The Tudor Signet (6 page)

“Thank you, sir, but I shall pay you whatever sum Ralph pledged it for.”

“Unnecessary.”

She looked at him askance. “It’s a debt of honour. I can afford it. My allowance is far greater than I need.” Biting her lip, she went on shyly, “You have been much kinder than I deserve, my lord. I haven’t thanked you yet for...for not leaving me to bleed to death, and for not telling Lady Lilian of my disgraceful behaviour--”

“What a catalogue of negative virtues!”

“...And for thinking of the straw for me to drink through. That was a vastly clever notion.”

“I considered myself vastly clever when first I came up with the notion as a child--only to be told my older brothers had done it years before.” He sighed. “The story of my life.” Now why in heaven’s name should he confide in this headstrong, quixotic chit, when he had never revealed to his most intimate friends his driving need to prove himself his brothers’ equal?

She echoed his sigh. “I always thought it would be nice to have an elder brother. Or a sister. But how pleased Ralph will be when I take his ring back to him tomorrow.”

“My dear Miss Bertrand, you cannot leave tomorrow.”

“Of course I can. I feel much better already and I don’t want to impose on Lady Lilian any longer than I must.”

“I assure you...” At the sound of footsteps he looked round and rose in relief, dislodging Ragamuffin’s head from his feet, as his sister came in.

“Malcolm, what can you be about, wearing Miss Bertrand out with your talk?”

“I’m trying to convince your patient of the impossibility of her going home tomorrow. I shall let you persuade her. Good night, Miss Bertrand. Sleep well.”

Bidding Lord Malcolm good night, Mariette watched him bestow a farewell pat on Ragamuffin and depart. He still puzzled her, but she had no chance just now to pore over what he had said.

“There is no question of your leaving tomorrow,” Lady Lilian told her firmly. “Mr. Barwith has received my note saying you will remain at Corycombe for several days. Here, his groom has brought a letter for you.”

Uncle George’s brief note hoped she was comfortable and would not be away from home too long. He needed her advice as he was having trouble with the pig’s tail. Tails, he was willing to admit, were not his strong suit.

There was a second note, from her cousin. He knew she’d make a mull of it, he wrote. Now Lord Malcolm was on his guard, the signet was gone for good.

Ralph must be frantic with worry. Whatever Lord Malcolm and Lady Lilian said, she had to take his ring to him.

Chapter 4

The small dose of laudanum Lady Lilian insisted on Mariette taking sent her quickly to sleep, but she woke after a few hours. A glimmer of light came from the oil lamp, turned low, and the pale luminescence of a full moon shone between the window curtains.

Somewhere in the house a clock chimed three.

Her conversation with Lord Malcolm ran through her head. He had asked a great many questions. She had answered, both because she felt guilty about holding him up at gunpoint and because it was a pleasure to talk to someone who was interested in her.

Who seemed interested in her, she corrected herself sadly. Come to think of it, in actual fact he had only wanted to know exactly why she held him up. That was reasonable. She had intended to explain anyway. The one thing she had kept from him was her humiliating experience with Lord Wareham.

She, on the other hand, had had no chance to satisfy her curiosity about the poacher story. Was kindness really enough to explain why he had lied to his sister for the sake of a total stranger? He hadn’t even known she would care whether Lady Lilian knew of her exploit. There was something rum about that.

Something rum, also, in his willingness--even eagerness--to give her the ring.

Perhaps, as Ralph claimed, he had indeed won it by cheating and now felt guilty. That could account for the poacher faradiddle, too. If Lady Lilian learned about Mariette playing highwayman, she would hear about the ring. Her brother was afraid she might find out he had cheated at cards.

Restlessly Mariette turned her head to face the other way as if by so doing she could change the facts. She did not want to believe Lord Malcolm was a cheat.

Was it possible for a lord to be a Captain Sharp? In novels, a man who marked the cards was always an unshaven ruffian in a low tavern or gambling hell, not a gentleman in a respectable inn like the Golden Hind. She wished she knew more of the real world outside history books.

Was it possible for a man who was a cheat to be kind? For Lord Malcolm was amiable in other ways even if he had invented the poacher for his own benefit. With such delicacy had he avoided any hint of having seen her unclothed that she had quite forgotten to be embarrassed.

She couldn’t help liking him, which was something she had never expected to say of a lord after meeting Lord Wareham. Lord Malcolm wasn’t in the least toplofty, not even as starchy as Lady Lilian.

