Memoirs of a Hoyden (17 page)

“Thank you. I suggest you not retire just yet, girls. There will be some commotion at the Manor this evening. A pot of coffee and perhaps some sandwiches would not go amiss.”

Their eager eyes demanded an explanation. “No doubt Sir Herbert will tell you all about it later,” I said, and closed the door.

Turning back to my room, I deduced that the Manor had an excellent housekeeper. A nightdress had been laid out for me, and Nel’s borrowed gown hung again on a hanger in the clothespress. I pulled what remained of my torn suit off and tossed it into the wastebasket. The bathwater was barely tepid, but I had often bathed in water cold as ice from a stream. It was the multiple abrasions and contusions covering my body that caused the discomfort. None was serious enough to require bandaging, however. With a borrowed shawl, the scrapes on my arm could be concealed.

After my bath, I was ready to dress. An evening gown that fit properly would also have been appreciated. Lacking that elegance, I did what I could with Nel’s. “What I could” means only arranging the shawl artfully to conceal the loose hang of the gown without bundling myself to resemble a school dame.

With careful arranging, a wave of my blond hair was cajoled into tumbling forward, nearly concealing the bruise at the edge of my eye. When all was done, I stood back and examined this stranger in my mirror. I looked intimidating, even to myself. I was too tall, too haughty, too unfeminine. Where Nel’s body bulged, mine only curved, and where hers curved, mine was as flat as a ruler. I drank the wine and considered means of changing my appearance. I lowered the scarf, but a collarbone was hardly likely to throw a gentleman into raptures.

I looked to the bottom of my reticule, where a lady keeps her most closely guarded secrets. There, done up in a moleskin bag, hiding beneath my headache powders, were my last hopes: a small pot of rouge and a stick of kohl purchased in Constantinople. I discreetly applied the rouge, and very carefully edged my eyes with the stick of black kohl. Ladies of a certain class put it on with a trowel in the east, but I wanted only a touch so light as to resemble the hand of nature. Carefully applied, it enlarges and enhances the appearance of the eyes. When I was finished, I was not elated with the result, but satisfied.

Over another glass of wine, I began planning my strategy. Being the person responsible for Miss Longville’s downfall would not endear me to her father, nor to his neighbor and coworker, Lord Kestrel. In fact, the whole country would see me as an ogre, persecuting an innocent young lady, if the two of us had to appear in the witness stand. I had to determine how deeply she was involved in this spying business and, if possible, arrange matters so that Sir Herbert meted out her punishment privately. Locking her up in a convent seemed a fitter punishment than hanging. My hope was that she was Bernard Kemp’s pawn, no more.

I went tapping on her door, and found her wide awake, dressed and reading a novel. What she held in her hands, in fact, was the first adventure of Aurelia Altmire, and very pleased she was with it, too. She could hardly put it down when I entered.

“Did you give Bernard my letter?” she asked.

“Yes, I unwittingly delivered the plans you contrived to steal from the courier, Miss Longville,” I said coolly.

He mouth fell open and a frown pleated her white brow. “What?” If she was acting, she ought to be on the boards. I could have sworn she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“What was in that scented satin bundle was plans destined for a colonel at Dover. They were stolen from the courier who was delivering them from London, to transport to Napoleon. What you have done is treason. Do you know the punishment for treason, Miss Longville? Hanging!”

I was as harsh as could be, to make her realize the seriousness of what she had done, intentionally or not. “Hanging for yourself, to say nothing of the shame brought down on your poor father’s head. The name of Longville will be infamous throughout the length and breadth of the land.”

Her lips trembled, and a tear started in her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Bernard said it was only a letter from his smuggling partner, telling him what time to have his men at the beach! I’ve often done it before.”

“Bernard Kemp is a liar and a traitor. How does he arrange for you to get hold of the letters?”

“A man delivers them to me here at the Manor. I always come home on the weekend—that’s when Bernard has time free from work to visit me. Bernard can’t have the letters delivered to him, because he’s watched by the customs men. When they see him come here, they think he’s only courting me.”

“Courting you!” I scoffed. “Using you, you simpleton!” My words were harsh, but I was vastly relieved to know her involvement was relatively innocent. I felt there was more to it than just delivering the letters, however. Kestrel had indicated the spies knew when the letters would be delivered. “Does Bernard ask you questions about your father’s work?”

