The Black Sheep's Return (13 page)

‘Stop that this instant!’ she snapped at the spotty youth who held poor Hal’s left ear in his bony grasp even though Sally was ruthlessly kicking the stripling and pummelling
any part of him she could reach with her beloved carved dog.

‘Why should I?’ the youth sneered, as if he was enjoying the feel of someone else’s ear between his thumb and forefinger instead of being the victim of violence for once.

‘Because he is easily ten years younger than you are, as well as being my son,’ she made herself say as fiercely as if she really had birthed and mothered these battling young urchins and was proud of the fact. ‘How have you got in such a state since this morning since I let you visit the shops with Nanny, Henry?’ she pretended to chide her ‘son’ with an air of genteel disappointment.

She saw Henry struggle with the idea she was claiming to be his mother while he did his best to take in the fact she was here to rescue them. It was a lot to ask, but she pleaded silently with him to go along with her tall story until they were safely away from here and out of earshot of his current enemies.

‘It was boring,’ he managed sulkily at last and Freya could have cheered.

Her mood switched to dread as his agreement caused his little sister to stop her frantic attack on the youth who had her beloved brother in captivity and gape at her instead.
Sensing all the questions the little girl was about to ask, Freya decided on evasive action. Winking at the child to let her know it was a game, she shook her head sorrowfully at her supposed daughter and wagged an admonishing finger.

‘As for you, young lady,’ she said in a voice that said she despaired of turning this belligerent virago into any such thing, ‘I really don’t know what your papa will say when he hears what you and your big brother have been up to.’

‘I
want
my papa,’ the little mite immediately wailed and Freya supposed unfeigned distress at the thought of Orlando must have done the trick of convincing the spotty youth and the verger she would deal with the hell-born brats, so they didn’t have to.

‘The best I can do is get you back to him as soon as may be, then. Papa will know how to deal with two such naughty scamps,’ she said firmly and picked Sally up, as if she knew from experience it was the only way they would get out of this otherwise hushed place before she caused a riot, which was pretty close to the truth.

‘Come, my love,’ she urged Henry, holding out her unoccupied hand to him once she had
shifted Sally so she could support her on one hip. The warm weight of the little girl as she snuffled disconsolately and burrowed deeper into Freya’s embrace made her want to hug and cuddle the pair of them until all three of them felt better, but they had a dignified retreat to accomplish first.

‘They shouldn’t have been here in the first place,’ the verger told her disappearing back as if he couldn’t resist the last word. Freya turned and stared coolly at him, then averted her eyes as if he was so far beneath her notice her ears couldn’t believe he’d spoken.

‘Hold still one moment longer, my little love,’ she urged Sally softly as she managed to walk out of the refuge Henry had evidently chosen for them as if she spent most of her life retrieving her children from the trouble they got into as soon as her back was turned.

She could feel the tremor in the hot little hand gripping hers so determinedly, even as Hal tried to pretend he wasn’t terrified of the alien world he suddenly found himself in. Whatever had brought them so far from home, she was beginning to doubt Orlando had anything to do with it. Now she had the conundrum of what on earth she was to do with the two little fugitives once they were safely back
at the inn to solve as well, but at least there the children could be fed and reassured, even if she doubted their troubles were now over.

It was best if as few people as possible knew she’d come back to the inn with a pair of children she hadn’t left it with, so Freya made a game of creeping upstairs so Sally stopped looking as if a storm of overwrought tears was on the horizon and let herself be fascinated instead.

‘This is a nice room,’ Hal pronounced once he’d taken a long and wary look round the large oak-panelled chamber with its wide window seat and spotlessly clean furniture. ‘We didn’t like anywhere Cleo took us and we don’t like her either,’ he said as if expecting to be told off for disrespect.

‘Did she take you away from the forest?’ she asked as calmly as she could.

He thought for a moment and seemed to be confused about the whole business when he was usually so sharp and aware of all that went on around him. Already horrified by the idea Cleopatra could steal the two most precious people in Orlando’s life away from his protection, Freya saw something in the little boy’s baffled expression that told her the unscrupulous trollop must have drugged them to
get them away without the whole forest being aware and probably carried on dosing them with the evil stuff to keep them quiet on the way to wherever she was going even after that.

‘Yes, days and nights ago,’ he finally came up with and Sally nodded furiously, then frowned and looked round in terror, as if expecting Cleo to appear and drag her away at any moment.

‘Then it’s high time we found you some food and thought about a bath and change of clothes for you both, don’t you think?’ she forced herself to ask calmly.

‘We are
very
hungry,’ Hal told her seriously, although he looked more doubtful about the good dunking Freya thought they needed almost as badly as food and comfort.

‘Yes, we’re
very
hungry, Prudie,’ Sally imitated her big brother earnestly and Freya smiled at the little girl’s version of her alias and it warmed her heart that she hadn’t been entirely forgotten.

