My Sweet Folly (45 page)

“What sort of dare?”

“To touch—to touch that rain barrel, mum, on the back stoop. That’s all!”

“That’s all?” Folie asked. “What a piffling dare! How can you prove you did it?”

“Yoike!”
Toot was crawling over his throat. “Don’t let it bite my neck!”

“I have him under control,” she said. “Barely.”

“Wer’n to bring out a cup to drink! To prove it.” He held up a tin cup timidly. “That’s all mum, that’s all.”

Folie had her doubts as to whether that was quite
all
that had been intended, but the child seemed harmless enough. Still, it was disturbing that their fortress could be breached so easily by such small boys. “Where did you get in over the wall?” she demanded, reaching down to retrieve Toot from the child’s heaving chest. “Show me.”

The boy scrambled to his feet. She could not see him very clearly, but thought he could be no more than six years old. She caught his collar before he sprinted away.

“Show me,” she commanded. “Or I shall put this ferret down your back.”

“Yes, mum!” he said, pulling her along. He led her to a section of the wall that divided it from the old churchyard. “Here, mum!”

“You could not climb that!”

“Me n’ Nic—hmmmmnh—” He loyally mumbled over his cohort’s name. “We got a ladder over t’other side.”

“Well,” Folie said, “You should know that I am a frightfully genteel widow—indeed, trampled flowerbeds give me an alarming case of the vapors—”

“Oh no, mum! We didn’t touch ‘em! Not one bloom!”

“But what I cannot
bear
—what gives me hysterics of no mean order, is ladders leaning up against my walls. You cannot conceive of how I should screech if I were to come across one in the daylight.”

“I’ll move it, mum! I’ll remove it directly!”

She shook her head ominously. “I must confiscate it, I fear. Otherwise, how will I know that some other boy— who doesn’t know about the ferret, or how it patrols the grounds at night—will not lean that very same ladder up against my wall?’’

“I’ll push it over to you, mum! That I will.”

“Excellent. Come, I’ll help you over.”

They returned to the bench. She lifted him by one arm as he jumped up, and then with an excess of pointless pushing got him to the top of the wall. As he tottered there, she held him back by his wrist and said ruthlessly, “Of course you know that the ferret has your scent now. If you don’t do as you promised, put the ladder over to this side, this animal can find you in any room in any house, and sneak through the walls and cracks, and crawl into bed with you as you sleep, and—”

“I’ll do it!” He yelped as he slid off the wall, landing with an audible thump. Folie stood back. She could see little, but she heard him, following his panting and his scrabbling progress along the outside. At one point he stopped, right over the primrose bed. With a great deal of huffing and chuntering and scraping, the top rungs of the ladder appeared over the wall. It teetered, the wall much too tall for the boy to heave the ladder completely over. Folie tied Toot to the wire staked for climbing vines, reached up and grabbed the top rung, dragging it toward her. It fell to the ground, doing she knew not what damage to the primroses.

She heard the child scoot away. Folie sighed. She almost wished she could slip away with him, freed from this comfortable prison.

The lights in the parlor had been extinguished. She could break the news about the primroses to the housekeeper tomorrow. With a little cluck to Toot, she turned and went inside.

It was as she was pouring water from the pitcher into the bowl to wash her face that the memory struck her. The recollection came from nowhere, simply appeared in her mind as she looked at herself in the mirror, the candlelight gleaming on her loose hair.

She remembered talking to Sir Howard.

Folie stared into the mirror, turning it over in her mind, her heart beating swiftly. She
had
written him a note to meet her at Vauxhall, on Lady Dingley’s behalf. And she had sent it to him at Limmer’s Hotel by one of their own footmen.

Folie tilted her head, frowning at herself. But Robert had said that he had come to Vauxhall because
he
had received the note.

That made no sense.

She pressed her hands over her eyes. The house was silent around her. Still, she could recall no more of Vauxhall itself than the bursting fireworks, the bright pinwheels like the colors and patterns behind her eyelids. But she had sent the note to Sir Howard, not to Robert. Of that she was absolutely certain.

She picked up her washcloth, drawing it across her cheeks. And another strange recollection came into her mind—seeing Sir Howard in a London street with a girl, her eyes puffy and red from weeping.

Folie sucked in her breath. Her washcloth fell from her limp fingers, splashing gently into the basin.

She
had
seen that girl at Solinger Abbey. Slipping the warming pan under the sheets in Folie’s bedchamber at Solinger. They had caught one another’s eye in the mirror as Folie washed her face, just as she was doing now.

The same girl. And Robert thought she was horribly murdered.

Mattie.

A chill coursed through her. It was as if a ghost had materialized in the mirror. Folie turned about, her flesh rising.

There was nothing there. But the idea of Sir Howard with that girl seized her mind. Folie liked Sir Howard; she loved his daughters and even felt an odd affection for Lady Dingley. She could not imagine that he was in league with the men who had abducted her, who had put them aboard the prison ship, who had murdered a country maid.

And yet—she had sent that note to him, and Robert had received it.

