A Gentleman of Means (16 page)

“I do not agree,” Claire began, but a hail from behind closed her lips. “You are wrong,” was all she had time to say before the landau puttered up behind them.

“Care for a lift, ladies?” Captain Hollys said, smiling as he got out and handed them in to the rear compartment. It was a tight squeeze, but Jake wasn’t a very large individual, and Claire was slender.

Ian directed them down the gravel walk and around the walled garden on the side of the house—the kitchen garden, he had explained, as opposed to the rose garden or the ornamental garden or the water gardens. Which just went to show you, Alice thought, the difference between people who named their houses and gardens, and those who tried to keep a six-foot square of chiles and squash alive. Gloria’s house in Philadelphia probably had a name, and gardens with names, too.

But that was just too depressing a thought, so she shook it off and followed the company in through the tall front door.

“Welcome home, sir,” said a butler, bowing his master over the threshold.

“And glad I am to see it, Boatwright,” Ian said. “Is Mrs. Boatwright well?”

“She is indeed, and the proud grandmother of a baby girl.”

“Oh, that is good news. I shall send a gift to young Ian and his wife. The rooms are ready for my guests?”

“Of course, sir. In the west wing, next to your own. I have put the young ladies in the large room on the end, facing the rose garden, and the young gentlemen in your boyhood room opposite.”

“Thank you, Boatwright. Lady Claire, does dinner at six suit you?”

“Admirably well. And perhaps Boatwright may know something of the neighborhood about Bath.”

“Young Ian is plying his trade there, is he not?” Ian asked his butler.

“He is, sir. The missus and I travel there frequently, by your leave, and she and our daughter-in-law can store up enough news for a year in a single trip.”

“Excellent,” Claire said with satisfaction.

Alice had been down to Gwynn Place, Claire’s family’s estate in Cornwall, so she was expecting elegant appointments similar to those in that house. But Hollys Park was altogether a homier establishment. Where one house might have elaborate cornices and medallions in plaster on the ceilings, painted white to contrast with cool green or blue walls, the rooms here were papered in light florals, the ceilings plain, glossy wood, or at most, carved or made of squares of pierced tin. The ceilings were high, and the windows tall, but with comfortable velvet and damask drapes in rich colors, they merely seemed to open the rooms to the terraces and gardens outside, rather than holding a person in.

Ian had said that the house was not very old, and indeed it had modern water closets and running water. His great-grandfather had had the land and title as a gift from the Prince Regent early in the previous century, and had built the house upon marrying a local girl whose family had made a fortune in shipping china and ceramics from the kingdoms of the Orient.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Claire said, dropping her valise on the Turkish rug and throwing the shutters wide to let in the last of the sunset. “It is almost enough to make one reconsider.”

Alice’s stomach plunged, and Claire turned just in time to see her face change.

“Do not even think what you are thinking,” Claire said firmly, looking at her over a pair of imaginary spectacles. “Having cleared the air between us, I think I can safely make a joke. For do you not agree that this house feels different from many in which we have been guests?”

“I’m not in the habit of having lords and ladies invite me to stay.” Alice hadn’t quite recovered yet from the possibility of Claire reconsidering.

“Then you had best get used to it. Consider this house an example of what taste and love can do when they are combined in one woman. Lady Hollys must have been quite remarkable.”

“I’d rather see
Swan
fitted out.”

“I would, too,” Claire admitted. “
Swan
needs all the care and attention we can give her—and if the truth be told,
Athena
is due for a refit also. I wonder if Mrs. Boatwright would mind our staying for … oh, say a year?”

Smiling, Alice shook her head. “Your kids at Carrick House might object to that. You had a pretty fine welcome. They missed you.”

“And I missed them. You are quite right. I shall refit
Athena
at my own airfield and be practical. I was simply thinking that you would need a chaperone.”

But this was too much, even from Claire. “Now you’re talking nonsense. Come. I hope the hominess you spoke of extends to not dressing for dinner, for all I have along is my walking costume and one lace blouse.”

“You will look like a jewel in its proper setting,” Claire said, shaking out her own skirt.

