The Tudor Signet (3 page)

The dog whined uncertainly, then backed off a few steps. Its anxious brown eyes watched his every motion. The horse, a dun gelding, had also moved off a short way and was cropping the meagre grass. He saw trickles of blood on its flank but his first care must be for its rider.

The highwayman lay on his back. His hat had flown off but face and head were hidden by a black silk mask except for closed eyes fringed by long black lashes. Malcolm had seen the shotgun blast take him from the rear, and the back of his head had hit the rock a glancing blow as he twisted and fell. Best to unbutton his top-coat and pull his arms from the sleeves before turning him over. He knelt down.

First he took the ring from the pocket where he had seen him put it--it would be too ridiculous to lose it among the heather. That was the best place for the pistol, though. He flung it away. Then he unfastened the buttons...

“‘Fore Gad, ‘tis a woman!”

The horrified exclamation burst from him as Padgett reached his side after picking his fastidious way through the scrub. Together they stared down at the slim figure disclosed by the opened coat. The man’s riding jacket she wore beneath could not conceal the swell of her breasts, rising and falling, thank heaven, and the slender waist. If that were not enough, close-fitting buckskin breeches revealed...

Malcolm tore his eyes away. “Let’s get her mask off. Gently, now. She hit her head in falling.”

The girl’s face was chalk-white. A young, attractive face, not beautiful but with a good bone-structure which would age well, Malcolm noted in a brief glance. Through a tangle of thick ebony hair he felt the back of her head.

“Not bleeding, but there’s already a lump and she’ll have a devil of a headache, if not a concussion. Help me turn her over.”

Streams of crimson blood seeped from countless small holes riddling the seat of her buckskins. Padgett gasped. “I’ll fetch some clean linen, my lord.”

“Good man. Hurry.”

The little valet sped away at a near trot, as close as possible to a run without irreparably injuring his dignity.

Jessup arrived, breathless. “I tied the bays to...” He stopped abruptly and stared down, aghast. “‘Twere only the lightest birdshot, m’lord!” he groaned.

“Just as well,” Malcolm said grimly. “See to her horse. Your birdshot nicked him, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

As he spoke, he took out his pocket knife and reached for the waistband of the girl’s breeches. The dog growled. Malcolm calmly continued, slitting the garment until he could pull it back to either side to examine the full extent of the damage. Whimpering, the dog came over and licked his mistress’s still face.

Beneath the buckskins, linen drawers were sodden with blood. Again Malcolm cut. There was nothing sexually inviting about the rounded buttocks he laid bare, besmeared with red like a painter’s palette. Blood still oozed from a score of tiny cuts, though he thought the flow must be slowing.

The trouble was, every cut contained a pellet of lead which would have to be dug out. He had to get her to Lilian’s house and send for a doctor.

Padgett returned with an armful of neckcloths and a flask of cognac. Without comment, he helped Malcolm clean and bind the wounds as best they could. Malcolm wondered whether to tip a little of the brandy down the girl’s throat, but he had a notion spirits were not a good idea in cases of concussion. She was still alarmingly inert except for an occasional tremor which he put down to the biting chill of the air.

He wrapped her in her greatcoat. With a soothing word to the dog, he hoisted her over his shoulder and started for the curricle. Despite his slight build and foppish façade, he carried her easily, which would be no surprise to the trusted sparring partners he met in a private room at Gentleman Jackson’s Bond Street saloon. The image he chose to present to the rest of the world was deceptive.

Jessup had led the girl’s mount down to the stream to bathe his side. They returned to the curricle as Malcolm approached with his burden.

“She’ll live, won’t she, m’lord?” the groom asked apprehensively.

“I believe so. What of the horse?”

“He’s all right.” Jessup stroked the gelding’s nose. “I dug out a couple o’ bits of shot but he didn’t give me no trouble. Reckon he won’t even scar.”

Malcolm’s lips twitched involuntarily. He had not considered the possibility of the girl’s being scarred, but if so at least it was not a part of her anatomy she’d ever want to display in public!

“You’d better ride for a doctor,” he said. “I don’t know if there is one in Plympton. If not, go on to Plymouth, and don’t return without one. Take the gelding as he’s already saddled.”

“Yes, m’lord!” Jessup mounted and a moment later galloped back down the road.

