Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4) (21 page)

“A bit like his owner,” Celine murmured.

“I’m not his owner.” Victoria poured a cup of tea for Mrs. Prident and another for Celine.

“I know.”

Victoria ignored Celine. She was merely a distraction. Rosie and Maisie had gone. There must be more that Mrs. Prident could tell her. Perhaps if she let Mrs. Prident come to, and didn’t put too much pressure on her, then she would start to talk. Victoria cut the cake into three generous slices and laid them on individual plates.

Mrs. Prident slurped noisily at her tea whilst Celine watched in fascination. Brutus lay on Mrs. Prident’s feet and rumbled calmingly. Ponzi danced underneath Celine’s cake plate, catching crumbs as the ex-courtesan pushed the large slice around with the silver fork provided.

“Rosie and Maisie were meant to meet me in the schoolroom for one of our private tuition lessons after supper,” Mrs. Prident said suddenly. “But they didn’t show up.”

“They could have had other engagements,” Victoria said cautiously.

“I went looking for them.”

“And?”

“I saw them being bundled into a large cab. They didn’t seem unwilling, although they didn’t seem quite there if you know what I mean. I called their names, and they didn’t turn.”

“Perhaps they didn’t want you seeing them going?”

“I didn’t like the way the gentleman handled them. He had his hands everywhere and they didn’t protest. That was not like Maisie or Rosie. They were always so prim and proper about their being, even though they were in the pauper house.”

“When did this happen?”

Mrs. Prident thrust a nervous look behind her. “Yesterday evening. I couldn’t sleep a wink last night and came here as soon as I could this morning. I think the man saw my face. I thought he might come for me too.”      

“The man—it wasn’t Mr. Durnish?”

“Mr. Durnish?” Celine said suddenly. “The gentleman who just bought a house in Kensington?”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “Yes. But I wouldn’t consider him as your next victim, pardon, lover. I think he’s a very dangerous man.”

“So do I,” Celine said, setting her plate on the floor to Ponzi’s delight. “He’s the one who has Edward tied up in knots. It was getting to the point that Edward was spending all his time in the man’s company and wouldn’t come home to see me.” Celine burst into tears. “Even Mr. Standish couldn’t help me.”

Victoria had no idea how Bill could have helped Celine with the situation between Edward and Mr. Durnish. Certainly he hadn’t been a very good confidant if he had just taken advantage of the hapless Celine by giving her
treatment.

“Anyway, he couldn’t have been the one that was with your Maisie and Rosie last night. He was at Edward’s.”

Victoria frowned. “How do you know?”

“Because I saw him there.”

“But I thought you and Edward were not on speaking terms?”

“I broke into his garden and spied on him from the window.”

Hmm. It just depended on which Mr. Durnish was there too, the old one or the younger impersonating version.

“Did he look old or young?” Victoria demanded.

Celine frowned. “Old I believe. He left an enormous top hat on the table, and his hair was all white.”

“Did you get a glance at his face?”

“No. He was talking to another man, with his back to me. The other man was… different, not from here.”

Victoria sat back. Celine had not helped. It could have been either the older Durnish or the younger impersonator.

“My gentleman was young but didn’t look anything like Mr. Durnish.” Mrs. Prident had calmed down enough to stroke Brutus’ great head. He sighed in pleasure. “He wore a very high cravat and was hatless.”

That ruled out the younger man too, as he looked too like Durnish not to have impersonated him so well. A very high cravat. Victoria groaned. When she had visited Mr. Durnish in Kensington, on the way out she had passed by the odious froglike Mr. Cryne whose head could barely move, trapped as it was in its towering cravat.

“Tell me, this young man. He didn’t remind you of a toad, did he?”

“There was certainly something quite amphibious about him,” Mrs. Prident said cautiously. “The pushed up cravat certainly flattened his jaw and his eyes bulged somewhat.”

“Oh dear, dear, me.” Now she could add abduction to Mr. Cryne’s list of sins. Carruthers had been right. A leopard certainly does not change its spots. Now she really had something to tell Miss Fanthorpe, and this once she would not relish telling her. No woman wanted to know
criminal
facts about their intended.

