Strange Capers (24 page)

“I don’t see why you didn’t take both carriages,” Riddell mentioned.

“Yes, particularly since Constance was left to walk,” Aiglon threw in.

“I certainly assumed Constance would have the wits to harness up the other carriage, but we shan’t be too hard on her. You’ve no idea of the pandemonium caused in the countryside when you had those stacks lit, Aiglon. I’ll be mighty surprised if you haven’t a life or two to account for. I know I very nearly died of fright.” These misleading statements were listened to in stony silence.

Next she was rattling on about the matter of Aiglon’s having put Thornbury up for sale. “You really must speak to Roundtree about that before you leave, or Constance and I will have the nuisance of turning people away at the door.’’

“Constance won’t be here, Rachel, but in fact I didn’t actually put Thornbury on the block. I only discussed it with Roundtree,” Aiglon told her.

“Constance not here? My dear girl, you’re not leaving me! Is it because of Prissy’s having nabbed a fellow? Are you needed at home?” she asked.

“No, it is because of Constance’s having nabbed one, I believe,” Riddell said, casting a mischievous smile on Aiglon and myself.

I felt a perfect fool. Aiglon had not mentioned the word
marriage
yet. I had some hopes that he would, but to be on the verge of receiving congratulations so prematurely was embarrassing.

“I
did
write to Papa when Aiglon spoke of selling Thornbury,” I said, my face glowing red.

“Then it’s all right. You won’t have to leave,” Rachel decided, and fanned herself with her napkin. The suggestion that I had nabbed Aiglon bothered her, however, and she rattled on to make my ineligibility clear. She let on it was Riddell himself who was interested in me.

“I’m sure Aiglon couldn’t part with you, Riddell. And, of course, you and Constance couldn’t both live with him. Lady Aiglon wouldn’t care for that! So charming, your dear mama, Aiglon, but very high in the instep, is she not?”

‘‘Not at all,” Aiglon answered blandly. “And she doesn’t live with me, either. She usually visits me in London for a month or so during the Season, but at Westleigh she lives in the Dower House.”

“Still, I think Mr. Riddell had better find himself another bride.”

Aiglon smiled and shook his head. “She’s right, you know, Beau. You really must stop making up to Miss Pethel behind my back. Find your own girl.”

Rachel was on thorns to get me alone and squeeze the truth out of me. Her concern, of course, was that I was too well informed on the details of her housekeeping. She wouldn’t relish that knowledge in Aiglon’s wife. The gentlemen drove into town to speak with Cokewell, and Rachel came hounding after me in the garden.

“What nonsense is this about your having set up a flirtation with Aiglon, Constance?” she demanded, her nose slipping chinward.

“I didn’t set up any flirtation! But Aiglon does seem rather...fond of me,” I admitted.

“He is fond of every chit he meets, providing she isn’t downright ugly. He’ll forget you soon enough once he returns to London. I would hate to see you hurt, Constance. Pray don’t look for anything from that quarter.” After this motherly advice, she asked bluntly, “Has he spoken to you?”

I smiled confidently and answered, “No. Not yet.”

I could see her mind at work. Her eyes settled at a spot behind the rosebushes, and she said, “When you wrote to your papa, did you ask him to come for you?”

“I said I would like to go home, yes,” I told her.

“Take my carriage,” she offered at once. “There’s no point in delaying your return. You wouldn’t care for Westleigh in the least. A great, drafty heap of a place in the wilds of nowhere.”

“I’m used to drafty heaps in the wilds of nowhere, Rachel. I shan’t mind it. Excuse me, but I must go and see to my packing now.”

I didn’t see her again until luncheon, and by that time the gentlemen had returned from Folkestone and joined us at the table.

“What’s new in town?” Rachel asked. She was trying to behave normally, but her nose had taken up permanent residence at a low point on her face.

“The whole world is packing up its valuables and hiding them,” Aiglon said.

“Hiding them where?” I inquired.

“Where the Frenchies won’t find them if they invade,” Aiglon explained. “Naturally, every family is exercising some secrecy with regard to the hiding spot to prevent local theft, but it seems some folks are burying them in gardens and orchards and things. Of course it’s an old tradition in England. Much the same thing was done in Cromwell’s day. There are any number of legends of buried treasure in old homes such as this one. If the burier happened to get himself killed without telling anyone where the riches were hidden, the new owner had to try to divine the spot.”

