Abandon (13 page)

Aubrey walked down to the stables highly frustrated. Wakefield had taken him into his breakfast room, all good bonhomie after his long night awaiting the birth of his heir. He insisted on describing the baby in excruciating detail while Aubrey pushed a piece of toast around his plate.

Wakefield asserted that his sister was still away with her mysterious friends and that he had yet to send off a message about the birth of his son. When pressed, he insisted that he could not until he heard from Lucy as they were traveling about and there was no way to currently reach her. But as soon as he heard from her, he would communicate Aubrey’s eagerness to speak with her. Wakefield pledged Aubrey of this with a smirk that did not give him any real assurance of the man’s good faith in the matter.

Brooding he waited for his horse to be brought out. Young Jack led out his gelding from the barn and held him while Aubrey mounted. In a low voice he asked, “Did you talk to her, my lord? Before she left?”

Startled, Aubrey looked down. “Was Lady Lucilla here?”

The young man looked confused. “She arrived last evenin’ as I told you and stayed the night. She left barely a half-hour ago on her mare. But it was after you arrived, so I thought you must have seen her.”

Aubrey tightened his hands on the reins and his horse sidled slightly causing Jack to jump back. Wakefield had lied to him! Aubrey wanted to go back to the house and bloody his nose, but it would not do.

“Which way did she go, lad?”

“Across the fields toward the northern road. She could have been headed towards Dodworth or Barnsley.”

Aubrey passed the lad a coin and headed back to Lovell Moor. He needed to pull out some maps and look at the towns along that way. Barnsley was about an hour away on horseback and Dodworth was slightly closer, but there were other villages even nearer. Lucy had ridden alone which indicated that she was not traveling very far. He was sure that he was close and would find her soon.

By the morning Aubrey had put together a planned route. He packed enough clothes to stay overnight in an inn if he needed to. Using Debrett’s he had identified manors and estates owned by families that might have taken Lucy in for a visit. He did not believe that she would be staying alone in an inn without a maid. Once she was sure it was safe or she was over whatever had spooked her, Lucy would return to Wakefield Park and her family there. But he was sure he would find her before then.

By evening he was not so sure. He had stopped at several places to inquire, but Aubrey had not thought out how people might react to a man inquiring about a single lady whose whereabouts was unknown. After stopping at Locke Park and being questioned severely by a stern older Baron who had known his father, he had cobbled together a tale of assisting the Earl of Wakefield in finding his flighty sister who was visiting friends and was unaware of the birth of her new nephew. He thought it close enough to the truth that people might not question the veracity of the tale. Aubrey skipped over why a Viscount was the errand-boy for the Earl of Wakefield and he had no answer since a groom or footman could serve in his place.

He rode up to the Salted Gull Inn in Dodworth, determined to stay the night. It was clean and his supper filling if plain. The innkeeper was a rotund individual named Terrill who responded with a laugh when Aubrey inquired as to the name of the place.

“My uncle originally owned the place. He had retired from the King’s Navy and chose the name for reasons of his own. People around here know it well so I kept it when my wife and I took it over.”

Mr. Terrill was unable to help when Aubrey described Lucy and his search. He called out his wife, a sweaty woman with wisps of hair trailing from her topknot, from her place in the kitchen, but she did not recognize Lucy either.

“Dodworth is but a tiny place, my lord, and we don’t get many of the nobs stayin’ here. They usually go on to Barnsley.”

Aubrey nodded, tired from his day in the saddle and unsure of his course. Barnsley seemed too big and too far away for Lucy to be found there. He had a feeling that she would be staying at a country estate not that far from Wakefield Park, not in a village or town.

“’Course she could be over towards Oxspring or Crane Moor. You’d have to go a fair ways ‘round as the roads don’t hardly go that way but it wouldn’t be far from Wakefield across country as the crow flies. Someone who knows the old cart tracks could get about that ways.” A grizzled older man who was sitting by the fire with his pint had overheard their conversation.

Terrill slapped his belly. “Why, that’s so, Samuel, so it ‘tis. Pretty country over there.”

Something tickled Aubrey’s memory and he pulled out his map. There it was, Crane Moor, directly north of Wakefield Park if you cut across country. Lucy had mentioned something about it once, something to do with her father. He folded the map.

“Thank you, gentlemen, Mrs. Terrill. I believe that you might have aided me more than you know.” He threw some coins on the table and sought his room. He could feel it, he had her now.

Aubrey whistled to himself as his horse picked his way down the overgrown path. He had been riding steadily since leaving Dodworth and he thought he must be nearing Crane Moor. The day was fine and he was in a good mood, all because of an old man drinking his pint by the fire. When old Samuel had mentioned Crane Moor, Aubrey recognized it immediately. He could not remember why at first, just that it was significant. He had just about fallen asleep when it came to him. Crane Moor was where Lucy’s father had bought a house for his mistress, the widow who was Lucy’s mother.

It was just possible that Lucy was staying there. Perhaps she had even inherited the house as part of her portion. Somehow Aubrey was certain that he would find her there.

