Memoirs of a Hoyden (13 page)

“We know there were three men,” Ronald persisted. “Naturally they were coming this way—toward the coast at least. I expect they went to Dover or Romney Marsh, where the smugglers are as thick as crickets, and Kestrel’s led us off here on a merry chase while the documents go off scot-free to Boney. He was just distracting us, Marion. If you weren’t so busy rolling your eyes at him, you’d have seen it long ago.”

“Let us not get into a dissertation on rolling eyes, Mr. Kidd. I never saw such a disgusting display in my life as your smiling and simpering at that half wit of a girl. If I hadn’t chanced along, you would personally have escorted her into the hands of Mr. Kemp, to fritter away her fortune. I was not rolling my eyes at Kestrel— though now that you mention it, he was trying to flirt with me when I was lying on the sofa.”

“Was he, by Jove?”

“Yes, and that’s why he did it! He didn’t want me to start thinking of other things, such as his unexplained presence in the room. Though really, I did hear a scuffle in the hall.” I really had seen a shadow of concern in his eyes, too, as he leaned over me.

“You were half-senseless. You could have imagined it.”

“If the spies are home free with the documents, why does Kestrel bother hanging around here?” I pondered this a moment and found my own explanation. “Unless having told us there were spies on the way, he must act as though it were true. I mentioned going to Castlereagh to offer our services, you know, and Kestrel wouldn’t want us telling any tales that jeopardized his reputation. He was quick to discourage me. He’s trying to convince us that his story was true. We’re wasting our time, Ronald. That letter is already on its way to France. I’m going to bed.”

Just when I thought everything was settled, Ronald came up with a new idea. “Of course, it’s just possible that Kestrel was supposed to meet the spies here tonight, and plan new strategies,” he said. “I mean, a man like Kestrel—he isn’t just some minor cog in the machinery. He’s obviously the ringleader himself. As he’s remaining here, at Longville Manor, there must be some reason.”

“The reason is that he’s trying to convince us he was telling the truth.”

“Perhaps,” Ronald said doubtfully. “Or perhaps he’s arranging how the next set of orders from the F.O. can be stolen. He won’t want to go on using highwaymen forever. That would begin to look suspicious after a while. You run along up to bed if you’re tired, Marion. I believe I’ll just hang around down here for a while and see what happens.”

He knew there wasn’t a chance in a million I would retire when he said that. I disliked the notion of Kestrel being guilty of treason, but that was mere sentiment. Just because a man has long eyelashes and a gentle touch on your hair is no reason to be blind to reality. All men’s chests are warm and protective at close range, even traitors’. Ronald could be right. The very fact that it was Ronald and not myself who saw the possibility showed me I had not been sticking to facts as closely as I should, and usually did. I, who prided myself on using my head!

On one thing I was in complete agreement with my secretary. If Kestrel was guiltily involved at all, he was no one’s pawn. He would be the ringleader. Why he should have involved himself on the wrong side wasn’t clear, but there is no accounting for treachery. He might have imagined he suffered some wrong at the hands of the government, or he might be doing it for money.

As we stood, thinking, there was a little movement of the doorknob. We exchanged a frightened look, I blew out the candle and flew behind the sofa, and Ronald just stood like a moonling while the door opened and someone came in. I don’t know how he knew who was there, but Kestrel said, “Is that you, Mr. Kidd?”

“Kestrel?”

“Yes, what are you doing here?”

“I was just—Marion told me about being attacked, and I came down to see if I could find any clues.”

There was the scraping of a flint, and from behind the sofa I discerned a slight lessening of the shadows.

“Did you find anything?” Kestrel asked. He sounded worried. The criminal does return to the scene of the crime, I’ve read.

“No, I was just beginning to look. I daresay it was the spies who hit her,” Ronald said leadingly. “What do you think, Kestrel?”

“I expect she walked into a door and was ashamed to say so.” My fingers curled into fists, and I had to force myself not to point out that I was nowhere near a door when I was hit. “Does she always go off half-cocked as she did on this occasion?”

Ronald cleared his throat nervously, very much aware of my listening ears, and said, “She’s rather headstrong.”

“The woman is a menace to society. I don’t know how you put up with her. Is there any truth at all to those tall tales she rattles off with such nonchalance?”

