Just Deserts (17 page)

***

Early the following week, had he cared to enquire into the
matter, he could have answered Bolsover’s question. The Winsford
family were delighted and honoured to receive an invitation to
spend race week near Newmarket with Lord and Lady
Buckfastleigh.

For once it was Persephone who was over the moon at this
treat in store, while Penelope sought the first opportunity of
asking Lady Rossendale if it was worth the nuisance of a two-day
journey.

‘
Surely it must be the dullest party in the world,
Aunt?’

‘
One would say so, but no,’ responded her
ladyship, shifting on the damask sofa and readjusting the skirts of
her open robe about her. ‘I must say, Clarissa was clever to choose
this strawberry. It is an excellent colour. No, Penelope, you must
not
think
of crying off. I should be mortified. And though
you may not enjoy the races, the company is always vastly
entertaining. Though I admit the journey is appalling.’ She glanced
across at the stocky figure of her son, who was standing by
Penelope’s chair, awaiting an opportunity to seize her attention.
‘Is it not so, Edmund?’

‘
Vastly disagreeable. But I dare say it may be less so if we
all travel together.’ His prim smile encompassed his
cousin.

‘
An excellent suggestion,’ agreed Lady Rossendale, and
turned to call to her sister, who was conversing with a friend of
her husband’s while that worthy had gone off to fetch something to
show him. ‘Clarissa!’

Mrs Winsford turned her head. ‘Yes, Harriet?’

‘
I am saying that we must all travel together.’

‘
Where?’

‘
Newmarket, of course. It will be far safer. More
comfortable, too.’

The nabob came back into
the saloon at this moment.

‘
Now then, old fellow, I’ve papers here to prove
it.’

Wholly ignoring the rest of the company, he sat down by his
friend and fell into discussion.

Mrs Winsford came to sit beside her sister on the sofa. ‘I
think it an excellent idea to travel together, Harriet. Though we
cannot accommodate all of us in one coach.’

‘
Naturally not. We will take two. And I hope you will keep
me company on the journey, Clarissa, for Rossendale will ride, of
course.’

‘
Is that necessary?’ her sister asked, with a sympathetic
glance at her unfortunate nephew.

‘
Unless you wish to go to the expense of hiring
outriders,
most
necessary,’ declared Lady Rossendale.
‘The roads are positively infested with any number of rogues. I
should not dream of travelling without
protection.’

But the nabob, forcibly dragged from his conversation to be
consulted on the matter, was scornful.

‘
Outriders? Pooh, nonsense! Do you mean to say I cannot
protect my own daughters after years and years in
India?’

‘
Yes, but this is not India,’ his sister-in-law said. ‘We
are talking of footpads and highwaymen.’

‘
Ha! We had to contend with a deal worse than footpads, let
me tell you, my lady. Why, an Indian bandit would cut your throat
for a handful of rupees.’

Her ladyship gasped, clutching a protective hand to her
neck.

‘
Archie!
Don’t heed him, Harriet,’ Clarissa
soothed.

‘
Don’t you fret over me and my little peas, my lady,’ the
nabob laughed. ‘If it will comfort you, I will have a pistol about
me, and thus engage to deal with any number of
desperadoes.’

‘
Well said, Papa,’ applauded Penelope. ‘I am sure you
will.’

She was so amused by the fuss and bother
attendant upon a simple journey that she was moved to relate the
episode to Fitzwarren when she encountered him at a
soirée
a day or so later.

‘
One would think this two-day expedition comparable to our
voyage from Bombay. Even Mama seems to be carried away by the
excitement of it all.’

‘
Is she indeed?’ Fitz laughed.

‘
Ridiculously so,’ Persephone put in. ‘We have heard of
nothing but trunks and bandboxes, and whether to take our own
sheets for the inn where we break the journey, down to which hats
to wear and how many shifts it will be proper to take.’

‘
Seph
,
bad girl, hush!’
begged Penelope, blushing.

‘
Well, it is so absurd. For my part, a single habit will do.
All I want is to get on that course and see the racing.’

Fitz smiled to see her eyes sparkle with such unwonted
enthusiasm. What a difference in her from the night of that first
ball. All because she had at last an opportunity to indulge her
preferences. He became aware that the girls were both looking
doubtfully down at someone standing by his elbow.

‘
Present me, Fitz, I charge you,’ begged Billy Bolsover. ‘I
have been dying to meet the nabob’s “little peas”.’

As Fitz introduced them, the twins exchanged
glances. So this was the suitor who would have
either
of
them to wife. Seeing that Penelope showed a distressing tendency to
giggle, and assuming Billy’s squat appearance to be the cause, Fitz
hastily threw the onus of responding on her
sister.

‘
Billy is another of your horse-mad turf notables, Miss
Persephone.’

Persephone looked at Billy Bolsover’s jovial countenance,
the animation dying out of her face. Her voice was cold.

‘
How do you do?’

‘
Splendidly, Miss Winsford, splendidly. Gather we are to
have the pleasure of your company up at Newmarket, eh?’ said Billy,
impervious to her obvious hostility.

‘
We are going to Newmarket, yes,’ she agreed, unwilling to
commit herself to his company.

‘
Excellent. I’ve heard a lot about you. Wonderful seat,
Charles tells us. Very much look forward to seeing you on
horseback.’

‘
And do you ride, Mr Bolsover?’ Penelope asked,
her eyes dancing. ‘I have a burning desire to see
you
on horseback!’

But Billy had not endured the roasting of his intimates for
years without learning not to take offence. He roared with laughter
and Pen could not but warm to him.

‘
Very droll, Miss Winsford. But you will not put me out of
countenance, you know. I see we shall have an amusing time of it
with you at Buckfastleigh’s.’

