Lord Perfect (19 page)

"Indeed, only think of what he might have missed,"
she said. "Now he will have the thrill of traveling on a vehicle
dangerously overcrowded, filthy, and prone to overturning. He will be
crammed in with persons in dire need of a bath or sobriety or both.
It is no better outside than in. Inside, you cannot sleep because you
are jolted and jostled constantly. Outside, you dare not sleep,
because you will fall off. No matter who your fellow passengers are,
at least one of them is sure to be sick on the way. Even outside, the
smell is appalling—and let us not forget the fleas and lice
one's fellow passengers share so generously."

"Peregrine is a boy," Rathbourne said. "They
don't fret about dirt or vermin, and their sense of smell is far from
delicate. Recall that he's shared a dormitory with other boys. Boys
are disgusting creatures. Your daughter is far more likely than my
nephew to be uncomfortable."

Olivia was by no means the most fastidious girl in the
world, Bathsheba reflected. And the children would certainly be safer
on the stage than walking along a dark road. Still, time was passing,
and she and Rathbourne were drawing farther and farther from London.

"I was so sure we would find them by now," she
said.

"As was I," he said.

"What shall we do if they are not in Salt Hill?"
she said.

"They cannot go far in the small hours of the
morning with no money," Rathbourne said. "Your daughter
will have told one of the innkeepers a poignant story and obtained a
space by the hearthside, if not a bed with one of the servants.
Should the innkeepers prove hard-hearted, she will practice her wiles
on one of the stable men, and we'll find our runaways sleeping in the
straw."

After a pause, he added, "When we learnt they were
on the stage, and therefore relatively safe, it dawned on me that I
was fretting over Peregrine as though he were a small, helpless
child. This is far from the case. He is a precocious boy, and boys
are wonderfully resilient. I reminded myself that he is all of
thirteen years old, intelligent and curious, and has never had a
proper adventure."

"Did you?" she said. "When you were a
boy?"

The instant the words were out,
Bathsheba wished them back. She
wished
she would stop prying and probing.

It took him a while to answer, and she hoped he was
devising a polite way to turn the subject to something less personal.

"I had a great many adventures," he said. "I
ran away at every opportunity."

That brought her head around, and she stared at his
perfect profile. "You're joking," she said. "How does
an earl's son contrive to run away? And why would he?"

"If it were easy to do, it
wouldn't be worth doing," he said. "But outwitting the
adults was a game to me. I ran away when I felt bored or annoyed or…
well, when I was sick to death of being
good
.
Once I went missing for three days."

Bathsheba could picture his youthful self all too
easily. She had no trouble imagining the glint in boyish eyes of the
devil in him.

Was that what called to her, in those dark eyes?

Her heart began to race.

"Olivia and Lisle will
not
go missing for three days," she said.

"That would certainly complicate matters," he
said.

"Complicate?" she said. "It
would be
disastrous
."
Three days, traveling with him… talking, discovering more
about him… sitting so close, feeling the warmth and strength
of him… listening to his deep voice in the dark…
looking at his long, gloved hands.

"I cannot be gone overnight in your company,"
she went on, her voice sharp. "I told Mrs. Briggs I was called
away to a sick relative, and you had kindly offered to drive me. I
said I might be back rather late."

"At this rate, I doubt we'll be back before dawn at
the earliest," he said. "We shall require an alibi. You
told me weeks ago that you came of a long line of accomplished liars.
I must agree that you are highly accomplished. I noticed how
beautifully you lied to the innkeeper at the White Hart. You even had
me almost believing you were my sister." He turned and met her
gaze. "Almost."

He was smiling that provoking not-quite-a-smile, the one
that could be anything: amusement, mockery, cynicism, condescension.
Yet she heard a smile, or laughter, in his voice. The sound was like
a whisper in the dark, and she felt the whisper glide down her neck
and on down her spine.

"I said the first thing that came to mind,"
she said.

"I have no doubt you can think of something equally
simple and convincing to account for an extended disappearance,"
he said. "Ah, that will be the bridge over the Coln River
ahead."

She turned her gaze forward. His eyes were sharper than
hers. To her, the road ahead was unfathomable gloom.

"There's a lurid tale about the Ostrich Inn of
Colnbrook," he said. "Do you know it?"

"This is the first I've ever heard of the place,"
she said.

"Oh, it is quite famous," he said. "Some
centuries ago, the inn was called the Hospice. The wealthy merchants
who went back and forth between Bath, Reading, and London often
stayed there. The strange thing was, sixty of these fellows went in
and never came out. They simply vanished, along with all of their
goods. You would have thought the authorities would have become
suspicious, but no. Then, one night, a rich merchant named Thomas
Cole, who'd often stayed there without mishap, disappeared. Unlike
the others, however, he reappeared. His body, well boiled, was found
floating in the river a few days later."

"Well
boiled
?"
Bathsheba said. "Are you serious?"

"You are aware that the heads of evildoers were
often stuck on pikes as a lesson and warning to others?" he
said. "You may be unaware that the heads were often boiled
first, so they would keep longer."

"That is revolting," she said.

"They still do it in Egypt," he said. "My
father received a skull in a basket from Muhammad Ali, Pasha of
Egypt, during the summer. It belonged to the fellow who'd allegedly
murdered my brother Rupert. As it turned out— and much as one
might have expected—Rupert defied the laws of probability. He
turned up, very much alive, not long after the head was delivered."

"Such strange things happen in your family,"
she said. "You did not mention trying to scalp Rupert. Was he
another golden angel?"

"Gad, no," he said. "From a distance,
some people cannot tell us apart."

