Love's Way (19 page)

“This is all well and good, Edward, but I must show you what I found in your book, and the handwriting is Gamble’s, not Wingdale’s.”

I dashed off for a piece of paper that proved Gamble’s part in the planning of the village that included the destruction of Ambledown. Our heads were set together perusing the document when Gamble re-entered the room. Edward looked up, frowning at him uncertainly. “Maybe you could tell me the meaning of this, Jack,” he said. His tone was markedly cooler than before.

Gamble glanced down at it. “How the devil did you get hold of this?” he asked.

“Wingdale Hause. Someone has marked on the back of it the time of tonight’s meeting. The map, I notice, is in
your
handwriting.”

“Yes, I drew it.”

“You’re quite sure the enlarged plans for the new village are entirely Wingdale’s idea, Mr. Gamble?” I asked.

“Go and wash your face, Chloe,” Aunt Nora said, entering the room. “You look a fright. You too, Edward.”

“After Mr. Gamble has answered my question.”

“You don’t catch a shark with a sprat, Chloe,” he answered easily, and took up a seat (an upholstered one, alas!) without regard for the state of his trousers. “I’m out to catch Wingdale. To do it, I am luring him on with grander dreams than he is capable of by himself. Wingdale is half-way to Thirlmere in his head by now, and on certain pieces of paper too. There is a menu at Wingdale Hause containing an alternative map, showing the road going around Ambledown. We were discussing possibilities, no more.”

“That is very clever, Mr. Gamble,” Nora said, nodding her head as though she understood his plan. I do not consider myself stupid, exactly, but I found plenty to question in his words.

“Yes, but how do you plan to catch him, Jack?” Edward asked.

“I am convinced he has committed illegal acts in the past. If the prize looks rich enough, he will do so again.”

“I cannot see a development of the lakeside wilderness, for example, as being any benefit to Wingdale,” I mentioned. “It was also on the map, and it is owned exclusively by yourself, is it not?”

“Yes, and he is pretty peeved he did not think of it.”

“It is entirely your own idea then?”

“Just stretching his thinking a little. Feeding his greed, you might say. He has to keep pace with me, so he burned down your stable, planning to force you out, and put up more cottages. I had hoped we could definitely pin it on him, but those men have jaws of iron. We might force them to squeal yet,” he added.

“You still won’t have him,” I said. “They’ll only go up before Magistrate Muller, who is in Wingdale’s pocket. There will be insufficient evidence, and the whole crew of them will get off scot free.”

“Oh no, it will be carried over to Quarter Sessions at least, perhaps to Assizes,” Gamble prophesied
.

“Only if Magistrate Muller so decrees. He will not,” I predicted.

“If any such flagrant breach of justice occurs, then the Deputy Lieutenant must intervene.”

“Lord Carnforth is not much in the habit of intervening in anything that does not concern him more directly,” I pointed out.

“Trust me,” was his answer to that. This comprehensive order appeared to satisfy the rest of the family. I must own I was far from satisfied, but short of calling him a liar and a thief to his face, there was no way of further disputing the matter.

“The map ...” I began, hoping to nudge him on to further revelations.

“He explained all that,” Edward said, with an apologetic look to Gamble.

“Well, Edward, I think we have earned a glass of your excellent ale,” Gamble decided.

“They will want to wash first,” Nora reminded us.

When Edward and I returned to the saloon after our toilette, Nora was sufficiently at home with Gamble that she had out her netting and had as well got a towel between his trousers and the best sofa. I would have enjoyed to watch her accomplish that.

A shared incident of so unusual a nature as a fire brings forth instant camaraderie amongst the participants. Our party that evening was almost gay. Gamble assured us we were more than welcome to use his stable or barns till we had rebuilt our own. I caught on from oblique comments between him and Edward that financial help had been offered to do this. It did not seem to occur to either Nora or Edward that rebuilding would not be necessary had Mr. Gamble prevented the blaze, as he easily could have done. Had he let the arsonists see him, they would not have set the torch to our stable. Perhaps my own reticence during the evening’s gaiety gave Jack some clue to my thinking. In any case, he raised the point himself.

