Carla Kelly (5 page)

He shook his
head. “He is the Viscount Byworth. Mama ... Mama always called
him B, but that can’t be his name, can it?”

“
No.
It must be her nickname for him.” Her face brightened. “Oh, but
what was your mother’s name before she married? Surely it would be
the same as your uncle’s.” Jamie’s face fell. “I was four when they
died, and my Uncle Rotherford never spoke of her. I mentioned my
Uncle Byworth to him once, and he just laughed.”

Omega sighed.
“That’s hardly a gentlemanly thing to do.”

“
I
looked in my Uncle Rotherford’s atlas one night when he was drunk,
and found this.” He pulled a page from his pocket.

Omega smoothed it
on her lap. The page had been folded and unfolded so many times
that the creases were starting to rip, but she looked where Jamie
pointed.

“
See
there, it says ‘Byworth.’ At least, I think it does.” Jamie took
the page from her lap and cupped it in his hand like a living thing
and then folded it. “That is where I am going.” The assurance left
his voice then, and for the first time he sounded as young as his
years. “Do you know how far it is? Is this the right
direction?”

“
I ...
I don’t know,” she confessed. “And see here, you have torn the
section from the book and not left any references.”

Jamie sighed and
put the scrap of paper back in his pocket. “I was so excited just
to see ‘Byworth’ that I didn’t think about that. But I have to find
it, don’t you see?” Omega nodded. She took out
Rochester’s
Guidebook
and thumbed to the section on the Cotswolds. Jamie
gave her the paper again and she turned it this way and that,
comparing it with the tiny map in the book. “Doesn’t that read
‘age’? There, where you have folded it so many times?”

Jamie squinted at
the little paper. “It could.”

“
Perhaps it is Wantage,” she said. “And if it is, then your
Byworth is about ten miles beyond.”

“
And
if it is not?”

She rose to her
feet. “We’ll just have to try. And when we find your Lord Uncle
Byworth or whoever he is, perhaps he’ll have some ideas about
retrieving my baggage from Bow Street.”

“
I’m
sure he will. Mama was always used to say that there wasn’t
anything her brother couldn’t do.” Jamie darted ahead of her on the
path.

Let’s hope you
are right, Omega thought grimly. Maybe he can also tell me what on
earth I, a spinster educationist, am doing traipsing about just a
jump ahead of the Bow Street Runners.

The thought made
her giggle. She crammed her bonnet back on her head and hurried to
catch up with Jamie.

If Omega Chartley
had ever spent a more miserable night, she didn’t know of it. They
consumed the afternoon and early evening walking in a northeasterly
direction that paralleled the main highway but did not come too
close to it. Several times they heard the mail-coach horn. Each
time, Omega wondered if her money and baggage had arrived in London
yet, to be investigated and pawed over.

She had addressed
her baggage to St. Elizabeth’s in Durham. Suppose one of the
Runners went there to await her arrival? The thought of a man like
Timothy Platter invading the rarefied atmosphere of a very correct
girls’ school to inquire after the newly hired English teacher
nearly made Omega gasp out loud.

I must devise
a wonderful lie
, she thought as she trudged along beside Jamie.
That thought made her blanch again.
It is amazing how rapidly
one well-brought-up person can go to the dogs
, Omega
thought.

Only a day ago
she was a proper, well-mannered lady of advancing years. In the
course of twenty-four hours Omega Chartley had prevaricated,
attempted to outwit an officer of the law, obstructed justice,
permitted a wanted person to escape, and done nothing to prevent an
assault. The rapidity of her decline made her blink.
I have only
to steal, commit murder, and perform a treasonous act to be perfect
in my ruin
, she thought, and smiled in spite of herself.
Absurd
.

The source of her
misery was an unprepossessing barn, constructed perhaps during the
late Ice Age of some nameless stone and roofed over with a sieve,
which would have been wholly adequate before the rain started. By
then, darkness was coming, and no other likely-looking
possibilities for shelter sprang into view, which was just as well.
An inn would have overdrawn the modest coins that she had in her
reticule, and would have meant the scrutiny of a landlord. The barn
it would be.

Omega took
exception only when Jamie looked at the leaking cavern with a
professional eye and then started for the loft ladder. She put out
a hand to stop him.

“
See
here, Jamie,” she protested. “Do you not think we would be drier on
this lower level, with the overhang of the loft to protect us from
that lamentable roof?”

Jamie appraised
her with the look of One Who Knows. He shrugged. “I have found that
there are more mice on the lower levels, where there is often grain
spread around,” he commented.

“
Dear
God,” said Miss Omega Chartley faintly, and followed Jamie
Clevenden up the ladder, already imagining little cadres of mice
snapping at her heels. The prospect of sharing her chamber with
rodents was even more daunting than the prospect of teaching
gerunds to little girls who wished themselves elsewhere. Had there
been room on the ladder, she would have passed Jamie.

They found a
corner where the holes had not totally taken over, and settled in.
There were vague rustlings in the hay, but Omega resolutely ignored
them as she removed her bonnet and placed it in the driest corner
she could find.

As the rain
pelted down, a chill settled over the loft. Jamie edged closer,
until he was leaning against her arm.

He was silent for
the longest time, and she thought he had drifted to sleep, when he
spoke.

“
I
like that,” he said, and burrowed closer.

“
What?” she asked.

“
My
mother smelled of lavender, too,” he said.

She smiled into
the darkness. “I am surprised you can still catch the fragrance of
it.”

“
Mama
kept her dainties in lavender,” Jamie said, his voice small under
the pelting of the rain on and through the roof. “She would hand me
her sachet bags and I would pummel them about until the lavender
was properly stirred up.” He sighed. “I kept one bag, but it
doesn’t smell anymore.”

