Barbara Metzger (11 page)

He was more than a second, and his wife was not pleased to be called out of her kitchen with her hair coming undone and her cheeks flushed from the oven fires. Red-faced, the vicar returned, while angry whispers sounded in the hall.

“I’m afraid my good wife is, ah, concerned. Not that I doubt your sincerity, mind, but, ah . . .”

“Get on with it, man. I don’t have a special license in my pocket to prove my intentions are honorable, blast it. Do you want me to swear on your Bible?”

“I think you have sworn enough, actually, my lord,” the vicar gently reproved, making the earl feel about six years old.

He apologized, then sipped the sherry to restore his patience. “What, then?”

“It has to do with a friend of Miss Beaumont’s. Pansy, I believe.”

Sherry spewed down St. Cloud’s new cravat. “Pansy? Your wife is worried about Pansy? Is everyone demented? Pansy is under my care, sleeping off a drunk right now.”

The vicar shook his head sadly. His wife was correct, poor Pansy’s ruin was complete, and his lordship showed no remorse. “I am sorry, my lord, in that case I cannot—”

“Wait. Let me get her. You’ll see for yourself, and Mrs. Broome, too.”

Mrs. Broome was wringing her hands when the earl returned and dumped a tipsy piglet on her polished wood floors. Pansy tried to gain her feet, scrabbling against the shiny surface. Then she gave up, collapsed in a heap, and passed wind.

“Meet Pansy,” St. Cloud announced. “You should have let sleeping hogs lie.”

“
W
hat do you mean, I’ll have no trouble recognizing the Coglins’ coach because Miss Beaumont is riding on top with the driver?” No matter that he intended to take her up in his own open carriage, without footman or tiger. How dare anyone else treat Juneclaire so roughly! He jumped up and stalked to the fireplace.

“But, my lord,” the vicar’s wife tried to explain, fearing for her prized collection of china shepherdesses on the mantel, “Miss Beaumont had no maid or escort, and her clothes . . . Well, Mrs. Coglin did not see her for a lady.”

“Anyone with two eyes in their head can see she’s a lady! Hell and damnation, what kind of bobbing-block puts a female up on the box in the middle of winter?” He grabbed up a paperweight from Vicar Broome’s desk.

Mrs. Broome was wringing her hands again. She didn’t know whether to worry most about her bric-a-brac, the goose roasting in the kitchen, likely burning without her, or the lace curtains, which the pig was now tasting. She didn’t want to offend his lordship, of course, but he was not a comfortable guest. “Mr. Coglin is the wealthiest shopkeeper in town, so his wife tends to get a bit above herself.”

“Very charitably put, my love,” her husband noted, his eyes twinkling. His lordship’s anger warmed Reverend Broome’s heart, it did, showing just the right amount of pride and protectiveness. This wasn’t some hole-in-corner affair; the earl really cared for the girl. The vicar sighed when Lord St. Cloud gave his graphic opinion of coxcomb caper-merchants and their encroaching, overblown wives. Not all of his prayers for the earl’s salvation had been answered, then. No matter, Mr. Broome was a patient man; he did not expect miracles.

Mrs. Broome was scarlet-faced, having snatched her beloved snow globe from the earl’s hands before he could punctuate his comments about toplofty tradesmen by smashing it onto the desk. “No matter where she’s riding, my lord, if you miss the coach along the road, you’ll find the family at Coglin’s dry-goods store in Springdale. You’ll want to catch up with them before Miss Beaumont parts company with them, so perhaps you should hurry. Please?”

St. Cloud considered asking if he could leave Pansy with them for a while but reconsidered when the pig started nibbling on the carpet fringe. He did beg Mrs. Broome for a large hatbox, which she was only too happy to fetch if it would see him on his way with the blessed pig.

While he waited, the earl wrote a check against his London bank, made out to Mr. Broome. He did not fill in an amount. “Here, vicar, buy some cushions for the back pews. I promise you’ll have better attendance on Sundays.”

Who said prayers weren’t answered?

 

Mavis Coglin loved to visit her sister-in-law, Joan, in Springdale. Joan and her family had rooms over the store on the main street, a cook-housekeeper, and a shabby landaulet. Mavis possessed a fine clapboard house overlooking the village green in Bramley, employed four domestics, and had a traveling carriage plus a chaise for local calls and such.

