Skylark (32 page)

She knew she’d started at the sight of him, so she built on that. “Oh, Mr. Farouk!” she exclaimed, hand on bosom. “I thought I heard a shot. Is everyone all right?”

“A shot, madam? I heard no shot.”

“A bang, then? Most alarming! It sounded as if it came from Captain Dyer’s rooms!”

“Ah. I killed a cockroach with one of my master’s boots.”

A likely tale.

“Oh, I see. You must excuse me.”

“No, madam, you must excuse me for disturbing you.” Austerely polite, he bowed and went on his way.

Laura watched him go. His accent had definitely been stronger than when she’d heard him through the wall. Now, why would he play such games? To allay suspicion? English people were inclined to think foreigners less clever than themselves. It made her all the more determined to learn the truth.

She walked along the squeaky corridor and knocked at the first door. Not the faintest sound. Was it possible that Farouk had received his payment and that bang had been the execution?

She began to tap continuously, remembering to behave like Mrs. Penfold. “Hello? Captain Dyer? Are you all right? Hello? Oh, dear, oh, dear, what to do, what to do . . .”

She kept on tapping and twittering. Surely if he was there, if he was alive, he would have to respond.

And then she heard something. A scrape. A . . . shuffle? Was the wounded man crawling toward help?

Suddenly the lock clicked and the door opened a crack.

“What do you want?” a pale-faced man whispered.

Laura’s first, crushing thought was that this was not, could never be, Henry Gardeyne.

Her next was that he
was
wounded and he’d staggered to find help.

Her third was that no, there was no blood, but the young man was truly an invalid and he’d exhausted his strength in reaching the door. He was clutching at it desperately.

She quickly put an arm around him, grateful that he was shorter than she. “My dear sir, I’m so sorry! Please, let me assist you back to your chair.”

It was at the table, where cards were laid out in a game of patience.

“I apologize for causing you to rise, sir,” Laura said sincerely as they reached the table and he could clutch it. “I was merely concerned because earlier, I heard such a loud noise.”

The young man sank back into his chair with a wince of pain.

The too-young man. HG couldn’t be the thirty of Henry Gardeyne. If that weren’t enough, he was completely the wrong type. Henry Gardeyne at twenty had possessed some fine-boned features, but not as delicate as these. Both men had brown hair, but HG’s was lighter, a dark honey, and frothed in irrepressible curls.

Most impossibly of all, this man’s eyes were as clear a blue as a summer sky. Gardeyne eyes were usually brown, and that portrait had shown dark eyes. An artist might take liberties, but not to this extent.

He readjusted his position in his chair with another wince. “I’m sorry if the noise disturbed you, madam. It was only F . . . Farouk killing a cockroach. He hates such things.”

He sounded anxious and nervous and Laura wondered why, when he was clearly part of this plot. After all, he’d been able to unlock the door, so he hadn’t been locked in. Was he afraid of punishment? Something about him summoned her protective instincts.

She made some more quick analyses.

He spoke well, but not quite well enough for the highest birth. There was the hint of an accent, but she couldn’t place it. He looked an unlikely type to be a military officer, but she knew she shouldn’t make that judgment. War could turn strong men weak.

Whoever he was, however, he wasn’t Henry Gardeyne.

All hope died.

“Ma’am? Are you all right? I’m sorry if you were alarmed.”

She supposed she should still try to find out what was going on, if only for Lord Caldfort’s sake. And for Harry’s. If these criminals succeeded in extorting ten thousand guineas, it would come out of his inheritance. She sat down, remembering to be Mrs. Penfold, which she feared had slipped when she’d assisted him to his chair.

“No, no, sir. Well, only a little. Much better now. So sad to be sick when so young, Captain Dyer. A war wound?”

His eyes fluttered uneasily. “Fever. And an accident. I’m getting stronger.”

“I see you are playing patience. A pleasant occupation, but it becomes tedious over time. Would you care for a game? Casino, perhaps, or cribbage?”

He glanced at the door and she knew he was worried about Farouk’s return. She couldn’t do this to him. “I am sorry to have intruded, Captain. Would you prefer that I left?”

