The Alarming Career of Sir Richard Blackstone

by Lisa Doan

  The three came up with the scheme to kidnap the duke’s son and hold him for ransom. Once they had the silver, they would return the boy. Snidefellow would suddenly develop a health complaint and resign the position. They would take themselves abroad to Italy, buy a villa by the sea, and happily retire.

  It had all gone wrong in the cave. Snidefellow hid in the shadows so he would not be recognized. But he had not hidden well enough. Once the duke spotted him, there was nothing left to do but kill him. Snidefellow struck the deadly blow.

  After that, they changed their plan. They considered disposing of Henry, or even leaving him on a doorstep in Barton Commons, but in the end felt they’d better hold on to him as a bargaining chip, should their plot ever be discovered. Snidefellow could not disappear without arousing suspicion, so they hid the silver and determined to bide their time until the kidnapping was long forgotten. But the duchess would not let it be forgotten. She kept an investigator on the case and there were times when Snidefellow felt the man got dangerously close to the truth.

  Over the years, Snidefellow began to despair of ever being able to abscond with the silver. Until slowly he began to set his sights higher. Perhaps there was no need to run after all. He felt the duchess had become dependent on him as a counselor, and was that role so very far away from that of a husband? If they married, all of the duchess’s wealth would be rightfully and legally his. The three had determined that there was no further value in holding on to Henry and had devised a plan to sell him off. It all could have gone off without a hitch had Sir Richard not hired him.

  Snidefellow had always felt Sir Richard was dangerous; the duchess was too fond of him. But now, he’d brought the boy into their very neighborhood. Snidefellow saw an opportunity to rid himself of both of his problems after the strange events of the duchess’s party. He would force Sir Richard and Henry to leave the county by accusing Sir Richard of witchcraft and painting Henry as an accomplice. After Sir Richard claimed to have seen a wolf, it was a simple matter to rile the villagers about a padfoot. But Sir Richard refused to leave. Instead, he proposed to the duchess and was accepted.

  Snidefellow knew it was imperative that he get rid of Sir Richard before the marriage could take place. As he had already accused Sir Richard of witchcraft that seemed the simplest way to finally free himself of the knight. He had not thought he would actually have to conduct a trial—he had assumed throwing Sir Richard in jail and leaving the door unlocked would do the trick. Sir Richard would break out of prison and go abroad, taking Henry with him. But somehow, that blasted knight had never even bothered to try to open the latch.

  When Snidefellow realized his strongbox full of letters had been stolen, he almost fled the county himself. He hid in the woods that first night, staring at his cottage and feeling sure someone would arrive to arrest him. When that didn’t happen, he decided it had been taken by common thieves who had been disappointed that it only contained parchment and would not understand the cryptic communications between himself and Bartholomew Hewitt.

  Neither the Crown nor the district council were aware that a trial was taking place because it was a staged fraud. Mr. Joswell, the supposed prosecutor, was a down-on-his-luck actor that Snidefellow had found in London. The man had been promised a share in the silver for his work. The trial was meant to force Sir Richard to flee when a guilty verdict was delivered and the knight truly believed he faced the gallows. Mr. Joswell had disappeared as quickly as he had arrived when he saw the plan had failed.

  Snidefellow was dumbfounded over the sudden arrival of a giant fly in the church. He told his brother-in-law that he was not the author of that trick, but thanks to the fly he felt assured that the guilty verdict would not arouse suspicion among the villagers. It was exactly the kind of proof they needed to see with their own eyes to believe Sir Richard guilty.

  Snidefellow had determined that he would get rid of Henry one way or another, as nobody would miss a young urchin from London. If he could not sway the duchess to marry him, he would tell her he had to resign because of a broken heart. Either way, he would win. He would either marry the duchess and become a man with real power or he would at least be able to finally retrieve the silver. It seemed that nothing could go wrong until the fly suddenly shrank, and the boy decided to show everybody his toes.

  Henry shivered when he considered all the years he had been their captive and not even known it. His instinct had been to run and so he had. He was lucky they had not managed to catch him.

  The silver was finally recovered. It had been hidden in the valley that once housed Mary, Queen of Scots. Mr. Candlewick was paid handsomely and the rest was given to Fitzwilliam to finance another expedition to South America.

