The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) (8 page)

“When are we to leave?” asked Amanda at last.

“As soon as someone can be found to take Fox End. I called at Mrs. Jolly’s on the road home and she thinks it will do very well for her cousin, and she thinks he will be free to take it in a month or two.”

“How did you get to Hember Cross?” asked Richard.

“I walked,” said Aunt Matilda.

“You’re a Trojan, Aunt,” said Richard. Hember Cross was ten miles from Fox End.

Almost at the same time, Amanda and Richard began to feel more cheerful. The same thought had struck them. If they were to live in London, they could take the jewels with them and get the wretched stuff back to its rightful owner.

“But, Aunt,” said Amanda slowly, “we have not the clothes for a London Season.”

“That is to be arranged as well,” cried Aunt Matilda. “Maria is amazingly generous.”

“Mrs. Pitts must be very fond of you.”

“Oh, she is. Nobody else liked her. The other girls found her too severe and moralising. But no one wanted to be my friend either, because I was quite poor and very timid, and so we found we had each other. She did say, as I recall, that she would never forget me and if I were in need of any help, she would always be there. We exchanged a few letters and then she ceased to write altogether. Someone at the ball who had known me slightly a long time ago told me that my friend Maria was to stay a night at the Feathers
en route
for London.

“But I forgot to tell you the other piece of excitement. All the men in the neighbourhood have been rounded up to try to track down two monstrous highwaymen who robbed a coach on Fern Hill. It is amazing they did not come for you, Richard.”

“Why should they come for me?” cried Richard, turning pale.

Aunt Matilda looked at him in amazement. “Because you are an able-bodied man, dear Richard. But possibly it is because Mr. Brotherington was called to help organise things, and, well… he does not approve of any of us.”

“Did they call at the vicarage?” asked Amanda.

“Oh, yes, the squire did to see if the Jollys had seen or heard anything. Two highwaymen it was, one on a donkey and one on a horse, he said. One large and one small. ‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘that sounds just like Richard and Amanda,’ and how the squire did laugh!”

“I’ll get the brandy,” said Amanda abruptly.

Aunt Matilda watched her go, an anxious frown creasing her forehead. “I trust our dear Amanda is not taking to strong spirits, Richard?”

“No, she is excited about your good news,” said Richard, who still looked very pale. “Have you thought, Aunt, that we cannot live on Mrs. Pitt’s generosity forever?”

“Of course not. Just until the Season is over. Mrs. Pitts says she will find a husband for Amanda. She says if she can find a husband for her own daughter, then she can find a husband for
anyone
,” added Aunt Matilda with a giggle.

What an unkind thing to say, thought Richard.

“And,” Aunt Matilda was going on, “if our dear Amanda does not
take
, we will still have Fox End and we will have the rent from Mrs. Jolly’s cousin.”

Richard brightened. A vision of his future raced through his head. Go to London… return the jewels… disguise himself and hand ’em to Lord Hawksborough’s servant… Amanda would not have to worry about getting married… a good sort but not exactly a beauty to bring the suitors crowding around… back home to hunting and fishing and perhaps the arms of Miss Belinda Tring-Carter.

He thought briefly of the saucy girl he had kissed in the seminary garden. No, she had been too bold. He liked women to be gentle and meek and helpless.

Amanda returned with the brandy and three glasses.

She still looked tired and strained so Richard hurriedly pointed out that they could return to Fox End after the Season next July and find the rent from Mrs. Jolly’s cousin waiting to carry them through a good few months until such time as he fashioned a career for himself.

Amanda gradually began to look less strained. Perhaps she would meet a pleasant young man during the Season who would want her as a bride. Someone who did not enrage her and leave her feeling strangely breathless as Lord Hawksborough had done. Someone with whom she could be comfortable.

Then she remembered the call from Mr. Brotherington’s servant, and told Richard she was sure their persecution had only just begun.

“He can’t persecute us when we ain’t here.” Richard grinned.

