Maggie MacKeever (28 page)

“Move!” commanded Tess, and Ceddie felt the rapier’s price between his shoulder blades. He moved.

Unbeknownst to Ceddie, Tess was not having an easy time of it. Though the full moon rendered the countryside clear as noonday the ground was rough and uneven. Tess clutched the rapier in one hand, its casing under the opposite arm, and used a stout stick as a cane. Her stride was not steady; her shoes were not designed for tramping down country lanes. Nor had she shaken the depression attendant upon the realization that Sir Morgan had callously abandoned her to a decidedly unpleasant fate. The Wicked Baronet, she thought somberly. How could she have been so deceived in the character of the man? She had thought him reckless, but no worse. It was not pleasant to discover herself a fool.

It was the dead of night and her captors were presumably abed, having decided to let the rats’ company induce in her a more cooperative frame of mind. They might well have done so, Tess mused, if not for Ceddie’s impromptu performance. She supposed she should be grateful to him for it, no matter how base his motives.

What those motives were, she could not begin to guess, but there wasn’t the least doubt that they were disgraceful. Tess hoped that the ruffians were not early risers, and that no one would come to check on her in the middle of the night. Ceddie’s halting progress would get them no great distance from the cobbled courtyard by daybreak. She nudged him again, rather viciously.

“I’ve been wounded!” Ceddie protested indignantly. “Dash it, Lady Tess, you’re dealing with a sick man! God only knows how much blood I’ve lost.”

“I know!” snapped the unfeeling countess. “At the most, ten drops! It would serve you right if I left you here for the others to find. I doubt they’d thank you for upsetting their plans.”

“If that don’t beat all!” Poor Ceddie considered himself grossly abused. “I come to pull your coals out of the fire, and you accuse me of being hand-in-glove with your kidnappers. I tell you what it is, Lady Tess. You’re paper-skulled!”

“Not so paper-skulled,” retorted the countess, “that I don’t think it’s very odd that
you
should appear! Nor do I believe your Banbury tale that you just happened to be in Berkeley Square when the carriage took me up.”

Ceddie did not consider it a propitious moment to explain that he’d meant to elope with Clio; he lapsed into sullen silence, thinking that he’d have been far wiser to apply to his irascible sire for financial assistance. Much as Ceddie hated to give his head to the blunt-tongued squire for washing, he could not imagine that his father would prove less reasonable than Tess, who had stabbed her savior, nigh drowned him in brandy, threatened him in the most harrowing manner, and now held a sword at his back. To think he’d considered marrying her! Ceddie shuddered. He still wasn’t totally convinced that she would not leave him for the inn’s bloodthirsty inhabitants to find.

Tess’s state of mind might have been more coherent than her prisoner’s, but it was hardly more cheerful. She had little hope of a clean escape, the stench of brandy that emanated from Ceddie’s bedraggled person was overpowering even in the night air, and furthermore her feet were wet. “Where the devil is your horse?” she hissed. “Don’t tell me again that you’ve misplaced it, Ceddie, because even you can’t be
that
harebrained!”

 “I left the brute around here somewhere,” Ceddie muttered sulkily.  An exasperated sound came from behind him, and he dared to turn. “Dash it, Lady Tess, it’s dark! I can’t be expected to think of everything!”

“Very true!” Tess promptly agreed. “I
didn’t
expect it of you.” The countess herself was looking a little the worse for wear: her gown was torn and filthy, her already tangled hair had curled riotously in the damp air, and there was a large smudge of dirt on her nose. She sighed. “We might as well rest for a moment—in which you will once more try and explain!”

Ceddie did try, without marked success, as was clearly demonstrated by Lady Tess’s sword, pointed unwaveringly at his throat. “Yes, yes!” she interrupted impatiently. “You told me all this before, and I still don’t believe a word of it. We shall skirt the issue of
why
you were in Berkeley Square, since you don’t seem inclined to admit the truth, and since I think I may guess!” The rapier’s tip moved fractionally closer and Ceddie gulped. “Why did you follow me?” inquired Tess.

“Thought you might be in danger!” croaked Ceddie. “Didn’t like the appearance of things at all!”

“Moonshine! You thought I was off to keep an assignation, and thought you might use it to blackmail me.”

