Elizabeth Thornton (8 page)

The door opened, and a maid with a tray bustled into the room followed by Miss Fairbairn. Olivia’s smile faded when she saw Abbie’s face.

“Oh, my dear,” she cried out, “you don’t look at all well. You really should see a doctor.”

Once again, she helped Abbie to the chair. Abbie looked at that kindly face and longed to unburden herself of the whole sorry story. She couldn’t of course. Olivia was no help in a crisis. She had a nervous disposition and would only become excited and take to her bed. Besides, Olivia couldn’t keep secrets.

No … until she reached London and could consult with her family, she would have to keep everything to herself.

“Oh, Millie,” said Abbie, looking at the maid, “I heard from Mrs. Gordon at the ball last night that there are housebreakers in the area.” This wasn’t true, but it was the best she could come up with. “From now on, I want all our doors locked and all the windows latched, and if you or any of the other servants see anyone lingering in the street, let me know at once.”

Millie’s eyes went round with alarm; Miss Fairbairn began to chatter excitedly, asking questions she answered for herself; Abbie let her mind wander.

She was well aware that locking the doors and securing the windows were on a par with barring the stable door after the horse had bolted, but it made her feel safer. And the next thing she was going to do was learn how to use a pistol. There was nothing she would like better than to put a bullet in that villain’s brain, just as he’d done to Colette.

What was she saying? Pistols were made to kill people. She’d always hated them. She and George both were good, law-abiding citizens, and this shouldn’t be happening to them.

When Olivia’s voice trailed away, Abbie gathered her wits. She waited till the tea was poured and Olivia had taken several sips from her cup.

“The books we bought in Paris,” she said. “I mean, of course, the ones that are being held at customs. The period of grace is almost up. If I don’t claim them soon, they’ll be sold at public auction. I was wondering if it was worth our while to pay the duty on them.”

“I thought you said that His Majesty could wait till doomsday before you would pay duty on your own property.”

Abbie took a sip of tea and winced as her torn lip
smarted. “I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment. I’ve had a change of heart. Well, it was a great to-do about nothing.”

“I don’t call nasty, officious men bullying two innocent women a ‘to-do about nothing.’ You were entirely within your rights.”

That’s not how Abbie remembered it, not when she was honest with herself. She had been largely to blame for what had happened at customs. It had all started pleasantly enough. She’d answered the customs officers’ questions politely and truthfully. No, the books were not for personal use, she’d said. She’d acquired them to sell to her customers at home. The officers had looked impressed, and she couldn’t help boasting about how well she and Miss Fairbairn were doing with their fledgling business, or how much profit they would make when they sold the books.

Hugh had been there, too, trying to shush her, but she hadn’t listened to him or understood what he was trying to do, not until the officer in charge informed her how much duty she would have to pay. “Articles of commerce,” the officer called her books, and after all her boasting she could hardly deny it.

She saw, then, that the officers’ politeness and charm had been a blind to entrap her. In her stupidity, she’d exaggerated the value of the books and thus the amount of duty that was owing on them. She’d seen red, of course. On a matter of principle, she’d ranted, she wouldn’t pay them a penny, no, not even a farthing. The King could wait till doomsday before she would enrich his coffers by paying an unjust tax. It was getting harder and harder for decent people to make an honest living.

There was more in this vein, and Hugh had hustled her out of the customs house before—as he’d said—they
clapped her in irons. His censure had kept her temper hot, and she’d turned on him too. He should have stood up for her, she’d raged. Anyone would think he was afraid of his own shadow.

She always looked back on that episode with mixed emotions. She was sorry, deeply sorry, that she’d let fly at Hugh, but she was astonished and rather proud of the way she’d stood up for herself. The old Abbie would never have shown such gumption. But then the old Abbie wouldn’t have opened her mouth, and the question of duty would never have arisen.

None of that mattered now. She had a book to find, and if it wasn’t with the lot that were still waiting in Dover for her to pay duty on, she didn’t know what she would do. But how was she going to know what book to look for?

