Reluctant Bride (20 page)

“I daresay my reputation is growing,” Weston said, willing to swallow this interpretation as it puffed him off a little.

“At the time, we thought the theft was done by some come-by-chance pickpocket. Fortescue, of course,
did
know of your familiarity with the piece, and did not try to sell it to you,” Edmund added in a sincere way.

“You might have slipped me word on the sly, Lizzie,” Weston said a moment later. “You knew my discretion could be counted on, I hope.”

“I wanted to,” I said, searching my mind for some reason why I had not succumbed to this harmless desire.

“I
talked her out of it,” Edmund threw in hastily.

“I still cannot understand why you came to
me,
Sir Edmund,” Glandower said, frowning with the chore of trying to make sense of our tale. “Came as Mr. Haskins, I mean.”

I sincerely hoped Edmund’s ingenuity held up, for mine was exhausted. “By that time I had a line on Czarnkow,” Edmund answered reasonably. “The jeweler mentioned he was a friend of yours.” He paused just a second, to see if this passed muster.

“I
did
go to a few shops with him one day he was hawking his diamond studs, but I don’t think I ever went to Mr. Anthony’s place. I shouldn’t be surprised if those diamond studs were stolen as well,” he added, with a shocked face. Really the boy was dangerously innocent, and here we had taken him for a villain. “It seems those jewelers are all as close as inkleweavers, know what is afoot with their customers.”

“Very likely,” Edmund agreed, concealing his relief very effectively. “Lizzie then thought you might inadvertently have given this Fortescue fellow some intimation of her traveling with the diamonds, so we went to see what we could learn from you.”

“You should have asked me outright,” Glandower said. I felt it a just accusation, and waited to hear why we had not.

“Bow Street insisted we keep the whole thing mum,” Edmund told him. “As it turns out, they were correct. I left word with Mr. Anthony, who passed it along to Fortescue-Czarnkow, and here we are!”

“I suggest we take the po1troon on down to Bow Street immediately,” Uncle Weston suggested.

It was hard to credit we had scraped through the meeting without offending either Uncle or his stepson. But they were unaware of our high suspicion of them, were not looking for it, and so missed it. With the passage of time and deeper thinking, they would doubtlessly concur we had acted like Johnnie Trots, but at least they would not know why.

We went out into the hallway to see Ford standing at attention at the study door, with a pistol in his fingers.

“Is all quiet within?” Edmund asked him. He nodded smugly. “Go get a length of rope. We’ll bind him up tight. We don’t want to lose him after the trouble we’ve had tracking him down.”

“Would it not be better to have the Runners come here for him?” Weston inquired, with an old man’s caution.

The younger gentlemen did not mean to give over their fun so soon. They agreed they were more than capable of delivering a mawworm to custody. Ford came with the rope, Edmund unlocked the door, while Glandower stood with the pistol raised, ready—indeed, eager to judge by his face—to shoot. The door opened noiselessly. A gush of wind blew out on us. The room was perfectly empty of human life. The open window told the tale of Fortescue’s escape.

I wouldn’t even know how to spell the words that were uttered. Edmund I was coming to know for a prime blasphemer, but to hear Cummings curse like an Irish chairman was a shock. They pelted into the room, stuck their heads out the window, with myself following hot on their heels. There beneath the window lay a prostrate servant, with a welt on his temple. A poker lay at his side, the poker from the study grate.

We ran out of the house, around to the window to revive the servant. Edmund took into his head to give chase to the culprit, but it was too late. He had got clean away. The servant told us the man had raised the window to ask him a question. At a carefully arranged moment, Fortescue had whacked him on the head with the poker, knocked him unconscious, clambered out the window, and got away, without making a suspicious sound.

We returned to the study to see to closing the windows, and for a look around for clues. A pot of ink had been poured all over the desk, to drip onto a fine carpet. It appeared a senseless act of vandalism at first, till Edmund took a closer look.

“My gold inkpot! The son-of-a . . .” He was looking around the room, and soon noticing other missing objects. Besides the gold inkpot from the days of Queen Anne, a cherished family heirloom, Fortescue had got away with other bibelots. He mentioned a silver letter opener, a faience snuffbox and a broken, gold watch-chain, snaffled from a drawer.