“Every word is true—nearly.” I was smiling to myself till Ronald added that demeaning “nearly.” “She omits
my
part in our experiences. Actually,
I
am the one who went out to argue with Prince Nasar in the desert. Marion did back me up very efficiently, however. ‘‘

“If a quarter of what she’s broadcasting so loudly to the world is true, there isn’t a polite saloon in London that will be open to her.” Hah! Tom Moore would be surprised to hear that! “Folks may go to hear her stories, but if she has in mind making a match, she’s going about it the wrong way.”

“Marion isn’t interested in marriage.”

“All women are interested in marriage,” Kestrel said comprehensively. “Especially when they reach her years. How old is Miss Mathieson? Not much short of thirty, I should think?”

I tried to direct the thought into Ronald’s head that he should shave half a decade from my thirty-two years, but the message didn’t reach him.

“She’s well over thirty,” I heard my secretary say. Two years is hardly “well over”! “But she was never interested in marriage, even when she was the right age for it.” Oh, thank you, Ronald. That was a brilliant speech. “In fact, she first went traveling to avoid her relatives’ urgings that she settle down.” Well, at least he got that right!

“Anyone special they had in mind for her?”

I knew I shouldn’t have railed so hard against poor Mr. Lambert. “Some fish merchant,” Ronald replied. Kestrel emitted a snort of amusement. Mr. Lambert was
not
a fish merchant. He was a very prosperous owner of a fishing fleet. The objection was not to his calling but his personal appearance, which too closely resembled the cod his ships brought home from the coast of Newfoundland.

“I should think those travels cost a pretty penny. Where did she get the blunt?” Kestrel enquired. What I longed to shout from behind the sofa was, where did Kestrel get the gall, inquiring so minutely into my background? I wished Ronald would give him a good set-down.

“Her family has money,” Ronald said vaguely.

“Where does the family live?”

“They don’t live anywhere.” He made me sound like a gypsy! “Her parents are dead now. Her papa was a captain in the army. She followed the drum with him, which is where she got a taste for travel.”

“I wonder Beau Douro didn’t clean up the Peninsula long ago with Miss Mathieson to assist him.”

Ronald laughed weakly, not knowing what answer would please me, but he knew he had overstepped the boundary in claiming he had confronted Nasar alone, while I “backed him up.” We faced Nasar together, and it is my slight oversight in not including his name in that section of the memoirs that he was repaying me for. If he was a step ahead of me, it was no more than that.

Kestrel soon tired of discussing me. “Let’s have a look around here for clues,” he said, and lifted the candle to begin scouring the room to see what he’d left behind.

I hunched low behind the sofa, ready to move aside if he came that way. Ronald foresaw this possibility and lit a candle himself, ostentatiously looking behind the sofa and saying, “There’s nothing here. Have you found anything, Lord Kestrel?”

“Nothing new. Just Miss Longville’s riding crop, which was here earlier.’’

“That’s odd!” I could hear the interest in Ronald’s tone, and hoped the ninny wasn’t about to blurt out Nel’s little spree. He had too much respect for the girl to do so. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No, there’s nothing here. I’m going down to the coast.”

“What for?” Ronald asked suspiciously. It immediately occurred to me that this was the first time Kestrel had ever volunteered a single word of his activities. Why was he suddenly taking Ronald into his confidence?

“We still haven’t intercepted the spies,” Kestrel pointed out. “I thought they’d bring the letter here, but there’s been more than enough time for it, and it hasn’t turned up.”

“Maybe Sir Herbert has got it already.”

“No, he hasn’t had any privacy. He was just in his office for a while, and I kept a watch on the door all the time. Sir Herbert can’t be our man. But the spies were approaching Longville Manor. Someone here has already intercepted the letter. We must get it before it leaves the country. To reach France from here, it must go by sea. And that is why we’re going down to the coast.”

“I” had suddenly become “we,” and as I crouched behind the sofa, I was struck with the awful idea that the only reason Kestrel wanted to get Ronald out of the house was to do away with him. My attachment to Ronald was of long standing. For a few years we had been together constantly, living through incredible dangers and excitements. He was as dear to me as a brother, and I couldn’t let him fall into such danger. Yet to rise up from my concealment and suddenly announce my presence seemed equally impossible. Would it not be better to let Kestrel think he had Ronald alone, and follow them, providing protection from behind?

