The Riddle of the Lost Lover (12 page)

She had launched into a lengthy monologue, during which Consuela chose some wools for a shawl she was embroidering for her grandmother's birthday. Mrs. Blackham, the constable's tall lady, had come in with her booming voice and a long shopping list, and tucking her purchases and the mail into her basket, Consuela had managed to escape. Outside, she'd walked on, thinking wistfully of how she had first met Jack and of their desperate efforts to uncover the truth of her father's death. She was too lost in thought to notice that her steps had turned instinctively towards the old manor, and when the raindrop interrupted her musings she was mildly surprised to find herself far past the village and on the Alabaster Royal estate road.

She wandered along slowly, taking note of how much Jack had done to improve the property. The once pot-holed lane was now a quite respectable road; the grasses of the wide park, that had been a mass of weeds, were smoothly scythed, the yew trees that lined the drivepath neatly trimmed, the overgrown rose garden weeded and pruned. Her gaze went past the little humpbacked bridge over the stream, to the manor itself. Alabaster Royal. Long, two-storied, its entrance flanked by the twin round conical-topped towers that lent it an aura of strength and invincibility. The exterior was bright with new paint, the mullioned windows clean and sparkling even under the greying skies. ‘Dear old house,' she mused, and with the thought heard hoofbeats on the road behind her.

Hezekiah Strickley was probably exercising some of Jack's horses, she decided, but on turning, saw that it was not the rather cantankerous steward. Instead, a luxurious coach drawn by four magnificent matched bays pulled up beside her. The coachman was one of the biggest men she had ever seen; not fat, but with a great spread of muscular shoulders and powerful hands that stretched the seams of his gauntlets. His hat was pulled low over his face, and his head was downbent, concealing his features. A window was lowered. An elegant gentleman with dead-white skin and lank black hair, leaned to smile at her.

“Good afternoon, my pretty,” he said in a purring and slightly accented voice. “Have you far to go? There will be rain soon, I think.”

Consuela thought indignantly, ‘My
pretty?
How
dare
you address me so?' She was about to respond to his presumption when two things occurred to her. Firstly, that there was something about this man and his strange coachman that made her uneasy; and, secondly, that her windblown hair and the basket she carried, in addition to the fact that she was unaccompanied, had undoubtedly caused the creature to think she was a village lass. For no reason she could have explained, she bobbed a curtsy. “Good aft'noon, sir. I've just to go as far as the manor, if y'please.”

“Then it is that you are a local girl,” he said, with a flash of very white teeth, “and can be of assistance to me.”

Consuela wondered if this was a French spy. Beginning to enjoy herself, she asked demurely, “How, milor'?”

He swung the door wide, and she drew back as he trod down the step. Goodness, but he was tall.

“There is not the need for alarm,” he said. “It is that I have heard Sir John Vespa he seeks a friend of mine. I may be of help to him in this. Do you know if he is at home?”

She blinked at him. “Your friend, sir?”

“No, child. Sir John.”

“I don't know, sir.”

“But surely, if you are going to the manor you must know whether he is there.”

“Oh, I know that, sir. There isn't no Sir John there. Just Captain Vespa, sir.”

The black eyes widened a little. “Do you say he does not use his title?”

She wrinkled her brow and said with bovine density, “Most folks calls him Captain Jack, milor', be that what ye means?”

It seemed to her that suspicion came into those deep eyes. Perhaps she had overdone her little imposture. From the corner of her eye she saw the coachman turn and glance at her. It was a brief glance, but enough to show her a face the like of which she'd never seen. The complexion was sallow, the eyes narrow slits sunk into features that might have been carven from stone.

The tall man's hand reached out, a shilling on the palm. “This is what you want, eh? And, me, I am only glad to pay you for a simple answer, pretty child. I will speak slow for you. Is—Captain—Vespa—at—home?”

“Oh. No, sir. He bean't.”

“Ah. We progress. Would you know where he can be found, little cabbage? He will be most pleased to hear what I will say.”

Consuela hesitated. Perhaps this odd individual did have news that would help Jack in his quest. Perhaps she could help by telling him that Jack was in Suffolk. And yet—the manor was no more than a half-mile distant. Surely the most natural course would be for the coach to simply drive to the front door. “I did hear summat,” she murmured. “The groom said where the master goed. I think … he said Caernarvon—or were it? Car—summat.”

