Masquerade of Vengeance (The Rutherford Trilogy Book 3)

by Alice Chetwynd Ley

  He pulled in to the side of the road, shouted to the groom to go to the horses’ heads to quieten them, and leapt angrily to the ground. The driver of the other curricle had also pulled up, and was waiting for him.

  “What the devil d’you mean by careering all over the road in that fashion?” Rogers demanded. “You might have caused an accident! Are you foxed, man, or what?”

  He saw then that the offending driver was none other than Sir John Fulford, looking very pale and more than a little apologetic. The groom sitting beside him was in no better state.

  “Beg pardon, I’m sure, sir,” Fulford began. Then recognising Rogers — “B’God, it’s you, Mr Rogers — and Miss Rutherford! ’Pon my soul, I’m mortified — can’t tell you how sorry I am! Fact is, I don’t feel too well — something I ate at nuncheon, I daresay —”

  He broke off, evidently in some physical distress.

  Rogers, considerably mollified by the sight, spoke more quietly.

  “I see that you’re unwell. I suggest you allow the groom to drive you back to the Manor. I trust you’ll soon be recovered. Good day to you.”

  He returned to his own vehicle to find that Anthea had stepped down and had been regarding with interest the exchange between himself and Fulford.

  “Well!” she exclaimed, as they resumed their seats, this time with Rogers driving. “What was that all about? Do you suppose he was — well — bosky?”

  Justin would have quibbled at the word, but Rogers took no such liberties. He was bent on staying in the lady’s good books.

  “Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt,” he answered diplomatically. “He said it was something he’d eaten.”

  Anthea looked back. “He’s done as you suggested, and let his groom drive,” she reported, “and they’re turning back.”

  “He may go to the devil for all I care! Let’s forget about him and continue to enjoy our outing. Would you perhaps care to take a stroll presently? We’ll come to a pleasant wooded stretch about a mile from here.”

  Anthea agreed enthusiastically to this suggestion. Soon they pulled up at a gate leading into the wood, and left the equipage to the care of the groom until their return.

  There was a path leading through the wood wide enough to take two abreast. For a time they walked in silence amid the sunlight dappled trees, savouring the cool remoteness of their refuge from the heat of August. A rabbit started from the undergrowth, scuttering across their path with a flash of short white tail.

  It made Anthea start and clutch at her companion’s arm for a moment. He closed his hand over hers, looking into her eyes.

  “Miss Anthea!” he murmured. “Oh, Anthea, my dear!”

  They stood still. She found herself breathing deeply, as if she had been running. Under his intense gaze, her whole being seemed to melt. What message her hazel eyes gave him, she could not tell, but he must have read some acquiescence there. He gathered her into his arms, and their lips met.

  For several moments, they remained in a close embrace; then she gently detached herself, standing back, but still clasping his hands. Her bonnet had fallen to the back of her head, held only by its ribbons.

  “Anthea, my dearest!”

  He made as if to take her in his arms again, but she shook her head, smiling.

  “I love you,” he said, his grey eyes deep and serious. “Do you — can you possibly — return my feelings, dearest girl?”

  The mischief had vanished from her own eyes.

  “I — I believe I can,” she said in a low tone.

  His voice caught on a note of exultation; this time, he would not be denied, sweeping her once more into a strong embrace. She reciprocated eagerly, with no pretence of maidenly shrinking.

  Presently, she pushed him gently away.

  “We must go — the groom will be awaiting us, and Aunt Julia will not like it if we’re too long absent,” she reminded him.

  “Oh, confound the rest of the world! But I suppose you’re in the right of it,” he conceded reluctantly. “Since we must, let us turn back, then.”

  He placed an arm about her waist, and together they retraced their steps.

  “I’ll speak to your father as soon as your parents return from their visit to the Lakes,” he said jubilantly. “How soon will you marry me, dearest?”

  “I — I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “I’m not sure that I want to enter the married state immediately.”

  He stopped in his tracks, consternation in his face.

  “Not be married! But then — you do love me, Anthea, don’t you? There’s no mistake on my part?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said firmly. “But no — you mustn’t embrace me again, for we need to talk seriously, to understand each other.”

