by Mayhem
If James Redpath had left London when Lady Wiston was abducted, to accompany her hither, he had a good hour's start on them. He should be home by now.
"You'd best speak to the mistress,” Wick decided.
Two minutes later, Miranda and Mr. Daviot, with Mudge trotting behind, were shown into a small sitting-room decorated in charming flowered chintzes. A pretty young woman set down her embroidery hoop and rose to greet them. At least, she would have been pretty but for her peevish expression. A stout middle-aged matron continued to sit by the fire, her needle poised over her stitchery as she examined the visitors.
"Wick, close the door,” Mrs. Redpath said fretfully. “It is windy tonight. You know the draught always gives me nervous spasms."
Miranda avoided exchanging a glance of triumph with Mr. Daviot. How clever of him to recall correctly that Marjory Redpath was the ex-companion his aunt had described as a hypochondriac!
"Lady Wiston is not here, ma'am?” he said with cheerful insouciance.
"Certainly not, Mr. Daviot,” she snapped. “I cannot imagine why you should suppose she might be."
"Why, because she set out from the inn well ahead of us. You see, the carriage wheel started to wobble, so we stopped to have it mended. Aunt Artemis was wild to get here—well, stands to reason, she hasn't seen you in quite a while, I gather—and she chose to go on in a post-chaise with her maid. I stayed behind to supervise the repairs. Didn't take long. We were soon on the road again, Miss Carmichael and I—"
"Indeed!” Mrs. Redpath, momentarily distracted, glanced from him to Miranda and back in a way that made Miranda squirm.
"Yes, we got going again quite soon, but we were sure my aunt would arrive before us."
"You mistake me, sir. I care not why you expected Lady Wiston to precede you. What I fail to understand is why she was travelling to Redpath Manor in the first place."
"By Jove, doesn't seem very odd to me, ma'am.” Mr. Daviot's tone carried the merest hint of sarcasm. “She is your husband's aunt-by-marriage, after all, and she was your ... ahem, you resided with her for some time, did you not?"
Mrs. Redpath flushed. “Lady Wiston rarely leaves London,” she said defensively.
"But that's just it. In Town at this time of year there is a good deal of putrid fever about. Aunt Artemis—"
"Putrid fever!” She backed away, her handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
"Typhus. Gaol fever."
"I knew it! Gaols, hospitals, back-slums, I knew she would catch some dreadful infection sooner or later."
"Oh no, ma'am,” said Mr. Daviot, shocked. “She has not actually come down with the fever yet or she could not travel. It is to avoid it that Mr. Redpath suggested removing hither for a few weeks. Such a healthy situation, here on the Downs close to the sea, is it not?"
"Putrid fever! She will bring it with her. She cannot come here. I will not have her in the house! What can James have been thinking of to invite her? You must go away, quickly. Find her. Stop her coming any closer. Go away!” She flapped her hands at them as if driving geese.
Mudge took exception to the gesture and started to bark, tugging on the leash.
Mrs. Redpath had not previously noticed him. “Take it away!” she cried, tugging hysterically on the bell-pull. “That dreadful dirty creature. Animals carry disease. I do not permit dogs in my house! Wick, show these people out at once, and if Lady Wiston arrives do not let her set foot over the threshold! James must have run mad!"
* * * *
The carriage rolled northwards through the night. Moonlight silvered fields and trees, leaving inky shadows which might conceal lurking highwaymen—or simply ditches.
Considering the latter the greater hazard, Ted refused to hand over the reins to either of the amateurs. Slumped on the rear-facing seat, Daylight Danny snored, as did Mudge on the floor. Mr. Daviot lounged back in his corner, his long legs stretched out before him. Miranda could not tell whether he was asleep.
She took off her bonnet for comfort though she was sure she could not possibly sleep. The time they had wasted in going to Redpath Manor made her want to scream. From the first she had known Lady Wiston was not there, certain that Lord Snell had whisked her away to his lair in the north.
Mr. Daviot had dismissed Miranda's arguments and overruled her. Every extra instant of suffering endured by his aunt was his fault.
