Amanda Scott (20 page)

Just then the earl’s horse swerved slightly to the right, and she knew he was adjusting his direction purposely. He, at least, knew exactly where he was going. Less than ten minutes later he drew rein and slipped to the ground, dropping his reins with a low command to his horse to stand.

“This way,” he said, using a match and tinderbox from a pocket of his saddle to light the torch.

Hoping her mount would not try to take French leave so long as Abberley’s horse remained standing, Margaret looped her reins around a branch of a nearby shrub and followed him, hearing Kingsted right behind her. It was a matter of but a few moments to find the pit, a fairly shallow one and not completely overgrown, by any means, but even with the torch it was difficult to see the bottom well enough to be certain Timothy was not down there. Abberley circled nearly the entire pit, shouting the boy’s name, but there was no answer. Silently, he led the way back to the horses. An hour later, they had examined four more pits in the same general area without success. They had also caught sight finally of the other searchers, but that group seemed to be riding farther into the hills. Margaret wondered if she and her companions ought not to be following their example. She was becoming more and more certain that Timothy must have wandered into unfamiliar territory and become lost. In order for him to have done that, considering his propensity for wandering, she knew he would have to have traveled quite a distance from the manor.

“There are three more over that ridge yonder,” Abberley said. She thought he sounded tired.

“Maybe someone else has found him,” Kingsted said, “and we are out of sight of the signal fire and the sound of the shotgun.”

“No such luck,” the earl said wearily. “Margaret would have heard the shotgun blasts even if we did not, and we should have a clear view from here of any fire they build in the west field. Once we’re over the ridge, of course, it’s a different tale, but from here, we’d know.”

Kingsted fell silent, and Margaret moved up to walk beside the earl. When they reached the horses, he put his hands at her waist and lifted her to the saddle as he had been doing all night; and despite the fact that at the first pit there had been a perfectly good log she might have used as a mounting block, she had not once protested. Independence could be carried too far, she told herself, still aware of warmth where his hands had been.

It took another fifteen minutes to reach the far side of the oak-dotted ridge and five more after that to locate the first pit, this one more overgrown with shrubbery than any of those they had previously searched. Abberley had to use extreme care with the torch to avoid setting the shrubbery afire. All three of them took turns shouting as they carefully circled the rim. A false step and the chalk could crumble beneath their feet, sending one if not all crashing to the bottom. In a moment of silence between shouts, Margaret thought she heard something. Hastily, she shushed the others, and with heads cocked toward the pit, they listened.

There was only silence, then after some seconds, the low cry of a night bird behind them.

“That’s what you heard,” said Kingsted, straightening and cupping his hands to his mouth to bellow Timothy’s name again.

“No!” she said quickly, reaching to pull his hands down again.

“What is it, Marget?” the earl demanded in a low voice. “Isn’t that what you heard?”

“The note is wrong,” she told him.

“Good gad,” said Kingsted, “he’s probably got more than one note in his throat.”

“Hush,” Margaret said, a note of desperation in her voice.

“Stifle it,” ordered the earl, moving closer to her. “If she says the note was wrong, she means it was wrong to be a bird.”

“There!” Margaret had heard the sound again.

“In the pit?” Abberley asked her. He hadn’t heard anything over his own voice.

“Behind us,” she told him. “Almost the same place as that bird, but a different sound altogether. Listen.”

In the ensuing silence they all heard it, a human voice, faint and faraway, but definitely a human voice.

“Good girl,” Abberley said. “We’ll go on foot.” He began shouting Timothy’s name again, but at longer intervals now, and they all listened carefully afterward until they heard the voice and could follow it. After that it was but the work of a few minutes to find the boy. He was indeed in a chalk pit, one that looked to have been hollowed out by nature rather than by the human hand. It was narrower than the others they had seen, though not so deep as some. It was too deep, however, for Timothy, with his injured arm, to climb out.

“Aunt Margaret! Sir! Is that you?” the boy cried when Abberley held the torch over the pit.

“It is, indeed,” the earl said, keeping his voice calm. “How did you manage to fall into this hole, young man?”

“Oh, Timmy, are you hurt?” Margaret called in the same breath.

