The Riddle of Alabaster Royal
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Authors: Patricia Veryan
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Contents
Other Novels by Patricia Veryan
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For Nancy Eads,
who has given so much time,
effort and enthusiasm to
being the President of my
Fan Club
1
Spain
June 1813
Desperate to find shelter from the hail of shot, Captain Jack Vespa crawled on doggedly. Even if he still had the strength to call for help, it would have been pointless; the French cannonade drowned out all lesser voices. He was finding it increasingly difficult to see now, and when his groping left hand slid over an edge, for a heart-stopping moment he thought he was going to plunge down the high crag above the river Zadorra.
“Hey! A new arrival, my Tobias!” The voice that came through a lull in the uproar was strained but undeniably British.
Another voice said an unsteady, “Ain't wearing red or green. I sayâthis shell hole is under British occu-occupation, Monsieur, so you'd best surrenâ”
“Don't be a dolt, Toby. It's a blue coat! We're visited by a mighty Staff Officer, no less!”
“Oh, egad! One of his lordship's famous âFamily'!”
A shell screamed overhead.
“Best not hang about, sir,” urged the first voice. “Come on in.”
Vespa lowered himself cautiously, then rolled and for a minute or two lay still, pain causing him to curse faintly. The cannonade resumed but seemed less ear-splitting. Hands were touching him; something was wiping his face and he could focus again. A youthful, smoke-blackened countenance, framed by curling light brown hair, bent over him. “Lieutenant Tobias Broderick, sir. Forty-fifth.”
Vespa blinked at him stupidly. “You're Third Division. What the hell ⦠are you doing up here?”
Broderick bent lower so as to hear the gasped-out words. He clutched his side painfully, but roared, “Old Picton properly got his nose out of joint when his lordship sent word we were to support the Seventh. So we charged like the devil at the French centre. My poor hack was hit and bolted, and Iâerârather tumbled in here.”
“I see. Who's that?”
“Oh, yes. I'm binding him up. Musket ball's smashed his shoulder and broken his collar-bone by the looks of it. I'll help you first, sir. You're all blood. Can you see?”
“Not well enough to see your friend, but ⦠finish with him. I'll do.”
Watching this member of the select few chosen by Wellington as his personal aides, Broderick thought it more probable that he would die. He started to crawl back to his first patient, then remembered, and half-turned to shout with a quivering grin, “You likely know him, sir. Lieutenant Manderville.”
âManderville?' thought Vespa. It must be some other Manderville. The tattered casualty lying huddled in a rain-swept shell hole atop a Spanish crag couldn't possibly beâ¦? Reality melted away.
He opened his eyes and started up, swearing. Broderick was wrapping a torn piece of shirt tightly around his leg. Catching his breath, he lay back. “Sorry. Good of you, Broderick. Isâis the bone severed?”
“No, sir. But your leg's pretty damned riddled. I'll get to your arm in a minute. What happened to your head?”
He'd been returning from delivering a despatch from Lord Wellington to Colonel Cadogan when a shell had killed his horse under him and sent him hurtling against a boulder, rendering him senseless. “I dismounted on it,” he said wryly. He heard a faint laugh. “You wouldn't be
Paige
Manderville?” he enquired, peering mistily.
“The debonair Dandy of Mayfair,” said Broderick, with a gallant attempt at a chuckle.
“The devil!” exclaimed Vespa.
“I think I resent that. Sir,” complained Manderville.
“I was reacting toâto Broderick'sâefforts,” gasped Vespa. “Do I mistake it, or is the cannonade fading? Are you badly mauled, Lieutenant? Can you shin up there and have a look?”
“Horse rolled on me, sir,” said Broderick. “Think he snapped a couple of ribs. Or something. I'll make a try at it.”
Manderville drawled, “You'd best tie up the Captain's arm first, Toby, before he's bled white.”
Broderick investigated. “A piece of shell-casing, by the look of it. I think I canâ” He gave a tentative tug.
Vespa shouted an anguished “No!”
Aghast, Broderick recoiled. “No. I think I won't.” He moved in a sideways crawl to the edge of their shelter and returned to announce that there was “the devil of a fight round Arinez Hill. I fancy his lordship means to chase King Joseph all the way back to Paris.”
He completed his first aid, then settled himself between the other casualties, looking from one to the other anxiously.
Manderville said with a sigh, “I don't imagine either of you has a canteen?”
They hadn't, but the wish had been in all their minds.
“Open your mouth,” panted Vespa. “You might ⦠catch some rain.”
“I might, sir. Except that it's stopped raining.”
“Never mind,” said Broderick. “We'll have help here in a trice, I don't doubt.”
His optimism proved unfounded. The action that was to be known as the Battle of Vitoria raged on, and the three young officers lay in their damp and chilly sanctuary hour after weary hour. They endured their misery in silence, until Vespa, his mind wandering, muttered, “The crocuses will be in bloom.”
Broderick argued wearily, “Can't say that, sir. It's cro-ci, not -ses.”
“No, it ain't,” said Manderville. “Lay you a pony it's -ses.”
With difficulty Broderick reached Manderville's outstretched left hand. “You're on! Will you be a witness, sir?”
Vespa gathered his wits and said, “Let's forget rank for a while, shall we? What are you wagering on?”