The bubble of tension within her threatened to burst out in a storm of reproaches. Somehow she succeeded in holding her tongue. The damage done by her last outburst was all too fresh in her mind. If she had not driven him to spend his days at the Explorers’ Club, he would have contrived to put a spoke in Lord Snell's wheel.
How could she have been such a ninnyhammer as to fancy for so much as a moment that the baron had any interest in her beyond winning her support against Lady Wiston? Why had she ever wished for his regard? She had never felt comfortable with him. She did not even like him. Like the veriest servile toad-eater, she had let his title blind her to his manifest faults.
Between the two of them, she and Peter Daviot had made a dreadful mull of everything—and Lady Wiston was paying the price.
Fighting to banish memories of the visit to Bethlem, Miranda concentrated on the sounds of the night. Horseshoes thudded on packed earth, clinked now and then on stone; the harness jingled and wheels creaked; an owl hooted in the distance, answered by another not far off; somewhere a dog barked, or perhaps a fox. Danny and Mudge snored on. Restlessly Miranda dozed.
She roused to lantern light outside, low, hurried voices and hooves clopping on cobbles. Another stage past.
The warm, heavy weight on her shoulder was Mr. Daviot's head. “What...?” he muttered, half-waking. “Post-house? Sorry!” The weight vanished as he settled back in his corner. Miranda felt bereft.
With fresh horses hitched up, the landau rolled on.
At the next inn, Miranda found her head resting against Mr. Daviot's shoulder. He made no protest and it was too much effort to move, so she did not. When the carriage halted in Portchester Square in the small hours of the morning, her arm was numb and her neck painfully cricked.
"We leave at daybreak,” Mr. Daviot announced. “An hour or so."
To Miranda, heavy-eyed, he sounded insufferably alert. She trudged into the house and up to her room. Flat on her bed, she still felt the sway of the landau. She lay there, hearing the sounds of the household coming to life. Tilly brought a can of hot water; Baxter appeared to help Miranda change her dress and tidy her hair.
"You're burned to the socket, miss,” the abigail said, shaking out an old grey cambric more suitable for travelling than the new coloured muslins. “I could take your place."
Miranda shook her head. “No, I shall go on. What I need most in the world is a cup of tea."
"Cook's making breakfast, miss, and she's already prepared a heap of food to refill the hamper. Mrs. Potts's notion it was. She stayed, and for all she's a common body, I'll say this for her, she's a grand organizer. She's already got ahold of a new leg for Mr. Twitchell."
"Splendid! How is Eustace?"
"Better, miss, though still a bit wobbly."
"No word from Alfred or the groom, I suppose? No, it's much too soon. But in any case, I am convinced Lady Wiston is on her way to Derbyshire. We must go!"
"It's still pitch dark, miss. You've half an hour for a bite and a sup."
* * * *
The new gas street lamps still lit the sleeping streets when Mr. Daviot took the reins and turned his team towards the Great North Road. Inside the carriage, Miranda shared her seat with Danny, while Ted sprawled in exhausted slumber on the other. The moonlight he prophesied had shone all the way from Brighton to London, but now gathering clouds hid the first gleam of light in the eastern sky. A brief flurry of raindrops dashed against the window.
Mudge was still curled up on the floor, still snoring. He had not stirred when they stopped in Portchester Square, and Miranda had forgotten about him.
"Otherwise I should have left him at home,” she said to Danny in a low voice.
He grinned. “Maybe, miss, but he's one as gets his own way more often'n not."
"At least, if I had remembered him, I could have replenished my supply of comfits. I have only two left."
The pug needed no bribe to persuade him to descend at the end of the third stage, which they reached at about the hour of the morning when Miranda usually took him out. The hour when she had fallen over Mr. Daviot, she recalled; the hour when he had kissed her.
In retrospect her anger at the time seemed petty. What was a stolen kiss in comparison with Lord Snell's crime? In retrospect it had been a delightfully intriguing experience—and one she would not in the least mind repeating. Would Peter Daviot ever kiss her again?
After driving three stages, he looked almost as tired as she felt. Hanging on to the leash as she climbed down after Mudge at the Bull's Head Inn at Baldock, she said, “Is it not time Danny took over?"
