For Your Arms Only (12 page)

“Yes. You did say you wanted to remain involved. Shall I work until I discover something, or shall I call every day even if I have no news?”

Every day
. She cleared her throat again. “As often as you see fit, Major.”

He looked at her. “Alec,” he said. “Please.”

“Oh.” She tried to laugh and ended up making a strange coughing sound. They were very close together here by the window and the desk. Cressida didn’t remember the last time she had been so close to a man who was not Tom or her father, let alone one who looked at her like this. “I don’t think…That is…If you wish.”

“We’ll be thrown together a fair amount, I expect.” Finally he looked away. “I’m not in the army any longer. I haven’t used the rank in some time.” He raised one brow and cast a significant glance over her shoulder, to where his coat lay on the chair. Cressida hurriedly stepped aside, and he moved past her, his boots brushing her skirts. She stood clutching Papa’s journal to her chest as he put on his coat and collected the ledger and bills. They walked into the hall, where she murmured a good-bye and he bowed and left with a promise to return soon.

Alec
. He swung onto his horse’s back and touched the brim of his hat to her.
We’ll be thrown together…
Did that mean he wanted to call her Cressida? He hadn’t asked. She hadn’t invited him, either, but that was more because her tongue seemed tied up in a knot. What would her name sound like on his lips? And just how often would he call?

“Cressida.” She started, and turned to see Tom standing in the hall behind her, twisting his cap in his hands. “Might I have a moment?”

“Of course, Tom. What is it?”

He glanced over her shoulder. Cressida could still hear hoofbeats, and her mind called up the image of Major Hayes—Alec, she reminded herself with a nervous tingle—with his perfect cavalry posture, riding away, guiding the horse with the smallest touch of a heel or a knee, his hands as calm and gentle as they were steady and commanding.

“He’s been around a lot lately,” Tom muttered.

“Er—” Cressida plastered a smile on her face to hide her wandering thoughts. “He’s going to help us find Papa.” She held up the journal in illustration. “And see, today we’ve found something.”

Tom stared at the dusty old journal, and the color drained from his ruddy face. “Where’d you find that?” he asked in a thin voice.

Cressida narrowed her eyes at him in surprise. Tom had obviously seen it before. What did Tom know that he hadn’t told her? she wondered suddenly. “In the study.”

Tom’s eyes were riveted on the book. “Did you find anything else?”

“Yes,” she replied slowly. “A ledger. Major Hayes has taken it to see if it will reveal anything useful.”

“Should you have let him take it?”

“Why not?”

Instead of answering, Tom sighed and pushed one hand through his hair, standing it on end. “What do you hope to find?” he asked her, sounding weary and almost despairing.

“The truth. I want to know where Papa is, and why he hasn’t come home.”

He closed his eyes and hung his head. For the first time Cressida noticed there was a small bald patch at the crown of his head, and that his sandy hair had threads of gray. “Truly? What if it is ugly or unpleasant?”

“What do you mean? How could it be worse than not knowing?” He didn’t answer. “I want to know what happened to my father,” she exclaimed. “Do you fault me for that?”

He sighed again. “No. I just fear…I fear you might not find the answers as comforting as you expect.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Cressida was shocked by the possibility, but then, she was just realizing that never once had she heard Tom say he hoped Papa came back. He was always ready to lend a helping hand or a comforting word on almost any other subject, but not that one. When he had offered to go look for Papa, and she and Callie had refused, he never pressed the issue—as if he wasn’t sorry his offer had been rejected. But Tom had been with her father for years, over a decade. If he didn’t have any affection for Papa, why had he stayed so long?

Tom shook his head. “As God is my witness, I have no idea. I know as much as you do, that he went to London to see Lord Hastings and planned to return within a fortnight.”

“But you
have
seen this before.” She held up the journal.

Tom glanced at it before dropping his eyes to the floor. “Yes, that’s the sergeant’s journal. He kept it for years.”

Cressida flipped it open and paged through it. The writing was small but precise; Papa did write a very gentlemanly hand, something he took great pride in. But it was clearly in code, an odd thing for a private journal. “Do you know what code he used?”