“Of course he does. Bernard’s not a spy. He’s very interested in the campaign against Napoleon. He’s always asking me what steps the government is taking. He’d like to be an officer himself, but he doesn’t want to leave me,” Her ignorant conceit accepted this as gospel.

“Miss Longville, has he ever asked you to open your father’s private documents and tell him what’s in them?”

“Of course not! That would be quite improper, and I told him so.”

“Then he did ask!”

“He only mentioned it once. I don’t have to read the documents. Papa discusses these things with me. He knows the secrets of the government are safe with me.”

Bernard Kemp’s strategy was becoming clear. He pumped Nel’s brain dry of every word her father told her, and to impress him, she discussed these matters at length with her trusting father. No doubt Bernard discovered when important decisions had been made, and when the documents outlining them would be delivered to the army. He had his cohorts ready to relieve the couriers of their burden. To keep a distance from his French cohorts, Nel was used as an unwitting intermediary. Like her father and neighbors, she saw no harm in giving the Gentlemen a hand, so that was what Bernard told her the letters contained.

“As safe as eggs with a weasel. You are in a great deal of trouble, Miss Longville.”

“But I didn’t do anything, except deliver Bernard’s letters from the smugglers. No one cares about that. Papa has his keg in the cellar.’’

“You hit me on the head this evening. Were you waiting for the letter then?”

“No, I already had received it ten minutes before. Bernard’s friend delivers them through the French door in that study. I was just waiting for an opportunity to leave the house and meet Bernard, but then you came in, and I didn’t know who you were. I was afraid you were Papa, watching me. I thought I had heard him in the hall earlier. But when I ran into the hall, it was only Kestrel, and I got away from him.”

By dint of repetition I convinced the half-wit of what she had really been delivering. Her concern was not for what she had cost her country, but for what her father would do. “Oh, Miss Mathieson, you mustn’t tell Papa. I won’t do it anymore, I promise. I won’t ever see Bernard again. I was beginning to think he wasn’t eager to marry me. I heard he was seeing a girl who works at the tavern, but he told me it wasn’t so.”

“If you care to see that hedge bird, you’ll have to go to jail to do it. He’s been arrested tonight.” I didn’t mention his wound. It might be the very thing to reactivate her love.

“Do you think he’ll tell everyone about me?” she asked, staring glassy-eyed.

“Your father might convince him not to do so. It would only make him appear more villainous, to have debauched an innocent young girl, turned her to his vile purposes.”

A question formed on her brow. “You sound just like Mr. Pruitt,” she said. This name, unmentioned till now, belongs to Aurelia’s guardian. Nel held up the book, smiling. “I didn’t see any harm in meeting Bernard in secret, for Aurelia Altmire, in this book, has to meet her lover clandestinely, and he is the one who rescues her from the French soldiers. The author says a young lady must take her destiny in her own hands. I’ve read this book three times. It inspired me, Miss Mathieson.”

When the anonymous English lady gave that advice, it was intended for rational creatures only. Who could have foreseen its falling into the hands of morons and being so misinterpreted? “You must realize, Nel, there is a difference between reality and fiction. You should never flout your father’s authority.’’

“Aurelia would never allow herself to be forced to marry Mr. Harcourt,” she said, and burst into tears. “That’s the only reason I met with Bernard. I don’t want to marry Alfred. I’ll run away if he makes me.”

The anonymous author wavered between conviction and expediency. She could not in good conscience urge Miss Longville to capitulate completely. “I’ll talk to your papa,” I promised rashly.

“Miss Mathieson, what do you think the judge will do to me? I won’t be put in Bridewell, will I? Perhaps Alfred would be a little better than that,” she said, looking for my opinion.

“Even Alfred would be a little better than that, but it would not do for you to tell your papa so. And in any case, accepting Alfred doesn’t change the fact that you have committed serious crimes. I should stand firm on the matter of Mr. Harcourt, if I were you. Is there no one else? ...”

She frowned a moment, the tears drying on her cheeks. “Lord Kestrel is handsome,” she said, musingly.

“He rather reminds me of your papa,” I said nonchalantly. “The sort of gentleman who would expect to rule you with an iron fist.”

“That’s true. Mr. Kidd is much more biddable, I think.”

