Sheri Cobb South (24 page)

“Miss Susannah?”

She turned at the sound of his voice, and he recognized the parchment she shredded with such care. It was the drawing she had done of him. He darted an uneasy glance down the corridor. Lady Hollingshead would doubtless expect him to depart the premises as soon as possible, but he couldn’t oblige her ladyship just yet; he had unfinished business with her daughter.

“Miss Susannah, please believe that I never meant—I never thought it would end this way.”

Another rip, and another strip of his face curled and blackened into oblivion. When at last she spoke, her words were the last ones Pickett would have expected. “I knew it was Papa.”

He stared at her, thunderstruck. “You
knew
—?”

“The day you took me to see the gypsies wasn’t the first time I’d gone into the woods to look for them. That night after dinner, while Miss Grantham was reading Mr. Danvers’s book, I slipped out of the house and tried to find the gypsy camp. But the rain was still dripping off the trees, so I turned back. Emma was on the terrace with Cousin Colin, though, so I had to slip around the corner of the house before they saw me, and I almost ran straight into Papa. He was walking very quickly up the drive from the direction of the vicarage, and although he must have seen me, he walked right by like I wasn’t even there. The next morning, when I heard what had happened to Mr. Danvers, I knew Papa must have—must have—”

She gave a loud sniff and wiped her nose on her sleeve, a gesture that would have brought Miss Grantham’s wrath down upon her head, but one that Pickett found oddly touching. Small wonder that she had found his diary so interesting; her questions had not been inspired by morbid curiosity, but fear for the fate of a beloved parent. It was too heavy a burden for a fourteen-year-old to bear—as he had reason to know.

“When I realized you were from Bow Street,” she continued, staring at the torn parchment in her lap, “I knew you would find out sooner or later. Lady Fieldhurst says you are very clever.”

“I was only doing my duty, Miss Susannah. I never meant to hurt you. For what it’s worth, I think I have some idea of how you feel. I lost my father when I was fourteen, too.”

She threw him a skeptical, if somewhat watery, glance. “I’ll bet he wasn’t hanged for murder.”

“No, he was transported to Botany Bay for petty thievery.” Seeing her expression change to one of astonishment, he explained, “It was the only way he knew to feed his family. I know this is difficult for you, Miss Susannah, but I hope it will help you to understand that your father did what he did because he didn’t want to see his family suffer for an old secret that was none of their doing.”

She said nothing, but stared silently into the flames. Pickett sighed heavily, then turned toward the door. He would have left the room, but she called him back.

“John— I know it isn’t proper, but may I still call you John?”

A smile touched his lips. “Please do.”

“John, did Papa truly fall into the river, or did he—did he—?”

Pickett hesitated. Suicides, he knew, were buried in unconsecrated ground. For the sake of this girl, Sir Gerald should be laid to rest in the family vault, as befitted the fifth baronet Hollingshead.

“I don’t know,” Pickett said with perfect, if incomplete, truth. “I didn’t see.”

He shut the door, leaving her to grieve uninterrupted, then picked up his valise and started back down the stairs.

* * * *

Pickett was almost halfway to Kendall, from which location he would board the next south-bound stage, when the rain began to fall in earnest. Trudging along the road with the heavy valise banging against his leg, he paused long enough to turn up the collar of his coat and jam his hat down more securely on his head. It didn’t help much. Raindrops dripped from the brim of his hat and trickled down the back of his neck.

The
clip-clop
of horses’ hooves and the jingle of harness signaled an approaching carriage. Resigning himself to splashed and muddied shoes and stockings, Pickett veered onto the shoulder of the road, giving the vehicle as wide a berth as possible. To his surprise, the carriage slowed to a crawl as it drew abreast of him and Jasper Carrington leaned forward, past the protective barrier of its hood.

“Mr. Pickett! Thank God I caught you. I wish I could offer to take you up, but as you can see, we are rather pressed for space.”

Pickett looked past Mr. Carrington. Will Huggins sat beside his father on the narrow seat, clutching a bundle containing, Pickett presumed, all his worldly goods. Will’s habitually hostile expression had vanished; instead, he looked more than a little dazed by his abrupt change of fortune.

Pickett could not suppress a smile. “I assure you, sir, I was never more pleased to be snubbed.”

“Good man! I shan’t keep you standing in the rain, but I could not let you leave without offering you some token of appreciation.” He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and drew out a sealed letter, then held it out to Pickett.

“You’re too kind, sir,” protested Pickett, taking the letter and tucking it inside his own coat pocket.

“Nonsense! The least I could do. We’ll be on our way now.” Mr. Carrington patted young Will’s knee. “We’ve a lot to catch up on, my son and I.”

As the carriage lurched forward, Pickett sketched a bow (sending a fresh shower of raindrops streaming from the brim of his hat), hefted his valise, and set off down the road in their wake.

He had not traveled far when a second vehicle came bowling along the road, this one a closed carriage with a coat of arms on the side panel and a post boy perched behind the box. Recognizing the coat of arms, Pickett was all the more surprised when this vehicle, too, drew to a stop beside him and the post boy dismounted from his perch and threw open the door.

“The lady requests that you join her,” he announced.

Pickett’s gaze shifted from the post boy to the coach’s sole occupant. “I-I couldn’t,” he stammered, painfully aware of his sodden state.

“Of course you can,” insisted Lady Fieldhurst from within the confines of the carriage. “Unless, of course, you would rather brave the elements than endure my company.”

Pickett wrestled with indecision. It was little more than a couple of miles to Kendall, by which time he could hardly be wetter than he was already; on the other hand, he was unlikely to see Lady Fieldhurst again, and certainly not in such intimate circumstances.

Never woo where you cannot hope to win ...

