Her Ladyship's Companion (17 page)

Melissa tortured herself endlessly with guilt. Robbie had warned her that his life was in danger. How long ago was it? Twenty hours? Thirty? But she’d been concerned with her own stupid problems. She’d even planned to desert him altogether. How could she have let herself be lulled into ignoring him? Why hadn’t she followed her own instincts instead of Giles’s damnably logical arguments? It was all her fault. If anything had happened to Robbie, she’d live with the guilt of it every day for the rest of her life.

Someone came into the long gallery. She heard the door open. She waited, expecting to see one of the maids still engaged in the fruitless search of the house. In the dim circle of light thrown by her candle she recognized Jamie, Robbie’s friend from the stables. He must be terribly worried, Melissa thought. It’s worse when you’re young.

“Come over with me, Jamie,” she said softly. “You can watch the search from up here. We’ll be the first ones to see when they find him.” He was wet to the skin. He’d been out earlier.

“Miss,” the boy said in a low voice, “I know where he is.”

Melissa dropped down on her knees beside him and grabbed him hard. “What do you mean?” she demanded, frowning horribly at him. “Where do you think he is? Someplace we haven’t looked yet?”

“He’s in the woods, miss. Not down the cliffs. He’s on the island.” He meant the lake island with the ruined summer house.

“What makes you say that? They searched there. I saw the lights.”

“No, mum.” Jamie was positive. “They only looked along the shore. I heard one o’ the men say so. The bridge is fallen all to bits, and they thought they couldn’t get a man across it. They know we’re not allowed to go out there, so they didn’t even bother to look on the island.” Jamie’s voice broke. Lines of tears on his cheeks glistened in the candlelight. “We go there all the time, frog catching. Nobody knows. Robbie’s over there, but I can’t get anybody to look. They sent me back in.”

“You actually go across that bridge?” Melissa asked incredulously. She’d seen the tumbled-down sixty-foot span. It was hard to believe it would hold even a child’s weight.

“It’s safe enough. There’re a few boards missing, that’s all.”

“But why should he be out there? He could be anywhere.”

“I know he is. I’ve been thinking about it all night. We were going to get worms, you see. The trout in the brook at Penwaller’s place always bite when it’s raining. Just when the wash begins, they take worms if you time it right. Tomorrow would be just about right. So we needed the worms, and we always get them on the island because old Barney can’t catch us digging up the gardens if we go over there.” Jamie took a deep breath to steady himself and plunged on. “Then I got stuck inside working for Mrs. Ballantyne. Robbie must have gone over to the island today by himself early, so we could get started tomorrow before anybody caught us.”

It sounded a little farfetched. Melissa’s heart sank again. But anything was worth trying at this point. “I’ll send Jem or Barney out to tell Mr. Tarsin about this. He’ll make certain the men go right over to the island and search it.” It was bitter disappointment. For a minute she’d thought he had something.

“I tried to tell him already!” the boy cried out passionately. “That’s when he sent me away. He just said they’d already looked in the woods. He ordered me back to the house and told me to stay out of the way. But I’m sure they didn’t look, no matter what he said. Tom said they didn’t go out on the bridge at all. I just know Robbie’s over there.”

“Jamie, if Mr. Tarsin said they’ve checked the island, then they must have,” Melissa said gently. He was overwrought and grasping at straws. Who could blame him?

“Haven’t,” Jamie insisted. “They would have found him.”

“Jamie,” Melissa coaxed, “there’s no real reason to believe that Robbie went there. Don’t you see, he might have gone down to catch something in one of the tide pools instead?”

“No,” Jamie maintained stubbornly. “If he said we were going to use worms, then we use worms. We were going river fishing. Sea bait doesn’t work in sweet water.” That was an immutable law of nature to him, as sure as sunrise. “So he had to get worms.”

“If you’re that certain, I’ll go down and see what I can find out about this. If no one’s been actually over to the island itself, we’ll have to send someone. I’ll talk to—”

“I thought you’d be willing to listen to me,” Jamie said bitterly, clenching his fists. “I thought you’d come with me. Robbie said he trusted you.” It was a biting condemnation.

“You’re not going out there alone, are you? After they told you to stay inside?” She grabbed him more firmly by the shirt. Melissa was at her wits’ end. Here was something else to worry about. They were going to lose both boys if Jamie went dashing about in the dark on this fool’s errand.

