by Nita Abrams
Now, however, he was on the verge of losing his temper, and his secretary was desperately trying to placate him. Once angered, the earl was a difficult man to appease.
“My lord, perhaps you are mistaken. I sifted through every paper on both desks, and found nothing, and there is no record in my logbook of any such letter.”
“Of course there is no record!” The earl’s face was beginning to flush. “A messenger delivered it to me personally, and I took good care to secrete it in a safe place yesterday. At least, I thought I did. The instructions from the ministry were quite explicit; no one else was authorized to read it, not even you.” Misinterpreting the look of apprehension on his secretary’s face, he added, “Royce, you must know that there is no question of any fault on your part. It is clear what must have happened: I did not lock it away, and the staff once again ignored my instructions and tidied my study.”
The younger man grimaced; six days earlier, a confidential memo had disappeared from the earl’s desk and after a frantic search had been located in the nursery grate, on the verge of being used as fuel for toasted cheese by Nurse Digby and Simon. Then, shortly afterwards, a letter written by the earl which he could have sworn he had sealed and handed over to a courier had also gone missing. It, too, had surfaced—unsealed, in a pile of the countess’s correspondence awaiting her husband’s frank. That was when the earl had hired the guards.
“Should I question the maids, my lord? Or would you prefer me to look about quietly first?”
Bassington rubbed his left temple wearily. “Hunt through these rooms yourself before we involve Mrs. Fletcher. It has the same wrapper as the other. Start here in my desk; perhaps I have misremembered where I put it.” He took a small key from his waistcoat and unlocked the two drawers tucked under the surface of the cherry writing table. “Try my father’s bookshelves next; I was looking through them yesterday and it is possible that I might have absentmindedly set the packet down while hunting through his journals.”
“If I have no luck here or in the cabinets, how should I proceed, sir?”
“Call in Mrs. Fletcher, I suppose.” The earl frowned. “I should have taken your advice and purchased one of those new strongboxes, Royce. Although frankly I thought they would simply be an irresistible challenge to Simon, and he has already broken the locks on two of his mother’s jewel cases. Nor did I wish to call attention to these papers by suddenly ordering special furnishings for my study.”
Royce carefully avoided looking at his employer. “And the nursery? Would it be worth searching in there before consulting Mrs. Fletcher?”
“I’ll look myself,” growled the earl. “And if I find the least hint that Simon has been sneaking in here, I’ll cane him black and blue, weak chest or no.” He started to leave, then checked. “Did you say anything to Googe about the missing letters when he was here a few days ago?”
“Certainly not!” Royce looked horrified. Then, more doubtfully, “Should I have?”
Bassington shook his head. “No, your judgment was quite right, my boy. This is no matter for a parish constable. He wished to come out at once, of course, when he heard of this morning’s news, but I put him off for a bit. Don’t mention this business to him unless I give express instructions.” He picked up a sealed packet from the desk. “Get this off to Barrett right away. It should have gone first thing this morning, but her ladyship wanted to put in a note of her own for Barrett’s wife.”
“Very good, my lord.” The packet was carefully set aside.
“Mind that you check the seal personally and watch the man put it in his confounded bag.”
“I will do so, my lord.”
“And Royce—”
The blond head, already bent over the drawers, looked up.
“Try to restrain your longing to reorganize my desk,” said the earl mildly. “I realize that it appears disorderly to someone of your fastidious temperament, but I am the one who needs to be able to find my personal papers, not you.”
Royce’s apprehensive frown relaxed slightly as the earl’s footsteps faded away towards the main staircase, but he looked more thoughtful than relieved. The storm, he suspected, was not averted—merely postponed. When he was sure Bassington was out of earshot, he gave a sharp tug on the bellrope and waited impatiently for someone to appear. His expression softened further when he saw the familiar figure of Coughlin in the doorway.
“Thank God it’s you,” he said, dragging the ancient servant all the way into the office and closing the door. “Is his lordship with the countess?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he likely to be engaged for some time?”
Coughlin observed cautiously that the countess was very concerned about the mishap which had befallen Mr. Clermont.
“Do you think you can find Simon and help him straighten up his workshop before his father comes up there?”
“His lordship is planning to visit the nursery?” gasped Coughlin, appalled.
“He is,” said Royce. “And he said that if he saw any evidence that Simon had been in this suite, he would beat him.” There was a moment’s silence as both men visualized the normal state of Simon’s kingdom, strewn with clock gears, padlocks, necklace clasps, and innumerable other dismembered items. The chaos alone would enrage the earl, who, like many untidy parents, detested his own habits when they appeared in his son. And amongst the dozens of half-assembled contraptions on the nursery table, there would surely be something that had originally been located in the earl’s study.
“I’ll find him at once,” promised the old servant. “And if I come across any papers, I’ll bring them straight to you.”