“Just bruised a bit,” he said. “My arm aches and I’m cold, but I didn’t fall in, sir,” he added. “I was dumped in here rolled up in a bunch of burlap.” He picked up a corner of a large piece of material and waved it at them.

“Well, never mind how you got there,” Abberley said. “We’ll soon have you out.”

It was necessary to get a coil of rope from his saddle, so Margaret waited with Timothy while the men went for the horses. Abberley also had a thick blanket rolled up behind his saddle and this was wrapped around the shivering boy once he was at ground level again.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully. “That bit of burlap kept my head from being bashed in, I think, but it wasn’t too much good against the cold.”

“We’ll soon have you warm again,” Abberley assured him as he lifted Margaret to her saddle, then mounted his horse. “Hand him up, John.”

Kingsted complied willingly, then asked if the earl thought he ought to ride after the men who had ridden farther into the hills.

“No need. By the time you’d catch up with them, we can be back at the manor, and they’ll see the fire from where they’ll be by then easily enough. Tell us what happened, Timothy,” he added then, turning his horse toward the nearest track leading back toward the manor.

They didn’t reach the track until they had crossed over the ridge again, and by then they had heard all Timothy could tell them. He admitted he had become bored with the lesson the vicar had given him to do at home and had decided to take a break and walk in the back garden.

“Only the back garden, young man?” Abberley’s tone was skeptical.

“Well, that’s as far as I got,” Timothy said. Moonlight lit his narrow face, and Margaret could see from his expression that he hoped the earl would not pursue the matter.

All Abberley said was, “Go on.”

“That’s pretty much all there is,” Timothy said with a shrug followed immediately by a low cry of pain and a grimace. “Forgot. I must have hit my arm a couple of times on the way down. It hasn’t hurt like this for days.”

“We’ll go slowly,” Abberley said. “What happened in the garden?”

“I was near the hedge, and there must have been a break in it, for somebody threw the burlap thing over my head,” the boy said indignantly. “Can you believe that? Right there in the garden. Anyone might have seen.”

“If they had, we’d have been denied our midnight adventure,” said Kingsted cheerfully. “What a shame that would have been.”

Timothy glanced at him as though wondering if the man were mad, but when Abberley recommended that Kingsted put a sock in it, the boy grinned. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, sir,” he said. “I didn’t like it much. First, I didn’t like having the thing over my head, but then whoever it was that did it threw me over his shoulder and muttered something about throttling me and making the whole job easier if I didn’t shut up, so I did.”

“Did you recognize his voice?” demanded Margaret.

“No. He had a horse nearby and he tied me all around with rope. I could hardly breathe, and I hope I never have a ride like that again, for he tossed me over his saddle like a sack of barley and we rode for hours and hours, I think. A couple of times he stopped and clapped a hand over my mouth. Once I thought I heard horses when he did that.”

“Took cover when he saw someone approaching, no doubt,” Kingsted said.

Timothy leaned back against the earl and yawned. “Maybe. Anyways, then he dumped me where you found me.”

“You weren’t tied up, though,” Margaret said.

“No, he took the ropes off except the one tying the burlap round my head and shoulders. By the time I got all that off me, he was long gone. I think I must have been unconscious for a time, because I didn’t hear him leave. I was scared when I found I couldn’t climb out, Aunt Margaret.”

“I’m sure you were,” she said with a shiver. “It’s a good thing his lordship knows where all the chalk pits are around here.”

“I didn’t know about that one,” the earl said grimly.

T
IMOTHY WAS SOUND ASLEEP
by the time they reached the manor, and even the clamorous excitement in the stableyard that heralded his return failed to rouse him. He did stir slightly and mutter incoherently when Abberley dismounted, still holding him, but by the time they reached the nursery, where Melanie was anxiously awaiting them despite the advanced hour, he was deeply asleep once more.

Kingsted had not accompanied them upstairs but had joined a sleepy Lady Celeste in the drawing room in order to comply with her demand to be told exactly what had happened. Thus it was that Abberley and Margaret had a few moments alone after Melanie had taken charge of the boy. At the top of the stairs, Margaret turned to face the earl.