“No,” Tom mumbled. “He started that in Spain, after hearing about French letters being in code. He liked the idea tremendously.”

Cressida believed that. For all that she loved her papa, she knew he had a secretive bent and a fondness for mysteries and drama. When she was a child and he would come home on furlough, he would make puzzles for her and Callie to solve, usually revealing the location of a bag of sweets he’d brought them. She never knew how he managed to hide the sweets before he got home, but they would always be right where the puzzle indicated. Callie had been frustrated and then bored with the puzzles, but Cressida loved them. She loved the euphoria of solving one, and the twinkle in her father’s eye when he would pinch her cheek and say she had a quick brain behind her pretty face. And this promised to be the biggest, most challenging—and perhaps most important—puzzle he ever gave her. Already her fingers were itching to start making notes, looking for patterns and clues.

But there was something wrong about Tom’s reaction to the sight of the journal, as if he knew—or suspected—Papa had dangerous secrets hidden inside it. But dangerous to whom? And if Tom had known about it for years, why did he never say anything sooner?

“Tom,” she asked slowly, tracing one finger down the edge of one page, “do you want Papa to come home?”

“I don’t want you and your sister to be hurt.”

“That’s not the same thing—or is it?” She closed the journal and took a step toward him. “How could Papa’s return harm us?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“I know he wasn’t the noble saint my grandmother describes. I suspect he was…
is
…a bit of a scoundrel at times. I’m not blind. But I want to know; he’s my father.”

Tom looked at the book in her hand again. There was no mistaking the anguish in his face. “I know you love your father, and it does you great credit. But that book will only lead to heartache. Trust me, Cressida.”

“You don’t want to see him again, do you?” she said in blank amazement.

After a long moment of silence, Tom sighed. “No.”

“Why?” She was shocked. “You’ve been with him for so long! You might have left us at any time. We cannot pay you for the work you do, and—”

“I don’t want money,” he snapped. “Not your money, at any rate. It’s not that. It’s just that…Well, have you not noticed that things run smoother when the sergeant’s not around?”

Cressida pressed one hand to her forehead and paced away. “I know. I know, Tom! But what can I do? He’s my father.” She chastised herself daily with those words. If not for the lack of money, her wicked, selfish mind thought, they would get on quite fine without Papa. There would be no quarrels over silly things. Callie had completely lost the cowed expression she’d come to wear in Papa’s presence. There was peace in the household, and Cressida couldn’t deny, to herself, that it was nicer than the boisterous strife Papa spawned wherever he went.

“I know.” Tom came up behind her. “You’re doing a fine job keeping things together, but perhaps we could get on better if we stop waiting for him to return and go on as if he might, in fact, never come home.”

“You think he’s left for good this time,” she replied in a flat tone.

“He might have done, yes.”

“You’re wrong.” She opened her eyes and looked out, down the winding drive to the road. “He didn’t take every last penny in the house. Granny still has her locket and earrings, and if he meant to abandon us, he would have taken them.”

Tom’s hand touched her arm, then fell away. “Perhaps it was a sudden decision.”

“When he’d had a promising interview for a position he wanted?” She shook her head. The road was empty. Major Hayes was long gone, and so, still, was Papa. “He meant to come back. I know it, Tom. And therefore, since he hasn’t, it’s likely something has happened to him.”

“Aye,” he agreed on a sigh. “I suppose it is. But that book—” He frowned at the journal she had tucked under one arm. “That book won’t bring you peace. Take my advice and put it back where you found it.”

As his footsteps echoed and faded away, Cressida continued to stare out at the deserted road. There was no help from that direction, as usual; not yet, anyway. The journal was important. She was sure of it. But unfortunately, she was just as sure that Tom was keeping something from her.

I
t was, as Alec had expected, a tedious job. For two days he painstakingly matched bills to the ledger items, shaking his head from time to time at the way Turner spent money. No humble soldier’s life for this fellow, with receipts for fine handkerchiefs, china, and wines. Turner bought like a man with a healthy income and no worries about the morrow. The only thing missing from the ledger was proof of his income. Alec added up almost three hundred pounds’ worth of outstanding debt, but several times that amount had gone out over the last three years. Where was Turner getting money?

