Barbara Metzger (15 page)

He tapped the London missive. “Number one’s for the money. And number two”—he looked down at his fancy high-heeled, pointy-toed boots—“is for the snow.”

Chapter Three

But, my lord, it’s the middle of the night. Your wedding night.” The landlord of the village inn was practically in tears as he tried to seat Viscount Maitland in his one private parlor.

“I bloody well know what night it is. Everyone seems bent on reminding me!” Lee was having none of the landlord’s hospitality as he stood in the hallway brushing the snow from his greatcoat’s shoulders and stomping his frozen feet. “What room?”

“But…but you can’t go wake up the paying customers!” The landlord dropped a plaintive “My lord” at the end.

“Can’t I? Just watch! Either you tell me which room holds the man who sent a note up to the Meadows yesterday, or I’ll go kicking down every door upstairs until I find him. And I wager whoever’s paying Bessie to warm his bed tonight won’t be half pleased.”

Nor would that other couple who stopped here on account of the snow. Cousins, they said. The kissing kind, the innkeeper swore.

“What room?” the viscount demanded again, snapping his coiled driving whip against his thigh. His lordship wasn’t known for his temper, but the innkeeper
wasn’t known for his foolhardiness either. “The second door on the right.”

Lee took the stairs two at a time, calling back over his shoulder, “See that my horses don’t take a chill. I won’t be long.”

Sir Parcival was still outside in the snow, staring up at the wood sign swaying above the doorway of the inn. As usual, there were no words, from the days when almost no one could read, just the carved and painted outlines of a hart and a drake. “The Deer and the Duck?” He curled his lip. “Man, these folks have no imagination.’’

It didn’t take much imagination to figure what Lord Maitland had in mind when he pounded on the second door to the right with the handle of his horsewhip.

“It’s Maitland.”

A scratchy voice answered: “I need a minute, m’lord, to put on my—”

A minute was too long for Lee. He pushed the door in, rushed toward the bed, and grabbed for the figure sitting there wiping his eyes.

Lee lifted the man in one hand by the collar of his flannel nightshirt. “If you say one word,” he warned, brandishing the whip in his other hand, “I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

What was not to understand? The man nodded as vigorously as he could dangling from the viscount’s fist. That was when Lee realized his captive had almost no weight to him. “What the deuce?”

He dragged the fellow toward the open door and the hall lamp. What he saw did not make him happy. The mawworm was missing most of his hair, a few of his teeth, one of his legs, and part of his ear. Besides that, he was half Lee’s weight and twice his age. “Damn and blast, I can’t kill an old cripple.”

“I never thought I’d thank them Frogs for what they done to me,” the old man croaked.

Lee shook him once and dragged him back to the bed. “Shut up, I said.” He lit a candle, then slammed the door on the innkeeper’s anxious face. Sir Parcival came in anyway, but no one noticed, except for the sudden chill. There were some noises in the hall as the landlord reassured his other guests that the inn wasn’t on fire or under attack. A dog was barking out in the stable, but soon even that sound died, until all that was left was the viscount’s whip tapping against his breeches, the old man’s raspy breathing, and Sir Parcival humming “Cherry Ripe,” which he’d heard a maid singing.

“Thunderation!” Lord Maitland swore, shivering with the cold. “What else can go wrong in one night?”

“With you? Anything, if you keep going off half-cocked,” Sir Parcival commented with that half-arrogant look as he leaned against the window ledge, staring out at the falling snow.

Lee wasn’t looking, or listening. He was searching the room’s meager contents for weapons. The chest of drawers contained a comb and a razor, a change of linen, and two handkerchiefs. The peg behind the door held a suit of rough but serviceable clothing. Lee patted the pants pockets to make sure they were empty, then tossed the worn breeches to the oldster, who had taken the opportunity to strap on his wooden leg.

“It’s like this, m’lord,” he began.

Lord Maitland was checking under the mattress. He tossed a thin purse he’d found there onto the bed and took a threatening step closer to the graybeard. “I told you to keep your mouth shut!”