  The tale of the recovered Duke of St. John spread throughout England. The queen herself requested to see Henry and spent nearly an hour questioning him about his experiences on the streets of London. At the end of it, she resolved to close the workhouses, demanded Parliament pass a law guarding the rights of children, and formed a council to develop more humane methods of helping her neediest citizens. She also conferred a knighthood on Mr. Clemens for the service he rendered to the Duke of St. John, by way of penny loaves.

  Months later, the duchess, Sir Richard, and Henry sat in the duchess’s drawing room after the wedding breakfast. They had decided to live in the duchess’s manor, but would keep Blackstone Manor for Sir Richard’s experiments. Much to Henry’s surprise, his mother had not been against her husband continuing his attempts to invent something and she had even allowed Mary and Mr. Terrible to live in the house. She had put her foot down, though, about the piranhas. Sir Richard had built an aquarium, but it must remain in his old home.

  They had decided weeks ago to give up the idea of calling Henry by his real name: William. Each time they had tried it, everybody kept forgetting, and the duchess was far too used to calling Billy Brash by William. He had been Henry all his life, and Henry he would stay.

  Henry convinced his mother to promote Billy to be his companion. That meant Billy had a room next to Henry’s and ate his meals with the family. He and Billy had the same taste in literature, so they stayed up late into the night, engrossed in stories of noble knights. Henry was teaching Billy to read so that he could begin taking a turn as the storyteller.

  Henry stared down at his new boots. They had been specially made to accommodate his extra toes, just as the duke’s had always been. Matilda and Harold rolled around the floor at his feet. Matilda had grown rapidly and Harold found that, these days, he could not win every contest.

  “Now listen, you two,” the duchess said to her new husband and her son, “we still haven’t decided where we are going for our wedding trip. All we’ve managed to decide is that Bertram and Mrs. Splunket will care for Matilda and Harold while we are away.”

  “Bertram and Mrs. Splunket can be counted on to take good care of them while we’re gone,” Henry said. “I couldn’t leave Matilda with anybody less reliable and still have a good time. I would be too worried and not even enjoy the scenery.”

  “Agreed,” the duchess said, “but enjoy the scenery where?”

  “There’s always Italy,” Sir Richard said.

  “True,” the duchess said. “So many people do go to Rome for a wedding trip.”

  “Rome would be a very appropriate place to go,” Sir Richard said, nodding.

  “Or,” Henry said, hoping he could convince them of a rather brilliant idea that he and Billy had thought up, “it might be nice to go on a long cruise. I happen to know of a ship that is setting sail for South America in a week.”

  Sir Richard sat up. “Fitzwilliam’s expedition! That’s marvelous! I mean, no, for a wedding trip we probably should go to Rome.”

  “Rome is what most people do,” the duchess said.

  Henry had gotten to know his mother better over the months. He did not believe she wanted to go to Italy and sit around in the sunshine or tour cathedrals or wander around museums. He said, “South
America would be full of adventure. We might find ourselves lost in the jungle, or fighting off a jaguar, or even wrestling a crocodile.”

  “Wrestling a crocodile,” the duchess murmured. “We could not do that in Rome.”

  “And,” Henry continued, this time directing his appeal to Sir Richard, “who knows what kind of creatures and plants we could bring back. Your dream of a hybrid rose fly eliminator might not be dead after all. We really can’t know until we get there.”

  “The Blackstone Fly Eliminator,” Sir Richard murmured.

  The duchess leapt to her feet and said, “South America it is. But we go only under one condition. We do not bring home any spiders.”

  Henry smiled. He was about to be anchorless again. But this time, he wouldn’t mind floating around.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with most books, this one would never have lived anywhere but inside my own computer without aid arriving from every direction. From my editor, Adrienne Szpyrka, seeing what the book could be before it was quite there, to Brigadoon (otherwise known as Vermont College of Fine Arts), to the Dedications (my partners in crime and go-to people for all things literature), thanks to the many hands that helped.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lisa Doan has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, sits on the board of the Brandywine Valley Writer’s Group, and is the author of the award-winning middle grade series The Berenson Schemes.

  She is a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland and has traveled and lived in Africa, Asia, and Central America. Operating under the idea that life is short, her occupations have included: master SCUBA diving instructor, New York City headhunter, owner-chef of a restaurant in the Caribbean, television show set medic, and Deputy Prothonotary of a county court. She currently lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and works in social services.

  Connect with Lisa at lisadoan.org, facebook.com/lisadoanauthor and twitter.com/LisaADoan.