“No, Joan, dear, don’t apologize,” Mavis oozed. “We don’t mind being cramped in this little parlor, do we, Mr. Coglin? And I am sure whatever your Mrs. Burke prepares is adequate, though how she had the time with all her other duties . . . So I had my own cook fix some of her specialities. Scully is bringing them up from the coach now. That’s the traveling coach, of course. You won’t mind if Scully helps serve, will you? I know your dear little girls are used to passing dishes and such, but truly, Joan, it’s not quite the thing.” Mavis was having a grand time, especially when someone knocked on the shop door right in the middle of dinner.

“You see, Joan, dear, how inconvenient it is to live near the store? Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is forever ringing your bell when a button falls off or a ribbon goes missing. Isn’t that so, Mr. Coglin? Why don’t you let Scully get the door, Joan? He’ll send the inconsiderate fellow to the roundabout fast enough. So much more the thing, don’t you know, than sending one of the children. I never answer the door myself, of course, except when Lady Cantwell calls. Dear Lady C needed to confer with me about flowers for the church altar.”

 

“Here now, mister, the shop is closed. Just because you went and spilled some wine on your neck cloth ain’t no reason to ruin gentlefolk’s Christmas dinner. I got splashed some myself and I’m still serving. And it ain’t going to stop me from celebrating tonight neither, when the folks is home in bed.”

St. Cloud wasn’t listening, not to Scully anyway. He was hearing the sounds of the family upstairs and trying to pick out Juneclaire’s soft voice.

Scully put his hand on the earl’s shoulder to set him on his way. “G’wan, now, pal. Come back tomorrow.”

Scully’s hand was removed by an iron vise around his wrist. “You forget yourself,
pal.
I am here to see Mr. Josiah Coglin, and you shall stand out of my way.”

“It’s worth my job, an’ I let you go up,” Scully whined, his fingers growing numb from the continued pressure.

“And it’s worth your life if you do not.” Eyes as cold as green ice bore into Scully, convincing him. He gulped and nodded. “Here,” the earl ordered, thrusting a large hatbox into the footman’s arms, “guard this. And if you value your neck, don’t let it out.”

Don’t let what out? Scully sank down on the floor between the glove counter and the lace table, staring at the hatbox. He pushed the box across the aisle with his foot and rubbed his wrist. The fellow had the Devil’s own strength.

Scully did not give a thought to his employers’ safety upstairs, too concerned with his own skin and what was making noises in the dread box. Weren’t no bonnet, that was for sure, with moans and grunts coming from it. The greasy hairs on the back of Scully’s neck slowly rose, leaving a chill right down his spine. B’gad, the thing could be a goblin or some such creature from hell, ready to drink his blood if it got out. Scully had to know.

Fellow said don’t let it out, not don’t look. Scully edged closer on hands and knees to where he could peer in one of the holes poked through the lid. He took a deep breath and put his eye to the opening. A red-rimmed eye with no white showing looked back. Scully was out the door before his heart remembered to start beating again. He ran around the corner, jumped into the traveling carriage, and slammed the door. He wasn’t going back upstairs till that warlock left and, no matter what the limb of Satan ordered, he wasn’t staying downstairs with no soul-snatching hell fiend, not in a pig’s eye.

 

“Sirs, ladies, forgive me for intruding, but could you tell me where I might find Miss Juneclaire Beaumont? You brought her here from Bramley.”

Nearly all the Coglins had their mouths hanging open. Mavis closed hers with a snap and demanded that the impertinent fellow remove himself at once, before she called for her footman.

“Your man already greeted me at the door. Please, ma’am, Miss Beaumont? Then I shall be more than happy to leave you to enjoy your meal in peace.”

Mavis sniffed. “I am sure I do not know what became of the baggage. She left the inn where we stopped for refreshment without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“She just left? Surely you asked her where she was going, with whom?”

“I never had the chance, sirrah. The wanton went off without a word to anyone. No one saw her leave. And you can be sure I asked, for I meant to make the jade pay for my footman’s new uniform, if the stains did not come out.”

A muscle twitched in St. Cloud’s jaw. “How did Miss Beaumont come to be responsible for your footman’s uniform?”

“She threw a bottle of wine at poor Scully. Fine return for our Christian charity, I say. Now you can leave us decent people to our meal.”

“A moment more, ma’am, so I understand perfectly. You let an innocent young lady set off by herself from an inn in the middle of nowhere?”

Mavis wiped her mouth delicately with her napkin. “I told you, I made inquiries. And there was no proof that she is, indeed, a lady. In fact, the innkeeper mentioned some young bucks passing through. Perhaps she took up with them.”

