Lord Perfect (14 page)

PEREGRINE ARRIVED AT Hyde Park Corner tired, hot, and
cross. He'd lost his way several times, and twice he'd had to run
away from louts who took exception to his costly attire. In normal
circumstances, Peregrine would have run straight at them, in order to
beat them bloody. He couldn't take the time, and having to run away
like a coward did not improve his temper.

He was angry with himself, too, for not having the good
sense to hire a hackney and spare himself a great deal of
aggravation.

This was not the best frame of mind in which to approach
Olivia, who stood talking to some women selling pies. Beside her
stood the boy version of a bull: Nat Diggerby, no doubt. His head
went straight down to his shoulders, with no discernible neck
between, and his shoulders were so wide he must have to go through
doors sideways. He stood like a bull, too, head tilted downward,
while only his eyes moved, watching the scene about him.

Peregrine straightened his own shoulders, puffed out his
chest, and marched up to them. Instead of the persuasive and tactful
speech he'd rehearsed, he said, "Miss Wingate, I've come to take
you home."

Her big, blue doll eyes widened. "Why? Has
something happened to Mama?"

"No, something has happened to you," Peregrine
said. "A head injury is my guess. It's the only way to explain
this cork-brained scheme of yours."

Scowling, the bull-boy moved in front of Olivia. "Here,
bugger off, you," he said.

"Bugger off yourself," Peregrine said. "I
wasn't talking to you."

The boy grasped the front of Peregrine's coat.

"Take your hand away," Peregrine said.

"Oooh, will you listen to him?" said the boy.
"Ain't he the fine lady, though?"

"No, I ain't," Peregrine said, and slammed his
fist into Bull-Boy's jaw.

BENEDICT WAS AT his club when he was informed that one
of his servants wished to speak to him.

This was not a good sign.

The last time a servant had come to the club for him was
when Ada had collapsed upon her return home after a prayer meeting.

Still, Benedict appeared calm and composed when he
entered the antechamber where Thomas waited.

At his entrance, Thomas's face worked.

A very bad sign.

Ignoring the cold spreading in his gut, Benedict told
him to say what the matter was in as few words as possible.

"It's Lord Lisle, my lord," Thomas said,
blinking hard. "I don't know where he is. He went in the print
shop door like he always does. I went into Porter's Coffee House to
wait, like I always do. I come out like I always do, a few minutes
early. He never come out, sir. I waited a quarter hour past the time,
then I went up. The classroom was locked up tight, and no one
answered when I knocked and called. I went down to the shop and asked
Mr. Popham if the drawing lessons was over for today. He said there
wasn't any. Mrs. Wingate went home early, he said, on account her
pupil never came."

The cold spread further, numbing feeling. Time itself
seemed to slow, as though frozen, too. "I see," said
Benedict. Then he ordered his hat and coat and left with his footman.

During the short walk home, his feelings safely closed
down, Benedict disciplined his mind to analyze the problem as though
it were like any of the other problems he was called upon every day
to sort out and solve.

By the time he entered his house, the thousands of wild
possibilities he might have entertained had narrowed to the two
likeliest, in the circumstances:

1. Peregrine had run away.

2. Despite all their precautions, someone had found out
who Peregrine was and had kidnapped him.

Benedict went up to the boy's room with Thomas. A search
revealed no signs of a planned departure. No clothes were missing,
Thomas said, except for those Lord Lisle had worn today. Questioned
more closely, however, the footman did produce two relevant pieces of
information. First, the boy had struck up an acquaintance with a
red-haired girl at the British Museum two weeks ago. Second,
Peregrine was in the habit of visiting the garden several times a
day.

Benedict destroyed several shrubs and a flower bed
before he discovered the loose bricks near the back garden gate.
Stuck to one was a broken piece of sealing wax and a fragment of
paper.

Benedict returned to the bedroom. His
gaze went to the window seat, which looked out into the garden. He
often found his nephew there, bent over a book. A few minutes later,
Benedict found the cache of letters, folded between the pages of
Belzoni's
Narrative
.

* * *

IT DID NOT take Lord Lisle long to leave Nat Diggerby in
a stunned heap by the side of the road. It was time enough for a
crowd to gather, though, which gave Olivia a chance to slip away
unnoticed.

The crowd aroused the curiosity of passersby, and
traffic slowed in consequence. The road on both sides of the tollgate
became jammed with vehicles, horses, and pedestrians. Among those
forced to wait was a young farmer driving a small wagon. Olivia
approached him. Tears filled her great blue eyes. From her trembling
lips fell a poignant tale about an ailing mother in Slough.

Moved, the farmer offered her a ride in his cart as far
as Brentford.

She climbed in.

Before the cart was through the tollgate, Lord Lisle
came running alongside. "You beastly girl!" he said. "I
won't let you do this."

"Oh, look, it is my poor brother," she told
the farmer. "He is mad with grief. I told him to stay in London.
He is sure to find work eventually. But he…"

She went on to tell a tragic tale of family woes. The
farmer swallowed it whole. He told Lord Lisle he was welcome to join
his sister if he chose.

Lord Lisle looked wildly about him. A couple of soldiers
had got hold of Nat Diggerby and were dragging him to the watch
house. .

Lord Lisle climbed into the cart.

BATHSHEBA LIT ANOTHER candle and read the letter again,
because the first time, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on
her.

After the second perusal, she was furious.

Olivia's scheme was all too familiar. It was the same
method her parents used to deal with their difficulties. They'd count
on a crackbrained scheme to solve all their problems at once, rather
than tackle them directly, one at a time. They'd chance their money
on a throw of the dice, rather than pay the rent with it.