“Were you?” inquired Ceddie, briefly forgetting his perilous situation. “Dashed if I’d of thought it of
you.”
The rapier inched forward. “No harm in it,” he added hastily, “if you
were
off to meet a gentleman! If you
had
met him, but you didn’t! Came here instead and if it weren’t for
me
you’d still be locked up in that curst cellar!”

The countess made a strangled noise that sounded remarkably like “empty-headed fool,” but the sword came no closer, and Ceddie was encouraged to continue. “Thing is,” he confided, putting his cards on the table while still he could, “I’m in queer street! You know, under the hatches! Thought if I saved you, you might return the favor!”

“Ah!” exclaimed Lady Tess. “You wish me to redeem your vowels. That sounds very much like you, Ceddie.” He waited hopefully. “However, I am not totally convinced. This affair of the necklace has been so badly mismanaged that I am almost positive that you had a hand in it.”

“Necklace?” Ceddie wondered if the countess’s imprisonment had deranged her mind.

“We have wasted enough time!” Tess wielded the saber in a careless manner that made her captive’s blood—what remained of it—turn to water. “Onward, Ceddie! I strongly advise you to think very hard on where you left that damned horse.”

“Very well!” snapped Ceddie. “I warn you I’m feeling deuced queer. It will be your own fault if I swoon dead away.”

The countess displayed no sympathy for his debilitated condition. Instead she looked pointedly at the tree against which he leaned, which looked remarkably like a gibbet. “I wonder,” she mused, “if that’s where the highwaymen were hanged?” Ceddie cast a wild-eyed glance at the tree, and broke into a trot.

Thus they progressed through the night, though neither of them had the faintest notion of what direction they traveled or where the path might lead them, with Ceddie cursing the misguided knight-errantry that had prompted him to follow Tess, and the countess enlivening the journey with gruesome speculations on what might be their fate if they were caught. Consequently it was with no small relief that Ceddie heard an unmistakable whicker. “My horse!” he cried thankfully. “You see, I didn’t lie to you. Lady Tess!”

“Correction, bantling!” came a deep voice from among the trees. Ceddie’s hair stood on end. “Not your horse but mine, though yours will be rounded up soon enough.” Sir Morgan stepped forward, his swarthy face more satanic than ever in the bright moonlight. “I give you joy, Countess! May I say I’m damned glad to see you, little one?”

“You may
not!”
snapped Lady Tess. “Don’t seek to disarm me! I had thought Ceddie too much a slow-top to be the leader of a gang of cutthroats, but now I realize that
you
are the ringleader, Sir Morgan, and that Ceddie is in league with you.” She brandished the swordstick. “Well, you shan’t have me without a fight, and so I warn you! I fancy I could skewer Ceddie in a trice.”

A lesser man might have been taken aback by such vehemence, but Sir Morgan was not entirely unaccustomed to indignant ladies who hurled insults, like crockery, at his head. “No, love, I knew
that!”
he said, and advanced.

Lady Tess’s words had not gone unheeded by Ceddie, and he immediately understood that Sir Morgan was responsible for their predicament. He might yet, he thought, collect a reward, if not from the countess, then from a grateful government, for so great a brigand as Sir Morgan must surely have a price on his head. With that idea in mind, he wrenched the sword-stick from Tess’s relaxed fingers. “Advance another step,” he cried, “and I’ll have your life!”

No coward, Sir Morgan did not pause. “Ass!” gasped Tess as Ceddie lunged, and brought down her heavy stick on his sword arm.

Ceddie was no novice in the art of fencing; had not the countess deflected his aim, Sir Morgan would have been speedily dispatched. “Now look what you’ve done, you idiot!” wailed Tess, as the Wicked Baronet crumpled to the ground. “I shall never forgive you!”

Ceddie might have had experience with the
épée,
but he had never before seriously wounded a man. He looked at his victim, covered with what seemed a vast amount of blood, and swooned.

Lady Tess paid not the slightest heed; she was on her knees beside Sir Morgan making further depredations on her petticoats so that she might staunch the blood that flowed so freely from his wound, and, it must be confessed, weeping.

“Oh, you wretched man!” she sobbed. “You may have your damned diamonds and I will consider myself fortunate to be rid of both you and them!” Sir Morgan looked positively corpselike, or so she thought, though her vision was unquestionably blurred by tears. “Don’t you dare die, you beast!” she added, with fine feminine logic. “I have a great deal to say to you!”

“And I to you, my love!” Sir Morgan opened eyes that held a distinct twinkle and spoke in a voice that betrayed not the slightest tremor of pain. “No, don’t fly into a passion! It’s only a flesh wound.”