“I limited the damage as much as possible. I hinted to Edward to leave his horses out to pasture, and had one of my own hands slip in at dinnertime to put tarpaulins over your carriages. He told me when he returned that Belle was in the stable, which is the reason you found me there, Chloe. I meant to get her out. It was my hope we could stop the blaze before it did much damage, but when the front doors were opened, the wind dragged the fire along too quickly.”

“All my fault, in fact.”

“All mine, you are thinking, but you are as interested in catching Wingdale as anyone. More interested than most, in fact. I felt sure you would not begrudge the expense of a barn, if it meant holding on to Ambledown.”

“Yes, that is true, of course.”

“We’ll have a boon day and get the neighbours to raise a barn for you, Edward,” he went on.

Everyone’s throat was amazingly dry after the fire. Next morning I saw the week’s supply of ale was gone, but I expect the servants had their full share. Cook served us some cold meat and bread, and at about two o’clock in the morning, Mr. Gamble finally took pity on us and left, allowing us to get to bed before dawn broke.

Chapter Eighteen

Despite our late night, we were up early the next morning to see in full daylight the embers that had once been a stable, and to check that Belle was unharmed after her ordeal. Two black hulks in the middle of the ashes proved to be our tarpaulin-covered carriages, the old black and our little tinker’s wagon. The heat had blistered the green and yellow paint, turning it deep brown around the edges, but it was intact. A new rear left wheel was to be recommended. Edward dragged it out into the yard to be scraped.

After breakfast I went out back again to set one of our hands to this chore. He began in a peevish enough manner, resenting the tedious job on a hot morning. Who shall blame him? “Put some effort into it, or you’ll be here all day,” I chided him.

“The paint won’t come off. It’s burnt on,” he grouched.

“Here, give me the scraper.” I seized it, and with a few good strokes had the blistered enamel off. “There you see, there is nothing to it.”

“What a versatile mistress you are, Chloe,” a deep voice said, speaking over my shoulder.

I looked up into the black eyes and brown face of Jack Gamble, who had sneaked up on me without making a sound, to catch me on my knees in the dust, hair blowing in my face and hands grimed from the scraping.

“I am willing to take on most jobs,” I replied, brushing the strands of hair from my face with the back of my hand.

“Everything but dancing. Is that it?” he asked, with a smile that held an edge of belligerence. “Emmie gave me your message—finally.”

“Dancing is not usually considered a job, but a pleasant diversion. I prefer to choose my own diversions.”

“And the company in which you indulge them. May I remind you Tom will be attending my ball?”

“You may if you wish, but it is not necessary. I know Tom plans to attend.”

“Won’t you change your mind, now that we are— friends?” he asked, speaking the last word in a tentative tone.

“As a matter of fact, I have reconsidered it.” This reconsidering occurred in my bed the night before. His explanations about the village had mitigated my opinion of him to a certain extent.

“I hoped you would. Emmie’s telling me you were making up a new rose gown sounded optimistic. A lady don’t go to so much trouble unless she is planning to be admired by a large group. Not
this
lady at least.”

“Have you come to see Edward?” I asked, ignoring his last speech. “He is at the house.”

“Yes. He’ll have to go into town this morning and lay charges against the culprits my thugs caught last night. I see one of them dropped his rope,” he said, swinging a weighted rope from his fingers.

“Is that what they were using? It was very effective.”

“Yes, it is. Come with me, and I shall show you how effective it can be.”

“Come where?”

“Oh, to the nearest scarecrow. I noticed you have one in that field of grain out back. The crows are fond of it. They were pulling the stuffing out of it. Come, and I’ll explain how this thing works as we go along.”

He took my arm as we went out into the field, till we were about forty or fifty feel from the scarecrow. “They have a charming institution in India called thugee. Robbers strangle their victims with this device. A running noose on the end of this slip, you see. You take aim,” he said, suiting the action to the word, “throw, and
voilà!”
He snapped the straw man’s head off.

“Of course if the neck is held on by flesh and muscle, it only breaks. But you must not have a poor opinion of my servants. They are not actually thugs. I taught ‘em the stunt, which I learned from some of my less reputable friends in India. I thought it might be useful for shepherds, too, to return a wayward ewe to the fold. Care to try it?”

“No, thank you.”

