The Tudor Signet (8 page)

Too curious to be shy, Emily seized the opening. “Does it hurt dreadfully to be shot, sir?” she asked.

“Emmie, dear!” her mother expostulated.

“That’s all right, ma’am.” Des touched Lilian’s arm reassuringly, then, as he realized what he had done, he hurriedly withdrew his hand and turned to Emily. “Yes, Miss Farrar, it hurts dreadfully.”

Soup forgotten, she leaned forward, eyes wide. “Was it the French who shot you?”

“I believe so, though truth to tell I didn’t much care whether the cannonball was French or Spanish.”

“You fought at Trafalgar?” Lilian was almost as wide-eyed as her daughter.

“I had that honour.”

“You must have known Lord Nelson, then?”

“Not personally, ma’am,” said Des regretfully. “I met him several times but only as one of many captains. Admiral Collingwood was my immediate superior.”

Despite this disclaimer, Lilian and Emily wanted to know all he could tell them about the hero of Trafalgar. Even Miss Thorne put in a question or two. And in spite of his modesty, some of the glamour of that glorious victory clung to Captain Aldrich.

While they talked, Blount and the footman, Charles, removed the soup. Malcolm noticed every dish served thereafter was cut up so as to be easily eaten without a knife. So that was what Lilian had whispered to the butler! Mariette’s difficulties must have given her the notion. She really was a dear, even if her exaggerated notion of his consequence led her to the featherheaded opinion that Mariette was not good enough for him.

The dishes in the second course had been prepared in the same way. Des ate hungrily without apparent awareness of the pains taken to accommodate him, but Malcolm had seen him struggle to cope with a slice of beef during his convalescence, too proud to ask for help. He was sure his friend appreciated Lilian’s thoughtfulness, compounded by her silence on the subject.

Her curiosity about Lord Nelson satisfied, Emily asked, “Are you still in the Navy, sir?”

“Yes, Miss Farrar. Just when I was about to be invalided, I was offered a position ashore instead, under Rear-Admiral Gault at Devonport. I was lucky enough to have a friend put in a good word for me.”

He looked at Malcolm, who said hastily, “Your grandfather, Emmie.”

“At your uncle’s behest,” Des told her.

“The least I could do for the man whose boots I used to black!”

“Did you really, Uncle Malcolm? Is that what you meant when you said you fagged for Captain Aldrich? What else did he make you do?”

“That is enough, Emily,” said Lilian. “We shall leave the gentlemen to their port and their business.” She led Miss Thorne and Emily out.

The captain’s gaze followed her every step of the way.

As soon as Blount had set out the port and brandy and closed the door behind him, Des sighed and said, “When you wrote that you were staying with your elder sister, I pictured a stout, matronly woman like my own elder sister.”

“Lilian must have come as quite a surprise, then.”

“That she did! Before I forget--not that I’m likely to--will you convey my thanks to her ladyship for...for the meal?”

Pouring brandy, Malcolm nodded his understanding. “Of course, old lad. Here, try this. It crossed the Channel long before Boney set himself up.”

Des visibly tore his mind from Lilian’s kindness, and her charms. “Thanks.” He warmed the glass in his hand, sniffed, and sipped. “First rate. It still comes across, you know. Navy, Preventives, Excisemen, between the lot of us we’ve never been able to stop the smuggling.”

“I know,” Malcolm said grimly.

“Are smugglers concerned in this mysterious affair which brings you down to Devon?”

“They have a rôle in it.”

“And is Miss Bertrand involved, by any chance?”

“Only on the periphery. How the deuce did you guess?”

“Your expression when she was talked about. I remember the look from our schooldays. You were concealing something.”

“Not a parcel of goodies from home,” Malcolm said, grinning.

“I still remember those fruitcakes. All right, what’s going on, and where do I come into it?”

Malcolm reached into his inside pocket for his letter of commission, unfolded it, and laid the parchment before the captain. Des read it in silence, then looked up.

“The First Lord! I thought my position wasn’t all your father’s doing. You have some influence at the Admiralty.”

“Not much. I’m just an errand boy. This is the first mission entrusted to me.” He drew his chair closer and lowered his voice. “It starts, believe it or not, with a smuggler with a patriotic conscience.”

“A contradiction in terms, if ever I heard one.”

