The Frost Fair (20 page)

When they reached the stable-yard, he jumped down from his roan and walked around to help her down. As his hands reached up to grasp her waist, he grinned up at her. “Don't look so worried, my dear,” he said comfortingly. “After this afternoon's encounter, I'm much less terrified than I was.”

She slipped down into his arms, her heart beating fearfully as he set her on her feet. Looking up into his face, she said ruefully, “Yes, but now, you see,
I
am much
more
so.”

Chapter Fourteen

Keating was waiting for them when they came into the hall. “There are two gentlemen come to see you, Sir Geoffrey,” he said. “I've put them in the sitting room.”

Meg turned to Geoffrey with a shy smile, feeling since their return very young and vulnerable in his presence. “I'll go upstairs, then, if you'll excuse me, and see how Isabel does. Thank you for the ride.” And without waiting for a response, she ran up the stairs.

He watched until she'd disappeared from sight. Then, forcing his mind to attend to business, he turned to the butler. “Who
are
the callers, Keating, did they say?”

“Yes, sir. One is Lord Isham of Isham Manor near Masham. The other is a Mr. Arthur Steele of London.”

Geoffrey rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Isham's a familiar name, but I can't think where I've heard it. And as for Steele, I haven't the slightest recollection of ever having heard of him. Very well, Keating, I'll go in and see what this is all about.”

The two men awaiting him showed two very dffferent aspects. One—a tall, lean, distinguished-looking gentleman—stood brooding at the fireplace. The other—shorter, quite stocky and with a cheerfully open face—sat in relaxed ease in a deep wing chair playing idly with the silver head of his walking stick. “Lord Isham?” Geoffrey asked the seated one.

“No, I'm Steele,” he said with a smile, getting up and offering his hand. “You, I take it, are Sir Geoffrey Carrier?”

They shook hands. Geoffrey turned to the tall gentleman. “Then you are Lord Isham. I think I've heard the name. You reside in this district, my butler tells me.”

“Yes, a bit north of here,” Isham said in a cold, lordly tone.

“Please sit down,” Geoffrey said politely, “and tell me what it is I can do for you.”

“I prefer to stand,” Isham said, frowning at his host darkly. “And what you can do for us is to tell us how you managed to get hold of a certain carriage which I discovered at the wheelwright's in Masham, being mended by your order.”

“The carriage? At the wheelwright's? Oh, I
see
.” He studied the visitors with an intensified interest. “Before I answer, may
I
ask a question?”

Isham bowed his head in dignified assent.

“How does the carriage concern you?”

“It
concerns
me, sir,” Isham answered furiously, “because the carriage just happens to be mine!”

“Oh. Yours. I see! Then I suppose, of course, that you have every right to know how I came by it.”

Arthur Steele couldn't help smiling. “I would say he
does
, yes.”

Geoffrey's mind raced around to find a way to explain matters without involving Meg. “The truth is, my lord,” he said smoothly, “that my coachman came upon it during the first night of the recent snowstorm. He, I regret to say, locked wheels with it and forced it into a ditch. When I examined the wreckage the next day, I thought it better to have the equipage taken in for repairs than to leave it lying about in the road. I was certain, of course, that
someone
would come to claim it sooner or later. And here you are!”

“And is that all?” Steele pressed.

“All? I don't know what you mean.”

“You heard him,” Isham said irritably. “Is that all you have to tell us?”

Geoffrey shrugged. “Well, I can only add that, since you claim to be the owner—and I don't for a moment doubt your word—I haven't the least objection to your picking up the carriage from the wheelwright whenever it suits you to do so. Naturally I will take care of the bill myself, since it was my coachman who caused the accident.” He got to his feet and smiled with meticulous propriety. “I trust that concludes our business, gentlemen?”

“Not by a long shot, old man,” Steele said calmly.

“Not by a long shot,” Isham echoed threateningly.

“Is there something else?”

Arthur Steele leaned forward, watching Geoffrey's face intently. “What about the passengers?” he demanded.

