A Wicked Way to Burn (21 page)

“Well, I—”

“I hope, at least, that we can
all
agree on the benefits of the British parlimentary system?” Montagu asked the table.

“Of course,” Longfellow assented, “despite the fact that the body
you
elect is filled with men who would prefer neither to see nor to hear us, and who rarely do anything in our interest at all…”

“It’s allowed you to enjoy what you call your ‘liberty’ this long! But it may be that you Americans should start a united Parliament of your own. Then you would know
real
trouble. And don’t forget to include the ladies among your revolutionary representatives!”

Both men, along with the women, soon found themselves laughing together at the idea—although the Americans laughed less than their host, and for different reasons.

“Have you seen conditions across the Channel yourself?” asked Charlotte of the captain. Montagu became serious again.

“It’s an increasingly hard life in France. While most struggle just to exist, a very few enjoy everything money can buy. I suspect that in a dozen years, the French will have problems at home which will keep them from fighting with us, or with you.”

“I have read in the
Gazette”
said Diana with new energy, “that children in London can still be put into prison for debts, and hanged for stealing a loaf of bread—while royalty continues to think up new fashions and diversions.”

“Ah yes, the
Gazette,”
Montagu replied. He picked up the bill of fare and slowly fanned himself, rather than
saying exactly what he thought of that newspaper, or any other touted as an honest, unbiased source.

“Yet here,” he continued, gazing at Diana’s clothing as he spoke, “many of your ordinary citizens choose to wear silk and lace, rather than less costly attire, even though they live far from any court. Wouldn’t you agree with my earlier argument, Miss Longfellow, that people like these, able to pay more than a poor weaver or a plowman in England, should at least pay the Crown for
some
of the cost of their own protection, or be thought ungrateful … perhaps even disloyal? No one here is truly poor, after all.”

That point, too, would soon have been debated, but for the reappearance of Jonathan Pratt.

“I’m sorry to interrupt—”

‘“Jonathan, what’s happened?” From the landlord’s somber face, Mrs. Willett feared she already knew.

“What, indeed,” he answered hesitantly. “Sam Dudley’s been found. He seems to have drowned in the river, just to the north of the footbridge.”

“The boy drowned?” Montagu inquired sharply. “How?”

“No one knows for certain. It could be that he slipped in the early darkness. Startled by a deer, perhaps—or simply lost his balance. It’s likely he was stunned, he fell, and drowned in the shallows. At any rate, he was found in the marshland, and was taken home to his mother.”

“Most unfortunate—I’m sorry for her. I presume a physician has been called to examine him,” Montagu added, somewhat to Pratt’s surprise.

“Oh, he’s been dead for some hours, by all appearances. No need for a doctor. Anyway, there’s none here in Bracebridge. When we have a serious need of one, we send word to Cambridge. If there’s time.”

“I’ll go and have a look at the lad tomorrow, then, before I leave. Where is his house?”

Still somewhat mystified, the innkeeper gave him directions. Jonathan hadn’t heard, Charlotte realized, all that they’d been discussing before, nor did he know of Montagu’s warning of possible danger to come. She felt her emotions welling as her throat tightened, and she imagined the quiet body stretched and tended by his mother for the last time. Sam Dudley! She’d seen the boy for years, hurrying here and there. Sam Dudley, one of the youths she had seen, and heard as well, walking home on Tuesday night—

This final thought decided her. She would pay a visit to the Dudley farm in the morning. It would be a call of sympathy, and something more. But she would be sure to go early, before Captain Montagu arrived. At the moment, she had no desire to encounter any more of his disconcerting stares.

Richard Longfellow had risen while Mrs. Willett considered. Silently, he left the room after the innkeeper. In the hall he caught Jonathan’s arm.

“Have you still got Timothy about the place?”

Timothy helped the hostler look after the horses, and sometimes did other jobs. Often, the boy ran errands, or took assignments from the inn’s guests when they needed messages delivered. Tim was a devil in the saddle, especially for the right price.

“He’s around somewhere,” Pratt replied, trying to think where he had seen the young fellow last.

“Well, if he’s not otherwise engaged, I’d like you to give him a letter.”

Saying this, Longfellow took the landlord’s candle, forcing Jonathan to follow him as he made his way to an alcove desk where he knew paper, ink, and quills were to be found. While Jonathan watched, Longfellow sat and quickly wrote out a note, folded the paper twice, put a name and a Boston address on the outside, and sealed it with a drip of wax.

“Where
, by the way, is Nathan? He’d have been interested in what went on in the kitchen earlier.”

“If he were here, I’m sure we would have heard from him.”

“Out of town?”

“No, at the Blue Boar, I imagine. He’s been there quite often lately.”

“Has he?” Longfellow returned the candle, and leaned back while the landlord went in search of the boy.

Soon, at the approach of the alert Tim, Longfellow rose and gave him the letter and some copper coins, shook his hand solemnly, and then went back to rejoin the party with at least one new question in mind.

“I propose,” said Edmund Montagu as Longfellow reentered, “that each of us escort a lady home through the storm—for the wind is strong enough to blow either off to Providence. Rhode Island, of course,” he added, winning at least one smile with the ancient joke that was still new to the Englishman. “Mrs. Willett,” he concluded, “may I offer my arm?”