“Then how you going to find out about—”

Lee’s whip snapped inches away from his nose. “I can take a fly off my leader’s ear at a full gallop. Do you have anything else you’d like to lose?”

The man buttoned his lip, and his woolen pants.

“Now, listen,” the viscount ground out after opening a frayed carpetbag to feel among the folded shirts and pants. “I don’t want to hear any of your filth except the
answers to the questions I’m going to ask. Is that clear?”

The old man spit between the gap in his teeth, perilously close to the viscount’s feet. “Clear as the mud on your boots, m’lord.”

“Don’t push your luck, granfer. It’s your years keeping you alive, not my patience. That’s in short supply tonight. Now, what’s your name?”

“Waters, m’lord, Private Jacob Waters, late of His Majesty’s Army.”

“Too late, it looks like.”

“Aye, but they wasn’t handing out pensions, and I never had nothing to come home to. So I stayed on.” He knocked on the wooden leg. “Till they tossed me out when I wasn’t fit to be cannon fodder no more. Shipped me home with a pocketful of silver and a coach ticket.”

It was a common enough story, and not one to make decent Englishmen proud, how the country treated its returning veterans. Nor was it an excuse to turn to a life of crime.

Waters went on, now that the viscount seemed to be listening: “It weren’t so bad when we wasn’t seeing action. I got to make extra money taking care of some of the younger officers’ weapons and uniforms and such. Them as didn’t have a batman of their own. That was how I got to know Lieutenant Morville. Kept his billet for him, I did. Your brother was—”

Waters found himself dangling above the ground once more.

“Don’t you even mention my brother’s name again, do you hear me?”

“I bet they can hear you clear ’cross town,” Sir Parcival put in, for no one’s benefit but his own. “If you’d just listen to the old warhorse, we could all go home and get into warm beds.”

Oblivious, Maitland had lowered the soldier back to the ground. “Who else knows?”

“That I took care of Lieu—the young officers? Everyone in the company, I’d guess. Weren’t no secret.”

“Damn you, who else knows how he died?”

Sir Parcival nodded. “Now, that’s more like it, man.”

Private Waters must have thought so, too, for he let out a deep breath. “Well, there’s this señorita, Mona.”

“The devil take it, I don’t want to hear about your lightskirt.”

“You got it wrong. She was your bro—” The look on Maitland’s face made the private’s voice trail off. “Mona’s no lightskirt.”

“Stubble it. I want to know who you told in London.”

“London? I called at your place there, but they said as how you were in the country. I didn’t talk to nobbut the butler.”

“My own butler’s not blackmailing me, by Jupiter!”

“Blackmail, is it?” The man rubbed his stubbly chin. “That why you’re so prickly? You think I—”

“I think that if you don’t have an accomplice, you have a competitor. I’ll see both of you rot in hell before I give either of you one shilling. Now, who else knew the truth about my brother’s death? Someone who might be in London now?”

“I guess it must be one of those toffs Mona saw. They come out to headquarters to fetch home a relative as got wounded. An officer. She didn’t get their names, and I was on maneuvers. But they was the ones what rigged that card game what made the lieutenant—”

“Not anther word!”

“But we come all this way to tell you the story. We figure one of those nobs was the—”

“I’ve heard enough.” Lee waved his fist under the smaller man’s chin. “You’ll never tell your story to anyone, do you understand? I’ve managed to give my brother more honor than he deserves, and I mean him to keep it. Why, if I had my way, I’d put you on a ship to
New South Wales along with the other scum of the earth.”

“Here now, gov’nor, you can’t do that!”

“Of course I can. I’m the magistrate.”

“But I didn’t do nothing!” Private Waters wailed.

Lee was sick of the whole thing by now. “You threatened a peer of the realm. That’s enough to get you transported.” He started throwing the man’s things into the carpetbag. “Be happy I’m only sending you to my plantation in Honduras. You can tell your story there till you are blue in the face.”

Sir Parcival was shaking his head. “Blue Honduras? Nah.”