“There’s some such legend about Thornbury, isn’t there?” Beau asked innocently. He didn’t look at Aiglon, but I had the impression of a strong current of meaning between them all the same.

I glanced at Rachel and noticed that she was wadding her napkin into a ball between her fingers. “All a hum,” she said firmly. But those twisting ringers did not denote disbelief. I suddenly knew what secret was in the gray book. She had discovered that there was hidden treasure at Thornbury. She had read that it was buried in or near some small stone building separate from but close to the main house. She had thought it was the chapel, but her diggings there had not revealed the secret. It was Mickey who had learned the legend in that old book, and he had quizzed Rachel, perhaps trying to learn some of the history of the place so that he would know where to dig. She’d managed to find out about the book and bought it before he could.

The greatest surprise was that Mickey had let her get such a jump on him, but I imagine he only mentioned the story in passing, taking it for an unfounded tale. It was odd that she was so eager to get to Westleigh with a buried treasure waiting to be discovered. I thought I must be wrong until I remembered a chance statement of Aiglon’s, Something about some old records at Westleigh. The records at Thornbury were few and incomplete. The greater part of the ancient library had been taken to Westleigh when the family first removed there.

When I returned my attention to the table, Aiglon was relating some other goings-on in town. “Cokewell is distributing the guns to the militiamen,” he was saying. “He’s called an emergency session tonight to teach the men how to load and fire them. They were setting up targets on the Leas when we were there.”

“Thank God we’re far enough away we won’t hear the racket of hundreds of guns going off,” Rachel said. “What’s the word on Madame Bieler?”

“She’s been taken to London under close guard. Mick is looking pretty down in the mouth,” Aiglon said. “I mean to speak to Lord Ware when I return to London and ask him to find a position for Dougherty there, away from the mischief of smuggling.”

“What will we do for silks if he goes?” Rachel objected.

“Someone will replace Mick, never fear. Madame and Mick aren’t the only entrepreneurs in town. There’s already talk of Miss Calisher taking over Madame’s shop.”

“Miss Calisher!” Rachel exclaimed. “She is the vicar’s sister! Surely she’s not thinking of setting up a shop and selling contraband.”

“No, no, I misled you. She is only going to be the modiste. Someone less nice will take over the selling of the contraband silk and brandy, I expect,” Aiglon explained,

“There must be a wicked profit in it,” Rachel said. Her face wore a different look now. It was the calculating look that came when she discovered a new way to weasel money out of Aiglon. I had an intuition that before long it would be Rachel herself who was doling out the delightful silks. I also had a strong feeling there would be an increase in the price.

When Rachel decided to take a run into Folkestone without asking me along, I knew I was right. She was going to arrange it with Mickey Dougherty, but I didn’t care. It left me free to be with Aiglon.

He got rid of Riddell by asking him to go and speak to the wheeler about the carriage. Riddell gave us a knowing look. “And what shall I say, milord? Shall I repeat the message given by your groom a few hours ago?”

“That will be fine, Beau.”

“Would it serve as well if I removed myself to the study?”

“When I said go, I only meant away.
You
choose the destination,” Aiglon replied sardonically.

“As you wish, milord. Shall I prepare a letter to Mr. Pethel while there, or would you prefer to write it yourself?”

“Just leave room for my signature. You will do a better job of puffing me up than modesty would permit me to do.”

While Riddell was still there smirking at us, Aiglon turned from him and pretended to think that he had gone. “Other people have the pleasure of hiding their skeletons in the closet. Mine follows at my heels like a demmed puppy. Riddell is one of my disreputable relations. We all have our dirty dishes. Riddell, like his alter ego, Retchling, is a genius, you see. A first at Oxford, a translation of Ovid into nearly readable English, and now at last he has risen to the eminence of being my man of business. Ah, are you still here, Beau?”

“No, milord. I left several lies ago. It was a
double
first at Oxford, and it was Virgil whom I rendered into entirely readable English. Some discerning critics called it inspired.”