“In
Wales?
” he exclaimed.

“Be it, sir? No! Cardiff! That's it! Can I have me shilling now?”

He muttered, “Cardiff. I wonder…” then tossed the shilling.

Consuela caught it, and like a striking snake his hand flashed out to close around her wrist. “Such a dainty hand,” he purred. “One might think it never had scrubbed a floor or milked the cow.”

The coachman slanted another piercing glance at her. Consuela was suddenly quite frightened, and she started when she heard another vehicle approaching.

“Miss Consuela! Oh, Miss Consuela!” Violet Manning was perched on the seat of the Widow Davis' delivery cart. “
Here
you are! The duchess is fairly
beside
herself, and desires you to come home at once!”

Consuela jerked her hand free.

Anger glinted in the eyes of the tall man. His lips smiled, but it was a mirthless smile that made her forget her vexation with Manning. He said, “I think you have the little game with me. Is it not so, miss? I do not care to be made sport of. And I cannot but wonder why you should be so devious. Perhaps, next time we meet, this I shall discover.”

“Perhaps you will not then be so impertinent as to address me as ‘your pretty,'” she riposted haughtily.

A frown, a curt inclination of the head. With a swirl of his dark cloak and a shout to his coachman, he was inside the coach. The door slammed, the team swung in a wide turn and raced away.

The slow-witted youth who now made deliveries for Mrs. Davis said haltingly, “Dicky-Boy don't like that there genelman.”

Manning, who had been temporarily bereft of speech, cried, “Goodness gracious me, Miss Consuela! Whatever were you
thinking
of to talk with such dreadful people? That coachman made me go gooseflesh all over!”

“He is Chinese, I think,” said Consuela, still gazing after the rapidly disappearing coach. “I wonder what they really wanted with Captain Vespa.”

The youth reiterated, “Dicky-Boy don't like him. Nor his master, neither. Cap'n Jack he wouldn't have no friend like that one.”

“I almost thought the gentleman was
threatening
you, miss,” wailed Manning. “I vow, 'tis all of a piece! Wherever Captain Vespa goes, trouble follows! It would be so much better if you—”

“If you were to say no more,” snapped Consuela.

*   *   *

The lone pedlar had been amiable enough, especially after Vespa had purchased a small cloth doll from him. The Inn of the Black Lamb was ‘just t'other side of the village,' he'd said, adding, “Can't miss it. Jest keep going straight, sir.” The drifting mist was thickening to fog and reducing visibility so that it had become necessary to ride cautiously along the rutted lane, and Vespa was beginning to wonder if he'd missed the village altogether. Manderville, who had a more than nodding acquaintanceship with Newmarket, had suggested the inn, saying he'd once stayed there during racing season when all the better posting houses had been full, and that it boasted clean beds and a good cook.

“I wonder he could find the confounded place,” muttered Vespa. “Of all the hidden-away—”

The grey horse shied suddenly as a lad darted across the lane. With consummate horsemanship, Vespa kept his seat. Ghostly cottages loomed into view. They had reached the village, at last. He whistled and Corporal raced up, tongue lolling, only to stop abruptly and growl at some menacing object on the ground. “Come on,” called Vespa, and reined around.

The inn sign hung from a rail extended over the lane. Vespa turned the grey into the yard, and a groom ran to take the reins and scream “House, ho!” in a high falsetto that sent the grey into another shy. Vespa swore and dismounted as a door opened sending a flood of light gleaming across the damp cobblestones.

“Welcome, sir,” called the host, a big bluff individual, his ruddy features wreathed in a grin. “Ye'll be my captain guest. I knows ye by yer dog. What've ye got there, you little terror? His toy, is it, sir?”

Vespa's downward glance revealed that Corporal had retrieved something he'd not realized he had lost. He said with a grin, “I must have dropped it. Give it here, you scavenger. That's for little Molly Hawes. Much need you have for a doll!”

Having been advised that his friends awaited him in the parlour, he arranged for Corporal to be fed, then was shown up the narrow winding stairs to his room. It was a tiny but spotless chamber under the eaves, so low-roofed that he had to bow his head when he approached the latticed casement.

