Carla Kelly (4 page)

Omega nodded and
dismissed her.

She was still
sitting and staring at nothing when the innkeeper’s boy tapped on
the door. She nodded to him and he took her baggage downstairs.
After another look around the room, Omega settled her bonnet on her
riotous curls and stuffed the
Guidebook
in her reticule. She
waited in the innyard while her baggage was tied on top of the mail
coach.

She happened to
glance up at the open door to the hayloft over the stables. Jamie
Clevenden crouched there, looking down on the Runner. Timothy
Platter stood below, hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth
on his heels, puffing on his cigar until his head was wreathed in
blue smoke.

Jamie shuffled
his feet, and bits of straw drifted from the open hayloft. She
glanced quickly at Platter. The man remained with his back to the
stables. Omega stepped away from the coach and made a shooing
motion with her hands. Jamie ducked inside.

And then Omega
Chartley’s mind was made up. Cirencester and the Siege of 1643
would have to wait.

“
Remove my bags, please,” she said in her clear
voice.

Platter turned
around, his eyes filled with surprise.

“
But
they’re already tied down,” the coachman protested.

“
So
they are. And they can be untied just as easily,” she said. “The
yard boy can take them to my room again.”

Omega went inside
the inn and retrieved the key that still lay on the desk. As she
hurried upstairs, the coachman blew his horn and the mail coach
left the yard. When her bags were back in her room, Omega retied
her bonnet and left the room again.

She knew that
Timothy Platter would be waiting for her, and she was not
disappointed. With a nod in his general direction, she left the
front entrance and walked at a spanking pace up the street. She was
certain that Platter would follow her, and again she was not
disappointed. Her irritation lessened as she heard his ragged
breathing behind her.
I told him those cigars would rot his
lungs
, she thought with some satisfaction. A little smile
played about her lips as Timothy Platter began to cough and slow
down.

Omega let up her
relentless pace and stepped smartly into the little bakery she had
noticed last night during her twilight stroll. “I’ll have four of
those rolls, a loaf of bread, and a pork pie,” she said, taking the
coins from her reticule.

The proprietor
wrapped her order in brown paper and tied it with a flourish. Omega
took it from him and went into the street again. Platter stood
there, red-faced and out of breath.

“
Sir,
are you following me?” she asked him point-blank.

He blinked and
had the good grace to blush. “Do you need to be followed?” was his
recovery.

“
Of
course not,” she said briskly. “I am twenty-six years old, an
educationist, and quite capable of taking care of
myself.”

“
From
the looks of that package,” he growled at her, “you have a
prodigious appetite, too.”

“
Prodigious,” she snapped, and set off at a rapid
stride.

Without lessening
her pace, Omega continued up one street, and traveled down the next
street. She settled down finally in a small park and unwrapped the
package, eating one roll and stuffing two others in her
reticule.

She sat there
until she was sure Mr. Platter had gone. If he were truly,
seriously, looking for a runaway, he would not waste much time on
her.
He can call me an eccentric and tell his colleagues on Bow
Street that he has finally met England’s gorgon
, she
thought.

When the sun was
high in the sky, she left the park and strolled back to the inn and
went to her room. Leaving her bonnet on, she pulled a chair up to
the window, but not too close, and sat watching the field where the
roads forked. Nothing moved, and then she saw Timothy Platter,
standing next to the entrance of the lending library, out of sight
of anyone observing from the empty field.

“
Drat
you, Mr. Platter,” she said. “Why won’t you go away?”

She watched him a
moment longer. He went inside the library. She stayed at the
window, but he did not reappear.

Omega waited
several more long moments and then went quietly down the stairs and
into the yard, careful not to be seen from the street, where Mr.
Platter inside the library might see her. She went into the
stables, standing by the entrance until her eyes were used to the
gloom.

No one was in
sight. Gathering her skirts close around her legs, she climbed the
ladder and found herself looking into the grinning face of Timothy
Platter. Beyond him, his hands tied together, was Jamie Clevenden,
his eyes red from weeping.

Platter held out
his hand for her. Wordlessly she took it and he hauled her up into
the hayloft. In silence she dusted off her dress and knelt by
Jamie.

“
Are
you all right?” she asked, and brushed the tangle of hair back from
his forehead.

The boy nodded.
His lips were set in a firm line that again made her think she had
seen him before.

“
Sit
down, Miss Chartley,” said Timothy Platter. “You are not quite
ready to take on Bow Street.”

She couldn’t
disagree with him. She sat down.

“
I
could have you arrested, you know,” he continued, “for interfering
with the law.” He took a deep breath, warming himself to the task.
“You
knew
he was here, didn’t you? And still you marched me
all around Robin Hood’s barn!”

Again Omega could
not disagree with him.

Platter permitted
himself a smile. He took out a cigar and stuck it, unlit, between
his teeth. “I have the boy, and that’s all I want. You can go now;
I am prepared to be generous.”

Jamie Clevenden
began to cry, great gulping sobs that went right to her heart.
Omega rose to her knees and turned toward him, taking him in her
arms. She patted him, looking beyond him to the ladder, wondering
how she could get them both away, when she noticed the ladder
moving. Someone else was climbing up.

Omega prayed that
it was the yard boy, and burst into noisy tears of her own. Out of
the corner of her eye she watched Platter rise to his feet, shift
the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, and come
toward them. Omega cried louder as he approached, masking the creak
of the ladder.

The yard boy
moved fast. Before the Bow Street runner could even turn around,
the boy had brought down the muck-rake handle on his head. The
cigar flew from Timothy Platter’s mouth and he dropped to the hay
with a thud.