“They would be the ones who didn’t read it but based their critiques on the expensive leather binding. Thank you, Beau. I’ll frank the letter as soon as you’ve gotten around to writing it. I imagine they hide the paper and ink in the study here. Rachel is so unimaginative in matters that don’t involve money.”

Beau smiled and left. “You’re rather hard on him!” I objected.

“Only to lengthen his life. His head has a tendency to swell when he’s performed well. He performed well in this past scrape and needs deflating before he explodes. Shall we retire to our rocks?”

“Yes, I’m curious to investigate and see just how much digging Mickey has actually done,” I answered.

“Only three holes so far. He had a go at the sacristy and just beyond the walls.”

“Oh, you know all about it! How did you find out?”

We went out into the afternoon sunlight and meandered through the garden toward the chapel.

“Beau was helpful in purloining Rachel’s gray book. There’s no truth in the old tale, but it kept Mickey in line to let him think he had a fortune at his fingertips. We discussed the other part of his bribe, you recall? It was nip and tuck for a while whether he’d throw in his lot with Madame or me. As well as her delightful self, she has some holdings in Ireland that were a troublesome lure, but the ingenious Beau convinced Mick he was sitting on a barrel of rubies and diamonds here, so we snagged him for our side.”

“How do you know the story’s not true?” I asked.

“I don’t actually
know
it. I
do
know that every inhabitant since Cromwell’s time has had a go at finding the jewelry without luck. In any case, it will keep Rachel out of our hair at Westleigh, going over the old documents. And if she finds anything, so much the better. We’ll let her dig it up and then claim it for our own.”

“You’re as bad as she is!”

“Worse, dear heart,” he warned, offering me a stone seat. “She was only interested in borrowing you for a few years and making you her unpaid companion and part-time lackey.
I
plan to steal you permanently, body and soul.”

The air caught in my lungs when I saw the love glowing in his eyes. It didn’t seem possible that it was happening, that this hero had come and found me in the wilds of Thornbury. That I was to be swept off to Westleigh and London to share in his life.

“Do you think your mama will ... I mean, Rachel seemed to think ...”

“Rachel knows Mama will love you, as I do. Not exactly as I do, of course, but Rachel was only fearful of what housekeeping secrets you might tell me. Quite frankly, I’m not at all interested in that. It’s Riddell she’ll have to deal with if she plans to stay on here till Nick returns. And I think, and hope, the lure of lining her pockets from brandy and silk might encourage her to stay.”

“I thought the same thing even before you mentioned it.”

“It is said that when a man and a woman begin communicating without the need of words, they should either stop seeing each other or get married.”

As he spoke, his arms pulled me to him. “I never heard that before.”

“Neither did I. I just made it up now,” he admitted, planting a fleeting kiss on my nose. “So which is it to be, my flower? Do I leave you at Thornbury to Rachel’s tender care or steal you from her?”

His lips were tracing a warm path along my jawbone, down the length of my neck, making speech nearly impossible for the quivering, choking sensation that came over me.

“It’s rather dangerous here with Boney just across the Channel,” I said, my voice shaking most unnaturally. “It would be good to get away.”

“I never thought I’d have anything to thank Napoleon Bonaparte for!” he scowled.

“Of course you have. If it hadn’t been for Boney, you’d never have come here at all, Aiglon. I’ve been here for five years, hearing about you, and...”

“What has she told you? It’s not true, Constance!”

“You mean Westleigh
isn’t
the prettiest heap in Hampshire? You
don’t
have a fine home in the city as well, and ten thousand a year? What a plumper! Here I set my cap at a nobody. I might as well have stayed home and married the cobbler.” I pulled free from him and sat on the rock, thinking he would sit beside me, but he didn’t.

“Ah, well, if that was the nature of her talk, of course she’s absolutely right. She couldn’t lie if her life depended on it. And you
didn’t
set your cap at me. That’s what first attracted my attention to you. Why did you not?”

“I was forewarned! Rachel, who is incapable of a lie, cautioned me as to your wandering ways.”

“Did she, by God? The woman’s a witch, I swear. She knew I would fall in love with you and wanted to prevent the match.” He spoke lightly, but when he stopped, a more serious expression settled on him. “I can’t claim a saintly background for myself, Constance. There have been a few women, but none of them...”