But Alice very much doubted that. More like putting a potato in a necklace meant for a diamond.

“The Lady will kill us,” Tigg said, removing his uniform jacket and tossing it on the bed. “And she will never trust us again, which would be worse.”

“But if we tell her, she’ll say no, that we must wait for Captain Hollys and daylight.” Jake was not getting ready for bed—a bad sign.

The dinner had been first rate, a fact that Tigg found himself surprised he was able to appreciate, considering he had found out two days ago that his father was commissioned to murder a woman he considered a friend. For Alice was certainly one of the flock. Aside from her friendship with the Lady, she was a fine shot, and excellent aeronaut, and told jokes that made them all laugh.

But her vulnerability now tugged at something deep inside Tigg—something he had never admitted to himself.

Alice might be the daughter of an air pirate, but he seemed to be the son of one. She had not let her parentage hold her back. It was just the way things were. And her pragmatic way of looking at it allayed his fear that she and the Lady would look at him differently. As if he were no longer one of them.

As if he were tainted by his father’s poor choices.

But the Lady and Alice had made it very clear the night before and on the journey here that their opinions of him had not changed—that in fact they respected him all the more for overcoming his modest beginnings and making something of himself.

He was in no frame of mind to do anything to damage that respect. But taking the Lady’s landau without permission and running down to Haybourne House to spy out the lay of the land would do damage with a vengeance.

“Come on, Tigg. Has your stint in the Corps really made you the kind of bloke who has to wait for his orders?”

“Better that than take them from a hothead like you. Besides, we don’t know exactly where the house is. There’s more than one road between here and Bath.”

Jake gave him a look that plainly said,
What kind of noddy do you think I am?
“I spied it out as we passed over. I know exactly where the house is. It’s ten miles off. We can be there and back in two hours with no one the wiser.”

“And how will you explain your newfound knowledge to the Lady in the morning?”

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission, lad.”

Tigg rolled his eyes.

“Lizzie and Maggie would go with me,” Jake said slyly. “They know their business, and you’ll notice that the Lady always forgives them their disappearances, because they bring back the goods.”

“Is that what you plan to do?” Tigg’s exasperation rasped in his voice. “Bag Gloria and bring her back, and present her to the company all tied up in a bow instead of a rope?”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “She’ll be looking for an opportunity to escape, won’t she? And like true gentlemen, we’ll provide it.”

“And get ourselves shot for our pains. You forget she’s in the company of an officer of the Corps. Or more than one, for all we know.”

Jake shrugged as if this were no great handicap, but if he really believed that, he would have gone alone, wouldn’t he?

“We’ll just be scouting, Tigg,” he said. “Nothing more. She may not even be there—they may have taken her another leg farther in a landau, or put her on a train. Wouldn’t it be good to know that before we pretend we’re a walking party from Northumbria looking at great houses?”

Personally, Tigg thought the idea Alice had broached at dinner a good one. Why did Jake have to muck it up like this and complicate things?

“Why are you so fired up about doing this?” he asked at last, taking the battle into the opponent’s camp. “What’s in it for you that’s worth the risk?”

In the light of the electricks running on their track around the wainscoting, Tigg saw his friend’s cheeks flush.

Oh.
“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? On Gloria. You want to be the one to save her.”

“Don’t be stupid. She’s ages older than me.”

“Five years isn’t ages. Many a match has been made with greater.”

“I said forget about it. A man can think well of a woman and want to see her safe without being sweet on her. Like Mr. Malvern is with Alice.”

“And the captain is with Alice.”

“The captain?” Jake looked so shocked that Tigg realized that possibly he and the captain himself were the only ones among their little company who didn’t know.

“Of course, you numpty. She’s mad about him, and he’s mad about her—he just doesn’t know it yet. Why do you think they argue all the time?”

“That ent no indication. The Lady and Mr. Malvern weren’t the arguing kind, and you couldn’t say they weren’t mad about one another.” He paused, his voice trailing away as he thought it over. “Though Alice
is
the one he calls for in the night when I’m sleeping right across the corridor and she’s away down in the captain’s cabin.”

“There you go.”