“Did you truly mean it when you said you hadn’t known before about that chalk pit?” she asked quietly.

His lips tightened briefly. “I would scarcely jest about such a thing. I was aware of only one other pit in that immediate vicinity, and we would have moved well away from Timothy in order to search it. Had he not mistaken the bird’s cries for those of searchers and begun shouting, and had your sharp ears not picked up the sound of his voice …” His voice trailed away suggestively.

“He would be there yet,” she said, finishing his sentence. “That’s what you mean to say, is it not?”

Abberley nodded. “It is a good thing you insisted upon accompanying us. Is that what you wanted to hear me say?” he asked with a weary smile.

She dismissed his question with a gesture. “We now have the proof we were seeking.”

“What proof?”

“Why, that someone means to do away with Timothy, of course,” she said, surprised that he had not followed her reasoning. “Surely that is perfectly clear now.”

“Well, as to doing away with him, I cannot say that this incident is proof of anything of the sort.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he silenced her by placing a gentle finger to her lips. “Not so quickly, my love. In so isolated a spot as the one in which we found Timothy, has it not occurred to you that it would have been quite a simple matter to have strangled him or bashed his head in?”

Margaret scarcely noted the endearment, so anxious was she to prove her point. “But that’s just it!” she cried. “Don’t you see, the murderer didn’t think he would have to do anything so violent. What with the cold, poor Timothy would most likely have perished from exposure long before he starved to death. And didn’t he say the villain just dumped him into that pit? That if he hadn’t been wrapped in the burlap, his head might well have been bashed in? What about that, my lord?”

“I haven’t said your villain wouldn’t have been pleased if the boy had died. I am saying that he did little to ensure that such a fate would overtake him. He left a good deal to chance, my dear.”

“He wanted it to appear that Timothy had met with an accident, that’s all,” she said flatly. “If anyone
had
found him dead, that is.”

Though Abberley remained frustratingly unconvinced that more than mischief was meant, Margaret found support for her view of the matter in the drawing room.

“Look here, Adam,” Kingsted said the moment they had entered that room and shut the door behind them, “I dashed well didn’t wish to say anything earlier—before the boy, that is—but her ladyship here and I both think there is something dashed smoky about this business tonight.”

“That dratted boy never walked so far as the place Lord John tells me you found him,” her ladyship said flatly, “and his pony has been in the stables all day.”

“No one has suggested that he walked,” pointed out the earl calmly.

“Well, I thought he might have done so,” Lady Celeste told him, “for a prank, you know. Even at such a distance, he might have taken a horse and then turned it loose later. But we know he never did either. And he never walked so far as that,” she repeated.

“Someone carried him off,” Margaret said. “We know that much. I think someone meant Timothy to die.”

Kingsted shook his head, but whether at the horror of such a thought or in denial of the suggestion Margaret wasn’t sure, until he said, “Dashed awful thing to do, killing a child.”

“We don’t know that murder was intended,” said Abberley, sticking to his guns. He proceeded to explain that there was no actual proof that anyone meant anything more than to play the sort of practical joke it had already been suggested Timothy might have played.

But Lady Celeste had no patience with the niceties of legal points. “Fustian,” she said crossly. “No adult would waste his time with such a game. The boy was meant to die. Lord John says Timothy quoted his abductor as saying that to throttle him would make his job easier. Therefore, we know he had some reason for not throttling him. And the only reason I can think of is that murder wasn’t to be thought of by whoever found him—if anyone ever did find him.”

“That is precisely what I said earlier,” declared Margaret with satisfaction, “but why would anyone be so roundabout?”

“Cowardice,” suggested Kingsted.

“More feeling for the boy than he thought he had when he set out to do the dastardly deed,” suggested Lady Celeste. “Decided to give Timothy a sporting chance. Wouldn’t happen on the Continent, of course, but that’s a very English thing to do, is it not?”

Abberley awarded her a wry smile. “I doubt that attempted murder and sportsmanship go hand in hand, ma’am,” he said, “but there is one reason I can think of straightaway.” The others gave him their full attention. “By law, one cannot inherit if it can be proved that one committed murder in order to do so.”