I have never seen Edmund so angry, except perhaps when I made him empty his pockets for me at the inn at Devizes. “This does it!” he bellowed, his face assuming a liverish hue. “I’ll catch that creeping reptile if I have to tear London apart brick by brick.”

Without another word, he bolted out of the house. Glandower followed fast behind him. I
think
he was smiling. “An exciting day,” Weston said, mildly dismayed. “How’s about a cup of tea, Lizzie? It will settle our nerves.”

Chapter 16

The
tea, I am bound to say, proved totally ineffective as a calmer of
my
nerves, though it settled Maisie and Weston down.

“What made you decide to come up to London, Weston?” she asked.

“The fact of the matter is, I had a falling out with young Cummings last time he was home. My own fault. I blame myself entirely. I have long been urging him to marry Lizzie. An ideal match in my view, but he was not agreeable to it. No reflection on yourself, Lizzie. He had some other girl in his eye all the while, as it turns out. When you arrived with your young man, I saw my plan was gone all awry. I wanted to make it up with him, so I came to London to see him. He had not told me about Miss Millington, you must know, or I would not have pushed Lizzie forward. My greatest concern was for him to settle down, and if he has found someone he likes, I am sure it will do admirably. They are to stay at Rusholme, of course,” he added happily.

“Do you know the girl? Have you met her?” Maisie asked, always interested in romantical doings, especially in the family.

“Certainly I know her. She lives not five miles from us. Glandower met her at a local assembly. A good family, not terribly well-to-grass, but more than respectable. The father is a solicitor, and the mother somewhat better.
Her
family is related to the Crossleys.” I had never heard the name of Crossley, but it was obviously meant to confirm the girl’s gentility.

“Have you spoken to him about changing his name—the adoption, I mean?”

“Not yet. There is no rush on that score.”

“When is the wedding to be?” I asked.

“He hasn’t asked her yet. Still, he is in no doubt that she will have him. It will do the boy a world of good to get out of the city. Such acquaintances as this Fortescue would be the undoing of him. Now that it is out the scoundrel is a thief, it is no harm to say ten guineas were missing from a metal chest I keep in my room. I thought Glandower might have borrowed it and forgotten to tell me. Not that he has ever done so in the past, mind you, but he will sometimes ask for a little more than his allowance, and he did not on this visit.”

“A little more” sounded a strange description of five thousand pounds. So did the word “borrow” seem inaccurate for stealing. It was a gauge of his affection for Glandower, that he should be so generous in his descriptions.

“Glandower will be a help to you at home,” I mentioned.

“He claims to know nothing of farming, but I will be happy to teach him. He is sharp as a tack, will pick it up in no time. It is almost like having a son of my own. I think he will agree to adoption. He is in a mood to agree to anything, since
I
have agreed to his offering for Miss Millington.”

“That will be wonderful for you both. All three—I must not omit Miss Millington,” I complimented, while my mind tore through the streets of London in pursuit of Colonel Fortescue. I wondered what his true name was.

“Well, you have got the necklace back, Lizzie. Shall we have a look at it?” he asked soon.

It was held tightly in my hand. I did not lose track of it this time. I gave it over reluctantly. Anything that causes so much trouble is valued. I was extremely loathe to sell it, but our financial straits were as tight as ever.

He smiled fondly at the antique. “The price I mentioned . . .” he began tentatively.

“My
price is not a sou less than four thousand, Uncle,” I cautioned.

“I was about to say three thousand is all I can see my way clear to paying at the present time. With the expense of the wedding, you know. The children will want a wedding trip, and a new mistress in the house will want to make some improvements. She will have modern ideas about fixing things up.”

“Modern
ideas at Rusholme?” Maisie asked, staring.

“In the kitchen and pantry, I mean. Naturally, she will not be hacking down the ancient timbers, or tearing out my fine old glass windows, but if she wants to make some improvements in the kitchen, she may do so with my blessing. Cook rants at me twice a week about conditions there. It looks fine to me, but the women like to be up-to-date in their housekeeping.”