“The captain and Alice.” Jake’s tone held discovery. “I’ll be dipped.”

“I’ll be doing something else to you if you go off and do this. Come. Dawn comes early if we’re pretending to be walkers.”

But Jake, the stubborn blockhead, shook his head. “I’m still going. Come or not, it’s nowt to me.” He changed quickly into the tough dungaree pants he’d been wearing since his time in the Canadas, and tossed a dark flight jacket over his shirt.

There were some things, like Gibraltar and Lady Dunsmuir—and Jake, apparently—that were immovable once they were fixed. The only result you’d get from bumping heads with them was … a sore head.

“Fine,” Tigg sighed. “Two hours. I suppose someone has to make sure you don’t get yourself killed or caught.”

Jake had not merely been boasting—he really did have an uncanny talent for reading the land and orienting crew and ship, no matter on which continent he found himself. Unerringly, he directed Tigg onto a narrower and more potholed road, and within half an hour, the Lady’s landau puttered up to a granite wall overgrown with moss, the last wet leaves of the maples drooping over it and gleaming in the running lamps.

“Would you really have tried to pilot the landau without me?” Tigg asked in a low voice as he doused the lamps and banked the boiler, making it ready for a quick escape if they needed it. “Or have you learned to do that, too, in your travels?”

“No,” Jake said, equally low. “I’d probably have raided the stables and gone on horseback, or seen if the captain had a touring balloon. But that would have taken half the night. The landau is much faster, and quieter, too.”

It felt quite like old times as they scaled the wall, which was so old and crumbly they didn’t need a grappling hook or even a rope. This was lucky, since they had neither. It was a scouting mission, Tigg reminded himself, not a rescue attempt.

The gardens were as different from those at Hollys Park as they could be. They needed pruning, cutting, and general discipline in the worst way, proving the Admiralty’s information that no one had been master here in years. Back at Hollys Park, everyone had gone to bed before ten o’clock, so that they would be rested before playing tourist at dawn the next day. But here at Haybourne, the lamps on the lower floors were still lit, and shadows moved to and fro behind the window glass.

The young men got as close as they could before the river—the bourne that bisected the property and for which it was named—stopped them. “How will we get across without being seen?” Jake breathed. “There’s a footbridge, but there’s no cover. Anyone could look out and see us crossing the lawn.”

“There has to be a groundskeeper’s track,” Tigg muttered. “Out of sight of the house. He has to get across, too, after all.”

They found it soon enough, a thick log with steps hacked into it, wide enough for a man to push a barrow or walk comfortably with a sack on his back. The track took them around to the kitchen garden, where Jake motioned to Tigg to press himself up against the house.

“We’ll be hidden by the ivy and the ground is hard enough from frost that our footprints won’t be noticed in the dirt.”

You’d almost think he’d scouted a few manor houses before.

Moving cautiously, Tigg decided on their objective: an open window on the terrace. Jake nodded, and silently, they moved toward it.

It was the window to the drawing room, where it appeared there was quite a company.

“Is she there?” Jake whispered behind him.

“I daren’t look in,” Tigg whispered back. “Listen.”

It took a few moments to separate the voices—four men, possibly five, and at least two women. But the ladies spoke in the accents of the county, not like the Lady, who spoke with the posh accents of Belgravia and Mayfair. Local women, then, who might live here or in the neighborhood. But where was Gloria? Her colonial way of speaking would stand out in this small crowd.

The gentlemen were discussing a pheasant shoot. The ladies, closer to the open window, were talking of painting and singing. Then—

“Miss Aster, dear, do allow us the honor of hearing you play upon the pianoforte.”

Miss Aster? Tigg and Jake straightened, and glanced at one another. That wasn’t right—but near enough for shadow work, if you had to choose an alias.

“I’m not much of a pianist,” Gloria said dully, her voice so close that Tigg realized she must be sitting on the sofa, the edge of whose arm he could just see.

“Please, dear. You are so out of spirits it would do you good—bring you out of yourself.”