‘Will you trust me to find you some food and not go off and leave you?’

Henry exchanged looks with his little sister that spoke too much of the distrust they had learnt and nodded as if he couldn’t bring himself to use it on her.

‘Then why don’t you two play hide and seek while I’m gone, then find somewhere you can surprise me from when I get back? I bet I’ll know exactly where you are—hide as well as you can from me.’

‘I bet you won’t, as long as Sally doesn’t squeak like she usually does and spoil it,’ Hal said with a very old-fashioned look at his sister that made her stick out her bottom lip and glare back at him.

‘Will not so,’ she told him crossly and Freya heard the tot scramble under the bed before she had the door properly shut behind her and hoped the game would protect them if the maids or the innkeeper’s wife entered her room for any reason.

Knowing their interest would only hold for a few minutes, she hurried down to the coffee room and whispered a request in her aunt’s ear before whisking back upstairs and trusting Miss Bradstock to carry it out as swiftly as possible. Making as much noise as she could to warn her co-conspirators she was coming back, she detected a muffled giggle and a soft scuffle when she opened the door as Henry and his sister competed for the best hiding place. She looked in all the ridiculous places she could think of, once inside, and, serenaded
by a descant of excited giggles and breathless shushing, Freya had just finished inspecting every piece of ancient Delft pottery the room rejoiced in for impossibly small children when a knock came on the door at last.

‘Quiet as mice, now,’ she warned softly before cracking the door open far enough to see her aunt outside with a tray groaning with bread, cheese and cold meat, a plate of delicate little cakes and a pot of tea.

‘T
hank you,’ Freya gasped with heartfelt relief, stood aside for Miss Bradstock to enter, then swiftly shut the door after a quick look down the corridor to make sure nobody could see or hear them and wonder what they were up to.

As the pregnant young wife of a gallant soldier she was allowed peace and quiet and now Freya blessed her aunt for spreading the story when the landlady remarked on the pallor of her supposed daughter-in-law last night.

‘What’s to do this time?’ Aunt Carolina demanded when Freya’s attention wandered to her unexpected guests.

‘It’s safe to come out now,’ Freya said as soothingly as she could manage, but there was
only a squeak and the sound of two little bodies squirming even further under the vast tester bed. ‘This is my aunt Carolina and she really is a lot like Keziah,’ she told thin air.

‘Cleo’s a lot like her and look what she did,’ Henry’s voice eventually argued through the heavy skirts of the bedcover and Freya felt a simmering fury at the heartless creature for all the distrust they’d learnt at her hands.

‘Cleopatra might look like Keziah, but your Kezzie would never hurt you, now would she?’ she asked and trusted the years of love and care Keziah had poured into two motherless tots to remind them there were good people in the world as well as bad.

‘No!’ Sally said as she burst out from under the bed to defy the world and even her brother to say anything bad about her beloved Kezzie.

‘Good gracious me, whoever is this monster?’ Aunt Carolina said, hand on heart and an expression of extreme shock on her face that made Sally giggle joyfully.

‘I a monster,’ Sally cried in her usual exuberant fashion and began menacing the pretend-horrified lady, who didn’t look very much like Kezzie, in her opinion, but had the same sort of mischief in her youthful grey eyes as her beloved friend.

‘You gave us away,’ her brother accused as he crawled out of his hiding place looking a lot more suspicious than his ebullient little sister.

Sally huffed and puffed so hard she forgot what she had been through and clearly felt safe with Freya and Aunt Carolina. Hal would take longer to put their ordeal behind him with his extra two years of living and what he thought his duty to look after his little sister. Freya sat down at the neat table set out with two chairs to facilitate a husband and wife taking their breakfast in private and refused to think about such intimacy at the moment. Considering the largesse in front of her as if it demanded all her concentration, she took one little sponge cake and nibbled delicately, giving an artistic moan as the sweet treat gave up its flavours.

‘This ham looks delicious, don’t you think?’ she said to nobody in particular and felt Hal draw nearer as hunger such as he’d probably never experienced in his life until now gnawed at his little belly.

She broke off a hunk of fresh bread and buttered it, popped succulent pink ham on top and silently passed it to him. He took it and drew back a couple of feet to survey Miss Bradstock suspiciously while he ate with the ravenous hunger of a growing boy denied good
food for too long. Since that could mean the boy in question had eaten half an hour ago or not touched food for a day, Freya decided to reserve judgement on Cleo’s provisions for her captives, if on nothing else about this shameful abduction.

‘Cake,’ Sally demanded hopefully when she realised being a monster was causing her to miss out on something crucial to her sense of well-being.