He turned his attention to the entries for money received. They were far fewer than the entries for payments made, but after a while Alec thought he had them sorted out pretty well. Turner collected a modest investment income on behalf of his widowed daughter, as well as his army pension and a small annuity of his mother’s. In the last two years there were frequent but not regular payments from “W. Pren.,” with no other description except the word “Ludgate” written in tiny script under the last of those entries.

Even added together, all this income didn’t balance the expenditures, but he had to start somewhere. It took only a little effort to discover that a printer named Willard Prenner operated out of a small shop in London off Ludgate Hill. Alec had a guess why a London print shop might be paying Turner, but when he told Miss Turner he was going to London to see Prenner, he didn’t tell her what it was.

“I shall come with you,” she said at once.

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself. I expect it will be a rather dull trip.”

“But my father hasn’t been seen since he went to London. What if we should discover something that would lead right to him?” She moved to the edge of her seat, her golden eyes alight with determination and eagerness.

“It seems unlikely,” Alec said, again keeping his thoughts to himself. He couldn’t shake the growing feeling that George Turner had disappeared for reasons that might be best left unknown. The debts, the inexplicable income, the odd letters seeking plum positions…they all added up to a man not quite as honorable and unassuming as his family obviously thought him. Miss Turner no doubt pictured them rescuing her father from unjust imprisonment or a sick house; Alec was beginning to suspect they would find Turner, if they found him at all, holed up in a pub with a new name and a sad tale to win him some flush new friends. Alec had no patience for that sort of man, and thought his family might even be better off without him. But he had been charged by Stafford to find the man, and find him he would, if at all possible. And if he could find Turner without a witness, Alec wouldn’t hesitate to remind the man, forcefully, of his familial obligations.

“But it might. I want to come with you.”

Not for the first time, Alec wished he could suppress his interest in her. Just the thought of taking her to London with him was planting wicked thoughts in his head. She said she wanted to know, and he couldn’t lie to her. “You should know there’s always a chance we would discover something unpleasant,” he warned her, making one last effort to persuade her to stay.

Her bosom rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “I understand,” she said quietly. “I am prepared. But I want to know what has happened to Papa.”

Alec gave in, telling himself it was totally unrelated to the surge of triumph at the prospect of being alone with her for two entire days. “Very well. I shall call for you in the morning.”

After he left, Cressida went to pack her valise, only realizing then that she would have to explain to Callie. And true to expectations, her sister was alarmed at the prospect.

“Do you really need to go?”

“Yes.” Cressida didn’t mention that the major had said she needn’t. “We’re leaving in the morning.”

“Just the two of you?” Callie nibbled her lip. “Perhaps Mr. Webb should go as well.”

“Tom should stay here. We’ll only be gone overnight, but if something should happen, you might need him.” She placed clean garments in the valise and hesitated. “Besides, I’m old enough no one will care. And it’s not as if Major Hayes will be tempted to ravish me.”

“I don’t know,” Callie murmured. “He did look at you most attentively at the party…”

Cressida snorted, but turned away all the same so no embarrassing blush could betray her pleasure at that thought. “Nonsense.”

“And you are not too old,” Callie persisted. “Granny will care.”

“Callie, you’re only thinking that because of our talk the other night. He’s not going to ravish me, even if I were the most enchanting woman alive, and I most certainly am not.”

“But you look very well next to him.” She turned on her sister in shock, but Callie put up her chin and nodded. “You do, both so tall. You look very ladylike next to him, and I think he admires you.”

“Callie!”

“Admires your spirit, then. And you admitted to Granny he’s a handsome man.”

“Go away,” she growled. Callie just shrugged and left, thankfully. Cressida fussed with the strap on the valise, unable to block her sister’s words out of her mind. Did they look well together? Had he noticed such a thing—or would he even care? “Of course not,” she said under her breath, and went out to pull weeds from the garden to make herself forget everything Callie had said.