Ronald cleared his throat. “Er, does that mean you want me to go with you, Kestrel?” There was much less suspicion than eagerness in his voice.

“I could use some assistance. I would have taken you into my confidence earlier, Ronald, but I feared that would mean having Miss Mathieson hanging around our necks as well. This is no business for a lady. I must warn you, there’s some danger in it. I confirmed from Sir Herbert earlier this evening that the smuggled shipment of brandy is expected tonight. I’m fairly certain the letter will go to France on that boat when it leaves. My hope is that we’ll catch our contact from Longville Manor when the letter is delivered to the boat, as we obviously missed it earlier. We may have to deal with a cutthroat band of smugglers, which is why I could use your help. And obviously why I don’t want Miss Mathieson involved.”

Mr. Kidd was addressed as Ronald to confer a spurious air of camaraderie. Whether it was that or the lure of danger, or the opportunity to pitch himself into an adventure denied me that convinced Ronald, I could not say. His reply, however, was “I should be honored to assist you, Kestrel.”

He was too poor a liar to be pretending to believe Kestrel. He did believe him. I, being “well over thirty,” had to be wise for us both, and maintain my doubts, and my vigilance over Ronald. Though I wasn’t too old to hope Kestrel was not a traitor. Beneath his impertinent question, there was a tone of interest about Miss Mathieson.

In my mind, I pictured the short ensuing silence was due to one of Kestrel’s conning smiles. “I wish you will call me Nick, as I’ve taken the liberty of using your Christian name.”

“That’s odd!” Ronald exclaimed, and laughed. Oh no! The idiot wasn’t going to blurt out that I had asked if he knew Kestrel’s name.

“It’s short for Nicholas; not Old Nick—Satan.” I breathed a small sigh of relief. It was short-lived.

“No, what is odd, Marion was just asking me a moment—a short while ago, when I spoke to her upstairs, what your name was.”

“Was she indeed? You can tell her when next you two meet, not that she’ll ever use it. You’ll need some peace offering after beating her to the gun in catching the spies. But more importantly, you’ll need some protection for tonight’s escapade. Let’s go to the armaments room now and find you something.”

“Yes, by Jove, and this time I’ll make sure the trigger ain’t welded shut. Odd Marion didn’t notice that.” They both gave a superior little laugh at my oversight. You would think Ronald had been outside the door during the transaction, and not holding the pistol and praising its balance.

They left, taking the candles with them, and I stood up, to ease the cramps out of my knees. My humor was about as black as the room. I would crown Ronald with a water jug after this was over. A private secretary is not expected to announce his employer’s most intimate secrets to the public. If he insists on doing so, he might at least get the facts straight. “Well over thirty”! Nick would think I was an antique. And like a typical man, Ronald hadn’t even the wits to discover Kestrel’s age, or anything about him.

All this would provide much rancorous repining later, and much angry debate, but for the moment, I had more important things to do. Paramount amongst them was to discover the location of the armaments room, and avail myself of a weapon. Ronald might at least have had the wits to leave the door open. He knew I would be following. The damn knob began to squawk when I turned it. I had to wait till the men were beyond hearing to open it and follow them. It was almost impossible to see anything in the hallway. It was only the telltale glow of the candle ahead that showed me the location of the armaments room, a few doors down and to the right, Naturally, I had to wait till Ronald had procured a weapon and left before I was after mine.

One cannot choose a weapon in the dark, which meant wasting precious minutes finding the tinderbox and a lamp. A paneled room sprang into dim view, its walls plastered with all manner of weapons, mostly ancient. There were crossed halberds aplenty from the fifteenth century. A handle six feet long was longer than I required, nor did I particularly wish to spear the enemy. There were pikes and battle-axes, some handles with spiked heads attached, and standing guard below it all a row of rusty suits of armor and shields. I was surprised a sheepbreeder housed such an arsenal, but what was not there was a modern pistol. I could see the spot on the wall where one had been removed for Ronald. The open ammunition box for it still sat on the table.