“Yes, I am. I know he’s there.” Jamie was waiting only until she released her grip to be off. His stolid, unimaginative face was set rock-hard. She confronted not one small boy but the descendant of a hundred generations of wild Cornishmen. She wouldn’t budge him from his purpose a single inch. And where was she going to find his father on a night like this?

Melissa had seen that footbridge to the island by day. It was certainly not fit for a child to cross, alone, by night. “Look here,” she offered. “I’ll go out and find Giles myself and tell him to send a man over to the island. I won’t rest until I see that he actually does it. Will that satisfy you?”

“No!” he shouted back at her. “He’d just say it’d already been searched. That’s what he said to me. He’s the master here. If you go to him and he orders you back in the house, you have to go. So I’m going myself, now. Robbie’s there, I know it.”

“You can’t go.”

“I can. You can’t stop me!” Jamie yelled angrily. “Robbie said to go to you if there was trouble. It looks like he was wrong.”

“You will do as I tell you,” Melissa said, playing the schoolteacher heavily.

“No!” Jamie yelled again. He looked absurdly like Hobson, his father, dressing down one of the yard boys. “I’m going to find Robbie. I’m sorry I ever told you anything at all.”

Melissa held him with a resolute grip. She gazed down into his face. He was utterly determined and probably completely wrong. But even if Giles ordered him to bed, it would only mean he’d make the trip alone. She couldn’t post a guard over him. Everyone had more important work to do tonight than restrain one young idiot.

“Very well,” she conceded. “I’ll go to the shoreline myself and call. That way we’ll see if he’s on the island. If I do that, will you promise to stay here and not go out again tonight? If I can’t find anything, I’ll get somebody, somehow, across that bridge and out to the island.”

“The shore’s no good. They’ve been there. He might be hurt. He might not be able to answer. He might even be ...”

Melissa didn’t have to finish the sentence for him. She pulled the boy close to her and hugged him. “All right. All right. You win. I’ll go out to the blasted island personally.” At that he broke down and dissolved into gusty sobs.

Melissa stroked his hair. She couldn’t stand to see him hurt so. “I’ll look all around to make sure he isn’t there. You have my word on it.” She stood up. “I’ll find one of the men to come along with me.”

“No,” Jamie contradicted instantly. “He’ll just say you shouldn’t go. And then the master’ll give you orders. Besides, they’re all up on the cliffs. I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, no, you won’t. Stay inside. I don’t want you lost, too.”

He said with touchingly adult concern, “You need me to show you how to get across the bridge. It isn’t all that easy.”

“I didn’t think it would be,” she said dryly. “Very well. You come with me and carry the light.” She resolved not to let him make the crossing himself.

Maybe it would be best if the two of them went alone. He was right. Anyone who saw them would stop them. It was a mad errand.

They took lanterns from the array prepared on the kitchen table and faded quietly out of the babble in the back courtyard. Then they went through the formal gardens, unrecognizable in the rain, their swinging lights casting strange shadows across the stone nymphs. Melissa, with only a thin wool cloak, was quickly wet and cold. She wondered how Robbie was keeping warm that night. Jamie slogged along behind her, ignoring discomfort, single-minded in his effort to find his friend.

“This is the path here,” he said, directing her once they were in the woods.

She lifted her lantern. The trees all looked alike to her at night. She had to follow his lead. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” He proved correct, bringing them in short order to the edge of the little lake that lay at the heart of the wood.

Melissa’s feet were in mud up to the ankle. “Robbie! Robbie! Where are you?” she called out toward the island that lay, barely visible, across the expanse of water. There was no reply but the sound of rain hitting the trees. She shivered. “Robbie!” she called again.

“That’s the bridge over there.” Jamie guided her around the edge of the lake, slipping a little in the deep mud. The bridge arched over the water, still graceful. But Melissa knew it was treacherous, the boards rotted, the handrails only a snare for the unwary. She found it hard to believe that the youngsters had been using it regularly. Lady Dorothy was right. It should have been torn down long ago. What a pair of young fools. And she was just as bad. After all, here she was.

Still, she’d made a promise. She handed her lantern to Jamie. “You follow behind me with both lights until I tell you to stop,” she instructed. “Then stay there and hand the lantern back to me. Don’t come an inch farther than I say.”

