Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (8 page)

During his years at the priory, he’d spent as much time as he could outdoors, and almost all of that had been in one or other of the house’s gardens—the medicinal garden, the kitchen garden, or the orchard. He’d learned a lot in that time, including how to spot blight and what the most effective treatment was.

Halting before the apple tree, he surveyed it, noting the dark stain of blight steadily overtaking so many of the branches.

Inwardly sighing, Thomas let his cane fall to the grass and lifted the axe from his shoulder.

Limping forward, he ducked under one of the lower branches, to where he had a clear field to angle the axe into the trunk. Setting his feet, he raised the axe—

“No-oo!”

The sound had him lowering the axe and looking toward the house.

Pippin came flying down the garden, her braids and her pinafore flapping behind her. “
No
! No, Thomas! You can’t cut down my tree!”

Her wail was anguished. Setting the axe-head on the ground, Thomas straightened.

Pippin rushed into the orchard. Thomas glanced at the house and realized she must have seen him from the window of her bedroom.

She raced through the long grass to fetch up near his cane. Her gaze beseeching, her expression imploring, she fixed her big brown eyes on his face. “Please, Thomas, you can’t cut it down—it’s my
name
tree. It gave me my name.”

Thomas inwardly blinked. After a moment, he said, “I thought your name was Philippa, or something like that.”

Pippin shook her head emphatically. “No, but I like apples, so when I had to choose a name, I chose Pippin.” She nodded at the tree. “So that’s my tree.”

“Ah.” So what was her real name? And why had she had to choose another? Thomas stared at her for a moment more, then glanced at the tree. Obviously, the most effective treatment wouldn’t be the best treatment in this case. He looked at Pippin. “It’s sick, you know.”

Her little face deathly sober, Pippin nodded. Drawing closer, she reached up to trace a diseased branch. “It’s not healthy, is it?”

“No, it’s not.” Holding the axe head down, Thomas ducked back under the branch to join her. “And if we don’t do something, it will keep sickening and eventually die—probably by the end of this year.”

Pippin faced him, her soft brown eyes, so like Rose’s, locking with his. “But we don’t have to cut it down, do we? Isn’t there something we can do to make it better?”

Thomas held her gaze, then heaved an inward sigh and turned back to the tree, re-surveying it and cataloguing how far the blight had spread. There was, just possibly, an outside chance that judicious pruning might save the tree. Was it better to try, and give Pippin possibly false hope, or should he simply insist that the tree had to come down now?

He glanced around at the other trees. “The other trees all look healthy, so this is most likely an apple-tree-only blight.” Again, he studied the apple tree, very conscious of Pippin’s gaze locked on his face, of the hope shining in her eyes, and the faith, too, that if there was a way of saving the tree, he would find it for her.

“If,” he said, glancing down at her, “we carefully cut off all the dying branches, every bit that shows any sign of going bad at all, and then take all the pieces away and burn them, then we might—and I can only say might—save your tree.”

She stared up at him, then reached out and grasped his hand. Squeezed as she said, “So can we? Please?”

We
. It occurred to him that she would get more out of any rescue if she helped—and if the worst came to be, at least she would feel she had done all she could. “All right.”

She clapped her hands and squealed. Thankfully briefly.

Hiding a grin at her exuberance—and wondering how long it would last in face of the chore awaiting them—he gestured with his chin toward the stable. “Come along, then. We’ll put back the axe and get the shears and saw.”

She skipped along beside him, and he couldn’t help but smile.

After returning the axe, he collected all the tools he thought they might need, along with an old, paint-splattered tarpaulin. Letting Pippin carry the lighter shears, he bundled everything else up in the tarpaulin and slung it over his shoulder, and together they went back to the orchard.

Spreading the tarpaulin out on the far side of the apple tree, on the slight slope that ran down to the rear wall of the orchard, he lifted the two saws and the heavier shears from the canvas, laid them aside, closer to the tree, then, taking the lighter shears from Pippin, he said, “Now, this is how we’re going to work.”