And a moment too late Malcolm cursed his stupidity. How the devil was he to lift the girl into the curricle and drive on to Corycombe without the groom’s aid? Padgett was by no means strong enough to be of much assistance.

In the end, he laid her on the seat and wriggled in under her so that she was stretched across his lap, bottom up, with her face turned towards the back of the seat. Padgett had to untie the bays and scramble up behind, not at all what he was accustomed to.

Malcolm started the team at a fast trot towards Corycombe. The dog loped alongside. As the curricle jounced over a pothole, the girl stirred and moaned. Glancing down, he thought he saw her eyelids flicker shut. A tiny frown of pain creased her brow and she held her body tense but she gave no other sign of returning to consciousness.

He didn’t blame her. In all respects, she was in an excessively embarrassing situation.

She was limp again by the time they pulled up in front of Lilian’s house. Padgett clambered down and ascended the steps to the front door, which was opened by a stiffly correct butler as he reached for the knocker.

“Good morning, Mr. Blount.” The proprieties must be observed even in extraordinary circumstances.

“Good morning, Mr. Padgett,” the elderly butler returned. “Welcome back to Corycombe, my lord. Does your lordship care to...Good gracious me! Surely that cannot be Miss Mariette? But I should recognize Ragamuffin anywhere!”

The panting dog had his front paws on the footboard of the curricle, his tail wagging hopefully.

 “I don’t know her name,” said Malcolm, impatient. He had a story prepared, as much for the sake of his mission as for the girl. Catching his valet’s eye, he lied, “We found the young lady by the road. She’s had an accident—peppered by a poacher, I suspect.”

Padgett’s grave nod conveyed comprehension to his master. He’d stick to the story and make sure Jessup knew what to say, not that Jessup was likely to be eager to broadcast the truth.

The same nod conveyed to the butler agreement with the poacher theory. “Gracious me!” said Blount again, shocked. “What is the world coming to?”

“My groom has gone for a doctor,” said Malcolm impatiently. “I need help to lift her down and someone to see to the horses.”

“At once, my lord.”

As the butler turned to summon aid, Lilian’s voice demanded, “Is my brother come, Blount?”

“Yes, my lady, but...”

“Malcolm!” she called, coming out onto the top step. Daintily diminutive in her habitual grey trimmed with white lace, a black shawl about her shoulders, she looked not a day older than five and twenty though she had passed that age by a decade. “My dear, how good to see you.”

His fifteen-year-old niece hovered shyly behind her mother, peeking over her shoulder. “Mama, is not that Miss Bertrand’s dog?”

But Lilian had already realized something was amiss. She hurried down the steps. Closer to, the lines engraved by grief were apparent, though no thread of grey showed in her fair hair. “Oh, the poor child!” she exclaimed. “What has happened?”

Malcolm gave his brief explanation as a hefty footman rushed from the house. Between them they carried her up to the Dutch chamber, prepared for Malcolm, and laid her face-down on the bed. Lilian came in, followed by her hatchet-faced companion, Miss Thorne.

“Thank you, Charles,” she said to the footman. “That will be all for the present. Malcolm, Mrs. Wittering is setting the maids to make up the green chamber for you. Will you go and see what you can do to calm Emily for me? She has made quite a mystery heroine of Miss Bertrand and is in high fidgets.”

“As soon as I’ve seen Miss Bertrand made comfortable.”

Outrage made Miss Thorne’s face still more hatchetlike.

“My dear,” said Lilian, “what can you be thinking of? You cannot possibly remain while we undress the poor girl!”

Feeling himself a good deal to blame for the young woman’s injuries--he should have made sure Jessup thoroughly understood his instructions--he was reluctant to abandon her now, even to Lilian’s tender care. “I have already seen most of what there is to see,” he protested.

“Then I advise you to put it out of your mind with all due celerity. Out!”

He had to admit the propriety of her command. Reluctantly turning to obey, he saw Ragamuffin sneak through the half-open door, his nose testing the air, his ears pricking as he caught his mistress’s scent.

“Out!” Malcolm ordered, pointing at the door.

Ragamuffin’s ears flattened and his tail wagged obsequiously but he didn’t budge. When Malcolm approached, he tensed and bared his teeth.

“Let him stay,” said Lilian. “I daresay his presence will be a comfort to Miss Bertrand when she wakes.”

