by Carol Arens
His thoughts stumbled and he felt himself growing hot—how could he allow his mind such licence? Trying to regain his equilibrium, he said in as toneless a voice as he could manage, ‘There is no need for apologies. I came only to give my father’s present to Mrs Croft.’
‘And a beautiful present it is, too,’ Henrietta intervened, obviously relieved to get the conversation back on to firmer ground. ‘But will you not stay for some refreshment, Justin?’
‘Thank you, but, no. I must return to Chelwood. There is much to do, as you will appreciate. I will call again very soon and perhaps then we can talk at greater length.’ But only when I can be absolutely sure that Miss Ingram is nowhere in the vicinity, he told himself.
‘Before you go, Justin...’ The old lady caught at his arm. ‘I think I should warn you—’ She broke off, unable to find the right words, and then with difficulty, murmured, ‘It is Caroline, Mrs Armitage.’
‘What of her?’
‘She is in great distress.’
‘I understand that, Mrs Croft, and I am aware of her suffering.’ He gently disentangled her arm from his and began walking towards the door. But she was on her feet and following him, her voice unusually urgent.
‘I am sure that you are. How could you not be? I understand that she has asked you to aid her in the search for Gilbert. But she has been here, too, to ask something similar of myself.’
Justin stopped in surprise. ‘That you should aid her? Surely not!’
‘That I should add my voice to hers in persuading you to commence your search immediately. I refused, I fear. I know how much work is before you. I know, too, that the Armitages have tried almost everything to find their son and not succeeded. How she imagines that you can perform miracles, I do not know.’
The Armitages had said nothing to him this morning of the visit. Perhaps James was ignorant of his wife’s call and Caroline ashamed now of the disturbance she had caused.
He pressed the old lady’s hand in reassurance. ‘Mrs Armitage is overwrought—understandably so—and we must not be too alarmed if she behaves unusually. But I confess that her reliance on me is worrying though Gil was, is, my friend, and I have promised to do all I can.’ He smiled wryly. ‘My promise was well meant, though I am at a loss where to start.’
‘That is hardly surprising. If all the enquiries the Armitages have sent out over these past months have come to nought, how can you, newly arrived and in the most difficult of circumstances, be expected to fare better?’ Henrietta looked searchingly up at her visitor. ‘It would not be wrong to forgo your promise, Justin, for it was unfair to have extracted it from you. Your focus must be on Chelwood and Caroline knows that. She will come to her senses soon and when she does, she will see what an impossible task she has given you.’
‘I can only hope so.’ He reached the door as Mrs Croft rang the bell for Hester. ‘But I do not want you to be worried by this business. If Mrs Armitage should call again, you must refer her to me.’
‘I doubt that she is likely to do so.’
As soon as Hester had escorted their visitor to the front door, Lizzie bounced from her seat. She had been listening intently, but made no reference to the conversation. Instead she gestured to the sun beaming its way through the parlour window.
‘As the weather remains so kind, I think that perhaps I will walk to Rye, after all, Mrs Croft, if you will be comfortable for an hour. The haberdasher will not be closed for long. My second-best reticule is badly in need of retrimming and I can buy you the new cap you were mentioning.’
Her employer nodded assent and settled herself wearily back into the armchair. In seconds Lizzie was slipping out of the front door just as Sir Justin jumped into the curricle’s driving seat. He saw her out of the corner of his eye and had no alternative but to offer to drive her into Rye. It was not at all what he wanted, but for the second time that morning, fortune appeared to favour him.
‘I prefer to walk, Sir Justin. It keeps me fit and healthy, or hale, as you would say.’ That was true enough, he thought—her slim figure filled the simple sprig muslin in all the right places. He wished he could stop noticing, but it seemed an impossibility.
‘There is something I might be able to do for you, though,’ she said pertly, ‘something you might be interested in knowing.’
Her words took him aback and he paused for an instant before reluctantly deciding to clamber from his seat to stand beside her. The reins, though, remained firmly within his grasp for, whatever it was she had to impart, he had no intention of lingering.