He explained that he would cut the branches and hand them to her, and that it was her task to make sure that each and every little piece of branch taken from the tree ended on the tarpaulin. “It’s very important that every piece of bad wood ends up on our pile, and not on the grass near the tree. Then, once we’ve cut off all the diseased bits, we’ll pull the tarpaulin down to the far corner of the orchard, and we’ll make a pile there and burn all the bad wood.”

Pippin nodded. He raised the shears, but as he reached to take hold of the first branch, Pippin slipped closer to the trunk of the tree. Crouching beside it, she laid a palm against the smooth bark. “I promise we’re going to do everything we can to make you better so you can grow healthy again, and bear nice apples for us to eat.”

She patted the tree, then, rising, she came to stand beside Thomas. Looking up, she met his gaze and nodded. “We can start now.”

Entirely sober, Thomas nodded back and cut the first branch.

They quickly fell into a rhythm and worked steadily around the tree, with each successive circuit cutting deeper and deeper into the branches. Thomas lost track of time, but, eventually, with the tree branches trimmed to less than half of what they had been, he could see no lingering traces of blight.

Straightening, he stepped back and looked again, just to be sure. Pippin came to stand beside him. “Can you spot any more blighted bits?” he asked. Her eyes, after all, would be much sharper than his.

To her credit, she didn’t immediately answer but instead searched the tree carefully. But, at last, she sighed, satisfaction in the sound. “No. I think we’ve got it all.”

Thomas nodded. “Right, then. On to our next task. We have to destroy all the diseased wood.”

“Burn it!” Pippin sang.

Understanding from the delight in her face that she liked a bonfire as much as any other child, he grinned and bent to grasp the lower edge of the tarpaulin. “No,” he said when Pippin came to help him. “You go to the opposite side and lift the edge. That way, when I pull it down the slope, none of the pile will fall back and off the tarpaulin.”

“Oh.” Her delight didn’t dim. “Yes, I see.”

Together they dragged the tarpaulin down to the far corner of the orchard, where there was plenty of clear space for a fire. Dropping the edge he’d dragged, Thomas circled around and joined Pippin, and together, with much laughter from her and silent grins from him, they raised the tarpaulin, tipping the wood off it as they dragged the material free.

Thomas glanced at the resulting rather haphazard pile. “Let’s make it up into a proper bonfire, then we should go back and gather our tools, take them back to the stables, and then we can come back and set our bonfire alight.”

“Yes!” Pippin danced and darted, picking up loose branches and setting them atop the pile.

Swiftly Thomas shifted some of the larger branches to give the pile a better structure, then he largely let Pippin dance and have fun.

Her gaiety was infectious.

When the bonfire was built, they did as he’d decreed and took the tools back to the stable. Pausing only to collect some dry tinder from the wood box, they made their way back to the far corner of the orchard.

The weather had been clear for some time, and in most of the branches they’d cut, the sap had yet to properly rise. It wasn’t hard to set fire to their pile.

As twigs caught and flames started to crackle and lick their way through the stacked wood, Thomas stood back and checked that Pippin was maintaining a safe distance from the conflagration, then settled to watch.

Bit by bit, the greedy flames spread, until at last the pile erupted with a muted roar.

Pippin had gradually moved back. As the fire settled to consume the apple tree’s blighted branches, she drifted to stand by Thomas’s side.

Without warning, she slipped a small hand into one of his.

He glanced down, even as his fingers instinctively tightened about hers. Not too tightly, just enough to hold her hand, to respond . . .

Pippin sighed and leaned against him, nestling her head against his side.

Something inside him stilled.

Such innocent, unconditional trust . . . it rocked him.

He drew in a shallow, not entirely steady breath and, raising his head, looked at the flames.

A minute later, he heard from behind them, “What are you burning?”

Glancing around, he saw his housekeeper—Pippin’s mother. He glanced down at the little girl and was no longer so sure of their relationship.