Malcolm gave the favoured animal a rueful look, but his anxiety revived. “She has been unconscious an excessively long time. Do you think she is concussed?”

“We must hope she has merely swooned from the pain. Now, off with you and let us do what we can for her.”

He went downstairs and found Miss Emily Farrar in the morning room. A slight, demure figure in pink, brown tresses neatly tied back with a ribbon, she perched on the very edge of an elegant green satin sofa. In one hand she held an embroidery hoop, in the other a needle, unthreaded. She dropped them, jumped up and pattered to meet him, forgetting the painful shyness which had handicapped her for the past year or two.

Malcolm held out both hands to her. “Well, and how is my favourite niece?” he enquired. “Prettier and more grown up than ever, I see.”

“I am allowed to put my hair up in the evenings. But never mind me, Uncle. How is Miss Bertrand?” Her blue eyes, so like her mother’s, eagerly searched his face. “Mama would not let me help.”

“Nor me. I don’t believe she is badly hurt. Who is she, Emmie? Come and sit down and tell me all about her.”

He offered her his arm. Proud to be treated as a lady, not a child, she laid her hand on it. Solemnly escorting her to a chair, he seated her and took a chair opposite, avoiding the sofa where, he suspected, the discarded needle lurked. One ambush was sufficient to the day.

“Miss Bertrand?” he prodded.

“Is she not wonderful? I have seen her from my window galloping across the moors without a thought for rabbit-holes or bogs or what anyone will think.”

Startled, Malcolm said cautiously, “You find it irksome to have to obey the rules of propriety?”

“No, not really,” Emily admitted. “Well, sometimes a trifle tiresome. But, you see, I want to dance at Almack’s when I make my come-out and Mama says nothing so disgusts the lady patronesses as indecorous conduct. Miss Bertrand need not care for such things. She never had a come-out and now she is too old, and anyway, she would never have obtained vouchers.”

“Who is she?”

“Old Mr. Barwith’s niece. He is mad as a March...I mean,” she hurriedly corrected herself, “not quite right in the head. He never hired a governess for Miss Bertrand when her mama died, which was when she was just a child so she never learned how to behave properly.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Only think, she wears unmentionables and rides astride! Mama is sorry for her but we do not call at Bell-Tor Manor.”

Malcolm felt a pang of pity for Miss Bertrand, left without guidance and ostracized even by his amiable sister.

“She does not go to church,” Emily added primly.

Since he only attended services when staying at Ashminster with his parents, he found nothing to cavil at in this evidence of dereliction. However, Miss Bertrand had held up his carriage and stolen an item of particular interest, he reminded himself. What was her connection with Ralph Riddlesworth?

“Has she no other relatives or friends to advise her?” he asked.

“There is Sir Ralph. I suppose he is her cousin since he is Mr. Barwith’s nephew, but she cannot look to him for advice. He is much the same age as she is, and Mama says he is a shocking here-and-thereian.”

Trying to disguise his curiosity, Malcolm said casually, “You are acquainted with him?”

“Oh no, not really, only to bow to because he is such a close neighbour, and not always so much. Mama says there are situations in which it is not impolite to cut an acquaintance. We saw him in Plymouth, once, when we had been shopping and met the carriage at the Golden Hind. He was playing cards with some sailors and though Mama said they were officers by their uniforms, they did not look at all gentlemanly, so we did not acknowledge Sir Ralph.”

“Very wise.” So Riddlesworth gambled with naval officers, did he? Very interesting!

“Another time he was singing in the street,” Emily went on, “and Mama said she feared he must be a trifle foxed. That means he had drunk too much wine,” she explained in a hushed voice.

Malcolm hid a smile. “A common failing in young men, alas. He lives in Plymouth, I suppose?”

“No, at Bell-Tor Manor--it’s just on the other side of Wicken’s Down--with Mr. Barwith and Miss Bertrand. The servants say Miss Bertrand mothered Sir Ralph right from the first when he was orphaned and went to live at the Manor, although she was only a little girl. Was not that fine of her? Oh, Uncle, pray do not tell Mama I have gossiped with the servants!”

“I shan’t,” he promised, glad to find a chink in his rather priggish niece’s armour.

“I do not in general,” she assured him, “but Charles’s sister Carrie is in service at the Manor and sometimes he tells me things because he knows how I admire Miss Bertrand.”