The Tyrant (38 page)

He carried the dazed Phoebe from the room as several troopers ran in, followed by Conditt and a frantic Howell. The troopers bent their attention on Feeney and Hessell. The servants rushed to their sagging employer and aided him outside.

Returning exhausted and heavy-hearted from their long and fruitless search, Jeffery, Sinclair, Boles, and their helpers saw bobbing torches in the castle courtyard and went to investigate. They encountered the dramatic little caravan. Despair became elation.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Jeffery, running to his brother's drooping figure. “You've had a bang-up good scrap by the look of you!”

Carruthers lifted a haggard but beaming face, his eyes blue and radiant. “She's safe,” he murmured weakly. “By God, Jeff! She's safe!”

In all the excitement, no one noticed that Rumpelstiltskin and his wayward master had quietly slipped away.

*   *   *

Rousted from his cosy bed, George Linden was appalled to learn of Phoebe's ordeal. The girl was pallid and shivering. He pronounced her in a state of shock, gave the happily tearful Ada draughts and tablets and instructions, and embarked on the long trek to Carruthers's chambers. He was unusually restrained, and no blistering denunciations were levelled at his contumacious patient. He had already learned most of what had happened from a nervously babbling Phoebe, and he worked with quiet efficiency, Carruthers so sunk in exhaustion that the surgeon's efforts were scarcely felt.

Linden withdrew, engaged in a conference with Jeffery that left the youth pale and shaken, and started on the return journey through the buildings to seek out the Dowager. Although it was only six in the morning, she was wide awake and received him with bright eyes, an improved pulse and colour, and a breakfast tray that brightened his own eyes. They enjoyed a pleasant chat while he applied himself to the contents of the tray. When he departed, saying he would call in again later, he informed my lady that she was the only sensible individual in a madhouse.

Carruthers slept for twenty-six hours, awakening shortly after eight o'clock the following morning. He was drowsy and languid and perfectly willing to remain in bed, but he asked to be shaved, sure that soon or late he would have visitors. The first of these was Lady Martha, who crept in just after he had finished a light breakfast. Her gratitude was tearful and touching. He was, as she always had known, the perfect husband for her granddaughter. He was endowed with every virtue, his amused reminders of his sometimes sharp tongue and quick temper dismissed airily. Brooks Lambert may have carried her granddaughter to safety, but my lady knew very well who was the real hero.

By this time flushed and embarrassed, Carruthers asked about Phoebe and was assured she was peacefully asleep and would be brought to see him very soon. My lady stroked his hair fondly, beamed upon him, and departed.

Carruthers was dozing when the door opened again, and he looked to it with a leap of the heart.

It was, however, Brooks Lambert who trod softly across the carpet. “My very dear fellow,” he said, having dismissed Howell by saying he required a private word with the master, “how may I ever thank you?”

Carruthers could think of several ways, but he said with a glinting eye that there was not the need. “What I did,” he said minatorily, “I did for Miss Phoebe. And it would have been unnecessary but for your nonsense.”

Lambert stood by the bed, smiling fondly down at him. “Merry,” he said, “are you able to stand?”

Carruthers stared at him. “Of course.”

Lambert pulled back the covers. “Then there is something you must see.” He waited while Carruthers clambered from the bed, then led him to the window.

The castle courtyard was full of redcoats. A chill presentiment shivered down Carruthers's spine. “Your men?”

“Yes. We are to search the Keep. I thought I should tell you.…”

XVII

Jeffery slipped into the bedchamber and stood hesitant for a moment. Meredith was lying very still, his left arm across his eyes. Half inclined to creep out again, Jeffery was shocked when his brother lowered his arm. “Oh, gad! You're feeling dreadful. I am sorry. I'll go.”

“I'm all right. Are they gone?”

Jeffery trod closer to the bed and straddled a straight-backed chair. “So you knew. Lord, but I thought I'd have a seizure when I saw them prowling the Keep. Yes, they're gone, thank God.”

“Amen to that. But we must act, Jeff. If Fotheringay is able to bring his damnable pack here…!”

“I know it. I daren't go near Lance, but Sin slipped over there at dawn.” He paused, looking grim.

“Fretting himself to flinders, is he?”