  He drew back, checking the instinctive movement to take her again in his arms, and looking down at her with a hurt expression.

  “Understand each other? But what is there to understand beyond our love and its natural outcome in marriage?”

  She sighed. “Yes, it is difficult to explain. But, you see, Sidney —” it was the first time she had used his name, and he thrilled to it — “I fear I’m rather a contrary female! There are so many things I would like to do before I settle down to being a staid married lady — even with you,” she added, looking shyly up at him. “I want to travel overseas —”

  “But I’ll take you! Tell me where — we can go there for our bridal visit!”

  She shook her head. “Yes, that would be delightful, too, but it isn’t quite what I mean. I want to discover places — and things — for myself, and by myself. I want — oh, I don’t know quite what I do want, except that I wish to be free for just a little longer! Can you understand that? Please say you do! Please, dear Sidney!”

  “What I do understand,” he answered, in a deeply mortified tone, “is that you don’t feel for me as I for you, and you are giving me my congé. Very well, I can’t do other than accept. Allow me to apologise for having pestered you on this subject. I promise not to return to it again.”

  “Oh!” she cried, breaking away from him and running ahead out of the wood. “Men are beyond anything stupid!”

  “No harm can possibly come to ye, Mrs Healey, none whatsoever,” Watts assured the trembling maid. “Two of us here to take care of ye. Now just sit ye down on yon stool, and I’ll leave the door open a crack, not enough for him to see ye, but so’s ye can hear his voice. All ye have to do, wench, is listen — just listen, and if ye recognises that voice, make a sign to Mr Rutherford here, beside ye. A nod will do — no need to speak. D’ye understand?”

  She nodded, sitting down as directed, but still looking frightened, in spite of the reassuring presence of Justin at her side.

  She had been brought surreptitiously to a small shed in the kitchen garden lit only by a single pane of glass in its roof. At this time on a Sunday the garden was deserted, so they were quite free from observation.

  In spite of the fact that Justin had a spare, athletic frame, he seemed to fill all the available space in the shed. A cobweb caught in his unruly hair. He brushed it aside impatiently.

  “Devilish place this, Joe,” he complained. “My sister’ll have a fit if she catches me before I’ve had a chance to wash and brush up, so don’t be too long about this, there’s a good chap.”

  At that moment, a footstep sounded approaching along the gravel path, so he froze into silence. Watts positioned himself in an easy stance in front of the door, which was almost closed.

  It was Ross who came up to the waiting Runner.

  He touched his cap respectfully.

  “You wanted me, sir?”

  Watts nodded.

  “Ay. Thought we’d have a chat where we could be on our own. Ye know about the accident to Mr de Ryde, of course?”

  Ross nodded. “Very sorry to hear it, sir.”

  “Ay. Understand ye took a message to Denby House for the master there not long before it happened — message from Sir George. That correct?”r />
  “Yessir. About four o’clock it would be. Don’t know what time the accident ’appened, though.”

  “Who did you give the message to?”

  “The butler, sir.”

  Watts nodded. So far, all this confirmed what he had previously discovered from Kirby and Sir George himself. The note had been a friendly message from Sir George to say that he would call in at Denby House on the following day if de Ryde would like to receive him. He had written it before going off to the Knavesmire with his family, instructing that one of the grooms might deliver it at any time convenient to Carr, the head groom.

  Watts was interested to observe that Ross, although reputedly coming from Bradford, had no trace of the Yorkshire accent. Indeed, his speech was more that of an upper servant than a groom, with the occasional lapse of a dropped aitch. He seemed quite composed.

  “Did ye return straight arterwards to y’r duties?”

  Ross hesitated. “Well, p’raps not quite — I stayed to talk to some of the stable lads I know, for a bit.”

  “I see. Earlier that day, ye were sent to York on an errand.”

  “Yessir — to the saddler’s.”

  Watts was silent for a few moments, steadily regarding the groom. Ross began to fidget under the scrutiny, looking less sure of himself.

  “The saddler’s — yes,” Watts continued. “And then ye looked in at the Black Swan in Coney Street.”

