Silken Secrets (18 page)

“Good morning, Miss Judson.” He smiled impishly. “I was just passing and noticed Mr. Vulch’s mount out front. Might I have a word with him? I fear he may be worried at my prolonged absence.”

Her hands went out to him in silent supplication. He seized them and fought down the urge to kiss her. “Don’t worry. I shan’t give you away,” he whispered, and walked into the saloon.

“Mr. Robertson!” Vulch exclaimed.

Joseph said “Lord Dicaire!” but in the general melee, the slip went unnoticed.

“Where have you been all night? What happened to you? I was afraid you’d gotten yourself killed!” Vulch said.

“I’m dreadfully sorry. I was unavoidably detained,” Lord Dicaire replied. “I received a tip about the silk and had to follow it up. You understand—the less said, the better.”

Mary Anne stood like a ghost, listening, while her heart pounded and her mind raced with thoughts of escape.

“I’m off to London at once,” Lord Dicaire said, not a moment after his arrival.

“But did you find it?” Vulch asked. “Did you manage to get hold of the, er, the silk?”

“I did. It’s all taken care of. I’ll speak to Codey before leaving. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Vulch.” As he went toward the door, Mary Anne followed him.

“How did you escape?” she asked.

“Why, after you so kindly loosened my binding, a friendly mouse completed the job. Sorry to run off so precipitately, Miss Judson. But then, I fancy you’re happy to see the end of me. Pity it isn’t the end. I shall be back sooner than you think. Good day.”

With a laughing look, he walked out the door, hopped on his mount, and galloped away.

She was certain he was going to call for recruits. He had admitted he was going to speak to Codey. There wasn’t a minute to waste. She had to warn Uncle and get away. At this crucial moment, Mrs. Plummer arrived with the coffee tray. Her bulging eyes hinted at all manner of menacing disclosures she wished to make but could not with company present. She gave two or three important looks at the edge of paper protruding below the coffeepot and left.

The two unwelcome callers had only a quick cup of coffee for politeness’s sake. Mary Anne read the note but didn’t faint or scald herself, as she already knew Robertson had escaped. Vulch was eager to get home and tell his wife that Robertson was a lord, and Joseph wanted to accompany him, to let Bess know Lord Dicaire was not a gentleman whom she had any hope of attaching.

As soon as they were gone, Mary Anne tore down to the kitchen. “What are we going to do? He’s gone off to report us, Mrs. Plummer, and Uncle not even home. Oh, we shall all end up on the gibbet, I know it. He said we hadn’t seen the last of him.”

“He seemed like such a nice lad, too, at first,” Mrs. Plummer said, with a wise nod that said she had been disabused of this notion.

“I should never have loosened the binding on his hands. That’s what did the mischief. It’s all my fault. I was only trying to be kind to him. Fitch had tied them so tightly.”

“I ought to warn you, missie, he’s been upstairs collecting evidence against you. The shawl your uncle gave you for your birthday—he said it was part of the stolen goods and took it away with him.”

“He took my shawl!”

“That he did, as it was part of the stolen cargo,” Mrs. Plummer told her regretfully. “I wondered how Lord Edwin managed to pay for it.”

“Mrs. Plummer, you’ve got to take the gig into town and find Uncle. Tell him what happened. I’ll pack up a few necessities for Uncle and myself. We have to escape.”

“That’s a fool’s errand, and you know it. You can’t escape the law. The thing to do is get in touch with Lord Exholme.”

“Much good that would do us, with Lord Dicaire yelping at our heels. He is a more highly connected gentleman than Exholme.”

“Lord Dicaire—that’s the fellow that had my kitchen searched.’’

“That is also Mr. Robertson!”

“Eh?”

“They’re one and the same man, Mrs. Plummer.”

Mrs. Plummer slapped her cheek. “Then we’re done for.”

“I know, but we must try. Please do as I say.”

Mary Anne went upstairs and hauled the cane case out from the spare room. She hastily grabbed up her linens and a few gowns and threw them in. Then she went into Uncle’s room, where she saw the basin of water and razor. So this was where Lord Dicaire had made his toilette. Pretty cool, stepping upstairs for a shave before leaving. He’d been in her room, too—to get his “evidence” against them. She went back to her room, wincing at its rusticity. Lord Dicaire probably lived in a castle.