“
Here,
untie the lad,” said the boy, handing Omega a knife.

She did as he
said, and in a second Jamie sat rubbing his wrists. The boy grabbed
him by the arm and tugged him to his feet. “I hit that cove
smartly, but he won’t stay down,” he said. “Hurry up!”

Jamie scrambled
down the ladder, followed by Omega and the yard boy. Omega thrust
Jamie at the boy. “Keep him close a moment more,” she said, taking
a swipe at the hay on her dress. “My money is with my
baggage.”

She forced
herself to walk into the inn, sighing with relief to see the
taproom empty. She walked quietly up the stairs, alert for every
squeak and protest of the wood. Her key seemed to scream in the
lock as she let herself into the room.

Her luggage was
gone. She uttered a cry of dismay and whirled to the door
again.

The landlord
stood there, his eyes wide. “Mr. Platter ordered us to put your
luggage on the noon mail coach that just left,” he said. “He told
us to address it to Bow Street.”

She could only
stare at him as her face drained of all color. “But everything I
own is in those bags,” she stammered.

“
He
said he was ‘authorized,’ ” explained the landlord. “I’m sure
if you explain it to him ...”

Omega brushed
past him. For all she knew, Mr. Platter was even now sitting up in
the hayloft with an aching head. She ran down the stairs and into
the yard again, grabbing Jamie Clevenden by the hand. She waved her
thanks to the yard boy, who was again raking muck from the open
stalls, the portrait of innocence.

Jamie needed no
urging to keep up with her. Omega gathered up her skirts and ran
for the woods, Jamie right next to her, matching her stride for
stride.

She ran until her
side ached. She stopped and sank to the ground, pulling Jamie with
her. He made no objection. The only sound was their breathing.
Jamie stretched himself out on the grass and stared up at the sky.
He turned to look at Omega, a hint of brightness in his
eyes.

“
Oh,
did you see how his cigar flew across the room?”

She nodded and
laughed, taking off her bonnet and fanning herself with it. “I wish
he had swallowed it.”

Omega handed
Jamie one of the rolls she had stuffed in her reticule. As he ate
quickly and tidily, with the economy of the hungry, she opened her
coin purse. The sight was daunting.

He finished the
roll, carefully corralling the crumbs on the front of his elegant,
dusty jacket and rolling them between dirty fingers into a little
pill, which he popped in his mouth.

“
Who
are you?” he asked.

“
Omega
Chartley,” she replied. “I am a teacher.”

“
Oh,
you can’t possibly be,” he disagreed. “You’re too pretty.” He
smiled. “I’m not sure that I would mind you.”

She laughed out
loud. “Oh, you would! I’ll have you know I was the terror of Miss
Haversham’s Academy in Plymouth.”

The dimple showed
again. “Are you what my father would have called a ‘prune-faced
bluestocking’?”

“
Most
assuredly. Your father is right.”

Jamie got to his
feet then, as if reminded of the situation. “My father is dead,” he
said quietly. “We’d better go.”

Omega held out
her hand. “No, wait. You need to tell me what is going on.” She
stood up when he did not stop. “Jamie Clevenden, I just helped get
you out of an awful scrape, and I’ve lost all my luggage
and
my money, and goodness knows, Mr. Platter may be preparing a rope
for me at Newgate!”

He stopped then
and hung his head. “I’m sorry. I never meant to cause you
trouble.”

A week ago, even
last night, the loss of her money, clothing, and grammar books
would have sent her into a fit of the megrims that would have
consumed the remainder of her summer.
Why isn’t this bothering
me?
she asked herself as she came closer to Jamie and touched
his shoulder.

“
I
know you didn’t mean to cause me trouble. But please tell me ...
tell me what is going on?”

He did not answer
her, but looked over his shoulder. “Do you think he will
follow?”

“
Oh,
yes,” she replied. A small shiver traveled the length of her spine.
Timothy Platter was not a man easily dissuaded.

“
Then
let us walk. I ... I will talk then.”

They walked on in
silence. “Is your mother alive?” she asked finally, when he seemed
disinclined to talk.

“
No.
She is dead, too.”

“
And
where is your home?”

He would not
answer.

“
Why
are you running away?”

No
answer.

Omega stepped in
front of Jamie and put her hands on his shoulders. He shuddered at
her touch, but he stopped walking. He looked her in the eye, raised
his shirt, and bent over so she could see his back.

It was covered
with welts, some raw, red, and weeping, others fading to a duller
red. The skin was drawn and puckered, as if gouged and left to heal
on its own.

“
My
uncle beats me,” Jamie said, his voice calm, as if he were
describing someone else. “I will not go back, even if he is my
father’s brother. He can send everyone on Bow Street after me, but
I won’t go back.” Jamie tucked his shirt in again.

He had allowed
her only a quick glimpse of his back, but as Omega walked beside
him, she knew she would retain the ruin of Jamie Clevenden’s back
in her mind’s eye longer than she would remember the ruins of
Stonehenge or any other amazement listed in the
Guidebook.

“
Then
where are you going?” she asked quietly. She brushed off a tree
stump and sat down on it.

The boy continued
on several paces and then looked back to see her sitting. He waited
a long moment, and she held her breath while he considered his
strategy and wrestled with the panic within him. To her infinite
relief, he walked back slowly and sat down next to her.

“
I
have another uncle ... Mama’s only brother.” He spread his hands
out in a gesture of helplessness that lodged in her heart. “Mama
said he lives somewhere in the Cotswolds.” Again he made the
gesture. “I just don’t know where, and I’m hungry,” he finished
with all the logic of a ten-year-old.

She handed him
the last roll. “Do you know his name?”