Despite her ladyship’s benevolence, Mariette was under no illusion. Lady Lilian considered her an ill-bred, indecorous hoyden. Miss Thorne considered her an encroaching nobody. And Lord Malcolm considered her a reckless, impractical idiot. For some reason that hurt worst of all.

She turned her head again. Lying on her stomach was becoming positively irksome. After sleeping all afternoon she’d never go back to sleep now. She wanted to get up and move about.

She wanted to go home.

Lady Lilian and Lord Malcolm had told her she must stay, but she wasn’t accustomed to doing anyone’s bidding. It wasn’t as if they actually wanted her to stay. On the contrary, they’d be relieved if she left, and how glad Ralph would be to see her.

The household slept. If she left now, no one would try to stop her.

Cautiously she propped herself up on her arms as far as she could. Her bottom ached, but otherwise she felt quite all right. With a wriggle she contrived to inch out from under the covers and swing her legs over the edge of the bed. Though it hurt when she bent in the middle, as soon as she stood upright the pain lessened. The momentary dizziness was just from the laudanum and would wear off in no time.

Ragamuffin stuck his head out from under the bed and licked her bare feet.

“We’re going home, boy,” she told him.

He emerged, tail wagging.

Mariette shivered. The fire had died down to a bed of glowing coals and the room was chilly. Oh lord, she thought, what the deuce was she going to wear?

Her buckskin riding breeches had been peppered with holes, not to mention bloodsoaked. Even if they had been miraculously cleaned and mended, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to pull them on over her sore and swollen rear end. Nor did she fancy the prospect of sitting on Sparrow’s back, supposing she managed to find him, saddle him and mount.

However, she had never been one to let difficulties daunt her. If she couldn’t ride, she’d walk and send Jim Groom to fetch Sparrow later. As for clothes, the enormous clothes press in the corner must contain something wearable.

Turning up the lamp, she investigated. In the wardrobe she found her riding boots, stockings, shirt, jacket, and top-coat. The shot holes in the coat had been beautifully darned--Jenny no doubt, bless her. There was also an elegant, pale-pink, quilted dressing-gown. Shivering again, Mariette decided to cram on all the clothes she could, even keeping Miss Thorne’s nightgown underneath. She’d have it washed and ironed and send it back.

Bending to put on the stockings proved impossible. Without their woolly thickness she managed to slip her feet into her boots. Shirt, dressing-gown, jacket, coat went on over the nightgown. Fortunately the coat was on the large side for her as it had been chosen to disguise her sex. She buttoned it down the front, turned up the collar, put the ring in the pocket, where she found her gloves.

Ragamuffin gave a soft, hopeful bark.

“Sshh! I’m coming.”

He went to the door, and she cast a last glance around the room. The white cashmere shawl was neatly draped over the back of a chair. Mariette tied it in country-woman style over her head. She’d send it back before anyone could imagine she had stolen it, or the nightgown and dressing-gown.

She opened the door and they set off. Ragamuffin’s toenails clicked on the polished boards of the passageway, but no one stirred. A side-door was easily unbarred.

They slipped out into the moonlit night.

* * * *

“My lord!”

“Padgett? What is it?” Malcolm sat up, instantly alert.

“I beg pardon for waking your lordship at this hour, but I was sure you’d want to know. Miss Bertrand’s dog’s turned up in the stables in a fine frenzy. Her ladyship’s head groom had the good sense to send a housemaid up to miss’s chamber, and she’s not there, my lord.”

“The devil she’s not!” Malcolm flung back the covers, swung his feet to the floor, and ripped off his nightshirt. “Not there, and the dog not with her?”

“Precisely, my lord.” Padgett was already pulling a shirt over Malcolm’s head. “The maid woke Miss Pennick, her ladyship’s abigail, and not being wishful to rouse her ladyship she came to me. A shrewd woman, my lord, and good-hearted with it. Riding breeches, I assume, my lord?”

“Yes.” Malcolm grabbed the proffered buckskins. “Is Miss Bertrand’s gelding gone?”

“I believe not, my lord. I ventured to send a message to the stables to saddle a mount for your lordship.”

“Good man.” He waved away a neckcloth, to the valet’s unspoken distress, and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Boots.”

“Here, my lord.”