“He makes haste backwards, I fear. If Rosalie wasn't taking care of him, I've no doubt he'd have dragged himself off by now, and been taken. He's half crazed between anxiety for us and the need to deliver the cipher. Lord, I hate to worry you with it when you're so flattened, but—what the deuce are we to do?”

“Deliver that cipher! And I'm not flattened, Jeff. Just trying to work out a plan.”

“I wish to heaven we could forget the damnable treasure! Neither you nor I are for the Stuart Cause. How in the devil we are involved, I cannot fathom.”

Meredith gave him a slow smile. “I fancy it is partly loyalty to a good friend, who'd not fail us in like trouble; and partly that these poor Jacobite families have suffered enough and have a right to the return of their valuables.”

“You're right, of course. Still, I wish Rosalie was not at risk.”

“So do I. She's a brave girl. If we're discovered, we must shield her, at all costs.”

“Absolutely! I told her yesterday that she should not involve herself. She just said, ‘We're all friends, aren't we?' Bless her, what a grand—” He broke off as a clatter of hoofs and shouted commands rang out. Sprinting to the window, he swore. “It's a confounded colonel!”

Meredith sat up. “Fotheringay?”

“He's tall and thin. Walks as if the ground burnt his feet.”

“That's him! Blast! They're bringing up the big guns!”

“Well, you're in no case to front one. I'll tell him you're too ill.”

“He'd be sure to think it an evasion. No, I shall have to see the varmint, but be damned if I'll do it lying in bed. Help me over to the window-seat, there's a good fellow.”

The ensuing interview was unpleasant. Colonel Fotheringay, tall, spare, with thin lips and hard dark eyes, entered unannounced, firmly closing out a spluttering and indignant Lucille. He was not a bullying man, but his words were snapped out, his keen stare never wavered, and Carruthers was subjected to such a barrage of questions that it was all he could do to keep his wits about him and reply without contradicting himself.

Surely, suggested the Colonel, it was odd that Miss Ramsay had said the kidnappers were peasants. Carruthers's confirmation of Miss Ramsay's statement brought a mirthless smile and the remark that it was damned arrogant of the clods to have hidden their victim in the home of her betrothed. Probably, offered Carruthers warily, this had been done because the Keep was the last place anyone would think to look and had already been searched by the military. The Colonel deplored the fact that a lady of Quality should have been so mauled by the fellows. “Scum of the earth,” he said contemptuously. Carruthers agreed. “Odd, though,” murmured Fotheringay with his thin smile, “not many peasants are skilled in swordplay.…” Beginning to sweat and not daring to name Otton, Carruthers described a fight in which he had been obliged to draw steel against Hessell's long cudgel.

“I believe you remarked you had entered the Keep on a whim,” mused Fotheringay. “Is it your habit to carry both sword and pistol while in your home?”

“My life has been attempted a time or two of late, Colonel.”

“So I heard. And confess myself astonished that no charges have been brought in that connection. Criminals, my dear sir, whatever their walk of life, must not be allowed to escape, else there's no telling where it may end. Take these damned Jacobites, for instance. You'd not believe it, but there are many sympathizers among the local aristocracy. Even so, I do assure you that they, and any who aid them, will be brought to book.” The hard eyes challenged Carruthers's cool stare. “Not that it affects you, of course. I heard you conducted yourself well on the battlefield and that you have never—so far as we know—been in sympathy with Charles Stuart.”

“I'm glad someone had a good word to say for me, sir. I fancy you will have managed to extract information from that rogue Hessell.”

To his surprise, the Colonel's dark face flushed. “Unfortunately, he was presumed to be dead, and thus was overlooked for a brief period while the troopers turned their attention to the other rascal, Feeney.”

Incredulous, Carruthers said, “You never mean Hessell was allowed to escape?”

“I'd not use just those terms,” replied Fotheringay, stiffening. “He did get away, but in a dying condition, apparently.”

“He appears to have been pretty spry. Still, you have Feeney, and—”

“Feeney tried to escape while being escorted to the post. He was shot.”

Carruthers stared at him, and the Colonel seemed relieved when Jeffery came in and remarked pointedly that his brother looked “worn to a shade.”