“Who is it?” Celine asked curiously.

Victoria put her plate down. “I believe it is Mr. Cryne.”

“Odious man.” Celine put out her tongue in disgust. “Like father like son.”

“Do tell?”

“Mr. Cryne the elder put his hands all over me in front of his wife and suggested that I might like to enjoy an evening of pleasure with them
all
.” At Victoria’s frown, Celine squawked. “I might be an ex-courtesan, but to do that in front of Edward was beyond the pale.” Celine blinked and a few tears ran again from her immaculately made up eyes. “It was funny, but Edward said nothing about it. He merely laughed with the rest of them. That was at the beginning of when things started to go wrong and he stopped talking to me.”

CHAPTER 20

It took a week to perfect the act, and another week to catch up with Pablo Moreno’s Grand Travelling Museum. It was ironic that when Bill finally found the troupe, they were back in London.

In the end, there had not been many changes made to the proposed act that Dogman, Mary and Greta had come up with. He had run through it with them one final time before he left.

Mary and Greta had stared in silence as he had entered the tent, bare-chested, with tight breeches and bare feet. Dogman had only grunted. They had run wax through his overlong hair and Dogman had given him some kind of oil that he used on his own hair that he assured him would make Bill’s body glisten darkly.

There was no music. Apparently the sound of Bill’s muscles straining and the occasional groan that he made as he pushed against the different metals was enough to keep people rapt.

In the first act, Bill entered the tent carrying a horse. Raven had at first been much taken aback to have Bill stand underneath his chest and heave. However, after much whinnying, the plucky horse had let Bill hoist him on his shoulders, and push his hooves together in front of him. It was not the first time that Bill had carried a horse; however, normally they were dead. Raven made his discomfort known in his very much alive state and Bill had not escaped without a few nips on his ears.

After lifting Raven, he would put the horse down in the corner and continue with the following acts. In the second act he ripped the playing cards apart. Short and sweet, yet it created a spectacular shower of ripped cards across the audience if all went well.

In act three, Bill bent a metal bar around his arm in the shape of a flower. He had painstakingly mixed together a variety of metals such that they were easy enough to bend for him, but not the ordinary man. He had even made some souvenir flowers in silver to sell at the end of the act.

Bill had hesitated about the last act. He could not decide between bursting a length of chains with his chest or lifting a ship’s anchor, some barrels and a member of the audience. As Dogman sat on a barrel on his shoulders Greta clapped and laughed. It seemed he had chosen correctly.

He threw down the anchor and lowered the barrel with Dogman on it slowly to the ground. Dogman stepped off a little unsteadily and walked back to the small seats they had set up in the tent.

Bill took a couple of gasps of air through his mouth. He had practiced all week, and was now in peak condition, although he had needed to strain to complete the whole act in a timely manner.

“So what do you think?” he said between gasps.

“Unbelievable,” said Dogman, pushing his hair away from his eyes. “As I sat on your shoulders I could barely feel you trembling, and yet I tried to pick up that anchor and couldn’t even shift it from the floor. Let alone the barrel
and
a man too.”

“I loved the card ripping,” Mary said.

“And not the way his muscles gleamed as he did so?” Greta said drily. “I liked the way you brought in Raven and set him down nonchalantly in the corner of the tent. Raven has just stood there throughout.”

“The flower bending was the most spectacular of them all.”

Bill smiled and handed Mary the bent metal rod in the shape of an elaborate flower. “Something to remember me by.” Mary blushed.

Greta squawked with laughter. “I’d hate to be in your shoes, Mary, trying to describe where you got that from to your husband.”

“
Domus et placens uxor
,” Bill murmured contemplatively.

“What?” Dogman shook his head.

“Pardon?” Bill stood back and leaned against the large anchor that he had put down.

“You just said something I didn’t understand. It sounded like Latin. It’s not the first time you’ve done it. It was one of the indications you weren’t who you said you were. Smiths don’t go around quoting Latin.”

“Oh. It’s from Horace. ‘Home and a pleasing wife’.”

“Wherever did you learn that?” Mary sat forward, clutching the metal flower.