“But not very well to grass.” Poor Ronald, he must not be sacrificed to this moonling. He deserved better, “Is there no one in London?”

Now that Bernard was becoming a memory, she began to rhyme off a series of young gentlemen who were “quite handsome” and “rather amusing” and “seemed somewhat interested.” Of course, they hadn’t the advantage of farms adjacent to Longville, but surely that could be talked away. “You haven’t forgotten you said I could stay with you in London, Miss Mathieson?” she said, smiling innocently.

“Of course not,” I replied, with very little enthusiasm. I suggested she go to bed. Without prattling of modesty, I felt I could present her case to her father more convincingly than she could herself. The next thing to be done was to rouse up Sir Herbert, but before doing that, I wanted to see if Kestrel and Ronald had returned yet. The saloon was dark and empty. I lit the lamps and waited. Before long, the tread of boots was heard, and the low murmur of men’s voices. I had left the front door on the latch and didn’t rise to greet them. They saw the lighted saloon and came in, looking like a pair of poachers in their disheveled clothes and dirty faces.

Kestrel seemed surprised at my renovated condition. “All back in shipshape, eh, Miss Mathieson?” He smiled. “I was afraid you might be hurt after your tumble.” That “Miss Mathieson” came as a bit of a shock, after our tangle on the cliffs. I was sure I would be Marion, and before long he would be Nick.

“There’s no point wallowing in filth when it is unnecessary. What have they done with Kemp?”

“He’s jelly to the marrow of his bones,” Ronald announced cheerfully. “He was bleating like a sheep. You would have laughed to hear him apologizing and explaining, Marion, when Nick hit him up about kissing you. He said he thought you were Nel, which explains it. In the dark, he mistook you for a young girl. Naturally, he wouldn’t have tried to kiss
you.”

“Any gentleman foolhardy enough to attempt that would soon have his ears singed,” Kestrel agreed blandly.

“By jingo, Kemp’s lucky she didn’t run him through with her dagger again.”

“Yes, I can appreciate his good fortune in avoiding that,” Nick smiled.

“But what happened to him?” I persisted, to change the direction of the conversation. “Is he in custody?”

“Dr. Lattimer patched him up, and the constable hauled him off to the roundhouse for tonight,” Kestrel replied. “I’ll have to give evidence at the trial. What we still have to determine is how he coerced Nel into helping him.”

“I’ve spoken to Nel,” I said, and briefly outlined what she had told me. “Kemp didn’t mention her name?”

Kestrel was studying my face in a curious way. I feared I had used too lavish a hand with the kohl pencil, though his expression was not at all condemning. “No, I shouldn’t think he will. It will only blacken his character further to add that to it.”

“That’s what I was hoping,” I nodded.

“Sir Herbert will get her shackled up with Alfred Harcourt in a hurry, and that will take care of Nel,” Kestrel said.

Any agreement between Kestrel and myself was “like angels’ visits, short and far between.” This patriarchal attitude got my hackles in an uproar. “It is Sir Herbert’s insistence she marry that yahoo that caused all the trouble in the first place! She won’t have him, Kestrel.”

His brows rose, his nostrils flared, and he rose to his feet to glare down at me. “In other words, you’ve been advising her to disobey her father’s’ commands.”

I saw from the corner of my eye that Ronald had crossed his arms and assumed his smile reserved for watching me tackle overbearing foes. “I have agreed with her that she has a right to some say in her own destiny. Why should it be for you and Sir Herbert to force the poor child into marriage with a man she despises? Tell me that! And I’ll tell you something else; if her father makes her have him, this little spree will be child’s play compared to what will follow. It will be a runaway match with the butcher or a traveling salesman. Let Sir Herbert take her to London, where she can choose a husband for herself—some unexceptionable gentleman. I understand there are plenty of them willing to undertake the role.”

“She’s only eighteen years old,” Kestrel shouted. “She doesn’t know what’s best for her.”

“She’s old enough to know what’s worst for her!”

“Harcourt is the logical man. He has an excellent character. He’d take care of Nel.”

“He also has a face like a ram.”

“Such personal comments have no place in this discussion. His farm, a very prosperous estate, runs with Sir Herbert’s land for miles. Nel would be right next door to her father, home where she grew up and knows everyone.”