He was silent
then. Omega wanted to put her arm about him. At Miss Haversham’s,
there had been numerous occasions, at first, when she had wanted to
console a pupil, some of them scarcely more than babies, it seemed
to her, but she had been dissuaded by Miss Haversham. “It’s a hard
world, Miss Chartley. The sooner they realize it, the better for
their souls.” And so Omega had not cuddled those little ones. Soon
she never considered it. She was considering it now.

“
I
have—had—a pressed flower from my papa,” she ventured tentatively.
Papa had handed her the half-open bud during their last walk
together about the gardens before she made that dreadful trip up
the altar. The bud had never opened, but she had saved
it.

“
Where’s your father now?” Jamie asked. He spoke a little loud,
and she wondered if he was repeating himself because she had not
responded the first time. How easy it was to forget oneself in this
place.

“
Oh,
Jamie, he’s dead.”

He put his hand
in hers.

The rain
continued and the cold settled in. Why the rains of August were
gloomy, Omega did not know, but it was so. Maybe it was because
soon the birds would be flying south to the Azores and the leaves
would droop and die.

Jamie sat in
silence, doing nothing to solicit her sympathy, but Omega put her
arm around him and drew him closer. He sighed and leaned against
her, closed his eyes, and slept.

Sleep did not
visit Omega so swiftly. No matter how devastating had been some of
the events of the past eight years, this was the first time she had
been wet, cold, and hungry. Her stomach rumbled, and she shifted
slightly, so as not to awaken Jamie. She carefully pulled him over
until his head was in her lap, and rested her hand on his
arm.

Omega no longer
mourned the loss of her trunk; she had no possessions that were
irreplaceable. Everything of any value had been auctioned off after
Papa’s death. Even the loss of her money was less onerous than
anyone could have told her it would be. She had only to apply to
Alpha for a small loan, and he would find a way to cover it. And
knowing Alpha, she believed he would chuckle over her
mishap.

But what was she
to do about St. Elizabeth’s? It was the middle of August. Omega had
a month until she was due in Durham. If none of the constabulary
from Bow Street contacted the headmistress seeking her whereabouts,
perhaps she could contrive to slip through this little detour of
her journey. As she leaned over Jamie to protect him from some of
the rain, Omega told herself that in the course of a day or two
Jamie would be with his uncle the Viscount of Byworth, and the
whole adventure would be something to laugh about with the
Chartleys.

Provided they
found the uncle. Provided Timothy Platter did not sniff them up
first. Omega closed her eyes.
I
will
sleep,
she told herself.
Things will appear in a better light in the
morning
. Omega did sleep then, her head nodding over
Jamie.

What it was that
woke her toward morning, she could not say. There was no sudden
noise, no alarm, no indication of any disturbance. If anything, the
night was quieter. The rain had stopped, and it was too early for
the birds of dawn.

But something had
wakened her. She sat silent in the cool darkness as some strange
sense told her that the barn was occupied by others. She could not
see them, but they were there. She made herself small in the corner
and surprised herself by going back to sleep.

She woke when
morning came, woke to find that Jamie had shifted and was curled up
next to her, his head resting on his hands, a beatific smile on his
lips that belied the dried streaks of tears through the dirt on his
face. She listened to the rustle of mice about the vicinity of her
bonnet and almost rolled over and went back to sleep again before
she remembered the other occupants of the barn.

All was still.
Surely her fears of the night were only a dream. She listened and
heard nothing, but the feeling settled over her again that someone
waited below.

Carefully,
cautiously, Omega rose to her knees and stretched herself close to
the edge of the loft, mindful not to waken Jamie. Holding her
breath, she peered over the edge and into the eyes of a little
girl, who lay on her back, looking up directly into Omega’s
face.

Omega’s eyes
widened. She watched in amazement as the little girl smiled at her,
put her finger to her lips, pointed to the man sleeping beside her,
and shook her head.

The man lay
stretched out on his back, one arm under the girl’s head and the
other one placed on his chest. Omega looked again. He had no hand
on the end of his wrist. His shirt sleeve had been pulled back, and
his arm ended abruptly above his wrist in a mass of scars and
rough-looking flesh.

How
singular
, thought Omega, too surprised to be repulsed by the
man’s deformity, or amazed by the girl’s calm acceptance of her.
Omega rested her chin on her hands and stared below. The girl had
closed her eyes, her long black lashes sweeping against her cheeks.
She appeared perfectly relaxed and not at all nervous under the
scrutiny of a strange woman in the hayloft.
How singular
,
thought Omega again, and redirected her gaze at the sleeping
man.

He was tall, with
several days’ growth of beard on his chin. His hair was curly like
her own, and richly black. He was dressed in soldier’s breeches.
His jacket lay nearby, draped on a piece of farm equipment, and he
wore a frilled white shirt.

Omega peered
closer. The shirt had been torn, bloodied, washed, and carefully
sewn together again, but it was undeniably the shirt of a
gentleman.
Odd indeed
, Omega thought as she raised up on her
elbows and observed the scene below. She felt no fear, none at all,
from these strangers. Omega smiled at the girl, who smiled back,
sighed, rustled down farther into the straw that was her mattress,
and closed her eyes again. The man slept quietly.

That he was a
soldier, there was no doubt. Whether he had only recently returned
from Waterloo minus his hand, Omega did not know. And the little
girl? Omega could only speculate.

For a woman who
has spent considerable time in recent years avoiding people, you
are surprisingly curious, Omega Chartley, she told herself as she
settled her chin on her hands and promptly returned to slumber
herself.

She woke with the
sun in her eyes, dust tickling her nose. Omega sneezed enormously,
prodigiously, making the kind of racket that would have caused her
to rain coals of fire on the heads of her students committing such
a solecism.