The Moonless Night (35 page)

“He’d lie as fast as a dog would trot,” Biddy agreed. “Well,” she said, looking at her two patients, “it’s nearly three o’clock, and as you will both have a busy day tomorrow with journalists and government men here asking questions, I suggest we all turn in. You won’t go back to the ball looking like this.”

“I’m not up to it,” Sanford admitted. He did feel up to a few moments private conversation with Marie, however, and to gain it, asked Biddy what she meant to do about Benson’s effects, still in his room, hoping she would make some move to go and leave them alone.

“I’ll lock the door and leave all the evidence there for the constable tomorrow. I’ll make sure to lock it when I go up to bed.”

“Better do it now, in case he sends that valet of his back to get rid of any incriminating objects—maps, routes, that sort of thing,” Sanford suggested.

“An excellent idea!” She went in such haste to do it that she left all her medical paraphernalia behind her, thus ensuring she would soon be back with them.

“You mentioned it was Ireland they meant to go to,” Marie said. “How did you find that out?”

“My chef from
Seadog
and a couple of the crew were hired to run
Phoebe
. But we can find something more interesting than Benson to talk about.” He arose and joined her on the sofa.

“Indeed we can! Would you like to discuss Madame’s wart, the true location of it, I mean, or for that matter the real location of the buried gold? Or that faradiddle you announced at the ball about Papa giving the order to have his chain cut?”

“I was thinking rather of us.”

“Oh, us! We are as dull as ditch water. Who wants to talk about an insipid country wench, or a fashionable fribble?”

“The combination, being so unlikely, provides some interest. I had to tell Madame something to put her off the track. She already suspected from the dilatory manner in which I pursued her after setting her up in that cottage that I was not half keen on herself. She expected more gallantry from me, and must have suspected you were the fly in the ointment.”

“Such a flattering image you find for me! And the manner in which you were pursuing her was not so dilatory, either. You were kissing her in the orchard.”

“Dilatorily, and only in the line of duty,” he pointed out. “I wasn’t kissing her like this.” He swept Marie into his arms and kissed her in very much the same way, but as it was no longer a duty he enjoyed it considerably more.

Inexperienced as she was, she was more impressed with it, too. She hardly minded the pain as he bruised her sore jaw, nor did he pay the slightest heed to his stinging chin. Still, even a blissful pain cannot be endured for long, and he soon released her. “You just wait till we’re both healed!” he was threatening her when Biddy re-entered.

“What is that you mean to do when you’re both healed?” she asked with lively interest.

“We’re going to take up studying French, Biddy,” he answered blandly.

“Why, I thought you already spoke French pretty well,” she answered, surprised.

“Yes, I am going to teach your niece while we are at Wight,” he said. “We even may have a few lessons before we go, if we can find some nice quiet spot around the house where we won’t be disturbed.”

“That can easily be arranged. My, I don’t like the looks of those bruises on the pair of you. The ice packs did no good at all. They seem to be aggravated. I think I must leech you both tomorrow,” she said happily. “I’ll go out to my reservoir bright and early and select half a dozen plump ones.”

Sanford glanced at her, startled. He soon made his excuses and left, to rout Belhomme out of his chair and advise him he must be awakened not later than six in the morning.

Chapter 24

Despite the late night and despite the nearly total lack of sleep by anyone under the roof of Bolt Hall, Biddy Boltwood was at her reservoir at seven in the morning fishing out likely suckers, and Sanford was up an hour earlier to retrieve the chest of gold and have it ready for the authorities. By the time Marie got downstairs at a tardy eight o’clock, the chest was open to the elements and the excited eyes of her family. She noticed puddles of water at the chest’s corners, and doubted they had got there from its being buried in dry earth.

“You washed the chest down, did you?” she asked Sanford.

“Yes, it was covered in dirt from being buried. You can go to the stable and see where it was buried,” he offered.

Sir Henry made a mental note to honor this corner in some suitable manner—a stone or a brass marker were compared for suitability, and Sanford hoped Belhomme had had the sense to make a hole of a proper depth.

Marie walked around to the rear of the chest, glancing down as she did so. She saw, sticking to a leather thong that bound the wooden slats together, a choice leech. Sanford saw her expression of surprise, and hastily walked around to join her. His eyes followed hers to the incriminating evidence.

He talked on unconcernedly as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “I seem to have got my boots muddied in the stable,” he finished up, and reached down to whisk the offending leech into the folds of muslin, under the pretext of wiping his toes.

