Barbara Metzger (13 page)

Meantime he had to find him. It sure as hell didn’t look like this bunch was going to join in the search. What did they care that the baron was wandering around the wilds of Hampshire somewhere, cold, lost, hungry—and holding Terwent’s back salary?

*

No one thought to put a lock on the icehouse door. There was a heavy bolt to keep children out and away from danger, but who would steal ice?

Sailor and Handy, that’s who. Of course, they did not know it was an icehouse when they found a low door set into a rock arch near a pool, toward the edge of the woods. They were looking for the traps Jake had set, while he lay back at the cottage, alternately moaning from the pain to his foot, cursing from the sting of the nettles, or unconscious from the new blow to his head. The boys thought he’d be happier if they could find something to eat besides the stale bread and rabbit stew. He’d be happier yet if they could find something worth stealing.

The brothers were astounded to find a door so far from any sign of habitation. Country folk were different, but this was passing strange.

They watched from the woods for a good long while, waiting to see if anyone came or went. No one did, so Sailor pushed Handy out from under the concealing bushes. “Go knock.”

“Why me?”

“’Cause I’m bigger.” What he meant was that he’d box his little brother’s ears if Handy didn’t do the dirty work.

Handy scampered over to the low wooden door, rapped twice, then scampered back to Sailor’s side. “No one home.”

So they looked around some more, and listened to birds singing and Sal splashing in the pond. Then they approached the door. Handy kept looking over his shoulder while Sailor took a minute to figure out the latch. The cold breath of air that hit his face had Handy back in the woods before the ghost could say “Boo.” Sailor went in, seeming to be swallowed up by the hill of dirt. He came out and beckoned to his brother. “Not even a pat of butter keepin’ cold. Nothin’ but ice, slabs what must’ve come from the pond in winter. And this big barrel what smells like ale.”

So they took the barrel. Sailor slung it over his back and hunched toward the woods. Handy stole the ice, or as much as he could get into his hat and Sailor’s hat.

They returned to the crumpled cottage and packed the ice around the still-sleeping Jake, around his swollen ankle, under his broken head, and on the angry red welts from the nettles. Uncle Jake was going to feel a lot better when he woke up, they were positive. Uncle Jake was going to have pneumonia when he woke up, his clothes sopping wet, his whole body chilled. But that was later.

First the boys were going to sample the ale. Oh, boy.

Handy keeled right over, right on top of Jake’s good ankle, which wasn’t going to be so good after this.

Some time later, they sat in the cottage again, shaking their heads over the strange country ways.

“D’you think they do all their dead ’uns this way, like pickles?”

Handy giggled. “An’ put their gin in coffins?”

They had found the baron’s ivory-topped cane and his satchel that held a clean shirt and fresh cravat, a nightshirt, and a silver flask of Blue Ruin. Uncle Jake needed the cane. He could use the neckcloth to tie up his head, and the nightshirt in strips to bind his ankle. The silver flask he’d sell for food—but he wasn’t getting the whiskey.

If Jake were awake, he’d recognize what a valuable commodity they had on their hands. A dead nobleman was worth something to someone, especially to those folks who were keeping him on ice instead of giving him a proper burial. But Jake wasn’t awake, and his nephews weren’t about to spend the night with a baron in a barrel.

“His spirit’s comin’ to haunt us already,” Handy swore, hearing a nightjar call.

“Our blood’ll be sucked dry by morning, you wait’n see.” Sailor was already pale, his freckles standing out like ink spots, or blood spatters. “He must be a vampire. That’s why he’s not in a church graveyard or nothin’.”

Handy shivered. “No, I say he comes back as a demon what steals our souls ’cause we stole his barrel. Or else he wanders forever, wailin’ ’cause he ain’t got a comfortable restin’ place, all scrunched up in that keg.”

“Think we got to bury him?”

“Not me. I ain’t touchin’ him. You’re bigger.”

They decided to take him back, to let whoever put him in the icehouse suffer the consequences.

They’d return him, barrel and all, as soon as the silver flask was empty. Maybe they better wait for Jake to wake up, or for dark.

Chapter Thirteen

Bloody hell! Not again!”