Then her eyes fell on the bed, where her diary and pen had been cast aside in his hurry. He had even read her diary! The man was an ogre! She blushed at the secrets it held. Her girlish outpourings about meeting him. How he must have laughed! Then she quickly reviewed whether she had mentioned the stolen silk. No, she hadn’t written anything last night. That was why he hadn’t taken it for more evidence. She stuffed it into the suitcase and closed the fastening. She didn’t like to go into Fitch’s room. He could add his few necessities when they got back.

When the suitcase was packed, there was nothing to do but wait. She made a slow tour of her favorite rooms, remembering a hundred, a thousand, pleasant times. Christmas in the dining room, with suckling pig and plum pudding. Long and lovely idle evenings in the study, browsing through Uncle’s ancient tomes while he glanced through month-old journals, and the wind whistled outside, stirring the dark curtains. He used to drink brandy— “my medicine” he called it, when she was young.

Uncle’s study, where he tried to teach her to read and cipher, and had given up when he discovered he couldn’t do long division himself. It must have strained his thin purse to provide her lessons in the village with Bess Vulch, but he had done it, insisted on paying his share of the tutor’s fee, though not always on time.

She heard the rattle of the front door and dashed out to meet Uncle as he came in with Fitch and Mrs. Plummer.

“We’re ditched,” Lord Edwin said. “Missie, you’re going to Exholme’s place. They won’t dare go after you there.”

“We’re all going,” she announced calmly. “I’ve already packed. Fitch, you must gather up your own things. Will you come with us, Mrs. Plummer, or stay behind?”

“I’m going with you, to Lord Exholme’s. We decided it between us, missie. It’s for the best. There’s no reason you should hang with Lord Edwin and Fitch. This imbroglio wasn’t your doing,” she said with a fierce eye at the perpetrators.

“Not one step shall I stir without Uncle,” Mary Anne insisted.

“I can’t go,” Lord Edwin explained. “They must have someone to hang, but there’s no reason for us all to die. I’ve persuaded Fitch he must drive the carriage, and I shall stay behind to accept full responsibility.”

For the first time in his life he was accepting responsibility for his deeds, and no one noticed, not even he himself. His main sensation was annoyance that Mary Anne insisted on arguing.

“No!” Mary Anne said firmly. “We all stay or we all go. It’s up to you, Uncle.”

He held his grizzled head in his hands and moaned. “Oh, why is everyone so impossible? Robertson turning into a lord before our very eyes and abusing my hospitality in this underbred manner. If he’s a lord, why can’t he behave like one? I never wanted him here. He insisted on staying. Why didn’t he escape last night, before we had to bring him to the Hall? I never gave that order, Fitch. That was your doing.”

“I couldn’t leave him in the barn, in case Codey came by.”

“Codey—there is another thorn in my side. No doubt he’s at the barn stealing my silk, after all the trouble I went to to get it from the Frenchies.”

“Stealing from the Frenchies shouldn’t be a crime,” Mrs. Plummer stated. “Not when they were such gossoons as to run away and abandon the ship. Why, anyone with a wit in his head would know enough to salvage it.”

Lord Edwin cast a questioning eye at her. The words “abandon the ship,” and especially “salvage,” stirred dim memories of his days at Whitehall.

“I daresay a good, sharp lawyer could get me off,” he said thoughtfully. Mary Anne saw his fingers begin to tap his cheek, and she looked hopeful.

Fitch, whose mind moved more slowly, said, “You’re wiser to stay away from lawyers. You’ll be bitten to death by their fees.”

“There is something in marine law about the cargo of an abandoned ship being fair game for salvagers,” Lord Edwin said. “I heard some such thing when I was with the Admiralty. There’s another point in my defense—my illustrious career with the Admiralty. Why, between that and a man’s patriotic duty in outwitting the French and my having only salvaged goods from an abandoned ship, they haven’t a leg to stand on. And there’s habeas corpus,” he added, his mind going astray. “Cui bono—yes, indeed. I may sue them for false arrest and make a bundle of blunt. You’d best take a run down to the barn and scare Codey away if he’s there, Fitch. And make sure Belle don’t climb up to the loft and eat the rest of the stuff.”

Fitch left, and Mary Anne continued her persuasions that they leave immediately. “I’ll just have a look in my library,” Lord Edwin said. “I’m quite certain a man may take goods from an abandoned ship. A derelict ship, I believe, is the legal term. Wine, Plummer. I shall need a deal of wine to sort this out.
In vino veritas,
eh, what?”

“Bring him coffee,” Mary Anne said. In this minor matter, at least, she had her way.