Slowly, Folie sank into her chair. Robert must be told what she remembered. Perhaps it meant nothing. But perhaps it meant everything. He had been suspicious of Sir Howard. She picked up her hairbrush and then sat with it in her lap, staring blindly.

She could wait until Lander returned, and send him back with a message. Doubtless that was what Melinda would insist upon. And yet—when would that be? They had no notion what was passing in London. What if Folie knew even more than she thought? What if she had memories that seemed insignificant to her, but carried important clues? What if more recollections came as her mind grew sharper...what if she should remember how she came to be with Sir Howard at Vauxhall? She could not depend on anyone else to convey everything.

And what if—any night, even this very night, in the midst of their absurdly shaky scheme—Robert was in grave danger, because Folie had not recognized the menacing signs in Sir Howard’s behavior?

She lay down, pulling the bedclothes over her. But she could not sleep. She squeezed her pillow up under her head and buried her face in it. She must go to London; she could not wait for Lander to return. And yet she knew that if she announced that she was leaving, Melinda and Lander’s household staff would try to prevent her. Not that they could. If she wished to go, she could go. But then, like as not, Melinda would insist on accompanying her. Which was out of the question. Folie would not allow Melinda to place herself in the remotest danger. There would be a great scene. Folie hated scenes.

Her thoughts went round and round in her head. She did not close her eyes all night—she heard the pendulum clock at the foot of the staircase mark every hour. And when it struck 3 a.m., she rose and lit the candle. By its wavering light, she packed a small valise, dressed as warmly as a runaway child, and sat down to write a note.

My love,

I must go back to town to warn Mr. Cambourne of something very significant that has come into my mind. I know you will disapprove, but I must do this directly, and depart as soon as I can. I will send you word the moment I arrive—if the Royal Mail will take me up as a passenger this morning, I shall be in London by ten A.M.

All my love,

Your affectionate Mama

P.S. I am sorry about the primrose beds. The ladder is the property of a nefarious character discovered lurking in the garden last night. He is a desperate fellow, by the name of “Neddie,” but you will find that a mention of the ferret, in a suitably ominous tone, should suffice to keep him strictly within bounds. Take care, do not worry, I promise I shall return to you soon.

She slipped into Melinda’s room and left the note propped on her washbasin, leaning over her stepdaughter to blow a butterfly kiss. Melinda would be quite wild, but Folie saw no help for it. As she let herself out of the house, the deep, thick scent of predawn, laden with damp soil and spring foliage, filled her lungs like a new perfume. The night was still fully dark, starlight and a late half-moon the only natural illumination.

Folie felt excitement rise in her heart. She placed the ladder firmly against the wall, hiking her skirt to climb over, tossing her valise down into the churchyard. Before she jumped down, she pushed the ladder over into the ravaged primrose bed, silently promising a particular present to the gardener when she returned. She sprang down, landing and stumbling in the dewy grass.

Folie wiped her wet gloves against her cloak, picked up her valise, and found her way out of the churchyard gate. She walked down the center of the village street and sat down on the windowsill of a greengrocer across the street from the Spread Eagle, which even at this hour had a lantern lit in the far back of the yard.

She had left the house at a quarter to four, by the ring of the clock. And precisely on time, at half past the hour, the rumbling sound of horses and wheels became something more than her imagination. There was a quick warning blare from a coaching horn. The Royal Mail swept into town, drawing to a jingling halt outside the Spread Eagle Inn.

Amid a bustle of hostlers, strangely silent in the night, Folie hurried up to the guard in his scarlet livery. He held up his lantern as she approached. “Can you take a passenger into London, sir? I must get there as soon as I can.”

He looked a little surprised, but hardly astonished. “Aye, ma’am, there’s room up on the box, if you’ll ride outside.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Settle with the coachman after you’re up, then,” he said, reaching for her valise. “Make haste, we’ll be off in three minutes.”

By the dim light of the coach lamps, Folie saw that the new team was already halfway in harness. She climbed up onto the box, the coachman reaching down a hand to help her. With a handsome three-shilling tip, he seemed quite satisfied that she had unexpectedly joined his passenger list.

A soft, expert cluck, a swish of the whip, and Folie grabbed the seat for balance as the team picked up their trot, rolling gentle thunder through the village. She could see nothing but the vague outline of the leaders, and the rumps of the gray wheelers lit by the lamps. The air passed swiftly against her cheeks. She took in a deep breath, feeling something near to happiness surge inside her as they gathered momentum, galloping through the night—carrying the mail, carrying the news—carrying her to Robert.

He sat with Lander in the small breakfast room at the back of Cambourne House. Their caller, his neckcloth beautifully folded and impeccably white, his slender hand lifting a coffee cup with well-bred grace, would be more well-known on the inside of one of the prison hulks than the inside of any French palace, but Monsieur Belmaine had an undeniably blue-blooded air. Unless he happened to transform himself to a Scottish chemist, frowning until his eyebrows bristled as he discoursed in a fierce brogue upon the properties of base metals.