Straightening, Pippin barely glanced back, but, instead, jigged at his side. “Thomas and me are burning up all the bad branches off my tree.” Pippin pointed to the apple tree. “See? We had to cut and cut to get all the sick branches off, and now”—with a sweep of her little arm, she indicated the bonfire—“we’re burning them all up so my tree can get well without catching the sickness again.”

She glanced up at him, met his eyes, smiled brilliantly, then looked back at the fire.

Her mother came to stand alongside her; over Pippin’s head, Mrs. Sheridan met his eyes.

She studied them, studied his face, then she inclined her head. Gratitude shone clearly in the soft brown of her eyes.

Eyes she shared with Pippin, but . . . he had to wonder.

Rose stood silently beside Pippin and watched as the pile of branches burned steadily down.

She felt touched, truly grateful that Thomas—Glendower—had been kind enough, had empathized enough with a little girl’s wishes, her childish feelings, to change his tack. She’d seen him walk across the rear garden with his axe, but she had gone into the sitting room at the front of the house after that; she’d heard Pippin rush out but hadn’t known she’d joined him.

Hadn’t known that he’d intended to attack the ailing apple tree.

A light breeze sprang up, wafting the smoke their way. She wanted to thank him but couldn’t think how.

He waved at the fire. “It’s low enough to leave.” Turning, he gestured toward the house. “We should go in.” He met Rose’s eyes. “It must be time for afternoon tea.”

She smiled, then drew breath and nodded. “Yes, it is—and thank you, Thomas.” Before he, or she, could dwell on her use of his name, she glanced down at Pippin and smiled. “There are fresh scones, clotted cream, and blackberry jam for tea. After all this work, you must both be hungry.”

Pippin whooped. But instead of tearing off to the house as Rose had expected, Pippin darted up the slope, retrieved Thomas’s cane from where it had lain in the grass, and danced it back to him. “Come on, Thomas.” She waited until he accepted the cane, then she took his free hand. Her other hand grasping Rose’s, she started towing them both up the slight slope. “Let’s go and have our tea!”

Rose glanced at Thomas—her enigma of an employer—took in his profile as he smiled down at Pippin, and silently fell in with Pippin’s plans.

C
urtis, the highly respected owner of what was arguably London’s most respected inquiry agency, rounded his desk. Pulling out the chair behind it, he glanced at his client, seated before the desk.

“Well?” Richard Percival demanded. “Your note said you have news.”

Elegantly turned out, his aristocratic features arranged in a mask of polite boredom—one that was, just fractionally, cracking—his dark hair fashionably styled in a windblown tumble with one dark lock sweeping across his brow, at first glance Percival appeared the epitome of the tonnish rake most in society assumed him to be. Curtis, however, knew Percival for a man obsessed; Curtis knew for how many years and to what extent and expense Percival had gone to trace his missing relatives.

Curtis also knew why, and so wasn’t surprised by the hunger—the hope—behind the man’s crisp diction. “We believe they might have headed into Cornwall.”

“Cornwall?” Percival narrowed his eyes. “Why the devil would she have taken them there?”

“She has no connection with the area? No distant relatives, no old nurse—that sort of thing?”

Richard Percival thought, then, slowly, shook his head. “I’ve never heard of any such personal link, and, frankly, would be surprised. She’s Leicestershire born and bred.”

Curtis paused, then offered, “Cornwall is, more or less, as far as one can go from Lincolnshire. In fleeing Seddington Grange . . . it’s possible she just ran as far as she could, and then stopped.”

Richard Percival grimaced. After a moment, he looked at Curtis. “You said you
believe
they might have gone to Cornwall—on what grounds, and are you sure?”

“A woman fitting her description, with two children, was seen in Exeter, but it was years ago, exactly how long ago we can’t be sure. We’re certain enough of the identification—the man I’ve got down there knows his business. But as to whether she and they are still down there . . .” Curtis shrugged. “With a trail this cold, it’s impossible to say.”