‘And what exactly might I be interested in, Miss Ingram?’
‘You have been charged with the burden of finding your lost friend. I may just have the information that you need to begin your search.’
He very much doubted that. The Armitages had searched high and low. The whole of Rye knew that Gil was missing and were on the alert, while Lizzie Ingram had been here but a few weeks. What could she know? Nothing, he thought. It was a ploy to draw him in, or simply to irritate him. He imagined that she was used to male admiration and his refusal to pay her the necessary compliments no doubt rankled.
‘If you can help in any way, I will be most grateful.’ He kept his voice impassive, but there was that smile again, provocative, tilting at him, teasing him with its promise.
‘Do you know of a woman called Rosanna?’
What was this nonsense? ‘No, I cannot say I do. Should I?’
‘Not necessarily, but your friend did.’
‘Gil?’ He was shocked out of his formality. The thought of the letters loomed large.
‘Yes, Gilbert Armitage. Apparently he had a close relationship with a woman called Rosanna. If I were looking for him, I would want to speak to her.’
‘That is impossible,’ he stammered his incomprehension. ‘And who is this Rosanna?’ He had put the letters down to fantasy, nothing more. Now this girl was naming a flesh-and-blood woman. Was she teasing or could she really be serious?
‘I believe she is a woman of some mystery. She is not exactly a gypsy, but neither does she live a settled life. I am told, too, that she keeps dubious company.’
‘In that case, Gilbert Armitage would have had no commerce with her.’ His tone was uncompromising and he made to remount the carriage. His suspicions had disappeared—Gil would never have taken up with such a woman.
‘You should not dismiss her so lightly. I make no doubt that Rosanna is a fascinator of men and even your friend might have been vulnerable to her attractions.’
‘I know my friend and, if you will forgive me, the idea that he would become embroiled with such a woman is a hum.’
She took a deep breath, drawing herself up to stand ramrod straight, her eyes flashing a clear challenge. ‘I will forgive you, Sir Justin. But will the Armitages?’
Chapter Four
He watched her, basket in hand, as she began to walk along the winding drive towards the Rye road. He wanted to run after her, ask her for more details, ask her to offer some kind of evidence, but it was clear that he would get nothing more. She must know that she had dealt him a knock and he was sure she was enjoying it. She had said just enough to torment, but not enough for him to discount the news completely. The notion of Gil in an intimate relationship with any woman was astonishing enough, but with a woman such as Lizzie Ingram had described it had to be impossible.
Yet there were those letters. They might never have been sent, but they could, after all, have been written to a real woman. Reading them, he had been so astonished that he had imagined a fantasy sweetheart, but was that because he still saw Gil as the boy he had been and not the man he had become in his absence? Or was it, perish the thought, because it was easier to assume that there was nothing to explain his friend’s absence and therefore nothing to investigate. If he had once been tempted to think so, that no longer held. T
here were not only the letters to Rosanna, if such they were, but the fact that the woman kept dubious company. If Lizzie were right, that could be greatly significant. Of course, she had quite deliberately thrown that piece of gossip into the conversation in an effort to intrigue or, more probably, annoy him. But that didn’t mean it was untrue. There was no hope for it, he thought heavily, he would have to explore further. For the next day or so Mellors would have to carry on alone with the work at Chelwood, at least until he had disproved the suspicions the girl had planted. He had made the Armitages a promise and he would fulfil it.
* * *
For a good half a mile Lizzie danced along the river path, elated by the fact that she had confounded the infuriating Major. His expression when she’d mentioned his friend’s involvement with the mysterious Rosanna had been satisfyingly dumbfounded. He deserved to be put out of countenance, she thought. It was evident that he had set out to visit Brede House when he knew she would not be there. The minute she’d remembered leaving her purse on the bedroom chest, she had turned back towards the house and seen his carriage at the entrance to the drive. It appeared to be lingering there, unwilling to commit itself to any particular direction, but then the horse had plunged forwards as though relieved of a burden. She’d realised in that instant that she was the burden. Justin Delacourt did not want to see her and had taken advantage of her absence—it had been quite deliberate.