Well, thought Royce, Coughlin had not missed the implication of the unlocked drawers and the earl’s threats. Not surprising, since most of the upper servants had been involved in the earlier searches for the missing memoranda. “Yes, that would be best,” he said quietly. He stood staring down at the cluttered drawers for several minutes after the servant had left. Then, with a sigh, he began sorting letters into piles atop the gleaming rose-colored lid of the writing table.
Mrs. Digby was snoring lightly in a chair next to the four-poster when Serena peeked in late that afternoon, accompanied by a maid carrying a small pot of chamomile tea. The patient was apparently asleep as well. But after Serena had gently shaken the nurse awake and sent her off to get some supper, she saw that the dark eyes were open, looking at her blankly, as though he were trying to remember who she was.
Then he frowned. “Miss Allen,” he said slowly, as if responding to a difficult question from a schoolmaster.
He was speaking more to himself than to her, but she answered him. “Yes?”
“Where am I? And what happened?”
“You do not remember being knocked off your horse? We found you at the top of Clark’s Hill. You are at Boulton Park.”
Another frown, a moment of puzzlement, and then suddenly he closed his eyes and fell back onto the pillow with a soft groan. His mouth tightened and he pushed himself up again, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“Where is my shirt?” he said, wobbling a bit as he sat up and then staring in dismay as his unclad legs emerged from the bedclothes. Serena hastily averted her eyes as he took in the patched dressing gown, the splint on his wrist, and the poultice strapped to his ankle. “Where are my clothes?” He propped himself up against the bedpost, looking around as though expecting to find garments hanging down from the tester.
“Your clothes were filthy; we had to remove them. And you must lie back down. The doctor said that you are not even to get up for three days and will need nursing for some time beyond that—perhaps a week. We sent over to the Burford Arms for your luggage, but there has been some misunderstanding.” She judged that he was still too disoriented to be asked about his servant’s departure at the moment.
“A week?” he repeated in a daze, ignoring the rest of her speech. “No, no, impossible.” He turned to her, steadying himself with his goo
d hand. “If you please, Miss Allen, I must get dressed. What time is it? Could you fetch me my shirt and breeches? I can have them cleaned at the inn.”
“Dr. Wall’s orders were most explicit. It is out of the question for you to return to the inn. Now, or in the morning.” His eyes went to the leafless trees visible through the window, as though he were contemplating climbing out, and she tried a more persuasive tone of voice. “Consider the situation for a moment from my uncle’s point of view. You have been injured on our land, and the villain who set the trap is most likely one of our tenants. Should you insist on leaving, my uncle will be held responsible if you fail to recover properly.”
He nodded wearily and allowed her to pull the covers back up over his legs.
“How are you feeling? Any fever?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
She reached out and felt his forehead. It was not burning hot, but far warmer than her hand. Judging from her long experience with Simon, the fever was just settling in and would come into its own the following day.
“I must contradict you; you do have a slight fever, and I suspect it will grow worse. Dr. Wall left some medicine for you.” She poured out a half cup of tea.
He ignored her. “Perhaps one of the grooms could go to the inn and inquire if my servant could come here to fetch me? He is very conscientious; you could relinquish me to his care, surely?” He saw that she was about to object and added in an exasperated tone, “If you insist, I will take the medicine with me. And summon Dr. Wall to the inn tomorrow.”
“Your servant,” said Serena, “appears to believe that you are headed to London and has gone off to Town with all your luggage. I am afraid you are obliged to remain here for the present.” She was hunting in her petticoat pocket for the little packet Dr. Wall had given her and did not see his expression at this piece of news, but she did hear him sigh again. After a brief struggle with the side seam of her dress, she pulled the paper out and poured a small portion of it into the tea. “And I am also afraid that you will have to drink all of this now that I have added the powder to it.”
“What kind of powder?” he demanded, wary.
“It isn’t a sedative, if that is what you are thinking.” She stirred the mixture vigorously. “Although it does have a very strong taste; I believe it has horehound in it.” To her relief, he did not object further and drank the concoction down.
“We will, of course, send for your servant if that would make you more comfortable. I suppose he could be here by the day after next.”
“It won’t make me more comfortable,” he said gloomily. “But it will make him more comfortable. Even if you send no message at all, he will return here on his own. The moment I fail to arrive in London he will be certain I have been kidnapped or murdered or lured into some gaming hell.”
“Gaming hell?” Serena raised her eyebrows. “In rural Oxfordshire?”
That brought a brief smile, but almost immediately the gloomy scowl returned. “Vernon is a pessimist, especially where I am concerned.”
“Well,” she pointed out, “you are injured. Think how gratified he will be to have his fears confirmed for once.”
Clermont spent the next twenty-four hours in a state of dull misery. His head was throbbing viciously, with his wrist offering a counterpoint in a minor key. One ankle was swaddled in bandages and occasionally sent little stabs of pain up his leg. Overlaying all of it was a haze of nausea and dizziness, which made it impossible to fall asleep properly; most of the first evening the best he could do was to doze off for ten minutes at a time. He hated feeling queasy, hated it with a passion. He would rather slice open his face than suffer an hour’s indigestion. At present, of course, he had both a gashed face and nausea.