She flung the letter down. "Only wait until I get
my hands on you, my girl."

But Bathsheba must find her first.

The letter did not reveal her destination. Olivia said
she was going to find Edmund DeLucey's legendary treasure, however,
and that was clue enough.

She would head for Throgmorton, the Earl of Mandeville's
country house, because that was where Jack had said the treasure was,
and why listen to boring Mama when Papa's stories were so much more
exciting and romantic?

The only question was how great a head start she had.
Not more than a few hours, Bathsheba guessed. Had Olivia missed
school, Bathsheba would have heard from Miss Smithson by now. With
any luck, one might catch up with the girl in a matter of hours
rather than days.

Still, to pursue her, Bathsheba needed money, which
meant she needed a pawnbroker. She was not sure where the nearest one
was. But Mrs. Briggs would know. Meanwhile, Bathsheba must find
something to pawn.

She began to tear the rooms apart. She emptied cupboards
and drawers, pulled bed linens from the mattresses. She flung
everything into a heap in the center of the room. She was wrapping up
her few pieces of cutlery when someone knocked on the door.

She rose, pushed her hair out of her face, and walked to
the door, praying the visitor was the watchman, the beadle, or a
constable, with Olivia in tow. She opened the door.

The man standing in the dimly lit hall was not the
watchman, the beadle, or a constable.

"Mrs. Wingate," said Lord Rathbourne, looking
excessively bored. "I believe your daughter has made off with my
nephew."

THE PLACE WAS a shambles, and so was Mrs. Wingate. Her
coiffure was tumbling to pieces, the raven-black curls falling over
her forehead and bouncing against her neck. Her face was flushed. She
had a smudge on her nose and another on her cheek.

She glared at him.

Benedict wanted to snatch her up and kiss the scowl
away.

He had to drag his mind back to
reality, and remember why he'd come:
Peregrine
.

…
who wasn't here, as Benedict saw in the instant
it took him to survey the room. His spirits sank. All the evidence
had indicated his nephew would try to stop Miss Wingate, rather than
go along with her.

Still, Benedict had endured nearly two weeks of
stultifying boredom, and it was impossible to gaze at Bathsheba
Wingate, tousled and cross, and feel completely cast down.

"I beg your pardon for giving no warning," he
said. "I should have asked Mrs. Briggs to announce me, but she
had company. I was disinclined to wait in her parlor, making her
guests uncomfortable, while she came up to ask whether you were
receiving visitors. I have let her believe I have come to inspect the
place. May I enter?"

"Yes, why not?" With a dismissive wave, Mrs.
Wingate moved away from the door. "I was about to go to the
pawnbroker, but this…" She dragged her hand through the
glossy black curls. "Lord Lisle is gone, too? With Olivia? But
they scarcely know each other."

"It seems they have become well acquainted,"
he said. "They have been corresponding secretly for weeks."

After briefly explaining this day's discoveries, he took
out from his inside breast pocket the most recent of the letters he'd
found and gave it to her.

She scanned it quickly, then paused, her color mounting.
" 'Pale and thin,' indeed," she said. "That is her
over-active imagination at work."

Benedict did not think so. Though Mrs. Wingate wasn't
pale at the moment, her face seemed thinner, more drawn. While she
read on, his gaze slid lower. She had seemed more rounded the last
time he saw her…

Kissed her.

Touched her.

Think about the weather
,
he told himself.

She briskly folded up the letter and gave it back. "She
will have hidden his somewhere about," she said. "I see no
reason to waste time looking for them. Time will be better spent
finding her—and Lord Lisle, if he is with her, which I can
scarcely believe. He is such a logical boy. He does question
everything, as you said. I cannot believe he did not question Olivia.
I should have thought he had better sense than to be drawn into one
of her madcap schemes."

Benedict returned the letter to his coat pocket. "I
had the same thought," he said. "I could not believe
Peregrine had fallen in with her plan. Her latest letter, you must
have noticed, names one Nat Diggerby her chosen escort and refers to
Peregrine's misgivings about her quest. He must have tried to
dissuade her. In which case, one might reasonably suppose he went to
stop her. I came here, hoping he'd retrieved her and brought her
home."

"Not on his own, he couldn't," she said. "If
he'd asked my advice, I should have recommended he take a law officer
with him. Or a large body of soldiers."

Any other mother would be in fainting fits or hysterics,
Benedict thought. She did not even appear anxious. She was definitely
out of temper, though.

"Not being a thirteen-year-old boy, I shall not
require a regiment," Benedict said. "Not that I should
dream of alerting the authorities. The last thing I need is for
anyone to hear of this." If any member of his set found out, the
story would be all over London within hours. It would reach Atherton
in Scotland within days. That was not a pretty prospect.

"The footman Thomas should be sufficient for my
purposes," he went on. "Between us, I reckon we can recover
a pair of children." He started for the door.

She moved quickly to block his way. Her blue eyes
flashed, and he almost took a step back—in surprise, that was
all.

"You are distressed," she said. "I excuse
your oblivious-ness on those grounds."

"You excuse my
what
?"

"This is Olivia's doing,"
she said, "and Olivia is
my
problem. I understand how her mind works. I know where she is going.
I am the one who will search for her." The color came and went
in her cheeks. "However, you can save me time if you would lend
me the money to hire a vehicle."

His jaw almost dropped. He caught himself in time.

"You have taken leave of your senses if you believe
I should sit at home twiddling my thumbs while you hunt for my
nephew," he said. "He is not your responsibility but mine."