They were out by the icehouse after dinner. Lady Whilton wouldn’t hear of Graydon setting forth for London after dark, especially with highwaymen in the neighborhood, so she moved dinner forward an hour. The earl had taken his son aside and begged, “Not that you’ve ever heeded my words, boy, but this isn’t the time to be kicking up a lark. I don’t know why you think you have to go haring off to the city, but if it’s to stir up any more scandalbroth, please wait till after the wedding.”

Graydon was able to assure his father that such was not his intention.

“Good, because if Cleo gets wind of your tomcatting, she’ll have my hide. Insult to the chit, don’t you know, even if you have no intentions there. Staying at the house and all.”

“Don’t worry, Daphne knows exactly why I’m going to Town, and she approves heartily.”

His father smiled knowingly and bobbed his head. “A surprise for the wedding, eh? That’s aces, then.”

A kegful of corpse would certainly be a surprise. Getting Albert packed off to London was definitely something for the wedding, so Graydon saw no reason to disabuse the governor of his happy surmises.

“Glad to see you two on better terms,” the earl continued. “Make things easier for me with the gel’s mother. Speaking of Cleo, could you stop in at Rundell’s for me and buy her a trinket? I’ve got diamonds for the wedding, but might be she’d come out of the boughs a little quicker with a gift. You’ll know what kind of gewgaw, something sincere.”

Graydon agreed, eager to be on his way before the governor thought of any other errands. He didn’t want to be in London when Albert’s body was found. But his father wasn’t finished: “Wouldn’t do yourself any harm to get Daphne some frippery or other either, but that’s neither here nor there. You never did take my advice,” he complained, still angry that his son and heir had joined the army against his wishes. “You could never do better than the chit.”

“I just might listen this time,” Graydon said as he saw his father take his place at the whist table with Lady Whilton, Cousin Harriet, and his aunt Sondra. “And you take my advice,” he whispered in the earl’s ear. “Let her win.”

Then Graydon had gone out to the stables to collect his curricle and pair. He gave some excuse not to take his groom after all, for the barrel had to be tied on behind where the servant would have stood. Unless they decanted Uncle Albert and laid him along the floorboards, which was Daphne’s suggestion. Buy her some folderol indeed! That chit wouldn’t be happy with rubies. Nothing less than his arrest would do!

She was waiting out there with Ohlman when Graydon drove around to the icehouse, blankets and ropes in her hands. She put them down to go to his horses’ heads, crooning softly to the well-mannered pair. At least she was a competent coconspirator, his Daffy. And she looked adorable in some dark-colored cloak, the hood sliding back from her golden curls, like a fairy nymph in an ineffective disguise.

Ohlman was holding a lantern. While he unbolted the icehouse door he reported that the servants were all indoors celebrating the prenuptials with the ale that had been in the barrel, before the baron. They would be too busy in the next two weeks for much belowstairs festivities, the butler had explained to the staff, and no one had argued.

So the baron’s pallbearers and hearse were ready. The baron wasn’t.

Daphne laughed. There wasn’t much else to do, and the look on Gray’s handsome face was priceless. Ohlman frowned, relatched the icehouse door, bowed, and made his stately way back toward the house in search of something a bit more sustaining than the ale in the kitchen.

“Thunder and turf.” Coming around to the horses’ heads, Graydon cursed again. Daphne laughed again, and he had to join in, so absurd was the situation. “Where the devil do you think he’s gone to now?” he asked when they stopped chuckling. Neither, of course, had any answer, so the major piled the ropes and stuff onto his curricle. When he lifted the old blankets, he couldn’t resist asking: “Care for a picnic by moonlight, sweetheart?”

To which his ever-romantical darling replied: “Don’t be
a clunch.” But he noticed that she did clamber up into his carriage quickly enough for the ride to the stables, rather than walking back to the house by herself. Graydon wanted to tell himself that it was his company she sought. He rather suspected it was Uncle Albert’s she was avoiding.

*

Miles Pomeroy was waiting for Daphne when they returned to the drawing room. He was waiting none too patiently, judging from how he was swatting his gloves against his thigh, Ohlman not having been on duty by the door to relieve him of those articles. The two older ladies were rapt in a hand of piquet, and Lord Hollister had finally got Lady Whilton to grant him a private conversation on the sofa across the room. They were all ignoring Pomeroy’s presence, having grown accustomed to his frequent after-dinner visits. Not so Major Howell.