It was not at all the same thing, Pickett’s heart insisted, rejecting Sir Gerald’s unsolicited advice out of hand. The viscountess was nothing at all like Lady Anne Hollingshead. And besides, his brain added, he was not wooing her; he had no illusions as to his eligibility as a suitor. There was, then, no reason at all why he should not accept a seat in her carriage.

His mind made up, he ducked inside the vehicle, only to recoil in dismay at the stream of water which ran off the brim of his hat to form a puddle on the carriage floor.

“Pay it no heed, Mr. Pickett.” Lady Fieldhurst gestured toward to rear-facing seat. “If Lady Anne finds her carriage a bit damper than she would like, it is no more than she deserves for dismissing you in such a way.”

“It wasn’t raining like this when I left,” Pickett reminded her, settling himself on the proffered seat and placing his valise at his feet. He did not correct the more formal manner of address. They both understood that his days of being “John” were over. “Besides, you can hardly expect her to bid me a fond farewell, after I had just single-handedly destroyed her family.”

Lady Fieldhurst’s expression grew solemn. “If you are thinking of Miss Susannah’s outburst, pray do not refine too much upon it. She will understand better when she is a little older.”

Pickett rather doubted this, but merely said, “I don’t mind it, at least not much. One rarely makes friends in my line of work.”

“I hope you will count me as one. Also, I suspect you have another in Mr. Carrington.”

Pickett’s expressive countenance lightened somewhat at the memory of father and son seated side by side beneath the hood of the rain-soaked phaeton. “Yes, that was a rather nice ending to an otherwise thoroughly bad business, wasn’t it? Oh, and he gave me something.”

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the slightly damp letter, broke the seal, and spread it open. A second, smaller rectangle of paper fluttered to the floor, and he reached down to pick it up. He took a closer look, and turned pale.

“Mr. Pickett? What is it?”

“It-it’s a bank draft for one hundred pounds,” he said, still staring at it in amazement.

“How very thoughtful of him,” remarked Lady Fieldhurst. “What will you do with it?”

“I-I don’t know,” stammered Pickett. “I’ve never had a hundred pounds in my life.”

“I should have thought Mr. Meriwether would wish to do something handsome by you, as well,” continued Lady Fieldhurst. “Still, I daresay the College of Arms or some such organization must investigate the matter before he can claim his inheritance. And now that I come to think of it, I suspect Mr. Meriwether is far too tactful to appear overly eager to step into Sir Gerald’s shoes.”

“I don’t know about that,” returned Pickett with a smile. “I’ll wager he’ll stake his claim to Miss Hollingshead quickly enough. Can her mother do anything to stop it, do you think?”

“It would be extremely difficult for her to do so. He may even be Miss Hollingshead’s legal guardian, now that her father is dead. And that is another thing that puzzles me,” she continued, regarding him with a measuring look. “I don’t understand how you could allow Sir Gerald to fall into the river like that. Such carelessness seems unlike you.”

Pickett gazed fixedly out the window. “I expect Mr. Colquhoun will wonder about that, too.”

“Confess, Mr. Pickett! You allowed Sir Gerald to cheat the hangman by taking his own life. But
why,
pray tell?”

Pickett had asked himself that same question many times already throughout the course of the morning and suspected it would haunt him for some time to come. He knew there were Runners past and present with a well-deserved reputation for corruption, and he could not quite shake the nagging conviction that he had just joined their ranks. After all, he had told Miss Susannah that it was not his place to dispense justice, but in the end he had done exactly that. And yet, if he had it to do over again, he very much feared he would do the same thing.

Seeing that her ladyship still awaited his answer, Pickett merely shrugged. “I discovered we had something in common.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he said no more on the subject, and soon the carriage lurched to a stop in the bustling courtyard of the posting-house. Pickett had almost an hour to wait for the next south-bound stagecoach; by contrast, when the viscountess requested the hire of a private post-chaise and a team of horses, a suitable vehicle was brought out almost at once—far too promptly, at any rate, for Pickett’s liking. Nevertheless, he took a certain proprietary pleasure in hefting her ladyship’s considerable baggage and seeing it stored securely in the boot.

“If you should happen to think of it,” Pickett said, as the driver opened the carriage door and let down the step, “will you thank Thomas for the use of his livery and tell him I will return it as soon as I reach London?”

Lady Fieldhurst eschewed the driver’s proffered assistance, and offered her hand to Pickett instead. “Certainly. It does seem strange to be going back to London. And to think Emily Dunnington assured me that I should be shockingly bored within a week! It will be good to be back in my own home and surrounded by my own servants. I must confess, though, that I shall rather miss John Footman.”

“I can’t imagine why.” Pickett took her ladyship’s hand and steadied her as she mounted the step. “The fellow was incompetent.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” protested Lady Fieldhurst. “I found him rather adept—at some things.”

She gave him a mischievous smile, then disappeared into the dark interior of the chaise before Pickett could ask her to elaborate. Then the driver shut the door and mounted the box, and in another moment the carriage was clattering out of the courtyard and into the High Street.

She was referring to his solving the mystery of Mr. Danvers’s murder, Pickett told himself firmly. She had to be. She could hardly be thinking of his adroitness at the breakfast table. Unless...was it possible that she was remembering that midnight kiss in the library? No, of course not. It was absurd to even imagine such a thing. And yet...

Unmindful of the rain, Pickett stood there in the courtyard for a long moment, a singularly foolish smile playing about his mouth as he watched the post-chaise rattle down the High Street and southward toward London.

To the Cobb women: Aggie, Jayne, Pam, April, and Kelli. Long may they reign.

Copyright © 2008 by Sheri Cobb South

Originally published by Five Star (9781594147111)

Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.