She curved the fingers of both hands around her cup and stared at a solitary leaf that floated on the surface of her tea. Aunt Abigail would have told her that the tea leaf was a sign that a tall, dark, and handsome stranger was coming into her life. She didn’t want a tall, dark, and handsome stranger. She wanted a tall, fair-haired man she’d known forever. She wanted her brother George.

“What is it, my dear?”

Abbie blinked rapidly before looking at her companion. She tried for a smile, then thought better of it as pain began to spread along her lip and jaw. “I was just thinking,” she said, “that we never did get around to cataloging the books we bought in Paris. None of them stands out in my mind. I mean to say, was there anything unusual about any of them that you remember?”

“Well, some of them looked promising, but nothing that would make our fortune or warrant paying the exorbitant duty on them, leastways, I don’t think so.”

It was the answer Abbie expected, and despair and inertia settled over her like a wet blanket.

Miss Fairbairn sighed. “And to think I had such hopes that it wouldn’t come to this.”

“Come to what?”

“Paying the exorbitant duty.”

“How could we get out of it?”

Miss Fairbairn gave a deprecatory laugh. “I wrote a letter of complaint to the foreign office right afterward, but so far they haven’t even acknowledged my letter.”

“You never mentioned it to me.”

“No. I was hoping to surprise you, you know, if they found in our favor, but as I said, I haven’t heard a thing.”

“I didn’t know that customs is under the jurisdiction of the foreign office.”

“I don’t think it is. No, I wrote a personal letter to Mr. Lovatt, who works at the British embassy in Paris. His name was on the flyleaf of the book I was reading. I asked our foreign office to pass my letter on to him, and I hoped he would use his influence to help us—if only to get his book back.”

“What book?”

“Oh dear, I’m not explaining this very well.” Miss Fairbairn’s hands were beginning to flutter, a sure sign that she was becoming agitated. “The book that that nasty customs officer snatched from my hand, you know, Homer’s
Iliad
in a French translation. I thought I mentioned it at the time. It had notations in the margins, but I couldn’t make sense of them.”

Abbie vaguely remembered Miss Fairbairn engrossed in a book during their return journey across the English Channel. “I do remember something,” she said, “but not the name of the book you were reading.” She thought for
a moment then went on, “I don’t remember purchasing a copy of the
Iliad
when we were in Paris.”

“Perhaps it belongs to George. Perhaps Mr. Lovatt is his friend and loaned it to him. At any rate, it’s with all the other books we acquired.”

Abbie’s heart began to pound. “And Mr. Lovatt’s name was on the flyleaf?”

“Yes. It was a present from his wife.”

Abbie swallowed the question that sprang to her lip. Olivia was looking at her anxiously, and when Olivia was anxious, she invariably lost the thread of what she wanted to say. There was only one way out of the fog and that was to stop pushing her, and let her tell the story in her own words. “I see,” was all Abbie said.

Miss Fairbairn’s hands stopped fluttering, and she flashed Abbie a grateful look. “But whether the foreign office passed my letter on to him, I have no way of knowing.”

“You asked the foreign office to pass your letter on to Mr. Lovatt at the British embassy in Paris?” said Abbie to clarify things in her own mind.

“I thought it was worth a try.”

“What did you say in your letter?”

“Only that we had Mr. Lovatt’s book, but could not give it back to him until we’d paid the duty, and that wasn’t likely.…” She stopped. “I can’t remember exactly what I said. I just gave him the facts.”

“And you kept this all a secret from me?”

“As I said, I wanted to surprise you. Are you upset with me? Have I made matters worse?”

“Of course I’m not upset with you,” said Abbie loyally. “What you did showed great ingenuity.”

Miss Fairbairn beamed at Abbie. “Well, I wouldn’t go
that far, but it did seem to me that we had nothing to lose and a great deal to gain.”