A rosy-cheeked maid carried up a ewer of hot water, and a lad hurried in with his valise. In short order he washed, brushed his hair, changed his neckcloth and went downstairs, his spirits rising as he breathed the heady scent of preparations for dinner.

He found the parlour, and his friends stretched out in chairs flanking a roaring fire.

Broderick stood to greet him heartily. “Thought you'd never get here, old lad. What's to do? Any luck?”

Manderville waved a tankard, and yawned. “Too tired to get up,
mon capitaine.
My efforts in your behalf have left me with a blistered heel and an unquenchable thirst.”

“And that's all,” appended Broderick, pulling up another chair. “He didn't learn a thing.”

“Indeed, I did,” argued Manderville indignantly. “There's a jug of ale on the sideboard yonder. We saved some for you, Jack.”

Vespa filled a tankard, carried it to the fire and sank into the chair. The flames warmed his feet, the ale warmed his inside, and the loyalty of these good friends warmed his spirit. He leaned back, stretching out his long legs. “No luck, eh, Paige?”

“Some. Toby thinks he's bested me, but I doubt it.”

Broderick said, “I know damned well I've bested you! All you achieved was to pick a fight with some poor fellow.”

“Did you, though?” exclaimed Vespa. “What about?”

Manderville shrugged. “Nothing, really. I'd given up on the Stowmarket area and ridden east. I was making my little enquiries, polite as you please, to the most fruitful sources—”

“Namely—housemaids, dairymaids, nursemaids and pretty maids all in a row,” inserted Broderick.

“Which is known as mixing business with pleasure,” said Manderville with a grin. “At all events, this stupid dolt took exception. Called me a nosy foreigner, if you can credit it! I punched his head for him, I can tell you.”

Amused, Vespa said, “One of your ‘pleasures' was his, eh? These country-folk regard anyone from outside the county as foreign, and guard their women-folk from such threats as city men and especially from soldiers like us. You're lucky your ‘stupid dolt' didn't come after you with a pitchfork.”

“The devil!” exclaimed Manderville. “You make me sound a conscienceless libertine! I'll have you know, Captain sir, that I didn't touch the wench! And besides, he was no countryman. A slippery roué, more like, and didn't deserve her.” He paused, looking thoughtful.

“Paige thinks he knows the chap from somewhere,” said Broderick.

“Can't remember where.” Manderville shook his handsome head and said that he must be getting old. “I've met him before, I'm sure of it. Oh, well. It'll come to me. Go on, Toby. Amaze our captain with your superior achievements.”

Broderick leaned forward. “I think I may have solved your puzzle, Jack. Or part of it, at least. I discovered that there's a fellow named Lord Kincraig who owns an estate some distance from Bury St. Edmunds. It's said to be a fine property, but the old fellow travels extensively and is seldom there.”

“Jolly well done!” cried Vespa. “Did you chance to learn his given name?”

“Curse me for an addlepate! I forgot to ask. The business of the two successive letters, eh?”

Vespa nodded. “Never mind. My grateful thanks to you both.”

Manderville said aggrievedly, “Dash it all, Jack! I believe you already knew.”

“Some. Not all. But when we put it together—Now why do you look so glum, Toby? To my mind, between us we've done splendidly.”

“Yes. Well, there's just one thing, dear boy. Splendid or not, I think we'd best hope this old duck is
not
your sire. Tell him what else you turned up, Paige.”

Manderville said, “His lordship is said to be touched in the upper works. Has some—er, very odd fancies. Sorry, but there it is. Did you turn up anything?”

“Yes, I rather think so. I ran into Sean Calloway in Kersey. D'you remember him? Big chap with red hair. Lieutenant. 71st Highlanders. Lost an eye at Vitoria, poor fellow. He knew of a mystery sort of absentee land-owner with an estate up here somewhere. The gentleman is said to wander about Europe collecting carpets, but he's hoping to find one in particular.” He paused as his friends exchanged sombre glances. “What now?”

Manderville answered reluctantly, “Then it must be the same gentleman. Did Calloway tell you the old boy is after a
flying carpet?
” He pursed his lips. “Not very promising, Jack.”