Bill sighed. “I taught myself. My mother knew that my father was a lord but she didn’t tell me. I think she wanted me to take my rightful place in society as some point. She found an old Latin primer, and although barely literate herself, she would make me practice.”

“So how come you ended up quoting Horace but being a smith?” Greta clasped her three hands together.

“My mother died and I was sent to an orphanage,” Bill said flatly. “They had a copy of Horace there. No one wants a bastard orphan who can speak Latin. All the openings were for farm laborers and servants. When the opportunity came to be apprenticed to a smith I jumped at the chance. I was a large young man already by then.”

“That’s awful.” Mary sat back and contemplated the flower that Bill had made.

“Can’t be that awful, Mary,” Dogman declared. “Here’s Bill chasing after a notorious man for the Crown. They must have found him somehow and discovered his talents.”

“Ha.” Bill shook his head. “I was just in the right place at the right time. Brambridge, my home village, has always depended on trade with France to keep afloat. I captained a boat that brought in French brandy and other goods. The government found me a useful man when it came to making contact in France.”

“You speak French too?”

Bill nodded. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but so much contact with French spies and smugglers had given him a more than competent knowledge of the language. The base in Latin had helped.

“Goodness.” Mary sat back. “And I thought we were the interesting ones.”      

“It’s always the quiet ones you should watch.” Greta nodded her head. “We spilled all of our secrets to Bill before he had even revealed anything of himself to us.”

“I’m not sure whether we should be impressed or annoyed.” Dogman stood and slapped his thigh. “All we can do is wish you luck in finding this man and his father.”

“Don’t you have a lady friend who is worried about you?” Mary stared at Bill in concern. “If you were my husband I would be wondering where you were every hour of the day and hoping that you were not in danger.”

“I have a friend and she is a lady,” Bill said carefully. Although he wondered if Victoria was really worried about him. She was perhaps more worried as to why he hadn’t turned up with the list that was still burning a hole in the pocket of his discarded coat. In the week in which he had been rehearsing his routine, he had taken out the list many times. And now, although the paper was well thumbed, he had only managed to add two more reasons to the list.

3. Lady Colchester would have something more to do with her time.

4. Mr. Standish would provide Lady Colchester with a place of her own to stay in Brambridge instead of staying with her brother.

Bill was quite pleased with the fourth reason. With Henry now married, he could not see how Victoria, his sister, would be as welcome in his home as before. Victoria had gone from being the hostess to a displaced relative. At least Bill’s manor in Brambridge was next door, and she could redecorate to her heart’s content whilst visiting her brother and reputed best friend. That would give her something to do with her time.

But it still wasn’t thirteen reasons. And he was damned if he was going to turn up on her doorstep without the list. She could just wait. Victoria had made him wait a year after all. He still wondered what she was doing. There was only a limited amount of shopping a woman could do, wasn’t there?

It hadn’t taken long to chase Pablo Moreno’s troupe to London. Bill had thought constantly of the list as Raven had eaten up the miles from Beaconsfield. There were many reasons he wished to put down, but they were all about why he wanted to marry her, not why she should marry him. And even those reasons were dangerously close to what he suspected were feelings that he didn’t want to articulate even to himself. As he had cradled her body in Freddie’s front room, he had experienced a strange solace, his disquiet about his displacement in society and doubts about talent briefly at rest. But her strong effect on him made him feel
uncomfortable
. He held on grimly to the fact that he wanted to marry her for what she would give him, the place in society that he had never had. It was his due. He wouldn’t need to worry about his lack of talents compared to his peers then. Perhaps that was what the peaceful feeling had heralded?

He arrived late in the evening to the beginnings of the Bartholomew Fair that surrounded the outskirts to the City of London. The troupe’s tents were already set up around Cloth Fair; banners above each tent proclaimed the show inside. Raven blew through his nostrils hard after the long ride, and fell upon the bucket of water that Bill procured for him. He had taken care not to wash Raven or clip his coat. Equally he himself had worn his old clothes from Brambridge, far from the smart coat and breeches that he had taken to wearing once he had taken possession of Brambridge Manor.