She went with her uncle to the library to thumb through the dusty tomes, looking for a way out of their problem, but in her heart she knew the only hope of escaping the gibbet was to flee.

“Ah, here we are!” Lord Edwin exclaimed, fingering a page in one of his books and laughing gleefully.

“What is it, Uncle?”

“Hmm,” he said, happily tapping his cheek. “I shall be with you shortly, my dear. This is very interesting. Most interesting. A derelict, yes, certainly it was abandoned. ‘Provision extends to a British ship anywhere in the world and foreign ships in British waters.’ Yes, certainly it was in British waters. If my bit of bay ain’t British waters, I should like to know what is. And there wasn’t a soul aboard. Abandoned is what it was. No question.”

“What have you found?” she repeated.

“Pour me a fresh cup of coffee, will you?” he said, and handed her his cup, without taking his nose from the book.

After reading for several minutes, with many gurgles of self-congratulation, Lord Edwin looked up and smiled benignly. “What you are looking at, my dear, is a salvor. That’s a chap who saves goods off a ship. A derelict ship, which that French lugger certainly was, is fair game for all comers. The owner may reclaim his property by coming forward, but I shouldn’t think we need fear the Frenchies will step forward and announce what they were up to, eh? Not if they know what’s good for them. Mind you, there are a few fine points I shall have to take up with my lawyer. Something about a derelict being a ship ‘without hope of recovery or intention of returning to it’ by the owners. But in the worst case, I am owed salvage money. As the salvor, I need not return the cargo till my claim is satisfied. I have a legal lien on the stuff. I may institute legal proceedings in rem against the property.”

“What does that mean—’in rem’?”

“How the deuce should I know? This salvage money—very interesting. Not an exact formula, it depends on many factors. The labor expended, for instance. We busted our backs, Fitch and I, getting the stuff ashore. And just look at all the labor expended since then in keeping it safe. Skill and promptitude displayed—ho, it was a pretty skillful piece of work, I can tell you, and prompt, too. I was out of bed and into my inexpressibles in jig time. As to the degree of danger—why, we’ve had half the county chasing us, to say nothing of drinking poisoned wine.”

“It might be best to omit your effort to put Lord Dicaire to sleep, Uncle. Would all this apply to smuggled goods, and in war time?”

“Even more so,” he said confidently. “I’ll have my lawyer look into it.”

“There’s still the matter of having kidnapped Lord Dicaire and the secret message. That puts a different complexion on it.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Robertson. He is Lord Dicaire. Didn’t Plummer tell you?”

“Yes, she mentioned some such thing. I never heard of Lord Dicaire.”

“You might know his papa. Lord Pelham.”

“You never mean it! Not Peachie’s lad? He don’t look a thing like his da. Why, I have know his papa forever. We were at school together. I think we are some kind of cousin—that wretched remove kind that only maiden aunts can figure out. Why, Peachie would never let his lad prosecute me. Ho, my dear, what we have been involved in here is a comedy of errors. Much ado about nothing. But all’s well that ends well, eh, what? I haven’t time to chat about Shakespeare now, my dear. I must run into town and speak to my lawyer. Who is my lawyer, Mary Anne? I seem to have forgotten his name.”

“You don’t have one, Uncle, but Mr. Hawken is considered the best lawyer in these parts.”

“Oh, quite, a sterling chap! I shall visit Mr. Hawken.”

“I think it would be better if we left,” she insisted.

“By all means, you and Plummer run along to my brother’s place, but not till I am back from town. I won’t have you landing in on Bertie in a gig. He likes to throw in my face that I live on a bone here at the Hall. Whose fault is that, I should like to know! And put on that new shawl I gave you—ah! Heh, heh, Plummer tells me you have learned my little trick. I shall get it back for you, never fear. I shall insist on it as part of my compensation. There is no fixed formula. I shall demand your shawl back. I would have bought you one, but the old pockets were to let.”

She smiled at his foolishness. Dear Uncle. She wouldn’t go to Lord Exholme’s mansion, not if it meant facing Lord Dicaire and a whole jury. Her uncle needed her here. She had somewhat less confidence than her uncle that he was a salvor. What he was was a thief, but such a lovable thief that she forgave him.

Chapter Fifteen

While Mary Anne worried and fretted and continued laying plans to escape if necessary, Lord Edwin tootled merrily into Dymchurch to call on Mr. Hawken, who greeted him with a very civil curiosity.