They left early the next morning, and made good time to the city. It was only twenty miles, but seemed half that on a fine day in a well-sprung carriage with a good horse. As they drew near to the city, the major began pointing out sights, to her increasing interest. They passed the magnificent St. Paul’s cathedral, and maneuvered through the bustle of Fleet Street. A large, austere building loomed to one side, and when she asked, he told her it was Fleet Prison. That sobered her thoughts considerably, and when they turned into an inn courtyard a short distance away, she couldn’t help glancing back at it.

“Papa couldn’t be in there, could he?”

“He wasn’t when I last checked.” He jumped down from the carriage and handed the reins to the stable hand who came running.

“You checked?” She gathered her skirt and took the hand he held out to help her down. “When?”

“The day after Hastings spoke to me, Miss Turner.” He flipped the boy a coin and offered his arm to her.

“I didn’t know that.”

“He wasn’t there, so I saw no reason to alarm you by mentioning it.”

Cressida took his arm and let him lead her into the inn, silenced by his calm reply. The day he drove her into Marston he had said she needed someone who would ask the terrible questions; apparently he asked them of everyone, not just of her, and she found this strangely comforting.

Inside the inn, he engaged two rooms for the night and arranged for dinner later. Cressida sat in the taproom and had a cup of tea while he saw to the baggage, then they set off on foot for the print shop, just a few streets away. This time she avoided looking toward the prison, and tried not to think what other dreadful possibilities Major Hayes might have already considered and investigated.

The shop was a small one, squeezed between a florist and a hatter along the bustling street. The windows were filled to shoulder height with various prints for sale. They were mostly the satirical prints popular now, many mocking the new King or lauding Queen Caroline, who had become something of a heroine since her return to England. Major Hayes opened the door for her, and she went in, her heart accelerating in anxious hope.

“Can I help you, madam?” An obsequious little clerk smiled up at her, rubbing his hands.

“I would like a word with Mr. Prenner,” Cressida said with a polite smile. The major had stayed a step behind her, as silent as a servant. They had arranged between them that he would act that part while she inquired, since it was her father.

The clerk’s eyes darted up and down her. “Of course, of course. I will let him know you wish to see him.” He hurried off to the rear of the shop and disappeared. Cressida barely had time to exchange a look with Major Hayes before the clerk returned, ushering them into the back room.

It was a tiny room, crowded with a desk shoved under the window and a bookcase groaning with books and papers. An armchair prevented the door from opening fully, but she squeezed through, the major close behind her, and the clerk shut the door.

“Good day, madam.” Willard Prenner was of middle age, with thinning hair and a simpering smile. He wiped his hands on his ink-stained apron and clasped them before him. “You wish to see me?”

“Yes.” She waited until the man’s eyes lifted from her bosom to her face again. “My name is Cressida Turner. I’ve come to discover what you might know of my father, George Turner.”

The smile vanished. “What do you mean?” Prenner asked, his eyebrows flying up in exaggerated confusion. “Mr. Turner is your father, you say? I am sure you know far more about him than I do.”

“He has gone missing, and your name was in his ledger. I know he visited you shortly before he disappeared, and hoped you might have an idea where he could have gone.”

Prenner hesitated. Cressida had the feeling he was thinking furiously. His smile reappeared, colder and dismissive. “He’s disappeared? Well, I know nothing of that. We concluded our business some time ago. I didn’t expect to have further dealings with him, in fact.”

“What was that business?” she pressed him. “Might he have gone to another printer on similar business?”

Prenner gave a patronizing chuckle. “I don’t think he would want you to trouble your pretty head about it.”

Cressida wanted to curse in frustration. “You paid him over a hundred pounds in the last two years; there must be a good reason.”

“Yes, and I don’t have to tell you,” he replied with a sniff. “It’s my business, too, and you’ve no right to that.”

“I am just trying to locate my father,” she began, but the printer heaved a noisy sigh.

“Try the Dove’s Nest, if you’re so keen to find him.”