It was highly possible that the countess, realizing herself most ignobly deceived, might have finished the work Ceddie had begun, had not just then a fourth person appeared leading three horses. “Hallo, Aunt Tess!” said Evelyn cheerfully. “What have you done to Sir Morgan?”

“Evelyn!” Tess’s voice was weak. “What are
you
doing here?”

The young viscount grinned. “I followed Sir Morgan from Bellamy House! He had to bring me along because he hadn’t time to take me back.” His sparkling glance fell on Ceddie. “What’s the matter with him?”

“He fainted.” With undiminished strength, Sir Morgan pulled Tess to her feet.

“Paltry fellow!” decreed Evelyn.

“You exhibited a great deal of compassion,” murmured Sir Morgan to his captive, “for a man whom you believe responsible for your misfortunes. May I hope that you hold a kindness for me, little one?”

“No.” The countess was prey to a great number of conflicting emotions. Had not the Wicked Baronet retained a firm grip on her arm, she would have stalked majestically away. As it was, Tess contented herself with scowling murderously at him. “How could any woman nourish a fondness for a man who had her locked in a cellar? I wish only the privilege of seeing you hang.”

“Cripes!” Evelyn was wide-eyed. “A cellar?”

“With rats!” Recalling her grievous mistreatment, Lady Tess looked mulish. “What now, Sir Morgan? I suppose you’ll drag me back to the inn so that your cohorts may finish the thing!”

“I rather thought,” Sir Morgan replied apologetically, “that we’d retire to my home, which lies nearby, though after all this excitement you will probably find it devilish flat.” She blinked, bewildered, and he smiled. “I was on my way there the night we met at the inn, having stopped in only for a chat with our old groom—he taught me to ride, you see, though he’s now long retired from such work.”

“Ah!” said Tess. “An ancient individual lacking a great many teeth and badly in need of a bath?” Sir Morgan’s startled expression was confirmation enough. “I fancy I may have made his acquaintance! It was he who told me what I might expect from rats, the kindly old gentleman.”

“Poor old Carruthers,” sighed Sir Morgan. “I have often said that he would come to a bad end.”

It occurred to Lady Tess that she stood in great danger of feeling quite in charity with the fiendish author of her misfortunes. “Why did you change your mind?” she inquired rebelliously. “It would’ve saved us a great deal of trouble if you’d simply gone home!”

“You intrigued me,” said Sir Morgan.

“Aunt Tess!” interrupted Evelyn, who’d followed this exchange with interest, despite its various incomprehensible points. Ceddie stirred and moaned. “Are you thinking Sir Morgan is in league with the robbers? Truly he is not! He told me everything on the way. He has taken every measure for your safety. Just think, he set Pertwee to following you!” The boy’s tone was awed—whether from admiration for Sir Morgan’s cleverness or for his boldness in utilizing the superior valet could not be determined.

“The devil!” muttered Tess.

“What happened?” asked Ceddie, weakly rising to his knees. Memory returned, and with it a fresh onslaught of squeamishness. “Confound it, Lady Tess! I think you’ve broken my arm.” The countess paid not the least attention to this accusation, being engaged in staring at the Wicked Baronet with an appalled expression that Ceddie perfectly understood. He could not, however, at all understand why she should allow herself to be embraced by the brigand. Ceddie concluded that the various deprecations made on his person had affected his eyesight.

“Don’t fret, little one!” Sir Morgan released Tess and looked fondly down upon her stricken face. “I promise I don’t hold it against you that you should have thought me capable of such villainy! Rather, I consider it an indication of your superior intellect, though I promise I should never lock you in a rat-infested cellar, no matter how greatly you provoked me!” He smiled his crooked grin. “Just think what a tale we may relate to our spellbound grandchildren!”

“It seems to me,” Evelyn stated critically, “a queer time to be making a declaration! Are we waiting for the men from Bow Street?”

“Pernicious brat!” said Sir Morgan.

“Bow Street!” ejaculated Ceddie, and sank back on the ground. It took several moments’ discussion to convince him that the authorities were coming not to arrest him for wounding a man but to aid the Runner already watching the inn in rounding up its occupants; and several more moments to convince the countess, belatedly recalled to Sir Morgan’s condition, that he was not like to expire on the spot, having in truth suffered only a flesh wound.