Charlotte was quick to catch the look in Diana’s eye. She replied gracefully, but firmly. While she appreciated his offer, there were tiresome proprieties in village life, she told him, that had to be considered. Perhaps it would be better if Mr. Longfellow, a family friend and neighbor, were to escort her. As he and Diana were both residents of Boston, she continued, rather than Bracebridge, and thus probably considered to be odd already, they would have little to lose by going together. The captain might even escort Miss Longfellow home in an official capacity, while her brother was otherwise occupied.

Montagu smiled at the transparent refusal, but readily agreed. Before long, the four left the inn and passed through its outer gates with wavering lanterns, then turned to go their separate ways into the driving dark.

“
I’M CERTAINLY GLAD
,” said Diana, once they were safe inside her brother’s house, “that Richard keeps a good cellar, although he has a strange prejudice against tobacco. But I suspect you take no snuff. May I offer you a glass of something?”

Montagu watched her toss her cloak onto a stand in the large entry hall, and again heard the small bells over her chest rustle.

“Thank you, no. I believe I’ve already had enough tonight to unsettle my brain.”

“Then a cup of Dutch chocolate, as only I can make it. Please, take off your cape. You won’t leave me all alone? My brother is sure to be away for an hour or two. And an empty house is so dreary. Besides, there is something about which I’d like to ask a man’s advice. I have been struggling to understand a poem,” she continued, walking through a doorway.

This came as quite a surprise to Edmund Montagu. He’d hardly thought the colonials the sort of people likely to appreciate Milton, Pope, or even Gray. It was especially odd, he thought, to be asked for such advice by Diana Longfellow. Here was a lovely woman indeed—yet he wouldn’t have guessed this particular female concerned herself with inner beauty, or spirit in general.

He followed her through a passage and into the kitchen where he stood, watching and recalling. When they had been together before, the talk had been of fashion, then intrigue, secrecy, and others things she appeared to find increasingly exciting. Since then, he had used her rather shamefully … even admitted it over dinner. Not that she hadn’t deserved it, in return for subjecting him to her own flirtatious fictions. Now, she wanted to talk to him of poetry. Was it simply a ruse to get him to speak to her of love, for her own amusement—or even, possibly, for revenge? For all he knew, that brother
of hers might be waiting for a chance to challenge him to a duel—probably with pitchforks, or even manure shovels.

Montagu had no way of knowing that Diana had taken care to ask Mary Frye earlier if the captain had brought any books with him. Had she noticed, while arranging his towels and tidying his room? A book of collected poems had been Mary’s answer. No—Montagu only knew, as he followed Diana into the kitchen (and saw the enchanting way she looked about for materials and means to prepare him a cup of cocoa, leaning and reaching) that his own reserve was beginning to thaw beneath a shower of smiles, to the music of those maddening bells.

“Please, sit there in that comfortable chair by the hearth, while I just—”

He sat. Now that her curls and clothing had become disheveled by the wind, she had a look quite unlike that of the lady he had met only yesterday on the Boston road. This new unbending, even an unraveling, might lead to further surprises. Herrick had put it well, back when men and women were keenly aware of the truths of life under its various costumes.

He drew a breath as Diana, climbing a short kitchen ladder, kicked one foot into the air, and steadied herself—

Hoops that hid a figure, he now realized, might lead to other possibilities as well. He averted his eyes as her skirts lifted, but soon looked back again.

Gad! Had the strange mood of the little town transformed
him
now, as well? When in London, or Boston, for that matter, he found it easy to maintain his sense of place and order. Under the eyes of men and women besotted with themselves and their positions he, too, could appear stylish and self-absorbed, and would be accepted. But in this place, he seemed to be held suspect for the very manners that had earned him entry to the best houses in Boston. And now, he was teased with their opposite, by a lady of that town! Could she have realized his secret—that he longed to enjoy life without its many artifices—life that was good, simple, even poetic, thanks to the rural influence? How he would have enjoyed seeing the lady before him in simple country attire! Yet even with this strong urge, he knew from experience that life was never
really
simple, not even in the country … not even here.

Montagu wiped his brow carefully with a handkerchief, pretending that all he wiped away was a lingering drop of rain. Thank heaven, he thought, he would be leaving in the morning. He seemed to be under some kind of spell—but was the bewitching agent Diana Longfellow, or his own frustrated hopes? This might prove to be, he warned himself, a very dangerous cup of cocoa. He would have to be on guard.

“Fie, fie, fie, Captain Montagu,” his companion gently chastened, turning around on a step with a tin of dried fruits in her hand, “only watching me move about this chilly room, when you might be down on your knees, coaxing the embers of our fire. A warm country kitchen, in rain and storm, is an appealing place to be—even a desirable one on a night like this, don’t you think? Now, if you will rise and hand me down …”

LATER, SITTING IN
his room at the inn, Edmund Montagu suspected he would have gone a great deal further, had not Cicero chosen that moment to enter through the kitchen door. Odd, he thought at the time, that the expression on the rain-slick face of this country servant should remind him of quite a different face—one he’d stared at somewhere else quite recently. Where had it been? Well, at least it had diverted his attention from Diana Longfellow!