She had thought him snobbish, too high in the instep to acknowledge a humble companion, but after the visit to Chelwood Hall, she’d had to revise that view. He might have shown himself oblivious to the constraints that hedged her life, but he had treated his uninvited guest with courtesy and without a hint of condescension. So why was he so desperate to escape her presence that he chose to visit Mrs Croft in secret? Was it that he felt uncomfortable in the company of young females? She thought it unlikely. He was a soldier and must have had plenty of dealings with women over the years. Was it a particular woman then, Lizzie Ingram, that he found unnerving? She hoped very much that it was so. It would only be fair since each time they’d met, she had felt similarly unnerved. In church she had been captivated by his wonderful voice, driving with him from Chelwood she had not been able to stop her skin from prickling in a most peculiar fashion, and just now standing so close to him in the porch, the warmth of his body, the hardness of his form, had alerted each and every small fibre within her. It was only the fact that she possessed crucial information that had kept her mind steady, but it had been difficult to maintain a calm exterior while her body was responding so disturbingly. She had been almost glad to see him regain the driving seat and set his horse in motion.
But not glad that he’d rejected so completely what she had told him. He had not believed her or, more likely, had not wanted to believe. He had refused to accept that his friend was capable of falling in love with a low-born and possibly impure woman. Why was he so stubborn? He might know his friend, but she knew women better and if this Rosanna had set her sights on Gilbert Armitage, Lizzie had no doubt that she had succeeded. And surely it was right that Caroline be told of anything that might lead her to her son. As she walked, her earlier elation slowly drifted away and was replaced by a strong sense of irritation. Why were men, why were soldiers, so blinkered? She had thought the information gold dust and yet he had dismissed it without pause. It would serve him right if she herself followed up the clue she had unearthed.
Her mind began to buzz uncomfortably and she told herself to forget whatever mad thoughts she was having. Below her the river flowed smoothly today with hardly a ripple breaking its surface and she focused herself on embracing the calm. But it was to no avail—her thoughts had broken loose and she could not curb them. She had imagined this a staid town, yet in the last few days adventure had beckoned from every quarter: the talk of smugglers, the disappearance of a local gentleman, a secret love affair with a mysterious woman. It had beckoned faintly, it was true, but why could she not turn this into a real adventure? She set to wondering what Rosanna looked like, who Rosanna really was. Justin Delacourt had no intention of finding out but why shouldn’t she?
* * *
When she reached the haberdasher’s, she found the shop still open but crowded. Until Mr Mercer was free to serve, she riffled through the buttons and ribbons that he always laid out for display in long wooden trays. An elderly customer in an unfashionable poke bonnet was at the counter, making an anxious choice of a length of silk organza for her granddaughter’s first party dress and all the time maintaining a mumbled commentary on the high cost of the material.
‘Prices have risen, Mrs Cartwright,’ the shopkeeper was saying, a trifle tight lipped. ‘I make little enough profit as it is.’
‘I am sure that is so, Mr Mercer,’ the woman agreed, her tone placating, ‘but I cannot forget the time—you, too, I’m sure—when we were able to buy the most exquisite silks from France for next to nothing.’
He looked warningly at her and she caught his glance. ‘Don’t mind me, I am an old woman. I realise those days are gone and are best forgotten. We must be glad that the law is no longer broken with impunity.’ She did not look particularly glad.
A younger woman, weighed down by the heavy pannier she carried, cut across the conversation. ‘We should be glad that Rye is no longer a den of thieves,’ she said emphatically, ‘and that people can walk through the town freely without fear.’
There was a murmur of assent among the several women standing behind her. ‘You have only to think of what the Mermaid used to be, to know that’s so!’ A red-faced woman, looking every inch a farmer’s wife, perspired quietly at the back of the waiting line. Her words loosed a torrent of condemnation from the other women.