“And Mr. Jolly’s cousin is a retired judge,” said Aunt Matilda. “He’ll probably have him up at the next assizes.”

Amanda looked wonderingly at her aunt. The change from the sad, drooping, depressed female of before the assembly was amazing. Aunt Matilda positively sparkled.

Then Amanda’s thoughts went on to the mysterious Mrs. Pitts. She did not sound at all as if she would turn out to be a companionable woman. But perhaps her daughter was better. Amanda had never had a female friend. And then something Mrs. Jolly once said about Aunt Matilda came back to her. “Your aunt,” Mrs. Jolly had said one day, “was not always so quiet and timid. She was companion to a horrible old lady at one time, a Mrs. Hersey, who bullied her unmercifully. But strange to say, your aunt seemed to blossom under the treatment. She really needs someone to tell her what to do every minute of the day.”

Oh, dear, thought Amanda, does that mean Mrs. Pitts is a bully?

Then she found her eyes beginning to droop with the effects of the brandy and the emotional strain of the day.

When she finally lay down to sleep, she found herself dreaming of a secure and comfortable life, free from the threat of poverty, and free from the necessity of marrying the first man who asked her.

It was a bare month after the highway robbery that the Colbys and Aunt Matilda found themselves ready to leave for London. Mrs. Jolly’s cousin, a Mr. Cartwright-Browne, had been told by his physician that he should spend some time in the country to ease the pressure of his blood. He was due to take up residence a week after the Colbys left.

Amanda and Richard had decided to unearth the box of jewels and burn the masks and hats and wigs on the bonfire an hour before they left. They could not risk doing it sooner in case they were surprised by Aunt Matilda, who had lost her need for long, escaping sleep and woke at the slightest sound.

Mrs. Pitts’s generosity did not run to furnishing them with a carriage to take them to London and so they were taking the vicarage carriage into Hember Cross and from Hember Cross they were to catch the mail coach to London, an expensive mode of travel which would take almost the last of their money.

But this mode of travel had the advantage of speed. They could leave in the morning and arrive in London in the afternoon, thereby saving the greater expense of a night at a posting house.

The trunks were corded and ready, the furniture had been swathed in holland covers to keep the dust from it until Mr. Cartwright-Browne should arrive, and Aunt Matilda was up in her room fussing over the packing of toiletries into two handboxes when Amanda and Richard made their way silently to the stables.

“I’ll feel a million times easier when we have the jewels with us,” said Richard. “I kept a small trunk just for the purpose to slip in with the others in the hall.”

“Don’t talk so loudly,” whispered Amanda. “Oh, what is that?”

There was a rumble of carriage wheels in the drive at the front of the house.

“Let Aunt see to whoever it is,” said Richard urgently. “We must have the jewels.”

But before they could reach the stables, the carriage, instead of stopping at the front of the house, drove right around the side and halted beside them. It was the carriage from the vicarage. An elderly gentleman opened the door and stiffly climbed down.

“You must be the Colby twins,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Cartwright-Browne.”

He was a very old gentleman, small and wizened, in a pepper-and-salt frock coat and gaiters. He wore a bagwig and carried a cane.

Richard signalled to Amanda with his eyes. “Please step into the house, Mr. Cartwright-Browne,” she said. “I will find you some refreshment. You were not expected until next week.”

“That I know, Miss Colby, but Mrs. Jolly—I arrived there last night—told me you were leaving this morning. I decided to move in right away. I am very fond of my cousin but I have always lived alone and am set in my ways. I would like to see the stables first.

“I believe you are leaving a horse and a donkey in my charge? Good. They will be well looked after. I have sent for my servants and they will be arriving later today.”

“But…” began Richard desperately, but Mr. Cartwright-Browne was already marching towards the stables with a quick, rather crablike gait.

Richard threw a wild look at Amanda, and both followed.

Mr. Cartwright-Browne examined the stables and the harness room, and then gave Bluebell a lump of sugar and stroked his nose. The minutes ticked by and still the old gentleman prodded this and that with his cane and asked innumerable questions.