‘
Oh, are you staying there also?’

‘
Certainly, certainly. Mind you, it’s a tricksy journey.
Good thing there’s so many of us travelling up at the same
time.’

‘
There now, Seph, you see,’ exclaimed Penelope. ‘And Mama
would have it that we needed outriders.’

‘
Stuff and nonsense,’ scoffed Billy, unconsciously echoing
the nabob. ‘Outriders? Absurd! How do you mean to go?’

And once again the discussion turned on the Winsfords’
travel arrangements, Penelope finding an appreciative audience for
the joke of the fuss and bother being made, with Fitz joining in
amid a deal of hilarity.

Only Persephone was struck by the thought that this Billy
Bolsover was showing an uncommon interest in their journey, asking
what days they meant to travel and where they meant to put up for
the night they must spend on the road.

As it chanced, the journey proved monotonously uneventful
until, on the second day, an unprecedented halt was necessitated by
the discovery that one of the horses in the team pulling the coach
carrying Archibald and the girls was lame. Persephone and the groom
conducted an investigation.

‘
A badly placed nail,’ Persephone told her relations. ‘The
poor beast must have been in considerable pain all this
while.’

While they limped the coach on to the next village, she
held forth, hot against a smith who could take so little pride in
his work as to make such a seemingly trivial, yet disastrous
mistake.

The coach bearing the servants and baggage had been sent on
ahead so as to be able to make suitable preparations in their
employers’ allotted rooms at the Buckfastleigh mansion. As time was
getting on, Archie persuaded his wife and sister-in-law also to
continue on their way.

‘
For if we should find it difficult to procure another
horse, at least there will only be three of us to be
incommoded.’

There was no denying his good sense and the second coach
lumbered off with Rossendale in attendance on horseback. They were
able to hire a fourth horse from a local farmer without too much
difficulty. Arrangements had then to be made for both horses’
return, and as by this time everyone was hungry, a little
refreshment was taken at the inn, so that they were quite late
starting off again.

Dusk was falling by the time the coach left the main road
to take the rackety pot-holed track that led past Newmarket Heath
to the estate owned by Buckfastleigh. They had rattled and bumped
only a couple of miles over this rough way when there was a sudden
flurry of thudding hoofs, a hoarse cry, and an explosive crack that
nearly deafened the inmates as the coach came to a shuddering
halt.

There was a chorus of exclamation within the
vehicle.

‘
The devil!’

‘
Drat, what now?’

And, ‘What the deuce ?’ from the nabob.

But before he could indulge in further speculation, the
door of the coach was wrenched open and he found himself staring
down the barrel of a long pistol.

The inside of the coach
went deathly quiet.

‘
Come on out of that!’ ordered the man behind the pistol
gruffly, his greatcoated bulk shutting out the last of the
daylight.

‘
Down with you, cull!’ he said sharpening his tone, and
stepped back, gesturing with his weapon for the nabob to
alight.

‘
Get down, Papa, for God’s sake,’ whispered
Penelope.

‘
Very well, you scoundrel, I’ll come down. But be sure you
will pay for this!’ barked Archie, as he hoisted himself out of the
coach and jumped down into the road.

‘
You too, my pretties,’ the man said, pointing with his free
hand into the coach, while his pistol still covered the
nabob.

Penelope hastily jumped out and went to stand by her
father, but Persephone, though her heart beat fast, took her time,
pausing in the doorway to take in the scene outside.

The man who had now stepped back from the door was masked,
with a slouch hat pulled low over his forehead. Another man, also
masked and still on horseback, covered the groom on the box,
against whom the coachman lay slumped. So that had been the
explosion they had heard. The coachman had been shot. Some yards
away another horse stood in the shadows, the rider on its back
sitting quietly, not as yet taking part in the scene.

Her dilatory progress might have earned her a reprimand
from the highwayman, were it not for the fact that he was looking
from her face to her sister’s in surprise.

‘
Dang me, if you ain’t as like as ninepence,’ he said,
whistling, and then a curse from his companion by the horses
brought him to a recollection of his business.

‘
Get down, missie, before I blows a hole in the old
gager!’

Persephone jumped down and went to join her father and
sister.

‘
Now then,’ the man said, waving his pistol impartially at
all three, ‘let’s have a look-see what we got here.’

‘
Ha! You’ll get nothing from us, varmint!’ Archie
said.

‘
Will I not, then? Think I’m a rum pad, eh, a-going to empty
your pockets for a few gewgaws? Well, I’m not.’ He shouted at the
groom who was shivering on the box, his eyes riveted on the second
man’s pistol. ‘Hoy, you! Get down out of that!’

‘
Move!’ growled the second man, urging his horse closer and
aiming his pistol higher.

As the terrified groom scrambled down, the nabob stealthily
crept a hand into his pocket, while the highwayman’s eyes were off
him. The movement caught Penelope’s attention and she looked down.
In turn, this brought their captor’s head sharply round.

‘
Be still,’ he barked. To the groom, he said, ‘There’ll be a
strongbox under the seat. Get it out.’

The nabob muttered an
oath and started forward.

The pistol swung to cover
him.

‘
Stand, I said!’

‘
You scoundrel! Villain!’

‘
Stow it, cull.’

‘
Papa, don’t,’ Penelope begged.

Persephone said not a word. Her eyes never left
the man in charge. There might be an opening.
Any
opening.
If only Papa would be more careful!

The groom was already in the coach, searching with shaking
hands under the seat. His fingers found something hard and he gave
a glad cry.

‘
You have it?’ the highwayman called out and looked round to
see the groom tug out a large, carved wooden box. ‘Ah, there’s the
beauty!’