  Ross repressed a start, but said nothing, barely giving a nod to this. Watts, who had no intention of showing all his hand, deliberately abandoned that topic.

  “And then ye went on to a coffee house in the alley beside that red devil statue in Stonegate. Managed a fair old tour of the town, didn’t ye? Who was the cove ye met there?”

  He shot out the final sentence abruptly. This time, Ross could not manage to conceal his dismayed surprise.

  “A — a friend,” he replied haltingly. “No one in particular.”

  “Not been here long, have ye? Matter o’ six weeks or so? Not much time to make friends in the town.”

  “I — we — that’s to say,” Ross said desperately, “we knew each other afore. He’s from Bradford.”

  “Oh, yes? And his moniker? I suppose he’s got one,” Watts added, with heavy sarcasm.

  The groom made a strong effort to pull himself together.

  “His name’s Teasdale, sir. But what’s all this about — are you accusing me of anything? It bain’t a crime to meet a friend when a cove’s out on an errand, surely? Mayhap I did waste a bit of the master’s time, but they don’t set Runners on to you for that these days, do they?”

  Once again, Watts had no intention at this stage of revealing the full extent of his knowledge about the groom’s encounters with others.

  “Ye watch y’r mummer,” he warned. “No, they don’t waste our time with small fry like y’rself unless ye start tryin’ to swim in the big pool. Have a care, lest ye get gobbled up, my fine cully. That’s all — sling yer hook.”

  Ross departed smartly on this command, without once looking back.

  When he had quite disappeared, Justin pushed open the shed door and emerged, brushing his coat.

  “No good,” he said briefly.

  “Ye didn’t recognise his voice?” Watts asked Healey, disappointed.

  She stood up, also coming out into the open.

  “No, it was nothing like,” she said, in a firmer voice than they had heard from her lately. “He’s not the man. I can swear it.”

  “And how d’ye like it there, m’dear?” asked Watts, all benevolent interest.

  The Cholmondeley’s new parlour maid blushed and lowered her eyes.

  “Oh, Mr Watts! Tha shouldn’t talk like that, not when tha’s only known me a few days!” she protested, though not very strongly.

  “Long enough to find out as ye are a dear. And if so, why shouldn’t I say so?” he demanded.

  “Oh, thee lads from Lunnon be as bold as brass! What’s a lass to do with thee?”

  He gave her a sly glance. “Shall I tell ye, m’dear?”

  She replied that he was a terror and no mistake; for a few moments, the badinage followed its age-old pattern. Presently, Watts persuaded her to reply seriously to his original question.

  “Oh, it’s a’reet. Madam an’ maister’s very easy goin’. T’housekeeper’s a bit o’ a besom, but I can get round t’butler, I reckon. T’rest o’ t’staff is a’reet.”

  “What about the house guests? D’ye get any trouble from them?”

  She pursed her lips. “Well, that Sir John Fulford pinches my — tak’s liberties, sithee. It don’t do to meet him in a dark corner. Don’t see much on t’others.”

  “Married men, would ye say?”

  “An’ ’ow should I know, think on?” she asked him pertly. “I don’t even know if tha’s wed thysen!”

  “Heart whole an’ fancy free — at least, until I met you.”

  “Oh, I never! Mr Watts, behave thysen!”

  It took several minutes after this to steer the conversation back to the Cholmondeleys’ guests, but he managed it skilfully at last.

  “Well, I don’t reckon as any on ’em’s wed,” she pronounced. “No wife’d put up wi’ ’em bein’ away all t’time. What’s more, two on ’em, any road, goes off to —” she blushed again — “to them ’ouses wi’ a bad name, sithee. In a street called Pavement, so I ’eard tell.”

  “Which two would that be, my charmer?”

  She gave him a coy glance before naming Fulford and Barnet.

  “Reade and Fellowes don’t join ’em, then?”

  She shook her head. “Though they both go out o’ night times, when maister’s not entertaining.”

  “D’ye know when, my pretty? Last Tuesday, for instance?”

  She reprimanded him again before she condescended to pause and consider the question.