‘In polite circles one says “Cake, please”, Miss Craven. First you eat some ham or cheese, then you ask nicely for a cake,’ Freya said firmly and the little girl decided it wasn’t worth wasting her energy on a grand scene and took her bread and ham with regal delicacy, but shook her head at the cheese.

‘Don’t like cheese,’ she muttered, then fell on her food with an eager lack of refinement her father would be appalled to witness.

‘You used to like it,’ Freya said and felt her aunt’s shrewd gaze on her as it became obvious these weren’t chance-met waifs she had rescued on impulse.

‘Cleo made us eat bad cheese and stale bread,’ Henry explained before he grabbed his next mouthful and his papa’s strict insistence on good table manners had paid off with him.

‘And milk that tasted nasty,’ Sally agreed breathlessly before tearing into her next slice of bread and ham as if she hadn’t eaten properly in a week.

‘Naughty Cleo,’ Freya couldn’t help muttering as she concluded that proved how she kept these two quiet and docile and so far from their father and their home in the woods.

All she needed to know now was where the wretched woman had been taking them. Getting them to the nearest place of safety had to be her first concern though, since Cleo could have gone to find whoever wanted Orlando’s children so they could track them down and try to snatch them back. Freya would fight to make sure they never laid a finger on them again, but since she wasn’t a warrior or a magician they needed sanctuary while she let Orlando know his children were out of Cleo’s careless hands and among friends. Whatever came next would have to come and she would have to live with it, because these two were more important than her reputation and his isolation.

‘What we need now is lots of hot water,’ Miss Bradstock declared bravely when their meal was nothing but a few crumbs and a happy memory. ‘I dare say my poor daughter-in-law
will be feeling so much better now she’s eaten not for two but half a dozen that she would like a bath to complete the cure before we set out for home.’

‘I dare say,’ Freya responded rather hollowly, glad Hal and his little sister were too absorbed in wrestling happily on the huge old bed to pick up that veiled reference to her condition and puzzle over it.

‘You had best retire to my room with our unexpected guests while your bath is carried upstairs and filled, then,’ her aunt continued relentlessly. ‘I’ll say you’re lying down on my bed until it’s ready and, as long as our money is the right colour, I don’t suppose anyone will argue with my coddling you as if you’re fragile as bone china.’

‘Particularly since I’m carrying the heir to your kingdom?’ Freya whispered with a severe stare at her relative for speaking too freely in front of Orlando’s children.

‘Indeed, and when these two scamps are asleep, we have a great deal to talk about,’ Miss Bradstock murmured back unrepentantly.

‘I might have to be asleep as well, then.’

‘I can be a very patient woman and there’s always tomorrow.’

‘And to think I was feeling so grateful to you not more than an hour ago.’

‘Only goes to show, don’t it?’ Aunt Carolina said as if she was happier to be an irritant than a benefactor and bustled them out of the room.

Freya decided to leave clothing two enterprising imps to Miss Bradstock and managed to keep them quiet until the bath was ready for her to have a quick dip before Sally and Hal gleefully bathed after losing their claim they weren’t dirty and didn’t need a bath in the least.

‘Ah well, it’s a good preparation for the future, I suppose,’ Aunt Carolina said with a sigh once the children were finally dry. ‘Into bed with you and I’ll send down for supper. The innkeeper will be so glad to be rid of us come morning I hope he’ll be happy to find us the fastest team and best coachman in the whole city.’

‘Where’re we going then, Aunt Lina?’ Sally asked sleepily and Freya smiled at her aunt, who was acquiring relatives so fast her head should be spinning.

‘Somewhere safe, my love,’ Miss Bradstock said with a soothing smile and suddenly Freya couldn’t wait for the children to go to sleep so
she could find out what was going on in her scheming relative’s head this time.

Her aunt was very preoccupied with the washing and mending of two sets of children’s clothes whenever she tried to raise the subject, so Freya gave up and went to bed to sleep as much as her two lively bedfellows allowed her to, then woke up with the dawn, only to find her aunt already up and busy.

‘How on earth did Cleo meet with my enemies out in the middle of nowhere?’ Rich asked Reuben Summer when he finally managed to find him.

‘She sneaks off to a tavern in Longborough and dances for money when she decides she has to have something I won’t give her,’ Reuben admitted with a sad shake of the head for such a contrary woman. ‘Lords and gentlemen don’t visit places like that, so this Marquis of yours has a go-between, no doubt?’ Reuben asked, contempt for his kind almost humbling Rich. Since he worked hard for his living, Reuben decided he was the exception that proved how idle and useless English gentlemen were and shrugged. ‘You know more than I do about this so-noble kinsman of your boy. Has he men to send where he couldn’t go himself?’

Rich thought hard about Francis Martagon and realised Reuben was thinking more clearly than he just now. Doing his best to force his fear and fury to one side, he made himself run through the alternatives Martagon had available and came up with his ruthless father-in-law. Fred Peters had described a man of middling height and icy-grey eyes being responsible for Telemachus’s abduction, when it was safely over and done with and Rich couldn’t dash to the rescue as the black-hearted rogue had apparently wanted him to.