In the silence that followed, Tigg wondered what could be happening. Was she struggling with reluctance to give these people anything they asked for? Or was she trying to decide whether politeness was the best course? That was likely, since clearly she had been given a false name so as not to alert the neighborhood that a victim of abduction was living among them.

“Very well,” Gloria said at last.

There was a rustle of skirts and then the lid of the pianoforte rattled as it was opened. A moment later, the emphatic chords of a march sounded through the room, and out the window, and Tigg was quite sure could be heard all the way across the park to the road. She had not quite made it through the chorus when a male voice said, “Good heavens, Gloria, you will wake the dead. Can we not have something more ladylike? Some Mozart, perhaps, or Schubert?”

Jake made a choking sound, and with a start Tigg realized he was laughing. He gripped Jake’s arm and dragged him back through the shrubbery to the corner of the house, where a whisper would not be heard.

It might not be heard in any case, for Gloria was now playing the “Moonlight Sonata” with all the grace and expression of the Lady’s walking coop lumbering across the keys.

Music, evidently, was not among Miss Meriwether-Astor’s gifts.

“What’s so funny?” he hissed at Jake, who leaned against the house with a hand across his mouth, trying to get a grip on his self-control. “Jake!”

“That s-song,” Jake got out. “Don’t you know it?”

“I know this one. It’s Beethoven. Lady Dunsmuir plays it—though not quite like that.”

“No, the first one. Tigg—it was ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’” He dissolved into muffled laughter once more.

Tigg’s smile bloomed as well. “That’s our Gloria,” he whispered in delight. “Poking them in the eye with it—no one would play a colonial song like that here, especially loudly enough to attract attention.”

“There has to be a way to let her know her friends have got the message.” Jake had finally regained control of himself. “Shall we whistle it as we go over the wall?”

“Too far away for them to hear,” Tigg said. “It’s enough for us to know she’s in the house and being masqueraded as ‘Miss Aster.’ Come on. Let’s be off.”

For once, Jake acquiesced—probably because even he realized they could not drag Gloria from the drawing room with at least four men there. They retraced their steps, and as they approached the groundskeeper’s footbridge Tigg looked back. There was Gloria framed in the French doors to the terrace, pounding out the concluding bars of the “Moonlight Sonata”—which he could indeed hear from here.

If she had not been so clearly torturing her abductors, who were too polite to comment on her execution, he would have felt sorry for them.

Tigg had just turned to follow Jake under the trees when from across the river he saw an elongated flash of light.

Crack!

The French door shattered inward, and a woman screamed.

Pandemonium broke out in the drawing room. Someone in a Corps uniform flung himself upon Gloria, knocking her to the floor as he protected her with his own body. Another man dove past the window and reappeared a moment later with a rifle, which he aimed out at the forest.

Tigg yanked Jake down behind a fallen log and they watched, aghast, as the second man fired several shots into the forest not fifty feet away from them.

They heard a crashing among the trees, and then silence.

Tigg and Jake gaped at one another in the silvery light of the half moon. Then they took to their heels lest they be discovered by the inhabitants of Haybourne House on the wrong side of the wall.

They hadn’t a moment to lose. Tigg couldn’t wait to get his hands on the careless poacher who had shot at poor Gloria—for surely even music as badly played as hers did not deserve
that
.

*

“And you saw no one?” Captain Hollys demanded for the second time. “No evidence of a vehicle or any means of conveyance?”

“None, sir,” Tigg told him. At the other end of the breakfast table, facing Captain Hollys as the most senior lady present, Lady Claire had still not recovered from the tale of their adventures the previous night. She had not touched her poached egg, and her tea sat cooling next to her plate while her gaze tracked from one speaker to the other.

Or perhaps she had recovered, and was simply gathering steam to lambaste them right into the next county.

“You don’t really think it was a poacher in the woods.” Alice was tucking away her eggs with the air of one who didn’t know where her next meal was coming from. But then, Alice always ate like that—with good reason, Tigg supposed.

“A poacher would have better aim than that, or he’d starve to death,” Jake pointed out. “No, he fired only the one shot, straight into the drawing room with Gloria at the piano right opposite the window. Tigg and I talked it over on the way back, and it seems pretty clear she was the target.”