Fotheringay offered his apologies, thanked Carruthers for his cooperation, and took himself off. Very soon afterwards the troop went clattering down the drivepath.

Turning from the window, the brothers exchanged a grin.

“Phew!” sighed Meredith.

“Put you through the wringer, did he?”

“He's a shrewd man, and a good officer. I had to lie like a trooper.”

“Do you think you convinced him?”

“Lord knows.” Meredith sat down and settled his legs across the cushioned window-seat. “I suspect I'm no great hand at evasion.”

Jeffery's handsome face became still. “Oh … I don't know.…”

Half-laughing, Meredith said, “Impertinent chub! When have you ever caught me at such tricks?”

Despite the knowledge that this was not the best time, Jeffery flung the gauntlet anyway. He said quietly, “Perhaps in the matter of Rosalie.”

A second of taut silence. Carruthers, eyes bleak with anger, snapped, “Pot calling the kettle black?”

Flushing, Jeffery declared, “I would have been overjoyed had she returned my affection. But—I am not betrothed.”

“Neither,” said Meredith in a voice of steel, “is she likely to accept a slip on the shoulder from you.”

“That ain't fair! My intentions are honourable, but I'm not supposed to notice when
you
carry on an
affaire
with her right under Miss Ramsay's nose!”

Meredith swung his legs down and faced his brother squarely. “I think you've said enough. In point of fact, you've said too damned much! Will you leave now—or shall I throw you out the door?”

“Why? Because I follow the precepts you and Mama have always taught me? Preach but not practice, is that it?”

Very white about the mouth, Meredith stood. Jeffery's head tilted upward. The droop of the mouth, the set of the jaw brought a softening to Meredith's harsh expression. He said, “I wish—” His lips closed, then he went on, “Rosalie has a special place in my heart. She always has; she always will. But—”

“But she is not a lady of Quality. I see.” A new and icy hauteur in tone and manner, Jeffery said, “I came to receive my orders.”

Meredith scowled at him. Then, sitting down wearily, he said, “Oh, very well. Try if you can get to Birch Hill. Poor Lockwood must be fretted to flinders. Tell him Lance is improving and that we must get him away—fast. He may be able to suggest some plan. If troopers stop you, say you carry a letter to the Squire from Lady Martha—she told me she was writing one, and I said you'd deliver it.”

“Very good. Anything else?”

“Only—Jeff … Hell. No.”

“I'll be off then.” His back ramrod-straight, Jeffery strode across the room and went out.

*   *   *

Colonel Fotheringay's interrogation of Carruthers appeared to have been too much for the invalid. Three times Phoebe went with her grandmother to see him, but on each occasion they were met at the door by Howell, who told them regretfully that his master was fast asleep and would likely not wake for the rest of the day. Disappointed, and angered by Fotheringay's tactics, Phoebe knew also a vague unease. She passed the day with Lucille and her grandmother, went with them for a drive in the drizzly afternoon, and later had an anxious conference with Sinclair and Jeffery in the hushed privacy of the enormous state ballroom of the Elizabethan wing. Jeffery looked strained and told them that Meredith had sent him over to Birch Hill. “Jove, but I'd a time,” he said ruefully. “There are troopers behind every blade of grass! Lockwood was so grateful for my news of Lance, it was pathetic. Merry had hoped he would have some idea of how to get Lance clear, but all he said was that whatever Merry decided to do, he'd back to the hilt.”

Sinclair grunted. “Does he fancy we can keep Lance hidden here forever? When those dragoons were searching the Keep this morning, I expected to be hauled off to face a firing squad at any instant! Good thing Lambert was commanding, eh Phoebe?”

“Yes, indeed, for had he found poor Lieutenant Lascelles, I am very sure he'd not betray us.”

“If he could have helped it,” said Jeffery. “I'm only glad he don't know about the secret room.”

Sinclair asked, “Do you know where your brother hid the cipher?”

“No. He wouldn't tell me.” His lips tightened. “He was in one of his black moods this morning.” In a lighter tone, he added, “And not a great deal more pleasant when I took my mother up this afternoon.”

Phoebe looked at him sharply. “You saw Meredith this afternoon?”