’s arms.
She still wanted her dance with Thomas, wanted it badly.
“He has a gun, Loris,” Papa said, shifting to stand before her. “The idiot boy has a gun.”
“I am doomed to be vexed by idiot boys,” Loris said, rising and stepping around her father’s side. “You’re no good to Giles dead, Papa, and I’d like to say a few words to Mrs. Pettigrew myself. Your drama is not appreciated, Giles, and you’ll want to bear that in mind the instant you have to set that gun aside.”
The noise and music from the crowd on the green meant nobody would hear Loris scream, and apparently, nobody had seen her leave the gathering with Giles.
Neither would they hear a shot fired, and while Giles might need Papa alive, Loris was absolutely expendable. That hurt, but knowing she’d miss her waltz with Thomas gave her courage.
Thomas would not abandon her, of that she was certain. Thomas would look for her, and he’d find her.
* * *
“Imminent threat of harm,” Belmont muttered, “perhaps kidnapping. If we have false accusations, I can work with that, too.”
Thomas held a finger to his lips, though Belmont’s enthusiasm for justice was endearing. When Thomas and his men had arrived behind the smithy on Pettigrew’s heels. Loris and her father had been in quiet discussion. Perhaps they’d been planning their departure.
Perhaps… not.
“We follow them,” Thomas said softly. “Mrs. Pettigrew will be at home, and we’ll have the advantage of numbers and surprise. We’ll take my coach, though I want us to hang back a good distance. When we reach Pettigrew’s place, Nicholas and Beckman will let old Johnny loose. Belmont, you’re not to participate, but merely to observe.”
“Might I observe with a gun in my hand?” Belmont asked.
“No, you may not,” Thomas replied, “but Fairly will retrieve the pistols from my coach, and you’ll stick close to him. You four take my coach, and tie the horses a quarter mile from the house, then meet me at Johnny’s shed.”
“You’re to retrieve pistols, plural,” Belmont said to Fairly. “I’m happy to carry one for you.”
“Most considerate of you, Belmont,” Fairly replied. “Thomas, if we’re to meet you at the stable, then you’re not coming with us. What do you have planned?”
Thomas had planned the rescue of the fair damsel, and possibly of his own heart. Loris had had a perfect opportunity to steal away with her father, and she’d instead remained sitting on that hard bench, looking lovely and stubborn.
“I’ll borrow Squire Belmont’s mare.”
“My horse is temperamental,” Belmont said. “The breeding stock often is.”
“I’m counting on that,” Thomas replied. “Be outside Johnny’s stall in thirty minutes, and don’t you dare let Pettigrew catch sight of you.”
* * *
“Loris Tanner, you’re worse than my mother,” Giles said. “Why on earth can’t you keep quiet?”
Because Loris clung to the inane notion that noise might make her easier for Thomas to find as she was marched down the dark lane, Giles’s pistol at her back.
“Giles, you are not thinking,” she said, though most men seemed to ignore her when she said that. “You might have spared everybody a lot of bother and yourself a serious thrashing simply by asking Papa where this money is.”
“I don’t know where any blasted money is,” Papa retorted. “As much damage as Claudia Pettigrew has done to my reputation and to my life, if I’d known she’d stolen a fortune, don’t you think I’d have seen her held accountable?”
A bit of grit or stone had worked its way into Loris’s slipper. She stopped in the middle of the lane to get it out.
“Keep moving,” Giles said, waving his pistol. He carried an ugly little piece with a short double barrel. That gun wouldn’t be accurate over much distance, but it could kill if used appropriately.
“Give me a moment,” Loris said, leaning on her father’s shoulder for balance. She shook out her shoe and stole a glance behind her.
They were within a quarter mile of the Pettigrew lane, and nobody and nothing came along the road behind them. Loris put her slipper back on and shook out her skirts.
“Thank you, Giles,” she said. “If you decide to kill me, now my corpse will at least be free of blisters.”
“Daughter, don’t provoke him.”
Loris resumed walking, though she was provoked. She was exceedingly provoked, at Giles, at Papa, at the widow, at the lack of rescue.
And beneath her fury was a terror that she’d never have her waltz with Thomas, never tell him that his startling, amazing, troubling declaration the previous night was entirely reciprocated.
She loved him, she would never love another, and her prayer as she was marched at gunpoint along the dark, dusty road was that she live long enough to tell him so.