Five minutes after being woken, Malcolm arrived in the stable yard at a run. Half a dozen grooms and stable-boys stood around Jessup, who held the bridles of Malcolm’s roan mare, Incognita, and a stolid Welsh cob. Ragamuffin stopped whining and scratching at the closed gate to the yard, discharged an ear-shattering salvo of barks, and dashed up to Malcolm.

“Open the gate,” he ordered the nearest boy, swinging up onto Incognita’s back.

“C’n I come, m’lord?” Jessup begged, foot in the stirrup.

“Yes.” He was very much afraid once again he’d need help to lift the little fool. Anxiety gnawed at him.

“Will I send out searchers, m’lord?” asked the head groom.

“Not yet. I hope the dog will lead us aright. But you’d better warn all the menservants they may be needed.”

The cob at her heels, Incognita cantered through the gateway. Away from the lanterns, the first light of dawn was breaking. In one direction, the carriage drive led round the house to the front. Ragamuffin turned the opposite way, a shadow in the ground mist, dashing ahead along a stony ride which quickly began to rise.

“I’m that sorry, m’lord.” Jessup’s face was screwed up in anguished remorse. “‘Bout shooting miss, I mean.”

“You haven’t told anyone?” Malcolm said sharply.

“Nay, m’lord,” he protested, “you knows I c’n keep a still tongue in me head.”

“True, or you’d not be working for me.”

“‘Sides, I’d be dicked in the nob to admit I shot a young lady, let alone one as is well liked hereabouts.”

“She is?”

“There’s plenty here has relatives over to Bell-Tor Manor and they all says old Mr. Barwith’s folks is right fond o’ miss. Allus does her bit for them that’s in trouble, and not above a friendly word for anybody. She’s more of a real lady, they says, than some as turns up their noses and won’t pass the time o’ day with her. Which her la’ship does,” he added hastily, and fell silent.

Malcolm found himself out of reason pleased at this report, and more anxious than ever about Miss Bertrand’s fate.

Through a stand of conifers Ragamuffin raced, the horses close behind. They emerged on the moor and the track petered out into a rough path zigzagging back and forth across the steep face of the hill. The dog cut across, dodged and leapt heather and gorse, ignoring a lapwing that broke cover and flapped away, flickering black and white.

Malcolm didn’t dare follow across unknown ground. He kept Incognita at a canter up the path, though. A showy, high-stepping creature suited to a dandy, like her master she had powers of strength and speed not apparent to the casual eye. Jessup had to spur his cob to keep up.

Up and up they rode. Though the sun now shone on the rocks atop Bell Tor, it had not yet risen above Wicken’s Down. The cold wind swept down from the high moors and Malcolm was sorry he had not paused to don a muffler. He prayed he was mistaken--they all were mistaken--in fearing the dog’s behaviour meant Miss Bertrand was lying somewhere out here on the bare moor.

Ragamuffin was waiting on the path ahead, but with an impatient yelp he plunged into the brush again. The crest lay just ahead. Corycombe was a dolls’ house below, lights glowing in the windows. How the deuce had the girl come so far? Sheer pluck and determination, he decided, to say nothing of windmills in her head.

It wasn’t the crest, just a shoulder. At least the slope levelled off for some distance. The path stopped winding and headed directly eastward. Ragamuffin stayed on it, nose to the ground now.

Suddenly he veered to the side, stopped beside a large clump of heather, and howled.

She lay huddled in the lee of the heather, her head pillowed on her hands. Her face was paper-white, her lips blue, and continuous tremors shook her whole body. Kneeling beside her, Malcolm instantly dismissed the notion he’d had to take the troublesome chit on to Bell-Tor Manor since she was so stubbornly resolved to go there. She needed heat, and the sooner the better.

The dog gave a short, sharp bark as if to say, “Well, I’ve done my part, now get on with it.”

“Ragamuffin,” she murmured and opened her eyes. “Lord Malcolm!” Her voice shook. The brown eyes closed again and two tears squeezed out from beneath the long black lashes. Tears of relief? Disappointment? Dismay?

“You’re safe now.”

He lifted her and carried her in his arms to where Jessup held the horses. The groom regarded the limp figure with alarm.

“Will she die, m’lord? I’d ‘ave it on me conscience the rest o’ me life.”

“She will if we stand here gabbling. Let go the bridles. Incognita won’t move and I expect your beast will stay with her.”