  “They’d bin to Knavesmire in t’day,” she said slowly. “Arter dinner, maister took ’em all into York to some club or other. They goes there often. Madam don’t ’ave much of a life, I reckon, ’appen that’s why she likes entertaining.”

  “Ye wouldn’t know what time they returned home that evening?”

  She glanced at him, a faint suspicion dawning; fortunately, she was not very bright.

  “Arter I was abed, any road. Only male staff stays up late, an’ p’raps madam’s personal maid at times.”

  He judged that it was wiser to ask no more questions at present about the house guests. At any rate, he felt he had laid some foundation for the future.

  CHAPTER 16

  On the following morning, Rogers made his excuses to his host and hostess. A letter he had just received — he waved it casually in one hand — had called for his presence at home in Sussex immediately.

  “Oh, dear,” remarked Julia sympathetically. “Not, I trust, bad news about the health of either of your parents?”

  “No, no, ma’am, nothing of that nature,” he reassured her. “Simply a business matter which must be attended to promptly, I fear, and can’t be dealt with in my absence. I regret infinitely being obliged to leave you, and at such short notice. It has been a prodigiously pleasant stay — would that I could prolong it. I can’t thank you sufficiently for your generous hospitality.”

  “Which was all very well,” pronounced Julia to the others, when their guest had taken leave of them all and departed, “but what does it signify, I wonder? Are you perhaps able to throw any light on the matter, Anthea?”

  “I, Aunt?” replied her niece, in well simulated surprise. “Why should you suppose I know anything of Mr Rogers’s concerns? You should rather address your questions to Justin, I imagine.”

  She went out of the room with an air of having pressing affairs to attend to elsewhere.

  Julia sighed. “I feel sure those two have quarrelled, Justin, though why in the world they should, quite passes my comprehension! Do you know anything — has Rogers confided in you?”

  Justin gave a wry smile
. “And if he had, m’dear sister, you couldn’t suppose I’d do anything so shabby as to betray his confidence? Very well —” he threw up his hands in a defensive gesture as she advanced threateningly — “yes, I do know something, and no, I don’t mean to tell you about it. I think you will know as well as I do that no good ever comes of meddling in affairs of that nature — leave it all to the healing influence of time, eh, George?”

  “Oh, ay, decidedly,” agreed his brother-in-law, without the slightest hesitation.

  “Well, it is all vastly tiresome,” declared Julia, accepting that she would get no more from her brother. “There’s the play this evening, for one thing. It’s to be Miss Campbell in The School For Scandal, and he did say that he was looking forward to that. However, I suppose people will have their whims.”

  Anthea herself made no reference to Sidney Rogers. She passed the rest of the day by riding with Louisa in the morning, and sitting quietly in the parlour with her aunt during the afternoon, a book in her hand to preclude conversation. Louisa alone noticed that her cousin seldom turned a page; but she was a discreet girl, and made no mention of this.

  That same morning, Perkin, landlord of the Black Horse in Firsdale village, had been imparting some interesting information to Joseph Watts.

  “Tha said to let ’ee know when I heard owt in tha line o’ business, maister Watts, so I reckon there’s a couple o’ things I can tell ’ee. They do talk, an’ no mistake, when they’ve ’ad a drop. One o’ t’lads from Mr de Ryde’s stable let slip that ’e ’eard a noise arter ’e was abed over t’vehicle shed t’night afore his maister’s accident. Only bein’ as ’e was nobbut ’arf awake and not minded to see what was afoot, ’e told ’imself it were nowt but rats. But since tha’s been there questionin’ ’em, he’s ’ad second thoughts — not what I’d call a quick thinkin’ lad at best, sithee.”

  “Oh, he has, has he?” repeated Watts grimly. “Well, reckon I’ll have a word with that cully. What d’ye say his moniker is?”

  “Bill Mott,” supplied Perkin. “Tha’ll likely ’ave spoken to ’im when tha was there afore. But that’s not all, Mr Watts — tha said to tell ’ee o’ anyone bein’ seen actin’ suspicious like, or where they’d no business to be. Well, I’ve ’eerd tell o’ a coupla queer things — might be nowt in ’em, think on, but reckon tha should know about ’em.”