“If we could finish this conversation in the house…” Amanda was beginning to say, when a shadow fell across them. The bulk of Mr. Brotherington looked in the doorway.

“Heard there was a new tenant,” he said, striding forward. “I own all the land about here. I’ll have you know I’ll shoot that donkey if I find it on my pasture again, see.”

“Who are you?” snapped Mr. Cartwright-Browne.

“Name of Brotherington.”

“Well, Brotherington,” said Mr. Cartwright-Browne, very stiffly on his stiffs. “I am the new tenant. My name is Mr. Cartwright-Browne.
You
are trespassing on
my
property and if you don’t take yourself off, I shall have you taken to the nearest roundhouse and charged.”

“Ho!” Mr. Brotherington tried to stare Mr. Cartwright-Browne down, but harder and wickeder men had tried when they had faced up to the elderly judge from the dock of the Old Bailey.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” snarled Mr. Brotherington, walking away stiff-legged like a surly bulldog being outfaced by a fox terrier.

“I shall see to that man before very long,” said Mr. Cartwright-Browne meditatively, and if the twins had not been so worried about the jewels, they would have enjoyed the prospect of looking forward to hearing about how their tormentor was being tormented.

“Amanda! Richard!” called Aunt Matilda. “Oh, there you are!”

Introductions were made. “Jem coachman is anxious to be on his way,” said Aunt Matilda, once the formalities were over. “He says the roads are treacherous and we should take advantage of the early start if we are to meet the mail. But I feel we should take Mr. Cartwright-Browne over Fox End before we leave.”

“Indeed, yes,” chorused Richard and Amanda.

“No need for that, ma’am,” said the old gentleman. “Mrs. Jolly says she knows your house as well as she knows her own and she will be calling later to put me in the way of things.”

In vain did Amanda and Richard protest. In vain did Amanda try to delay their departure by inventing missing fans and bonnets. Mr. Cartwright-Browne stood smiling outside the stables and it seemed as if he were set to stay there all day.

“I’ll find some way of riding back from town and getting them,” whispered Richard to Amanda at last. “We can’t stay any longer.”

And with that, Amanda had to be satisfied.

The vicarage coach rumbled forward. Amanda craned her neck until the tall chimneys of Fox End had vanished from sight. They were headed for London and the uncertain future, and the unknown Mrs. Pitts and her daughter.

They made a fairly silent journey of it. Aunt Matilda had suddenly lost all her vigour, and slept most of the way.

After the mail coach had deposited them in the City, Richard commandeered a hack. “Where to?” he asked Aunt Matilda.

She opened her reticule and fumbled around until she found a small pair of steel spectacles, which she balanced on the end of her long pink nose. Then she scrabbled and fumbled again, spilling out papier poudre, a vinaigrette, a lead pencil, a box of lucifers, a whole forest of bone pins, two combs, and a steel looking glass, before she found a slip of paper. “Oh, here it is,” she sighed. “Berkeley Square. Number five.”

“Are you sure?” asked Richard. “That is one of the most fashionable addresses in London.”

“Quite sure,” said Aunt Matilda. “Mrs. Pitts wrote it down for me herself.”

Amanda climbed into the hack, wrapping her skirts around her ankles to keep them clear of the dirty straw on the floor. She felt no excitement at being in London. She felt deafened by the noise and bustle.

Postmen in scarlet coats with bells and bags were going from door to door; porterhouse boys were running with pewter mugs of beer for the evening’s suppers; small chimney sweeps with gigantic brushes were wearily trudging home; bakers were calling “Hot loaves,” their raucous voices competing with the bells of the dust carts and the horns of the news vendors. Apprentices were chattering and shouting to each other as they put up the heavy shutters on the bow-fronted, multipaned windows of their masters’ shops; ragged urchins were leapfrogging over posts; and hawkers with bandboxes on poles were threading their way through the jostling crowd.