She scraped the mud off her shoes on the first step of the bridge to make her footing less slick, rolled up her sleeves, and left her hampering cloak slung over what was left of the handrail. She couldn’t very well become any wetter than she already was without falling into the lake.

This was no time for dignity. On her hands and knees, pounding the boards in her path soundly with her fist, she inched forward. Jamie showed the light over her shoulder.

“Be careful,” she warned him. “Here’s a board missing.” She crawled across the opening. “Don’t touch the handrail. It isn’t safe.” That was an understatement. A whole section of the railing was about to fall down.

They made slow progress until they reached the highest point of the arch in the middle of the lake. Melissa was just thinking that the bridge was not as bad as she’d thought. It was.

“Jamie, look. This whole section is out,” she said with mingled disappointment and relief. “Nobody can convince me that Robbie made it across that. He can’t be on the island. This is why they didn’t look. We might as well go back.” Against all probability she had begun to hope that Jamie’s hunch was right. Now that was impossible.

“You can get over this part,” Jamie insisted, practically pushing her forward, “The rail here is good, see, and you just go hand over hand along the side, sort of crablike. It’s easy.” He inspected the great gap critically. “There’s another piece come off in the rain. That’s what makes it look hard. But you can still make it, if you try. You’ve got to try, at least.” He held the two lanterns up, one in each hand, to light the railing for her.

However adequate a footing it might look to a scatterbrained child, it was not going to support the weight of a grown woman. Melissa would have to tell him so. She faced him, assured and rational. “Jamie ...”

In the lantern light Jamie’s face was dripping with more than rain. He was crying. “Oh, miss, you’ve just got to.”

So much for assurance and rationality. “Damn,” she swore under her breath.

She measured the space with her eye. Could she possibly jump it? No. It was much too wide, and slippery as well. Despite the handrail, she’d be sure to go into the cold water in the lake below and probably break her neck. And there were nasty jagged remnants of drowned trees sticking up to impale her if she fell. Not to mention boards with nails in them, fallen off the bridge.

She reached out and shook the railing. It creaked ominously. If Robbie ever came back, she would have his head for daring to be on this bridge. She pushed her full weight against the railing and stopped suddenly. It was about to give way. If I use it for balancing, she thought, and don’t lean on it very much, it just might hold. Then again, it might not.

She squeezed some of the water out of her skirts to make herself lighter on her feet. “Don’t you dare follow me, Jamie.” Cuddling the wood rail against her belly, her feet sliding sideways across the exposed struts of the bridge, she started out, inch by inch.

What was that? Nails, pointed outward. She set her foot cautiously in another spot. Charming. Absolutely charming. What idiot ever put this summerhouse out in this damned lake anyway? Another step, then another, and her foot, feeling out blindly, found a solid board on the other side. She stepped down on it and let it sag beneath her. Ah, the relief.

Jamie made as if to follow her. “No! Stop that,” she said, more sharply than she’d yet spoken to him. “Stay there. There’s no need for both of us over. here. I may need you to carry a message. Hand me the lantern and wait. I promise I’ll look carefully.”

His pale face glimmered in the flickering light. He made a decision. He nodded. “Go ahead then, Miss Rivenwood. I trust you.”

It took a minute to pry a pronged piece of wood from the rotted railing to reach the lantern across to her.

Then she went on alone. The bridge was in better condition near the island. At the far end she glanced back. Jamie was a dim, patient figure in the middle of the lake, the light of his lantern reflecting off the rippling water.

Back in the mud again, fighting for balance, Melissa cupped her hands to her mouth and lurched forward. “Robbie!” she screamed, not once but again and again. The wind whipped strands of wet hair across her face. This little spot of land wasn’t big, a hundred yards from end to end. At the center, dirt had been carried in to smooth a grassy hill. Everything was overgrown with impenetrable vines. She staggered along the rocky shoreline.

“Robbie!” Her voice echoed back to her, weirdly distorted by the water. She’d come so far. Every possible spot had to be searched. She struggled onward. Once around the island. She was back to the bridge again. Jamie was still motionless. Some flower, hidden by the overgrowth, gave off a heavy scent through the rain as she crushed it underfoot. The rain clattered on the roof of the little summerhouse.