"Yes, he should be safe enough now, at least as long as the rain holds off. We are beyond the worst of the market-wagon traffic going into Town. Gad, I'm stiff!” He stretched and yawned and turned to speak to Danny.
Mudge found a patch of grass and relieved himself physically. He then relieved his feelings by attempting to chase the stable cat. Miranda dragged him back to the landau by the leash, but it took a comfit to entice him back up the steps. One left.
The pug then decided he wanted to sit on the seat for a change. Standing on his back legs with his front paws on the blue velvet, he glared at Miranda. She told him to get down. He made a pass at her knee. Wearily she lifted him up. He trampled across her to where he could, by craning his neck, see out of the window.
No sign of the cat. He trampled back just as Mr. Daviot climbed in, stripping off his heavy York tan driving gloves.
"Ouch! Devil take the beast! I've a good mind to toss him out and abandon him."
"Nothing would please me more,” Miranda said regretfully, “but it is for your aunt to make that decision. I am not prepared to swear she has absolutely no fondness for him. Let me look. Heavens, he really caught you this time! Where is my medicine box?"
As Danny drove out of the inn yard, Mr. Daviot extracted the chest from under the seat. Tending his bleeding hand, Miranda thought back to the first time she had done so. She had known no more of him then than that he was a self-confessed adventurer with a great deal of quizzical charm and absolutely no sense of decorum.
No, she had already known he was kind and considerate: he had offered to restrain Mudge while she rescued the cat he thought hers, and he had slept outside rather than rouse his sleeping aunt.
And his quick reaction had saved Lady Wiston from a nasty tumble down the stairs. What if he did rely upon her generosity to support him? Was that not what families were for? Should Miranda ever find herself destitute, she knew she could always claim a temporary home with her brother—heaven forfend!
It might come to that, if they failed to rescue Lady Wiston. After interfering with Lord Snell's plans, Miranda could not expect him to keep his promise to provide for her, if, indeed, he had ever meant it. She would have to look for a new position, and she would never find one half so comfortable. Instead of a busy, useful life with a lively old lady she held in great affection, she would turn back into a mouse scurrying about with shawls and smelling salts. Worse, for the rest of her life she would carry the guilt of her responsibility for Lady Wiston's confinement.
Worst of all, she would never see Peter Daviot again. Her hands trembled as she bound a strip of linen around his wound.
She forced her voice to remain steady. “There, that will keep it clean. Be careful not to dislodge it when you put your gloves back on."
"Uh.” His hand flopped as she let go of it. Looking up, she saw that his chin was sunk on his chest, his eyes closed. He slumped back in the corner of the seat, dislodging the indignant pug.
While she tormented herself with a thousand dire possibilities, the wretch had fallen asleep!
Chapter 17
Long before they reached St. Neots and the end of another stage, rain was pelting down, drumming on the landau's double hood and running down the sides with a gurgling swish. On the box, with no top-coat, Danny must be soaked through.
He seemed to be coping admirably, despite Mr. Daviot's doubts of his competence in bad conditions. Miranda left the other two to their repose.
In the circumstances, she marvelled at their capacity for peaceful slumber. Though her lids were weighted with lead, her eyes dry and scratchy with fatigue, a fitful doze was the most she contrived to snatch. This was partly due to Mudge, who had appropriated her corner so that she could not lean back in comparative comfort.
Last night she had made use of Mr. Daviot's shoulder, but to do so deliberately in broad daylight was far too unseemly to be considered. She doubted she could sleep properly anyway. A sense of urgency gnawed at her.
However well Danny drove, or even if Ted Coachman took the reins again, rain and mud were bound to delay them. Lady Wiston and her captors, twelve hours or more ahead, were probably unaffected as yet by the foul weather blowing in from the south-west. Indeed they had very likely arrived at Northwaite Hall some time since.
Lady Wiston must be sunk in the depths of despair, if not yet subjected to torturous remedies. Her oblivious nephew slept on.
He and Ted both woke when the landau pulled up at the Cross Keys in the marketplace at St. Neots.
"Danny Potts driving?” said Ted. “Well, he ain't overset us yet, but he don't know nowt about horses. I'll just hop down and see they give us a decent team, and get ‘em harnessed up right."