“That versatile Belhomme of yours, does he ever act as a valet at all?” Marie asked in a low voice.

“When he is not busy with more demanding chores. Well, shall we have some more coffee?” They walked together to the morning parlor.

“Do tell me, was it the chest of gold that made the leeches so torpid? Is that the damage you referred to?” Marie asked him.

“My dear girl, gold always excites living animal matter; it does not depress it. It was the bottle of laudanum I borrowed for my groom’s sore hand that did the trick. But don’t for God’s sake tell Biddy so. I wanted to give them symptoms interesting enough to insure her hanging around the reservoir, just in case Benson tumbled to the hiding place. He didn’t, as it turned out, but that is hindsight.”

“I bet you didn’t need the vacuum hood for your liver, either, nor all those headache drops. You only did it to bring Biddy round your thumb, didn’t you?”

“It was necessary to be on terms with one of the family. You youngsters had both taken me in such aversion that I required any ally I could summon. One never knows when some request of a bizarre nature will be necessary, and it helps to have unquestioning friends. Sir Henry, of course, was wishing I would get myself killed. Is he still, by the by, or do you think he has taken to approving of me since I let him decide to cut the Bolt chain himself?”

“He referred to you as Bathurst’s godson this morning, and not as ‘that demmed Sanford,’ so I think he is reassessing you.”

“Good. Then it remains only for him to reassess your worth—a hundred thousand is a little steep for a country wench—and I shall speak to him.”

“A little judicious puffing up of his part in last night’s intrigue should lower my value,” she suggested.

“Throw in the coronet and he’ll be paying me to take you off his hands. I wonder if that isn’t an idea!” he said, with a considering look on his face.

“Sanford! How can you be so cheap!”

“How can you be so cork-brained! We negotiated the deal days ago.”

To reestablish goodwill with his fiancée, Sanford flattered Sir Henry with all the skill at his command when the gentlemen of the press and government arrived not much later. Before the morning was over, Sir Henry had hit on the exact moment when he had come to the fateful decision of cutting the chain. It was just when his son pointed out that the rescue would be done by means of Rawlins masquerading a bunch of renegades as British seamen. But David was always up to anything, and had got a pack of his own friends on to the ship.

“It is my opinion that Prince George ought to have the chain repaired at the government’s expense,” Sanford said. At this point he actually received one of Sir Henry’s beetle-browed smiles, that looked so terribly like a frown. “As it was maintained by Edward VI in the old days,” Sanford mentioned.

When Admiral Keith arrived a little later to add his august presence to the assembly, he diverted a good deal of interest to himself, by announcing that Captain Cockburne was arrived aboard the
Northumberland
to carry Bonaparte off to Saint Helena, and was only awaiting official word from London, and a stout breeze, to do it.

There was no question of Sanford’s leaving before this interesting event had occurred. He had plenty of time to have the chain repaired at his own expense, and make up a story to Sir Henry that the Prince Regent had asked him to do it, and he would be reimbursed. He had more figuring to decide how he would get a letter from Prinney attesting to this agreement; Sir Henry wanted it for his files. A series of hasty urgings to his godfather culminated in the raising of Sir Henry Boltwood, K.B.E. to Sir Henry Boltwood, Bart. He and his successors were henceforth to be styled baronets, within easy grasp even of a barony the next time the Bolt Chain was required.

Before
Seadog
left for the Isle of Wight, bearing in Sanford’s cabin two dozen green speckled leeches, and on its deck all the Boltwood ménage except Sir Henry, there was a gratifying announcement in the local papers that Sir Henry Boltwood, Bart., was happy to announce the betrothal of his daughter, Marie, to Lord Sanford, the wedding to take place soon at Bolt Hall, which led inexorably to a lengthy recounting of the history of Bolt Hall.

As
Seadog
lifted anchor and caught the prevailing wind in her sails to drift out over the chain to the sea, Sir Henry stood on the rampart, waving a white handkerchief, and formulating plans for a slightly larger yacht, a schooner, actually. Something to do justice to a baronet. A schooner that would sleep a dozen was what he had in mind, with a fancy fireplace and a bit of a wine cellar. Davey, good lad, would like to have it.

This plan dropped from his mind as he went to his study, to smile at all his trophies, and lastly to let his eyes linger on the patent outlining all details of his new eminence, the baronetcy. As he got down to business, drawing up the letter disclaiming the municipality’s liability in forthcoming “delicate matters,” he was a happy man.

Copyright © 1980 by Joan Smith

Originally published by Fawcett Coventry

Electronically published in 2005 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.