Of more concern to me was the reduced price for my heirloom. I reached out and took it back pretty quickly. “I am not interested in selling at that price,” I told him.

He let it go from his fingers, his eyes following it covetously. “Maybe in a year or two . . .” he said. “Expenses will be lower without the London apartment to keep up.”

The relieved look on his face referred to gambling debts rather than the upkeep of a small apartment, but he wished to keep Glandower’s sins beneath the cover. The boy was only foolishly immature, not bad.

“Let us wait and see,” I answered, slipping the necklace into my skirt pocket.

I became so restless, sitting and sipping tea when every fiber longed to be out with the men, that I arose and said I would take Mitzi for a walk. I got no farther than the corner when I saw Edmund’s carriage wheeling down the street at a dangerously fast clip. Glandower was still with him. They spotted me from the window, and had the carriage checked. I grabbed Mitzi up and hopped in.

“Did you catch him?” I asked.

“Yes, the damned fool went to his hotel to pack up his bags and bolt out of town,” Edmund replied. “We knew where he stayed of course—Reddish’s. I also got my inkpot and snuffbox. The bastard had already sold my letter opener, or stuck it into someone’s back. If we read a report of such a murder weapon, we’ll have him hanging from a gibbet. He is in custody now. The Runners feel this will solve a number of mysterious thefts that have plagued the city recently.”

“Did you find out who he is?” was my next question.

“He's got so many aliases he keeps a list, along with what accent accompanies each character. I doubt if he remembers his real name himself. He is often a Scots squire. Douglas is the first name on his list, if that means anything. They want you to go down to Bow Street and file a complaint, Lizzie. Demmed unpleasant for you, but it must be done.”

“Unpleasant? I look forward to it with the greatest relish!”

“What, ratting on the gallant Colonel Fortescue?” he roasted joyously, luxuriating in reminding me how I had misread the man’s character. His face wore a look of fiendish glee.

As we were within a block of his home, we had time for little conversation. Glandower tendered an apology for having brought this pest down on our heads.

“That’s all right,” Edmund said magnanimously. “If it hadn’t been for Lizzie losing her diamonds, we two would never have met, you know.”

“Yes, we would,” I reminded him. “You knocked my carriage off the road before the theft.”

“That is true, but there is no saying things would have worked out so well for us if you had not accused me of stealing the diamonds myself.”

“I didn’t realize your friendship was so new,” Glandower said. “The way you carry on—I mean, you act like very
old
friends.”

“I am over thirty, and Liz admits to twenty-five, so can likely give me a few years,” Edmund answered playfully. “We are very old friends.”

“We were acquaintances before the trip,” I said, lying again.

“Yes, we met over a year ago, when I bought some cattle from Westgate,” Edmund added. “Nothing like a good business deal to cement a relationship. But it was only after the accident we became close friends.”

“It was an accident that made Miss Millington and myself realize how well we suited, too,” Glandower answered. His head was so full of his Miss Millington he only half heeded our conversation. He went on to speak of spilling wine on her gown at an assembly, and her ripping up at him, which in some mysterious manner caused her eyes to sparkle, and her hair to glow, and all sort of other incredible change occur in her appearance. He was in a sort of dream state, enthralled at how well his life was sorting itself out. Much better than my own. It would be back to Westgate for me, still in debt to my ears.

Maisie and Weston had to hear the tale of the chase, capture and eventual incarceration of the Colonel-Baron. Then it was Edmund’s turn to hear of Glandower’s bride’s plans for the kitchens of Rusholme. Odd she had told Glandower so much, with never a
positive
offer from him. He even knew what brand of range she intended to install, and what sort of new chinaware she favored.

As it was getting late, Weston and his stepson remained to dinner, it being settled they would come to us in the morning to accompany us to Bow Street.

“After which we’ll get straight on to Rusholme,” Weston said, with a blissful sigh.

Cummings’s sigh was possibly even more than blissful. Ecstatic is not too highly colored a description of the look on his face.

“Plan an early wedding, do you?” Edmund asked.

“As early as Meg—Miss Millington—will countenance,” he answered. “When will you and Lizzie tie the knot?”