‘They say the Mermaid has a hidden cellar and secret passageways to other inns—no wonder it’s been a villains’ haunt for so long!’
‘And still is, I reckon. Have you seen those men, lording it up, sitting in the window, as bold as brass as though they own the town.’
‘It’s not just the men!’
‘No indeed. Have you seen that woman...?’
‘She should not be mentioned in decent society.’ The elderly customer patted the brown paper package Mr Mercer had handed her, as though seeking reassurance. ‘We must protect our young folks.’
Lizzie’s hand had stopped on the brocade she was fingering. She had been engrossed by the conversation as it see-sawed between members of the group. The person they had just spoken of, could that be Rosanna? It had to be: a woman who consorted with a gang of desperate men and who outraged society. She had been right, she thought—there was an adventure here and she could not resist its siren call.
Abandoning any desire to buy yellow ribbons, Lizzie slipped out of the shop. She closed the door quietly behind her as the haberdasher continued to complain of high prices and the women to lament the moral threat to their town. She had seen the signpost for Mermaid Street when attending services at St Mary’s. Mrs Croft always refused to take that way to the river and had warned her of setting foot in the street. But now Lizzie’s curiosity burned too brightly and she hurried up West Street towards the church, then swerved left, winding her way around the churchyard to arrive at the top of the infamous road. Its cobbled length fell steeply towards the river and the cluster of small boats bobbing on the incoming tide. A third of the way down on the right-hand side, an old black-and-white Tudor building raised its head. The Mermaid Inn! A few carts rumbled their way over the cobbles making for the quayside, but there were no other pedestrians. It was as though the population had chosen this street out of all of those in Rye to put into quarantine. She kept to the left-hand pavement, her face shadowed by the brim of her bonnet, but her eyes surreptitiously keeping watch on the other side of the street. Soon she had drawn nearly opposite the tavern and slowed her pace to a crawl.
She saw them immediately. A sizeable group of men, roughly clad in
stained leather jerkins, were sitting at a downstairs open window, pint pots in their hands, heads wreathed in noxious clouds of smoke. They lazed at their ease, an untidy circle around a table scattered with empty tankards and the remnants of food. And amid this detritus—was that a pistol, she could see? She tried to look more closely. It was a pistol, in fact, several pistols, and they all looked to be cocked and ready for use. Her knowledge of firearms was limited, but a cocked gun meant it was loaded and she was in the direct line of fire! She knew that she should scurry down the hill as fast her legs would go, but instead she could not stop looking. They were the ugliest collection of men, she thought, bearded and unkempt and, most likely, unwashed. One man in particular she noticed—he did not at first fall vividly on the eye, nor was he in any way flamboyant. But there was a stillness about him, a malevolent stillness. His hair was tow coloured, his eyes lightless, but his brows thick and black. He had the look of an other worldly creature, an avenging demon. It was a hauntingly evil face.
At that minute, a voluptuous figure swam into view and Lizzie was so stunned by the woman’s appearance that her feet seemed to grow roots and anchor her to the ground. The woman was vivid, she was flamboyant. Her hair was black and her eyes even blacker. She was beautiful, Lizzie thought, beautiful in a bold, brazen fashion. Miss Bates would have called her a hussy—or worse. She was wearing a red dress, the material so thin that you could almost see her naked skin beneath it, and so tight that it left nothing to the imagination. As Lizzie watched mesmerised, the woman placed the tray of tankards she was carrying on the table and began to sway in and out of the chairs, stroking the men’s beards and leaving light kisses on their foreheads. Her kiss for the tow-headed man seemed to linger. This had to be Rosanna. Lizzie gulped. She should have nothing more to do with this—walk on, walk to Brede House, she told herself, and forget you ever witnessed this little tableau. But her spirit of devilment, her thirst for the uncommon, was too strong. If she could only get Rosanna alone, she might discover exactly what had happened to Gil Armitage, for one thing was very clear: this woman was the enchantress that Lizzie had predicted, and she most certainly could have enchanted Justin Delacourt’s friend into submission, or worse.