She began to rise, but he said, almost shyly, “No, if you don’t mind. It
is
tedious here and I’d like to learn a little more of . . . things. I . . . I’ve been abroad for many years, you see.”

She could see why Farouk kept him in his rooms. He was a terrible liar. But then she remembered that he might have been an Algerian slave, poor man.

Then brought here to pretend to be Henry Gardeyne? Whom he didn’t resemble at all.

And he certainly hadn’t recently done brutal physical work, or lived under a hot sun. His skin was as delicate as the most fussy beauty’s, and his hands, though manly in shape, as soft.

She simply had to try to solve this conundrum.

She settled back down and put her heavy reticule on the table close by. “Foreign air can be so very insalubrious,” she clucked. “But then, you cannot have been in the tropics, sir.”

When he looked alarmed, she added, “You have not been browned by the sun, sir. I pride myself on my powers of observation!”

He smiled, and she wondered if it was a suppressed laugh at her idiocy. He certainly hid his eyes with lowered lids. “No, no sun.”

“An icy clime! Equally harmful. England is ideal because it is
temperate
, you see. It avoids tropical and arctic extremes. Are you receiving good treatment here, Captain? I understand that there are many excellent doctors in Draycombe.”

“Oh, Farouk takes care of me.”

Laura pursed her lips. “Your turbaned servant, yes.

But forgive me, sir, a British constitution requires a British doctor. I met a most amiable one here. I believe he sent up a restorative potion.”

With another glimmer of humor, HG gestured to a dark glass bottle on a sideboard. “Farouk doesn’t trust it, and when I sniffed it, it smelt awful.”

Laura put on the stern expression of the Merrymead nursery governess. “The best medicines always taste the worst, sir.”

“Farouk says that’s why the doctors make them taste so foul.”

Farouk says, Farouk says. No, this young man had never been an officer. He sounded as if he was scarcely out of the schoolroom, though he looked to be about the same age as she.

“Besides,” he said, “the doctors say I need only rest and recover. It’s damned boring.” He flushed and apologized. “I’m so sorry, ma’am.”

She waved a gloved hand. “Oh, I make allowances for a gallant soldier, sir. I don’t think I introduced myself, did I? I am Mrs. Penfold, a widow, you see. We are in a similar case, for I am here for my health, though I fear I have no noble excuse for my state. Since my dear husband’s death, I have been in a poor way with my nerves and so my dear cousin offered to escort me here for a little while. If it suits, I may take rooms . . .”

She burbled on in this way for a while about fictional plans for the restoration of her health and saw the man relax.

Time to pry. “So, sir, what of Mr. Farouk? Such an interesting appearance. He is Indian, you said?”

Often an error elicited truth.

It worked. “No.” Then he stopped. “He’s . . . er . . . Egyptian.”

“Egypt! All the rage, sir. Pyramids, crocodiles, and the Sphinx. Were you posted in Egypt? Was that how he came into your service? Oh, no, you said otherwise. Russia.”

She tried the error trick again, but he said, “Perhaps we could play cards, Mrs. Penfold. I don’t know the games you mentioned, but I would like to learn.”

It was clearly a deflection, but his eyes were bright with interest. It presented a new puzzle, however. He didn’t know casino? It was played in every household, even in schoolrooms.

Laura hesitated. If she stayed here long enough, Farouk was certain to catch her, but did it matter? HG would tell the man she’d been here, and her excuse should hold. In fact, being found here innocently playing cards with the invalid would be safer than retreating after a few questions.

She gathered the cards and shuffled, explaining the rules of casino, then dealt. To allay suspicion, she asked no questions as they played, but simply tried to understand this strange young man. He learned the game quickly, so he wasn’t simple, and yet his amusement with it seemed juvenile.

Eventually she mentioned playing casino with some fictional nieces and nephews, and gained the response that his family never played cards. “Methodist,” he explained, with a twitch of the lips that might be a grimace.

An explanation. There, at least, she’d constructed a mystery out of nothing. “Well, to be sure, that is a worthy practice,” she remarked, “but I cannot see any harm in a simple game of cards. One need not play casino for money, not even for farthings.”