“Not quite. True, the fellow don’t cavil at cheating the Customs and Excise, nor at trafficking with the French. But when he was asked to carry a letter, he opened it and read it and didn’t like what he saw. He turned it over to a local Justice of the Peace--who turns a blind eye in exchange for his share of smuggled brandy and a bit of lace for his lady, I daresay—and the Justice sent it up to the Admiralty.”

“Naval secrets?”

Malcolm nodded. “It ended up on my superior’s desk. There wasn’t much to be done at that point. We assumed no more letters would be entrusted to the man since the one failed to get through.”

“You didn’t question this smuggler?”

“We don’t know who he is. The Justice, William Penhallow, refused to say more than that it is a Cornishman, on the grounds that if the fellow ceased to trust him we’d hear no more.”

“Reasonable, I suppose,” Des admitted.

“Effective, at all events. There have been three more letters.”

“You don’t know where he gets them, I take it.”

“He swears to Penhallow he doesn’t know the man who gives them to him, only that he’s a buyer of run goods and by his voice he’s a Devon man. They all sound the same to me.”

“Oh no, if I’ve learned anything living down here it’s that you can tell which side of the Tamar a man comes from by his speech. Still, that’s not much help.”

“No. Apart from anything else, the man is probably no more than a messenger and may know neither the contents of the letter nor who provides the information. Fortunately we have another clue. The letters are all marked with a curious seal, presumably to verify their provenance to the recipient. A seal in the form of a sphinx.”

“A sphinx! Unusual indeed, but how the deuce do we go about tracking down its owner?”

“Oh, I’ve already done that,” Malcolm said nonchalantly.

“Already? You only reached Plymouth yesterday, didn’t you? Good gad, you Whitehall men work fast!”

“I’d like you to think I’m incredibly clever, but it was quite fortuitous,” Malcolm confessed, taking the goldsmith’s work from his pocket and pushing it across the table. “I decided a copy might come in useful.”

Des examined it. “Cut line, Malcolm,” he said in disgust. “You’d have me believe within a few hours of arriving you not only discovered the owner quite by chance but took possession of the seal for long enough to have a copy made? You’re gammoning me.”

“Not I.” He grinned. “Merely indulging in a little mystification to whet your curiosity.”

“You have. Start at the beginning.”

“I was in the coffee room at the Golden Hind, whiling away the hours before I met you. A young man approached me and asked if I cared for a game of piquet. I had nothing better to do. If he saw me as a pigeon worth plucking, well, I cut my eyeteeth long ago.”

“A mixed metaphor which would have earned you a couple from old Venables. You won the seal from him?”

“Yes, he lost all his rhino and pledged his signet, a rather attractive Tudor ring.”

With a frown, Des pointed out, “If he uses it to pass secrets to France, surely he’d not risk losing it.”

“I’ve learned more of him since. He’s a young scapegrace, and a dedicated gambler. The ring is a valued heirloom which he was desolated to lose, but that didn’t stop him wagering it on the turn of a card.”

“He’s betraying his country for the sake of the money, then. Who is he?”

“Sir Ralph Riddleworth.”

“Young Riddlesworth! You’re right, he’s a gambler. I’ve often seen him at cards or dice with our officers and generally losing. I wouldn’t have guessed he had the wit or the nerve to make a spy.”

“It’s not difficult to appear stupider than one really is,” said Malcolm wryly, “as I can attest from personal experience.”

Des laughed. “Though I know you to be far from stupid, my friend, I admit I never guessed you had much on your mind beyond the latest way to tie a neckcloth.”

“Good gad, man, the set of a coat and the pattern of a waistcoat are just as important!”

“That’s a pretty one you have on.” He pretended to raise a quizzing glass to Malcolm’s grass-green waistcoat, embroidered with primroses. Then he turned serious again. “I’d give a monkey to know which of our fellows is the gabster, and whether on purpose or through careless talk.”

“If it’s careless talk, it may be more than one. I’ll show you the letters--I brought copies--and you can tell me how much of the information is known to whom. All they need do is chat among themselves where Riddlesworth can overhear.”

“True. Are you going to arrest him?”

“Not yet. There must be others involved and I’m hoping he’ll lead us to them. Until then, I mean to use the copy of the seal to feed false information to the French through Penhallow and his smuggler.”