When he arrived he found that Crane Moor was a tiny village, the church sitting at one end of the street and a common house at the other end of the town. There were small rows of houses lining the way. He got down at the common house and went in for a pint and some information.

The owner was glad to serve him the pint, but not the information. Mr. Rusby was a suspicious sort, one of those taciturn Northerners famous in the South of England. No, there was no house that had any young ladies staying in them. No, there were no young ladies of quality staying in the village. There were only respectable folks in Crane Moor and young ladies were not encouraged to flit about on their own unaccounted for.

With each chary word and mistrustful look Aubrey’s heart sank. He must have been wrong or misremembered what Lucy had said. He thanked Rusby for the pint and went back out to his horse, trying to decide where to go next. Perhaps this was futile. The north of England was a lot of country and he could look for days and never find Lucy. Perhaps it was better to wait her out. After all she had to come home to Wakefield Park eventually.

Dejected, he rode his horse out of the village heading south. The road would go west in a short while, over the moors to Manchester, but he hoped to pick up another cart track that he could follow home to Lovell Moor. The sun had gone under a cloud as if to accommodate his new mood.  He expected that he would run into a storm before he got home the way his luck was running.

His horse seemed to have picked up on his mood and plodded along, head down while Aubrey brooded. They came around a bend in the road to find a fair-sized homemade of gray stone, a hedge across the front and outbuildings in the back. Flowers clustered around the dooryard, brightening the yard as the sun came out from under the cloud. Aubrey drew on the reins and stopped his horse. His heart lightened as certainty grew within him.

After tying his horse to the gate in the center of the hedge he rapped on the door. There was no noise inside so he knocked once more and heard footsteps coming to the doorway. The door swung open and Lucy stood there, dressed with an apron over her morning gown, her hair falling messily down around her ears, and a smudge on one cheek. She had never looked so beautiful.

“Are you the maid?” Aubrey blurted out horrified, all his sangfroid gone. Had he driven her to this?

Lucy turned bright red and hurriedly pulled off the apron, bundling it up and leaving it on a nearby table. “Of course not. I was doing some gardening in the back and came in to get a drink. What are you doing here?”

Aubrey regained some of his poise. “I am looking for you. May I please enter?”

For a minute he thought she was going to refuse, but she stepped back and allowed him into the narrow hallway. “This way,” she said as she led him into a cozy parlor. Lucy let him walk past her then pulled the door almost shut, carefully leaving it open enough to observe the proprieties.

The parlor was sunny and furnished with comfortable furniture, a room that was lived in. Needlework lay on a side table and a book was open on the sofa. Lucy picked it up and moved it to the table, but remained standing. Apparently she thought this was to be a short interview. Aubrey moved to the nearby fireplace, china figurines dotting the mantel and turned to study her. Her mouth was set with a mulish cast and she kept looking nervously towards the doorway as if expecting another visitor.

Aubrey pulled his gloves off waiting for Lucy to explain herself.

“I thought you were Richard,” she said. She realized her mistake when he swung his gloves at his thigh, connecting with a thwack.

“So he does know where you are.”

“I asked him not to convey my whereabouts,” she answered. “To anyone,” she added as his eyes flashed.

“Why, Lucilla? Why did you leave and why not allow me to know where you were hiding?”

She winced. “I am not hiding. This is my home.” She finally sank down onto the sofa, but Aubrey was too overwrought to seat himself.

Bewildered he echoed, “Your home? Your home is Wakefield Park.”

“No, this is my home. I have lived here for over five years. I visit the Park and Richard comes here every week. Today is the day he usually arrives, but I thought he might not come today because of the new baby.”

“You are a young lady of means and substance. You cannot live on your own. Do you have a chaperone?”

“Mary, my maid, is with me. That is adequate for ….” She trailed off at Aubrey’s look of dismay.

There was a clatter of footsteps in the hallway and a woman’s voice called out as the door to the parlor pushed open. A young girl raced into the room, her hands carefully cupping a bird’s nest. Brown curls the shade of Lucy’s hair blew behind her as she ran to Lucy and plopped the nest in her lap. An older woman, puffing with her hand to her chest stopped in the doorway, her eyes wide as she saw Aubrey.

“Mama, look what we found on our walk!” the girl’s childish treble trilled with excitement. “Mary said that we could show you since the mama bird had taken her children away with her.”

Lucy had paled but she remained composed as she answered. “How nice, Annabelle.” She smiled at the mess in her lap, then pushed the hair off the girl’s forehead. “It is a lovely nest. You may put it on your window shelf if you would like.”

“Do you think the mama bird will come back to it there if we leave the window open?”

Lucy laughed. “No, darling, I think the mama bird will find a new home, one that will not come down in a strong wind. Now go with Mary and take your treasure please as I have company.”

The little girl spun, not having noticed Aubrey when she entered the room. Aubrey felt it as a physical blow when he looked into her face, so much like her mothers, but with his green eyes.