“Stop here,” Giles said, when they reached the top of the Pettigrew drive. “Tanner, you know something, or Mama would not have seen you run out of the shire. Maybe you saw her forge my signature, maybe you went with her when she met with the bankers to secure a mortgage on my birthright. You know something or you saw something that would incriminate her. What is it?”
Papa gazed at the house, perhaps a house he’d expected to live in as Claudia Pettigrew’s husband.
“Your mother signed all the documents relating to the estate, but I never saw whose name she was affixing to them. As for accompanying her to the bankers, I never went with her anywhere beyond the immediate surrounds. Not Brighton, not even Trieshock. She kept me in my place.”
“But she entertained you frequently,” Loris said. “She was a widow, so you were private with her on many occasions. What might you have seen that she didn’t want you to see?”
“This gets us nowhere,” Giles said. “I go to all this trouble, and you honestly know nothing?”
All this trouble?
In the pastures adjacent to the stable, the horses abruptly went into a pounding gallop. Maybe they were inspired by the cooler night air, perhaps a fox had trotted past with a bloody meal clamped in its jaws.
All those hooves thundering against the dry earth resonated with Loris’s worry and anger. Where was Thomas?
“Papa, you were frequently in Mrs. Pettigrew’s house. What did you see that her own son was unlikely to see?”
Papa tugged on his collar. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Were you in her bedroom?” Giles asked. “She keeps it locked when she’s away.”
Loris did not want to hear this, did not want to be on this dark, deserted lane, and she did not want to die.
“Papa, you needn’t protect my sensibilities. As you’ve reminded me, Giles has a gun, and his situation appears desperate to him.” Worse, Giles was too stupid to cope with his mother’s greed through sensible means, though mortgaging the estate was much worse than simply buying too many fashionable dresses.
“You were in her bedroom,” Giles said. “I’ve let myself in there—the lock is hardly sophisticated—but it’s all just a lot of pillows and gilt and cosmetics. I don’t even see that she has much jewelry left, though I suspect she’s pawned the good pieces.”
“Two years ago, she still had a substantial collection of fine jewelry,” Papa said. “She kept those in the safe.”
The horses galloped off in the other direction, a tide of equine anxiety washing back and forth across the pasture.
The end of Gile’s gun barrel dipped. “What safe?”
* * *
Linden had two safes, one in the master bedchamber, one in a second parlor where nobody would think to look for it. Thomas had memorized the combinations to both, and only Fairly and Letty knew where those combinations were written down.
Nick, Beckman, and Belmont made not a sound beside Thomas as they waited for Giles Pettigrew to act on what was clearly new information.
> “You’re saying my own father failed to inform me of a safe?” Giles asked. “God knows what else he didn’t tell me.”
“He likely trusted your mother to inform you,” Loris said. “And now that you’ve threatened us unnecessarily, held us at gunpoint, and exonerated my father of the accusations that should never have been levied against him, we’ll just be going.”
Thomas held his breath, hoping Loris’s bluff convinced Pettigrew he was in enough trouble. Five sizeable grown men did not fit comfortably behind a mere pair of lilac bushes.
“Unless Mama sees Tanner,” Giles said. “She’ll never tell me what’s in that safe, much less how to open it.”
“I saw jewels and papers,” Tanner said, “and you don’t need Loris, so you can let her go. You’re being foolish, Giles, as your mother has so often been foolish.”
Thomas winced, for Tanner had been too blunt.
“I need Loris to ensure you’ll behave,” Giles said. “Into the house with you both.”
“Now what?” Nick whispered when the front door had clicked ominously closed. No footman, butler, or porter had answered the door, suggesting the Pettigrew staff was at the assembly, the same as Linden’s staff would be.
“Now the evening grows interesting,” Thomas said. “Thanks to the heat, we’ll find open windows easily enough, but I don’t think we’ll need them. Nick, you take the front door. Beckman, you take the kitchen door and wait outside, in case Pettigrew or his dear mama attempt to vacate the premises. Belmont, you’re with me. Fairly, you’re the rear guard, held in reserve in case Belmont and I need reinforcements.”
“Take this,” Nick whispered, shoving one of the coach pistols at Thomas. “It’s a useful bludgeon if you’re unwilling to fire it.”
“No guns for me,” Thomas said, stepping back. “I frankly don’t care if Tanner takes a bullet, but Loris would care. Pettigrew is nervous and frustrated, and more firearms won’t appeal to his minuscule store of reason.”
“Then I’ll have that gun back,” Fairly said, snatching the pistol from Nick. “Loris will take it amiss if any harm befalls you, Thomas, as will Letty.”
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