“Capital! What’s more, we can deliberately feed false information to Riddlesworth through the officers he gambles with. When it turns up in the letters your pet smuggler hands over, you’ll have evidence against him.”

“That’s a good notion, Des. I’ll leave it to you to choose which officers to use.”

The captain reddened and said gruffly, “How can you be sure I’m not the one blowing the gaff? I work closely with Admiral Gault and probably know as much as anyone about the movement of ships.”

Malcolm chose his words with care. “I don’t believe a man who gave an arm to Boney would willingly give him anything else. More to the point, I know you, Des, better than I know my own brothers. There’s no one I’d sooner trust. Now, have some more brandy and let’s get down to details of how we’re going to manage the business.”

“Wait a bit. How does the young lady shot by the poacher come into it?”

Malcolm took a swallow of brandy. He’d trust Des with his life--but not quite yet with the fact that he had been struck amidships by Cupid’s darts, grappled and boarded by a chit with black hair and bewitching brown eyes.

“There was no poacher,” he said nonchalantly. “Miss Bertrand held up my carriage, dressed as a highwayman. Jessup shot her, although I’d warned him to expect something of the sort and not to fire.”

“You’d what?”

“I made sure Riddlesworth knew my movements. I was fairly sure he’d either come to Corycombe to redeem the ring or relieve me of it on the way.”

“Of course, you had to return it to him somehow. But the girl held you up?”

“She is Riddlesworth’s cousin. They were brought up together by an uncle and she has made a habit of extricating her cousin from the briars, I gather. At least, strictly speaking they are not related. Her parents were French and...”

“French! And she was the one who retrieved the signet, or tried to. I wager Miss Bertrand is in it over head and ears!”

Malcolm sought desperately for a credible, dispassionate reason to deny the possibility. He found none.

* * * *

For three days Mariette slept, woke to eat, and slept again. On the second day Dr. Barley pronounced her out of danger, but she felt weak as a newborn lamb and disinclined to argue with his prescription of bedrest.

To her relief, prompted by Lady Lilian he agreed that her midnight departure was to be blamed on the muddling effect of laudanum. It might even be true. In retrospect, her attempt to walk home seemed even more caperwitted than the highwayman lark. If only she had known beforehand how different Lord Malcolm was from Lord Wareham, she’d simply have gone to him and paid him for Ralph’s confounded ring.

From the moment she opened her eyes and saw him bending over her, up there on the moor, she had known she was safe. Once more she owed him her life. How could she ever have believed he cheated at cards, she reproached herself. That was just one of Ralph’s wild excuses.

Ralph must have received his ring by now, for he hadn’t written to her again. Nor had Uncle George. Lady Lilian said Jim Groom rode over every day to enquire after her, but that was quite likely his own idea, or Mrs. Finney’s. Certainly it was the housekeeper’s idea to send Mariette her own two nightgowns, her brown flannel dressing-gown, three dresses, cotton stockings, chemises, and a pair of slippers.

It wasn’t that Uncle George and Ralph didn’t miss her, she told herself. It wasn’t that they didn’t care. It just never dawned on them that she’d like to hear from them.

She still had not received a word from either when she woke on the fourth morning feeling so much better she couldn’t bear the thought of lying in bed all day.

“I shall get up today,” she said to Jenny when the abigail came in with her breakfast.

“You’re likely weaker than you think, miss,” Jenny said dubiously, setting the tray on the bedside table and drawing back the curtains to reveal an overcast sky.

“I’ll never grow any stronger if I don’t move about,” Mariette pointed out, fending off Ragamuffin’s morning greeting. “Get down, boy. You’ll upset the tray. At least I could lie on a sofa for a change.”

“We’ll see what her ladyship says, miss. Here you are, now. A nice bit of grilled gammon cut up in cubes so’s you can manage it, and your tea’s milky and not too hot. His lordship’s found some fresh straws for you.”

“He’s still here?” A surge of gladness took her by surprise. “I was afraid he’d leave before I could thank him.”

“Be here a while yet, from what I hear. My lady’s that happy to have him visit. It’s a lonely life she leads, the poor dear.”

“But she has Miss Farrar and Miss Thorne, and the neighbours call.”

“That Miss Thorne’s no sort of companion, if you ask me, and Miss Emily’s still a child. As for neighbours, there’s some I could name she’d be better off without.”