Behind her, Major Hayes muttered something in a disgusted tone, then stepped around her, striding right up to Mr. Prenner. The printer’s squinty eyes opened wide as the major towered over him.

“When did you last see Sergeant Turner?” he asked, all the more intimidating for speaking so quietly and evenly.

Prenner curled his lip even as he tipped his head back to see him. “I can’t recall.”

With a sharp twist, the major seized the front of Prenner’s shirt, right under his chin, and yanked, pulling the smaller man up onto his toes. Prenner’s sallow face turned brick red. He swung his fist and cursed, but the major didn’t seem to notice.

“When did you last see him?” he repeated.

“Piss off,” spat Prenner. He opened his mouth as if to yell.

Major Hayes gave him a sharp shake, and Cressida heard the man’s teeth knock together. “Has Turner been here since April? You’re wearing out my patience.”

Prenner just glared at him. Cressida noticed his hand groping behind him, searching for something on the desk. A penknife glittered in the dusty sunlight. “Watch,” she managed to say, pointing. “He’s got a—”

Major Hayes had seen. He drew back his free hand and drove it into Mr. Prenner’s stomach. The printer’s body jerked backward from the force of the blow. He looked like he would be sick. “Bloody thief,” he choked. “Have you…arrested…”

“Then I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” replied the major. He twisted his arm, driving his elbow into the underside of Prenner’s chin and knocking the man’s head back. Then he followed that blow with a neat punch from his left hand, and Mr. Prenner went limp. Major Hayes caught him under the arms and dragged his limp form over to the armchair, dropping him into it. He turned back to her.

“Come, look in that desk. Quickly,” he added in quiet command when she just stood gawking at him.

Cressida closed her mouth and jumped to follow his directions. Her heart raced and her hands shook as she scrabbled through the haphazard collection of books, ledgers, bills, letters, and various other papers stuffed into the desk. Good heavens. The major had just knocked Mr. Prenner unconscious, with very little difficulty and even less hesitation. She stole a shocked glance at him from under her eyelashes. He was rifling through the bookcase by the window, frowning as he sorted through that mess. The sunlight coming through the dusty window picked out the lines of his face, including a faint scar on his cheek she had never noticed before. Unlike her, he looked as though he knew exactly what he was doing. What sort of man was he really? First his single-minded search of her father’s study, now this. Cressida was increasingly sure there was much more to the major than he was telling any of them, and she could only be glad that—for the moment—he was on her side.

He looked up, meeting her gaze. The sun slanting through the dusty window lit his eyes to the color of the sky. “Something wrong?” he asked in the same muted voice.

“Ah…It’s stuck,” she whispered, pulling at a random drawer to cover her lapse. Must he catch her staring at him every single time she did it? She half expected the drawer to fly open and catch her in the lie, but it remained firmly closed. She tugged at the handle and rattled it, hoping it was just stuck and not locked.

“Shh.” With two soundless steps he crossed the room to her. Cressida quivered as he reached around her, his arm almost embracing her. She would have moved away to let him at the desk, but he was right behind her, and the room was small and crowded. She was stuck in place, caught between him, the desk, and the wall. She couldn’t help glancing at his hands, so large and strong. He gave a firm pull at the drawer, then put his other hand at her waist. “Let me,” he whispered, easing around her. She looked up at him as they awkwardly traded places. He barely glanced at her, his attention wholly on the desk. Cressida retreated to the bookcase he had been searching, watching from the corner of her eyes as he went down on his knees and reached into his coat pocket. He took out what looked like two long thick needles, and inserted them into the lock.

A snort from Mr. Prenner broke into her thoughts. She jumped, darting a worried glance at him, but he slept on. Major Hayes slid open the stuck drawer with only a faint murmur of wood on wood, but it sounded loud in the quiet room. What would they do if the assistant came back? A trickle of perspiration slid down between her breasts. Cressida sucked in a shaky breath. She was not born for sneaking around like this. Uncertainly she turned to the shelves and started poking through the books, no longer sure of what she was looking for, when the major whispered to her.