“Pretty difficult for a woman,” he said, in an infuriatingly patronizing way, as he reeled in the murderous rope. Actually I was eager to give it a try. His implying it was beyond a mere female was the only goad I needed.

I reached out with a sniff for the rope.

“Here, let me show you the—er, ropes,” he said, lifting it from my fingers with a little laugh. He stood behind me and put his two arms around me, not loosely. My right hand was taken in his as he leaned his head down till his lips were nearly touching my cheek. “Keep calm, Chloe. You can rip my eyes out later. Now you are having a lesson,” he said.

I began to wonder just what subject he was purveying. “That’s enough of that!” I said, trying to pull loose from his arms.

“Tch, tch, you spinsters!” he chided, holding more tightly. “Always imagining a gent is after your virtue. I bet you look under your bed at night before you sleep, in hopes of ...” he stopped short, laughing. “Really you ladies have the most salacious minds outside of India.”

Any response to this charge was difficult. To let him continue was bad, to draw it to a halt after what he had just said was worse. I decided to continue with dignity, ignoring any advances on his part, unless they should be downright offensive.

“That’s better, Chloe. Just stiffen up like a statue and pretend I am Edward. Or Tom,” he added mischievously. There was a note of suppressed laughter in his voice. “You’ll have a ripping headache by lunch time.”

“What is the next step? Or dare I ask?” I demanded, deciding to make light of it. One did not wish to give him the notion she had never been in a man’s arms before, though I must own I had never even been within arm’s length of such a forward creature as this one.

Since we had already beheaded Jack Scarecrow, he began looking around the field for new victims, still holding me in his arms, so that we turned together from left to right, “There—you’re aiming for the top of that fence-post,” he decided. His body stiffened, the arm went out, drawing mine with it. “Ready—go!” The rope was flung out, with little or no help from me. It missed its mark by a good foot.

“Let that be a lesson to us not to mix business and pleasure. I couldn’t hit either mark. Next time you shall try it alone.”

“If you think
I
derived any pleasure from this exhibition of bad behaviour, Jack Gamble, you are sorely mistaken,” I declared, pushing his arm off and turning to face him.

“You are a poor loser,” he commented idly, reining in the rope. “Shall I leave this toy for you? I expect you are eager to show me, after a couple of hours’ practice, how well you can do it alone.”

“Take it away with you. It is a stupid thing,” I answered crossly, though I would not have minded to have it.

“You speak against the goddess Kali. Thugee dedicates its victims as a sacrifice to her.”

“And who is Kali?”

“The goddess of epidemics, plagues, and other natural disasters in India. A witch-like deity thought to have a strong hold on ladies, especially wives. It is she who leads them to seduce their husbands and other gentlemen. Their rampant sexual cravings are thought poorly of. They threaten the gents’ whole well-being.”

I sought for a discreet manner in which to divert this conversation from depravity, and made the error of comparing Indian mores to English ones. “Quite the reverse of matters here at home,” I said, stiff with disapproval.

“We must be living in two different worlds,” he replied, widening his eyes in surprise.
“Most
of the ladies hound me to death, though I do not flatter myself my bank balance hasn’t something to do with it.”

I pulled my skirts around me to lessen the quantity of dust collected, and turned to leave. He
was right at my side, rattling on in the most lecherous and ill-bred way imaginable. “Sorry if I shocked you, but you ain’t seven years old, Chloe.”

“I hope you don’t carry on like this with Emily,” I said.

“No, since Hennie has come to guard her, I don’t have any fun at all. That is why I have decided ...”

“To honour
me
with your lecherous behaviour?”

“That’s it.”

“I shall go into the house and tell Edward you are here.”

“I wouldn’t want to put you to so much trouble. I’ll go and tell him myself. I bet Nora won’t be so hard to get along with,” he added as an afterthought. He never loosened his tight grip on my arm for a minute, even to open the door. I felt foolish enough in front of the servants but pretended not to notice anything amiss.

After he had left with Edward a servant brought me the rope used by Kali’s killers, telling me Mr. Gamble told her to give it to me. She wore a sly, laughing look in her eye, but I resisted the impulse to question her. I left the rope in the front hallway so Jack would be sure to see it, and my uninterest, on his next visit.