"Don't tweak Danny's nose,” advised Mr. Daviot.
The coachman grinned. “I'm not dicked in the nob, sir. I'll tell him I need to stretch me legs, the which I do."
Through the open door, Miranda saw Danny, his sodden clothes plastered to his skin. She called to him.
"You will take a chill,” she said anxiously.
"Lor’ bless you, miss, not I. ‘Tis August, arter all, not Janu'ry, and there be a mortal sight o’ me to keep meself warm. Don't ‘ee fret."
"Are you good for another stage, Danny?” Mr. Daviot asked.
"Why, surely, sir. Dunno why I never thought to take up for a coachman, saving I wouldn't want to leave my Mary home alone. Here, now, the rain's a-blowing in. You'll be wet as I be ifn I don't close the door."
"Get yourself something to eat from the hamper. No, wait, better bring it here. I'm peckish myself, and you must be ravenous, Miss Carmichael. You scarcely swallowed a bite last night or at breakfast."
Miranda was touched that he had noticed her lack of appetite. Though she still was not really hungry, when he cut the cold chicken from the bone for her, shelled an egg, buttered a roll, quartered and cored a pear, she could not refuse to eat.
"That's better,” he said approvingly. “You must keep your strength up, you know, for Aunt Artemis's sake. Lemonade or wine? No, I withdraw the choice. A drop of wine will warm you since tea is, I fear, impossible."
"How can I complain? Cook has done us proud. Stop, stop! That may be a small tankard, but if you fill it more than half full I shall be tipsy in no time."
"What happens when you're foxed?” Mr. Daviot enquired with interest. “Will you serenade us, or do you grow belligerent, or am ... amusing?"
He had been going to say “amorous,” Miranda was sure. She had heard of wine having such an effect. What would he do if she became amorous? Would he be pleased, or disgusted?
"I do not choose to find out,” she said primly, taking the half-full tankard. She sipped slowly, warmed more by her thoughts and his teasing solicitude than by the wine. Mr. Daviot crunched a crisp pear, while Ted munched stolidly on his fourth or fifth ham-filled roll. Suddenly a loud belch resounded.
Mr. Daviot looked down at the floor, but not in embarrassment. “Mudge,” he accused. “How can so small a beast produce so mighty a wind?"
"He'll be doing it t'other end soon,” grunted Ted, “begging your pardon, miss. He's ate every scrape o’ that slice o’ ham Mr. Daviot dropped."
"Good gracious,” Miranda said in dismay, “it was huge. I think I had best take him out, just for a minute or two, if you will tell Danny to stop."
"No need for you to get wet,” said Mr. Daviot. “I'll take him."
"I shall be glad of a chance to move about a little.” Every limb was cramped, every joint ached, but she was not going to tell him so after his fears that she would hold him back. “I ought to have got down at the last inn."
"You would have been soaked in a moment. At least the downpour seems to have turned to a mere drizzle now. Ted, tell Danny to pull up, and then take what more you want from the hamper. We might as well get it out of our way."
Mudge, although in obvious need of relief, had to be bribed with the last comfit to jump down from the carriage.
"You should not have spoken in his hearing of abandoning him,” Miranda said to Mr. Daviot, and he laughed.
He and Ted stowed away the hamper. Mudge scrambled anxiously back up the steps and curled up on the floor. Miranda left his leash on. She repossessed her corner, the men climbed in, and once again they set off.
Slowly, so slowly the miles slipped behind. The wine sent Miranda into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed she was in Peter's arms. A rare serious look in his bright blue eyes, he asked if she was feeling amorous—then he kissed her. Lord Snell appeared and dragged her away. He forced her into a curricle which somehow had barred windows. This he drove at a terrifying speed around a twisting circuit which yet carried her farther and farther away from Peter.
The carriage stopped, and she was vaguely aware that the landau had really come to a halt. Peter climbed out and Danny climbed in, a huge, dripping mass. Then Miranda drifted off again. This time in her dreams shackled madmen gabbled, gibbered, screeched, then shrieked in pain as a pair of huge, yellow-eyed carrion crows pecked viciously at their helpless bodies.
"Kill or cure,” cawed one. “Kill or cure."