“Passengers?
Were
there passengers?” Geoffrey asked innocently.

“Well, the carriage could scarcely have been traveling along the Harrogate Road all by itself,” Steele pointed out.

“It certainly couldn't,” Isham agreed sourly.

“No, of course it couldn't,” Geoffrey said soothingly. “But the passengers
could
have gone off somewhere and
left
the carriage. The snow had made the going very difficult that night, you know.”

“Yes, we had considered that possibility,” Steele admitted, planting his walking stick firmly on the ground and leaning his chin on its silver head. “As a matter of fact, we've been making inquiries all over the neighborhood for more than a week. They—the passengers, that is—couldn't all have vanished into thin air.”

“All?”

“Two ladies and a groom.”

“Ah, two ladies and a groom,” Geoffrey echoed blandly. “Relatives of yours, Lord Isham?”

Lord Isham threw Arthur Steele a forbidding frown. “Not exactly.”

“They're not related to his lordship
at all,
” Steele said firmly, looking mockingly at his lanky companion. “Not at all.”

“Oh, I see.
Your
relations, then, Mr. Steele?”

“They're not related to
him
any more than to me,” Isham informed Geoffrey with lordly superiority, “though I fail to see how the matter concerns you, sir.”

“It doesn't concern me, I admit. I only wish to point out that, if one had some knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing passengers—and I am not saying that I have such information myself, mind you—but if one did, one would not wish to reveal such information to every tomdoodle who happened by. Ladies, I'm sure you'll agree, ought to be protected.”

“The man's right, you know, Isham,” Arthur Steele said.

“We could be abductors, for all this fellow knows.”

“Nonsense,” Isham said in injured pride. “He must know perfectly well that I'm not an abductor. Isham Manor is known all over the neighborhood. You said before that you've heard of it, didn't you, Sir Geoffrey?”

“Possibly. Nevertheless, I find your persistent questioning quite suspicious.”

“Suspicious?” Steele asked. “Why? I was only funning when I suggested we might be abductors. Surely you can't think—”

“Perhaps not abductors, but your strange behavior could have other explanations—”

“I fail to see,” put in the aggrieved Isham, “what is so strange about our seeking the persons who made off with my property!”

“Made off? Are you saying that these ‘persons'
stole
your property?”

“Well, one needn't use as strong a word as that,” Steele said placatingly.

“What word would
you
use?” Isham demanded. “Stealing is stealing, whatever word you choose.”

“But you have your carriage back now,” Geoffrey reminded him, “so there's no need to seek the … er … culprits any further, is there? There's not much point in it.”

“What can
you
know of my reasons, sir? Besides, there's the matter of a pair of horses, too!”

“Oh, yes, horses.” Geoffrey rubbed his chin. “I'd completely forgotten about them.”

“Well, I haven't. Those chestnuts are worth a fortune.”

“Isham, for heaven's sake,” Steele said impatiently, “aren't we getting a bit off the track here? We're looking for the ladies, not the horses!”

“Well, I'd like to find the confounded horses, too,” his lordship said petulantly, throwing himself into a chair.

“If I were to tell you, Lord Isham, that I have your chestnuts safe in my stables, would that satisfy you?”

“What's that?” Both men sat forward and gaped at him.

“
Have
you my horses?” Isham demanded.

“Safe in my stables. Both of them.”

Arthur Steele peered closely into Geoffrey's face. “Now
I'm
suspicious. Do you expect us to believe that you have the horses
and
the carriage in your possession but know nothing of the passengers?”

Geoffrey leaned back and smiled into Steele's eyes with cool aplomb. “I haven't the faintest interest in
what
you believe.”

Steele's eyes flickered uncertainly. The fellow was a cool one, but Steele was suddenly certain that he knew more than he was saying. With another piercing look at Geoffrey's face, he said to Isham, “He's seen 'em all right.”

“I shouldn't be at all surprised. Come now, sir, I demand to be told exactly what you know. You have no right to withhold information from us.”

“You have yet to convince me, your lordship, that you have a right to ask.”