In addition to his physical tribulations, a constant series of disquieting images presented themselves to him as he lay, half awake. Vernon in London, realizing what had likely happened. Vernon spending the entire journey back down to Burford composing a scathing lecture on his imprudent folly. Vernon delivering the lecture—that part was not so bad—but then fussing over him and treating him, as he always did in the presence of strangers, with a deference which bordered on idolatry. Clermont strongly preferred Serena Allen’s brand of nursing, unsympathetic and brusque though it might be. His hostess, on the other hand, who came in several times and fluttered over him—literally fluttered, waving her hands like a distressed bird—had obviously seen his signet ring before he had remembered to take it off, and she looked likely to rival Vernon in deferential display. And the most disquieting image of all, the memory of the brown rope across the trail, the memory of the terrifying realization that there was nothing he could do to avoid it.
On the evening of the second day, he began to feel markedly better. Dr. Wall visited briefly and warned him this state might be temporary, but Clermont was so delighted to be rid of the nausea that he disregarded this warning and persuaded Mrs. Digby (a far less severe guardian than Bassington’s niece) to forego another dose of Dr. Wall’s powder and fetch him instead some watered wine and a plate of toasts. His clothing had been returned, to his great relief, although he had not been permitted to get dressed yet. Perhaps, he thought, he would confound the pessimists and recover sufficiently by morning to escape Boulton Park before Vernon’s return. Feeling very satisfied, and, for once, properly sleepy, he dropped off.
A loud noise in the middle of the night startled him awake. Later, he realized it had come from the fireplace; when he first woke, however, he was only conscious of acute misery. His head was on fire; his entire arm was aching; his stomach was in turmoil. He tried to sit up and could not, but when he collapsed back onto the bed he found the sheets soaked with sweat. He began to shiver uncontrollably. The covers seemed to be winding around him, damp and threatening, and he tried to throw them off, then remembered how cold he was and pulled them back over his chest.
A strange old woman appeared and tried to pull off the covers and he shouted furiously that he was cold, damn it, and forcibly wrested the sheets out of her hand. Then he noticed that the bandages on his wrist were too tight; the skin felt swollen and hot. He tore the wrappings off and burrowed under the quilts, still shivering. He reached mechanically for reassurance in back of the pillow as he did so and was hit by a fresh wave of anxiety. His gun! Where was his gun?
He demanded its return, at once, in his most imperative tones. There were more noises, doors opening, alarmed voices. He lay still, with his racing pulse thudding in his ears, and as it slowed sanity returned. The strange old woman was Mrs. Digby. She had been trying to straighten the bed, not steal the quilts. His bandage had been wound on tightly to hold the splint in place on his wrist. His gun was in his saddlebags, which were, of course, somewhere in Oxfordshire on the back of that accursed mare.
He pushed back the covers and said, embarrassed, “Mrs. Digby?”
The old nurse hurried over from the doorway.
“I do apologize,” he said. “I was—I believe I must have had a nightmare.”
She surveyed the tangled sheets, the damp spots on the pillow, and peered into his eyes. “What you had, young man, was a bout of fever; that’s clear enough,” she said with asperity. “Likely you’ll have another spell before morning, and it’s my own fault for letting you get round me with your pleading that you fancied a piece of toast and wouldn’t it be dry and hard to digest without a bit of wine. Miss Serena will be very cross with the both of us.” She nodded significantly towards the hall, and he heard hasty footsteps.
His chief nurse burst into the room, anxious and disheveled. She was in her nightgown, with a dressing gown thrown over it but not tied. Her hair was tumbling down her back, and her feet were bare. When she saw her patient sitting up in bed, looking rather shamefaced, she stopped abruptly. A slow flush rose up her neck. She was angry, he realized, and embarrassed. She was also the most glorious thing he had seen in years. The thin lawn nightrail flowed down her like the drapery on a classical statue, and as the pin
k rose into her face he thought momentarily of Galatea, of cold marble brought to life.
“Hold still, do,” the old nurse said to him, scolding. She was binding the splint back onto his wrist. To Serena she said, turning sideways for a moment, “He’s himself again, Miss Allen, and now I’m sorry to have fetched you out of bed at this hour, but he gave me quite a turn. Tossing, and pulling at his splint, and swearing, and the sheets soaked.”
Serena stalked over to the bed and examined the sheets and pillows. She pointedly avoided looking at the occupant of the bed. “These bed linens will have to be changed,” she said. She disappeared for a moment, and Clermont heard her speaking to someone in the hall.
“Emily said something about a loud noise,” she said to the nurse as she came back in, trailed by a sleepy-looking maid.
“There might have been something—” Mrs. Digby began cautiously.
“Yes, from the chimney,” he interrupted, happy that it had not been a hallucination. “It sounded like a door closing, or a lid banging down.”
Serena and the nurse looked at each other.