For a few moments, Abbie sifted through everything Olivia had told her. Finally she said, “You said that the book was a present from Mr. Lovatt’s wife. How did you know?”

Miss Fairbairn screwed up her face as she thought back. “It was inscribed, ‘To my dear husband from your own …,’ now, what was his wife’s name?”

Goosebumps broke out on Abbie’s skin. She knew what Miss Fairbairn was going to say before the words were out.

“Her name was Colette,” said Miss Fairbairn. “Yes, that’s it. Colette. Such a pretty name, don’t you think?”

Her injuries had healed. Her boxes were packed. She’d written notes to all her friends, and just as soon as she had left for London, they would be sent out. Miss Fairbairn had been briefed on what might come up in her absence. She’d told her that the reason for this unexpected journey was to visit a married friend in Hampstead who had fallen ill. The pretext had served her well, providing an excuse for her distraction and low spirits. Abbie did not again mention the books that were impounded in customs at Dover.

There was nothing to do now but wait for instructions, and the lack of activity was driving her crazy.

She seated herself on a straight-backed chair beside the fire. If only she could sleep for an hour or two, she would feel better. But she couldn’t sleep. A confusion of thoughts hammered inside her head, and she was powerless to stop them. George, Michael Lovatt, Colette, the British embassy, Miss Fairbairn, Hugh, herself, George’s
abductors—they were all connected to Paris, and she still could not make sense of it.

She wished that there was someone older and wiser she could confide in. She thought of Hugh but discarded the notion. Hugh was a scholar. He dealt in ideas and antiquities. He was more of a diplomat than a man of action, as he’d proved in her quarrel with the customs officers. Hugh had tried to pour oil on troubled waters while she had stood up for her rights. And if she knew Hugh, he would insist that she call in the authorities.

Her brother Daniel was different. No man trifled with Daniel and got away with it. He wasn’t hot tempered. He didn’t go looking for quarrels or fights, but if they came his way, he didn’t turn from them. If Daniel were here, she would feel so much better.

She found her handkerchief and blew her nose just as someone rapped on her door. It was Millie, bearing a small silver salver with a letter on it. It was hand delivered by an urchin only moments before, the maid explained. When Abbie was alone, she tore the letter open and scanned it. It was not written in her brother’s hand, but in a beautiful copperplate that George would have scorned to use. She read:

She felt as though he were standing right behind her. She read the letter through again, crumpled it into a ball, did the same with the note she took from her pocket, and threw them both into the fire.

A
bbie used her handkerchief to mop up the vapor on the coach window and looked out. The dismal view of sodden hedgerows in the fading light seemed to mirror her own dismal thoughts. It had been raining intermittently since they left Bath. The temperature was so frigid that she was surprised the rain had not turned to sleet. Nothing had passed them on the road since they changed horses at Devizes. Marlborough was only ten miles away, but at this rate it would be dark before they reached it.

She suppressed a shudder. Now that they were almost at Marlborough, her nerve was beginning to crack. He would be there, waiting for her, the man who’d assaulted her in Bath. He’d told her they would be watching her and she believed him. She felt horribly exposed. He’d had no trouble invading her home, and she didn’t think it would be any harder for him to invade her bedroom at the Castle.

It wasn’t bravery that made her suddenly decide to defy his instructions, but cowardice. She didn’t want him to know where her room was, didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night with his hand over her mouth
and his knife at her throat. There was something about him that made her skin crawl, and it wasn’t only because he’d attacked her. She’d relived that scene many times in her mind and she sensed … evil, depravity, something so corrupt she didn’t know how to explain it.

The thought prompted her to move her hand to the small leather portmanteau beside her on the banquette. Daniel’s pistol was inside it. She’d taken the trouble to learn how to load it and use it, but that knowledge came from a book. She’d yet to practice what she’d learned. The gun was supposed to make her feel safer, but when she thought of
him
, her precautions didn’t seem adequate. Not nearly adequate.