“What, back again, Pomeroy?” Graydon asked as he escorted Daphne to a seat near the fireplace. “Crime wave over for the day?”

Miles looked on the major with equal disfavor, noting the highly polished boots, the intricate cravat, the well-starched shirt collars of the dandified Town rake. “They told me you were leaving for London.”

Cousin Harriet raised her eyes from the cards. “Thought you left already on some urgent business. Daphne said she was going to see you out.”

“Yes, but one of my horses came up lame. I decided to wait for morning after all.”

The major lied with an ease that had Daphne impressed at his ready ingenuity, and horrified at his lack of conscience. The man must make a habit out of prevarication, so readily did rappers fall from his lips. Uttering the slightest falsehood always had Daphne nearly stuttering, as now, when she saw Miles observing her wet slippers and damp hem.

“I, ah, went with him to the stables to, ah, look at the horse, too.” Knowing how conscientious Miles was with his own cattle, although they were nowhere near the high-steppers Graydon drove, she added, “The horse seemed to be fine.” That at least was the truth.

If he wasn’t satisfied with what these two had been doing together for so long, Miles did not get the chance to complain, for Ohlman brought the tea tray in then. Daphne invited Miles to stay, of course; he accepted, of course.

Deuce take it, Graydon thought, didn’t the fellow ever eat at his own table? Then again, he looked like he ate two of every meal. Pomeroy would soon look like a turnip if he wasn’t careful, besides acting like one. What could Daffy see in the gapeseed?

Daphne saw a comfortable country gentleman who didn’t like subterfuge, who disdained pretense, and who wasn’t so puffed up with his own conceit that he spent more time with his tailor than with his tenants. With simple sandy hair turning to gray and hazel eyes, he wasn’t stunningly handsome like Gray, but he was attractive in a pleasant, friendly way. If he was perhaps more solemn than she could have wished, well, he took his responsibilities seriously, unlike others she could name who almost broke their fathers’ hearts by hieing off to war.

Mostly what she saw, as she looked from Miles to Graydon and back again, was that they were glaring at each other like two dogs with one bone. As ridiculous as it seemed, Gray, who could never be happy with just one woman, was jealous. It was ridiculous, and delicious. Let him see what it was like to share someone’s affections, she thought with satisfaction, and smiled.

Graydon saw that smile and thought it was for puff-belly Pomeroy. He took his tea, sweetened just the way he liked it, and moved over by his father. Graydon took the opportunity of Lady Whilton’s passing cups and plates to whisper that, with the London jaunt off, the governor would have to do his own wooing, without counting on buying the lady’s favor.

The earl jerked his head toward where Miles hovered over Daphne and the raspberry tarts. “And you’d better look to your own interests, son.”

Graydon did love raspberry tarts, but he didn’t think that was what the governor had in mind. Still, he casually strolled back toward Daphne and Pomeroy. The female relations had gone to bed, and the earl and the baroness were resuming their conversation at the other side of the room.

Graydon dragged his chair closer to Daphne’s. “What brings you out so late, Pomeroy?” he asked, hinting at the other’s ill manners in calling after dark.

“Oh, Miles knows he’s always welcome,” Daphne chirped, revenge being as sweet as one of Cook’s tarts.

But Miles insisted he was here on duty. “Some of us don’t get to lounge by the fireside all night,” he sniped.

“And some of us earned the right to some peace, at Salamanca,” Graydon shot right back.

Daphne intervened. “There are many ways to serve one’s country. But tell us, Miles, are you still looking for those footpads?”

“No. I mean yes, but that blasted—pardon, Miss Daphne—that valet of Lord Whilton’s has been pestering me all day. The fellow was at the Golden Crown claiming the baron must have met with foul play, and demanding I make an investigation.”

“And you listened to a valet?” the major asked.

“Deuce take it, the man showed me all the baron’s pills and potions. He swore the baron couldn’t live two days without them.”

He couldn’t live one day without them, it seemed, but Daphne wasn’t going to tell Miles that. Gray was no help, suddenly finding great interest in selecting another pastry. “Did Terwent go back to that hedge tavern where he was staying? Uncle Albert might have returned there looking for him.”

“Yes, and he looked all through town and everywhere between. He says no one’s seen hide nor hair of the baron. You have to admit they’d recognize him hereabouts.”