Isham was nonplussed. With a sidelong glance at Geoffrey's impassive face, he said to Steele in an undervoice, “I suppose there's no harm in telling him who they are.”

Steele looked dubious. “No, but it seems to me that Sir Geoffrey here is learning more from
us
than we are from
him
. Why, Sir Geoffrey, are you so reluctant to talk to us? These people can't mean anything to you.”

“Even if I had any information, gentlemen, I should certainly not reveal it to you merely for the purpose of helping you to prosecute a pair of ladies who, for all I know, meant no harm. You have your carriage back, and your horses, too. What purpose would be served in bringing in the magistrates?”

“Magistrates?” Isham repeated bewilderedly.

“Who said anything about magistrates?” Steele asked.

Geoffrey, puzzled, looked from one to the other. “But didn't you say …? You told me yourself that they'd
stolen
the equipage from you—”

Steele threw Isham a look of disgust. “I
told
you not to use the word steal! Now you've got the fellow thinking we want to have them hanged!”

“I assure you, Sir Geoffrey,” Isham said in sincere dismay, “we have not the slightest intention of involving magistrates in this matter. Prosecution is the farthest thing from our minds.”

“I don't understand.” Geoffrey was beginning to realize that there was more to this matter than he'd supposed. He had deduced that Meg had mischievously absconded with a stranger's vehicle. He'd been trying to protect her. But there seemed, from these gentlemen's attitudes, to be some sort of personal involvement here. Was Meg in deeper trouble than he'd suspected? He leaned forward in his seat. “If you don't intend to prosecute … and you've regained your property … what on earth do you want the information
for?
”

“Why, to find them, of course! What else would we wish to do?”

“But … if you're not related—”

“Don't be an idiot,” Steele broke in. “If there wasn't a connection, would we be dashing about the countryside in this way looking for them?”

“You mean there is a connection between you and the ladies? They are
known
to you?”

“Of course they're known to us!” Isham said curtly. “I, for one, am almost beside myself with worry. For all we know … they … are lying dead somewhere—”

“Balderdash,” Steele insisted. “There's no need to become frantic. If they were dead, the bodies would have been discovered by this time.” He looked across at Geoffrey with unruffled nonchalance. “Probably the girl's hiding away somewhere so that this jobbernowl won't find her.”

“That, Steele, is only
your
interpretation,” Isham retorted. “I hope, Sir Geoffrey, that you'll not give any credence to anything this fellow says.”

Geoffrey lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you two were together in this. Are you making a
separate
search?”

Steele grinned at Geoffrey's bewilderment. “Oh, we're in the search together, all right. It's just that Isham doesn't like my presence. I forced myself upon him, you see.”

Geoffrey sighed. “I wish I did see.”

“All this is neither here nor there,” Isham muttered. “The fact is that a woman can't just disappear. If you do know something, Sir Geoffrey, something to help us get to the bottom of this—”

“Perhaps I do. But I still haven't learned just what your connection is with the ladies in question.”

Isham cast a defiant look at Steele before he answered. “The younger of the pair is Lady Margaret Underwood, and she was traveling with her aunt …”

“Yes? And the connection?”

“She happens to be—” He threw another look in Steele's direction before he continued. “She happens to be my betrothed.”

“On the contrary, Sir Geoffrey,” Steele said, standing up and throwing a scornful look at Isham, “she is mine!”

The two visitors, glaring at each other with dislike, failed to notice that Geoffrey had whitened about the mouth. “Betrothed?”

“Yes,” Isham said, rising and facing Steele, glowering down at him from his superior height. “
My
betrothed. May I remind you, Steele, that she was a guest at my home, and that we were about to make the announcement of the forthcoming nuptials when the girl disappeared?”

“There's no need to remind me. I must point out to you, however, and for the hundredth time, that she left you a note breaking it off.”

“I don't take that note to have any more significance than an exhibition of momentary pique. When we find her, I'm certain she will explain to you that she ran off in a fit of temper and had every intention of returning in time for the betrothal dinner.”