No point rehashing old grievances against Fred Peters, who had proved a subtle and steadfast friend to him and Annabelle when they needed one so badly. The man had to be granted a little leeway as a consequence and he had been protecting him and Henry at the cost of a huge personal dilemma. When Rich measured Jonas Strider against the ruthless pursuit of him and his, the fit was suddenly perfect. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of him as the even more ruthless enemy behind Francis Martagon before now and wondered where his famous wits had gone begging off to these last six years and more.

‘Aye, one of the hardiest villains I ever came across stands behind him and very likely runs
Martagon, not the other way about,’ Rich replied grimly.

‘Then he’ll have made my woman an offer the greedy little cat can’t resist,’ Reuben said with a bitter resignation showing he knew Cleo better than she wanted him to.

‘And she’s taking my children further away with every moment we delay,’ Rich said harshly.

‘Why did you let your woman go if you’re so clever? Perdita would protect your children when Keziah wasn’t about, if you had kept her as a sane man would in your shoes. My woman’s heart is stone for all her beauty, but you had one any man would envy and you made her walk away—now which of us is the biggest fool, Orlando?

‘Me, but you come a close second. Now let’s find this tavern and look for a clue to where your Cleo’s gone with my children.’

‘I’ll talk—you keep your mouth shut. They’ll expect me to be looking for my wife.’

‘Then make sure they haven’t got a tale spun ready to fool you with.’

‘You forget my people are experts in the art, friend,’ Reuben admitted with a grin that reminded Rich how much he liked the rogue.

Rich used the ride to Longborough to wonder
how he could contact Frederick Peters without alerting Jack or my Lord Calvercombe and bringing down another set of conundrums on his head while he was busy trying to recover his children.

‘But we can’t go to Ashburton,’ Freya protested as the swiftest coach for hire in Gloucestershire turned on to the open road and sped away from the city and towards the Duke of Dettingham’s country seat as if the fate of nations depended on it.

‘Why not?’ Miss Bradstock asked as if it was a perfectly reasonable idea.

‘Because we just can’t,’ Freya replied limply.

‘I’m sorry you don’t like the idea, but it’s the only place I can think of within easy reach where they will take us in and keep these little devils safe from whoever might want to kidnap them again for some mad reason I can’t fathom, since they’re more trouble than a nest of hornets.’

The analogy sparked off an attack of buzzing and happy bickering about who would sting their enemies hardest. Luckily the notion of being stolen away again went over their heads, but Freya cast her aunt a reproachful look and brooded on the implacability of aunts
and her own inability to think of another refuge sure to keep the children safe.

Knowing the powerful Seaborne clan would protect any child under threat, Freya could hardly argue this was a mistake, but wondered what the chances of a horse casting a shoe or the coachman being inflicted with cramp were as they sped towards the last place she wanted to visit. Useless to argue she’d made a fool of herself there when they needed a safe haven for Orlando’s children until he could reclaim them.

Their original plan was to travel to Worcester, then into Shropshire and a pleasant sort of obscurity in the Marches. They would become a gently bred lady of means and her grieving daughter-in-law, looking for a new life without the late, lamented Lieutenant Oaks haunting them at every turn. Since a modest country life would set them apart from the Seabornes, Freya hadn’t troubled that the two counties shared a border. Humble Mrs Oaks wouldn’t move in the circles the Seabornes glorified and none of them would believe she was that obscure country lady if they saw her in the street by some unlucky chance.

Now she would have to greet them as Lady Freya again and the thought terrified her. Her
pregnancy would begin to show soon and Jack Seaborne’s piercing green eyes missed very little even if the physical fact of her child didn’t betray her. Anything
he
missed his clever wife would probably pick up. Her wonderful new life was looking as fragile as a block of ice left in mid-summer sunshine as memory of how badly she behaved the last time she was at Ashburton New Place made her squirm. Freya wished they could just hand over the children, then turn the coach about and carry on their journey, but she loved them too well to thrust them into a puzzling new world and merrily drive away, as if dropping off misdirected groceries.

The horses sped on at a rate she would normally find exhilarating and dread made her stomach churn so hard she was soon the interesting shade of pale green she had been when the stage swayed ponderously into Gloucester the day before yesterday.

‘Children, I knew we would need these,’ Aunt Carolina said, rolling her eyes at her new friends and passing out the rugs she’d purchased from a sleepy shopkeeper this morning. ‘We can’t afford to stop, so keep the window down, my girl, and hope we don’t all freeze before you feel better,’ she informed her niece
firmly and thrust the window down before Freya had time to protest she wasn’t feeling ill at all.