“Cards are a first step toward damnation, all the same,” he said with a smile.

She saw an opening and probed. “Are you perhaps estranged from your family, Captain? Is that why you are not recovering at your home?”

“Yes, that’s it.” He said it too quickly, though.

“So sad when families are divided. If you have been serving abroad it is perhaps some years since you have visited your home. They might be more tolerant now.”

His quick look startled her with its amused cynicism. “I doubt it.”

And oh, those wicked eyes. What sturdy, Methodist home had produced this fey creature? It was hardly surprising that they’d parted ways.

“How very sad,” she said. “So foolish to cling to old estrangements, but it is their loss, I’m sure. So what will you do once your health is restored? Will you return to military service or have you sold out?”

“Sold out?” he asked, as if the term was new to him.

“Sold your commission in the army. Retired.”

“Oh! Of course. Er . . . yes.”

“Because of your injuries.” She nodded sympathetically, but wanted to roll her eyes. Army, indeed. He didn’t know the term, and captains who left the army didn’t use their rank thereafter.

She dealt a new hand. “Will you return to your home area to live, sir? You must have friends there. Where did you say it was? Cheshire?”

“Suffolk.”

“A country estate, or in town?” she asked as if all her attention was on fanning her hand.

He didn’t answer, so she looked up to smile a bland query at him.

“Er . . . Ipswich.”

He mumbled it, however, and was becoming uneasy. She pretended to be puzzling over her play as pieces began to form a pattern.

A port town. A sailor? Had he run away from his stern home and gone to sea? She supposed he could be a naval captain, and naval captains didn’t purchase or sell their commissions. But if it was hard to imagine him a captain in the army, it was impossible to imagine him lord and master of a ship. There was no trace of command in him.

No, if she had to lay money, she’d bet on him having run away from home as a lad to be a sailor, and a sailor could then have been captured by Barbary pirates. He could even, she realized, have served on the
Mary Woodside
. . . .

“You must have visited many fascinating foreign places, sir,” she prompted, putting a three on a four. “Seven.”

“No.”

She glanced up politely and saw him swallow as he tried to think what to say next. “I . . . I didn’t find them fascinating.”

“Oh, I see. You, like me, would prefer to live at home in England.”

“Or France,” he said, and she remembered hearing him say the same yesterday.

She pursed her lips. “A fascinating country, I’m sure, but I cannot forget that until so recently they were our enemy and cost the lives of so many brave men.”

“Or Italy,” he said, somewhat desperately. “Or America. Oh, Azir! See, Mrs. Penfold has been teaching me casino.”

HG’s voice had risen in pitch.

Laura turned and felt a spurt of fear herself, perhaps because of the icy look on the Arab’s blade-boned face.

She rose by instinct, and had no difficulty in appearing nervous and unsteady. “Mr. Farouk! I have been enjoying such a pleasant game with Captain Dyer, and he does admit to being bored alone here, so you must not hesitate to request my company whenever he wishes.”

She picked up her reticule, taking comfort from the weight of the pistol inside. She thought the Arab did hesitate a moment, as if he might not let her leave, but then he stood aside.

Laura minced toward the door, and only turned back when halfway into the corridor. HG was looking like a puppy that expected a scolding. But a devoted puppy.

“Do let me know whenever you wish to play cards again, Captain Dyer.”

With that she tottered to her own parlor door. Once inside, however, she raced into Stephen’s room and pressed the listening device to the wall.

Farouk’s voice was low and angry, but she caught bits of it.

“Foolish . . . dangerous . . .”

HG’s voice was high and clear. “She’s only a silly woman, and I’m so bored here. When can we leave?”

“We must hear from the Caldforts soon.”

No contact yet.

“Then we can go where it’s safe?”

“Yes.”

“You’re angry at me,” HG said in a little-boy voice.

“No, no. No harm done,
nuranee
. I know this is hard for you.”

“Is ...”

The voices sank into muffled murmurs. Could HG be crying? She should think him pathetic, but instead she felt the urge to protect him. He was clearly in some sort of thrall to Azir. Perhaps he
had
been Azir’s slave. Slaving underground, far from the sun . . .