Waters, meanwhile, was hobbling around, trying to keep his belongings away from this madman. “Honduras? Threat? I only wanted to make sure you knew the truth about your brother.”

The viscount tossed the old man his coat. “I know all there is to know about my brother,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You don’t neither of you know nothing about t’other. He thought you was a fair, intelligent man, and you believe he could be a trai—!”

Lee stuffed the fellow’s nightcap in his mouth, bundled him into a blanket, and tossed him over one shoulder. He picked up his whip and the satchel with his other hand, and stormed out of the room, down the stairs.

The landlord was standing there, mouth agape. Lee tossed him the carpetbag while he reached into his pocket for some coins. He put a golden boy into the man’s hand. “This should settle Private Waters’s bill and any other questions you might be thinking of asking.”

“Nary a one, my lord, nary a one. Good evening and…and my felicitations on your wedding.”

Lee just grunted as he threw Waters and his valise onto the seat of his curricle when the stableboy brought
it around. He gave the boy the nod and tossed him another coin. Then he cracked his whip, this time well over his horses’ heads, sending them off at a trot through the snow-covered lanes.

Sir Parcival was perched behind, where the tiger would ride. He was staring back through the swirling snow at the inn sign while it was still visible in the light of the lanterns kept burning to either side of the door. “The Stag and the Scoter? The Buck and Wing? Yeah, that must be it. The Buck and Wing. Not bad.”

The village had a tiny gaol, a shed behind the livery where prisoners could await trial. The viscount didn’t take Waters there, not to spew his filth into any passing ear. Instead he drove through the village, then down the hill to the shallow valley where some of his tenants had their cottages. Beyond that he turned the curricle onto a side path that took a shortcut through the home woods. The snow was falling softly, but the geldings were surefooted and the moonlight was sufficient. The only sounds were the jingle of harness and the horses’ breathing.

In fact, Lee couldn’t help thinking that this could be a lovely drive if it were his wife tucked cozily at his side to share the carriage blanket. Instead he had a footless ex-foot soldier next to him. And a chill down his spine as if the Devil rode at his back.

He drove through one of the clearings that gave the Meadows its name and reined in the horses at an empty gamekeeper’s cottage. The windowless back room had a padlock, to keep out mischief-makers and poachers. Here was where the viscount deposited his prisoner and his bag.

“There’s a pallet and some blankets. I’ll start the fire in the other room so you’ll get some warmth, and someone will be out in the morning to bring food. Take off the leg. You aren’t going anywhere.” Lee looked around at the neat little cottage while Waters, protesting the order, protesting his kidnapping, and protesting his innocence, removed his peg leg.

“You had only to ask.” His lordship put the wood and leather contraption on top of the mantel, in the outer room. “If you were in need, I would have found you a cottage like this, just because you took care of Michael.”

“I didn’t come begging for no charity. I got some blunt put by. I only wanted to see justice done.”

“At what cost? And how many lives ruined?’ Lee shut the back door on the old man’s ragings. “Go to sleep, Private Waters. If I find your friends in London and put them out of the extortion business, too, who knows? Maybe I’ll reconsider and just send you to Ireland.”

“But what about Mona?” Waters shouted as he heard the lock click shut.

“Mona? Oh, your Spanish whore. If she wants to go to Ireland, she can go, too.”

“Mona ain’t no whore. She’s a lady, and your brother was going to…”

Maitland drove off. When he got home, Wheatley was waiting in the hall to remove his master’s greatcoat, as if it were two in the afternoon, not two in the morning.

“Dash it, I can let myself into my own house and see myself to bed, Wheatley,” the viscount complained as he handed over his gloves and hat, feeling guilty about keeping the man from his rest. “I’ve told you a hundred times.”

“Yes, milord. But that’s what you hired me to do.”

Maitland nodded. “Well, as long as you’re up, I’ll need you to locate our most trustworthy footman. He’ll be bringing food and supplies out to a prisoner at the old gamekeeper’s cottage in the morning. I don’t want him talking to the man, and I particularly don’t want him talking about the man.”