The other men exchanged a quick glance.
Broderick said, “You were talking about flowers, Capâ Jove! We don't know your name.”
“It's Vespa.”
“Jack Vespa?” Manderville dragged himself to one elbow. “Aren't you the fellow who hauled Tim Van Lindsay out of the Esla last month?”
“Tim's a clumsy fellow.” Vespa shifted painfully. “Always falling down something, orâor into something. Was I really talking about flowers?”
“You were,” confirmed Manderville. “Like to garden, do you? I've seen your Richmond house from the river. Beautiful grounds. Do you mean to live there when we get home?”
It was an effort to talk, but Vespa knew it was as well to try and keep their minds off things. He said, “No. I've inherited an estate in ⦠Dorsetshire. Never have visited the old place. I rather fancy country life. My ⦠my father won't like it, I fear, but⦔
Manderville waited, but the sentence went unfinished. “Sir Kendrick don't approve of me, I fear.” He grinned irrepressibly. “Jealous, probably. He's quite a Non-Pareil.”
Vespa's dulled eyes brightened. “Yes. He is.”
“Sir Kendrick Vespa!” Broderick exclaimed. “Now I know who you are! Jove! I'd never have taken you for
his
son!”
Vespa could not keep back a laugh, and then had to smother a groan. “I don't have his ⦠good looks, is ⦠is that what you say?”
“If he does, it's because he's a clumsy clod,” grumbled Manderville. “My nurse came from a hamlet called Pudding Park in Dorsetshire. Anywhere near your place?”
“No. Alabaster Royal's farther north.”
The name struck another chord with Broderick. “Alabaster Royal,” he muttered frowningly. “I've heard something about it. Can't remember what. Except that it wasn't good.”
Manderville gave a moan of exasperation. “And there goes the other foot into his mouth!”
“Please⦔ whispered Vespa. “Don't make me laugh!⦠Tell meâBroderick, what you mean to do when ⦠when we get home.”
“I shall go back to Oxford. Lead the exalted existence of a don amid minds equal to my own.”
Manderville gave a crow of derision.
Vespa peered at the young lieutenant curiously. “You must have done very well at school.”
“Oh, he knows everything,” said Manderville, cradling his hurt arm tenderly. “Except how to come in out of the rain!”
Before Broderick could retaliate, Vespa asked, “What about you? Certainly, you have the pick of London's Fairs at your feet.”
“Of course. I've also a comfortable fortune, thank heaven, so I can take my time about selecting a lady worthy of becoming Mrs. Paige Manderville.”
“I am going to be sick,” announced Broderick. “Vespa, how can you listen to suchâ Vespa?” He leant closer and scanned the captain apprehensively.
“Is he gone, poor devil?” asked Manderville.
“Not far from it, I'm afraid. Likely he's got a concussion. That's a beast of a head wound.”
“It'll scar him for life, to say the least of it. Pity. He's a good man from what I've heard.” With a sigh, Manderville closed his eyes.
“Paige?” Dismayed, Broderick called, “For Lord's sake, don't you go and die, too!”
“Wouldn't dream of it,” said Manderville weakly. “Toby, do you really know something about that inheritance of hisâArabesque something?”
“Alabaster Royal.” Broderick hesitated, then muttered, “If only half of what they say about the estate is truth, it's no place for the faint-hearted.”
“Well, if only half of what I've heard aboutâabout Jack Vespa is truth, faint-hearted's what he's not! Even in his present state, poor fella. Can't help but be sorry for Sir Kendrick. Sherborne, the elder son, wasâwas the bright hope of the family. He fell at Badajoz last year, as I recall. Splendid fellow. Almost as good-looking as I am.”
Broderick's scornful retort was cut off by a shout from the cliff path. A moment later, a dragoon sergeant beamed down at them and howled exuberantly, “Here we are, Captain! Praise God, we've found you!”
“All th-three of us,” said Manderville.
“He won't like it,” whispered Vespa, his mind far away. “He'll think ⦠I'm ripe for Bedlam.⦔
England
September 1813
“You're stark, raving mad!” Tall, trim, and at fifty still strikingly handsome, Sir Kendrick Vespa was flushed, and the fine dark eyes so much admired by London's ladies were wide with consternation. Gazing at the drawn features of his younger son, he gestured as if grasping at invisible straws, causing the two great bloodhounds that lay on either side of his chair to sit up as one and eye him anxiously. “Those damned Frenchies have done more than reduce you toâto a physical cripple,” he sputtered. “They've made swill of what was left of your brains!”
The young captain's hand tightened on the papers he held, but he said calmly, “Very likely, sir. But you have to admit, I won. I didn't come home from Spain in a box. You owe me a pony.”
Sir Kendrick grunted, rose from behind the desk and crossed the sun-splashed study escorted by the hounds who waited as he unlocked an armoire chest and took out a cash box. “Aye, well, I'm glad enough to be paying this,” he grumbled as he counted out the twenty-five pounds. “But there'd have been no need had you not felt obliged to go haring off after Sherborne. Compounding folly with folly. It's not bad enough that my first-born must lie buried somewhere in Spanish soil. I came perilously near to losing you as well!” He dropped the bank notes into his son's lap and leant back against the desk, frowning down at him.