Before she could ask further impertinent questions, he
said, 'To return to Thomas Cole. The authorities finally investigated
the Ostrich. It turned out that in one of the rooms, the bed was
attached to a trapdoor directly above a boiling vat. When one
released the bolt under the trapdoor, the bed tilted, and its
occupant slid into the vat."

"They boiled him?" she
said. "
Alive
?"

"Yes," Rathbourne said. "I reckon the
innkeeper and his wife must have made sure the guest went to bed very
drunk. Then he wouldn't be able to try to save himself or even cry
out."

"That is unspeakable," she said.

"People can do unspeakable things," he said.
"They do them for absurd reasons or no reason at all. In this
instance, however, justice triumphed. Innkeeper Jarman and his wife
were arrested and tried, found guilty, and hanged, drawn, and
quartered. Afterward, the place was known as Thomas
Cole-in-the-Brook."

By this time they had crossed the bridge and entered
Colnbrook's narrow street. They passed hostelries bearing the usual,
familiar names: the White Hart and the George, both quiet at present.
A little way farther on stood the infamous Ostrich, windows still
alight. The sounds of drunken laughter wafted out into the night air.

The curricle was mere yards from the entrance when the
door opened, and a trio of men stumbled out into the street. One
staggered directly into the horses' path and fell on his face.
Rathbourne smoothly drew the carriage to a halt, a few feet short of
the inert man.

"Whyn't you watch where you're going?" one of
the men shouted as he lurched toward his friend. "Bleedin'
menace. You might've killed him, y' bloody great cod's head."

The third man stumbled in front of the horses and caught
hold of the bridle of the offside horse. "S'all right," he
said. "They won't be goin' nowhere."

"I am perfectly capable of holding a pair of
horses," Rathbourne said composedly. "You would do better
to get your friend out of the road."

The third man cordially invited Rathbourne to do
something anatomically impossible.

The second man made himself more useful. He hoisted up
his semiconscious friend, helped him out of the road, and shifted him
onto the bench in front of the inn.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the animal's uneasiness, the
third man continued hanging on to the bridle while he speculated
about Rathbourne's sexual inadequacies, his affinity for young boys
and mature sheep, and the number of ugly and deformed men his mother
had reason to believe had fathered him.

Despite the provocation, Rathbourne remained the
unflappable aristocrat. "I wonder, could there exist any more
repellent sight than a drunk at one o'clock in the morning?" he
said to Bathsheba in a bored undertone. "Or a being on earth
less capable of reason?"

More audibly, he said, "I do apologize for the
inconvenience, sir. Your friend is safe now, however. I am sure you
and your other friend will be more comfortable resting on the bench
with him. While you three enjoy a refreshing nap, we shall take our
disagreeable selves out of your way."

The third man offered to stuff a part of Rathbourne's
anatomy down his throat.

"I daresay I should waste my breath reminding you
that a lady is present," Rathbourne said.

"Oh, a fine lady she is, too," said Drunk
Number Two, abandoning his friend on the bench. "I know what
kind of ladies come out at this time of night, don't I?"

He walked unsteadily to the curricle, contorting his
face into what Bathsheba supposed was meant to be a wink. "Why
don't you leave old carbuncle face there and his catch-fart to amuse
each other like they like best? Why don't you come down to me
instead, my pretty blackbird." He grasped her seat handle with
one hand and grabbed his crotch with the other. "I've got
something bigger and stronger for you to perch on."

"Not tonight," said Bathsheba. "I have a
headache."

'Take your hand away from the carriage," Rathbourne
said in a low, hard voice.

"Yes, sir, your majesty," said Drunk Number
Two. He let go of the seat handle and grabbed her ankle. "I like
this part better anyway."

Before Bathsheba could react, Rathbourne was up. He
stepped over her, dropping the reins and whip into her lap, and
dropped onto Drunk Number Two, who crashed to the ground under him.
Rathbourne rose, picked him up, and threw him into the bench,
knocking to the ground the first drunk, who'd been-struggling to sit
up.

Drunk Number Three let go of the horse and started
toward him. Rathbourne spun on his heel and came around the front of
the carriage. He grasped the man by the lapels and threw him against
the inn door.

It all happened so quickly that Bathsheba had barely
taken up the reins to hold the horses before it was over. Two men lay
on the ground near the bench. The third was sinking into a heap
against the doorpost.

She stared at Rathbourne.

He met her gaze and shrugged.

He started toward the carriage.

The inn door opened then, and a mob irrupted into the
street.

THOUGH HE HAD been outnumbered before, his assailants
were barely able to walk, let alone fight. Bathsheba had remained
where she was, surprised but not worried.

But when half a dozen others set upon Rathbourne at once
and knocked him down, she grabbed the whip and jumped down. She threw
herself into the fray, lashing about her as best she could. When that
proved impractical in the crowd, she began striking any head within
reach with the whip handle.

"Get away from him, you scurvy coward!" she
shouted at one, kicking him for good measure. Someone tried to wrench
the whip from her, but she thrust her elbow into his soft parts, and
he shrieked.

Perhaps it was the surprise, or perhaps her frenzy
frightened them, but the men backed away long enough for Rathbourne
to get up. He was no sooner on his feet, though, than one of the
bigger ones lunged at him. An instant later, one of the others joined
the fun. But she reckoned Rathbourne could handle two clodpoles, and
turned her attention to keeping off the others.

At this point she became aware that Thomas was in it,
too. As she watched him knock two men's heads together, she did
wonder about the carriage and the horses. It was only a passing
thought, though. Still more men were coming toward them, evidently
from the inns they'd passed earlier.