“Ma’am,” St. Cloud ground out through narrowed lips, “were you a gentleman, I would call you out. Were you a lady, I’d see every door in London closed to you. Miss Beaumont has more ladylike grace in her little finger than you possess in your whole overdressed, overweight, overreaching self.”

“Josiah, throw him out,” Mavis screeched, her face swollen and splotched. “Do you hear the way this ruffian is speaking to me? Do something, I say!”

Josiah Coglin figured the intruder to be five inches taller than himself, fifteen years younger, and in fitter condition by half. Jupiter, the most exercise Josiah got was carrying the cash envelope to the bank. Besides, the fellow was right. So Josiah did something; he passed around the mashed turnips. His brother snickered, and Joan hid her satisfaction in her napkin. The children still watched, wide-eyed.

Mavis saw no one was coming to her rescue and the rudesby was still glaring at her. “Pish-tosh,” she blustered, “fine words coming from a fine jackanapes with rag manners and rags on his back. What do you know about gentlemen and ladies? Bounders like you come into the shop all the time, looking for a piece of gimcrack frippery to turn the girls’ heads. For all we know, you’re the doxie’s fancy man. I know your kind.”

St. Cloud’s gaze could have withered the silk blossoms at Mavis Coglin’s heaving breast if they were not already dead. “No, ma’am,” he said on his way to the stairs, “you don’t know my kind at all. Not many earls buy their own shoe buttons or silver polish.”

 

Scully was still cowering in the coach when St. Cloud found him. The earl banged open the door and plucked the footman out like a pickle from a barrel. He held Scully by the collar, feet off the ground. “Why did Miss Beaumont throw the wine at you?” he demanded.

Scully was saying every prayer he’d ever heard, including the last rites. The earl shook him. “Why?”

“N-nothing, gov, I swear. She just come over violentlike.”

Juneclaire, who pleaded mercy for a young robber? St. Cloud tightened his grip and shook the weasel again. “You must have done something to insult her. What?”

“A k-kiss, that’s all.”

That’s all? St. Cloud broke the dastard’s nose and darkened both his daylights, that’s all. Scully was relieved the devil hadn’t sent the demon in the box after him.

 

Damn! St. Cloud took a swallow from his flask while he tried to think through the fog of anger clouding his mind. He absently poured some of the brandy onto a roll for the pig nuzzling at his sleeve.

She could be anywhere! She could be halfway to London or asleep under a hedge. She could have taken a ride with anyone passing by that inn or been taken by the young blades for sport. Not even the brandy warmed the chill in his gut at the thought.

He needed more people to help search. He needed more money to pay them. The earl decided to drive home and organize the armies of servants at the Priory. He’d have them combing the countryside, searching every coach and cart. He’d get rid of the pig, thankfully, and saddle his stallion so he could cover more territory. He’d get to London, hire Bow Street runners, and knock on every door in London asking if a Mrs. Simms was housekeeper.

Just let her be safe until he found her.

St. Cloud stuffed the pig back in her box and whipped up the horses, wondering at his determination to locate a chit he’d only known a day or so. It wasn’t just pride, he told himself, because she had refused him, and not just how he hated to be thwarted. He wanted her, but this was more than lust, more than the thrill of the chase. He had to find her to fill that empty space where his dreams had been. He had planned on showing her the Priory, her future home; he’d pictured her in the portrait gallery, the orangery, the morning room. He could practically see her there. Now he’d be looking around the corners, staring in the mirrors, waiting for her to appear like Mother’s ghost. He had to find her.

But he didn’t find her, not even when his curricle overtook the lumbering old wagon full of noisy children. He didn’t notice the sleeping woman among the bundles and boxes and babies and crated chickens. He kept on driving.

M
atthew Mulvilhill shoved his brother Mark into their sister Anne, who started bawling, which woke Baby Sarah, wailing in their mother’s arms. Their father, John Mulvilhill, reached behind him to clout the nearest young Mulvilhill without taking his eyes off the horses. Lucas, minding his own business, was carving his name in the planked wagon with his new pocket-knife. The knife slipped, ruining his perfect
L,
and Lucas said a word not found in the Bible. He hopped up to get out of his father’s reach and tripped over little Mary, who was cuddled next to Juneclaire, who awoke to shrieks and kicks and a suspicious damp spot on her much-abused cloak.