Wedding Matilda (Redcakes Book 6) (11 page)

Lord Judah sobered instantly. “I had an update last night from my brother. He’s down in Sussex, of course, due to his heir’s birth, but he’s been in close contact. Terrible business. We’ve had no indication anyone has taken Jacob out of Bristol, correct?”

“The ransom note was attached to the baby’s dog’s collar and left in that same park by the Redcake house.”

“Right. By Jove, I hope the child still lives.”

“It will kill her if he does not.”

It was hard to meet Lord Judah’s gaze directly, given his gleaming eyes, but in this moment, they shared a long glance of mutual concern.

“If I were you, I’d put off the earl for a few days and go back to Bristol. The child is more important, and the Redcakes need help. I’d have gone myself, but now I need to do your job, too.”

Ewan nodded. “When this is all over, try to bring Greggory Redcake down here. He’s a smart man, and if you train him here, he might be able to take on the new shop in Kensington by summer’s end. Betsy Popham wants to go as well.”

Lord Judah pursed his lips. “Doesn’t help me today.”

Ewan shook his head. “No, I understand that.” He stood. “I leave for my meeting at Douglas Industries in two hours.”

“Then to Bristol?”

“Do you really think it is wise?”

“Yes. The family trusts you. They need help.”

“Then I will return to Bristol. Jacob has been missing for five days.”

“It doesn’t look good for him. For all of Matilda’s faults, she doesn’t deserve this.”

Ewan gritted his teeth. Why did everyone have to keep damning the poor woman? “What faults? She made one foolish mistake, the same as many a woman before her, with a man who had concealed his engagement from her. Her own father introduced him to her as an honorable suitor.”

Lord Judah stared at the fire. “You have to understand how Society works. She was a tradesman’s daughter who was attempting to enter fashionable society. Her actions cost her younger sister any hope of an aristocratic marriage. They tore her family apart.”

“It was one mistake,” Ewan repeated. “One small mistake. I have no doubt her character has been formed by it ever since. I have never met a woman more self-contained, who so desperately needs to be held. That mistake took her out of Society, denied her any chance of an honorable marriage. Meanwhile, her own brother gave her seducer a position!”

“Matilda’s family didn’t ostracize her but trained her for a good position, too. She lives in a mansion with servants to care for her and the child. She hasn’t done badly at all.”

“She’s all alone. Who does she turn to when her son is gone? Clearly her servants are less than honorable.”

“Her family is there with her.”

“Arguing with her, second-guessing her.”

“I understand she was convinced the boy’s father was behind the entire mess, and she was wrong about that.”

“So easy to mistrust the judgment of a fallen woman,” Ewan snarled.

“He is quite literally on his deathbed,” Lord Judah emphasized. “Gawain saw him two days ago.”

“I know that,” Ewan said. “I saw Matilda that day myself.”

They stared at each other. Lord Judah shook his head. “Never argue with a man in love. I would tell you, man to man, that you cannot have Matilda. She’s soiled goods, and a future earl cannot have that. She’s not good
ton
, or even
ton
at all. You will have enough problems, thanks to your own background. Thank God you didn’t marry Betsy Popham. Matilda is no better, not with Jacob.”

And what if he’s dead?
The thought passed like lightning through Ewan’s mind and was just as quickly suppressed. It would not matter. He’d never been a secret, though he’d never been in London. Besides, he hadn’t been joking when he’d said the boy’s loss would kill Matilda. That boy was her exposed heart. Without him, all you’d ever see of her was a cold, clear-minded woman of business. The rest would die.

“I believe earls can do as they wish, but that is not the present topic. I will take your leave, Lord Judah, and will be in touch regarding the business relationship between Redcake’s and Douglas Flour, though I expect most of my dealings will be with Matilda if you retain the Liverpool suppliers.”

Lord Judah didn’t respond, merely bit into a scone. After he chewed and swallowed, he said, “No glaze?”

Ewan closed his eyes and shook his head. “I chose speed over perfection today. Not my usual style. I apologize.” Not bothering to wait for Lord Judah’s response, he went to the outer room and picked up his box. He’d take his things directly over to his new office, wherever that might be. After settling in and putting in orders to hire a secretary of his own, he’d take his meeting with his managers, then go to the train station.

 

Matilda paced the parlor floor at teatime as her mother fluttered her arms. Her sister Rose sat in an armchair, very pale.

“Then it is final. I will cancel my wedding,” Rose said.

Happiness had put some weight and color into Rose’s face, Matilda had noted as of late, though she had spent too much time in London, breathing in the air that was so destructive to her compromised lungs. “I am not asking you to delay your happiness in any way; I am merely saying that I cannot be in Liverpool on Wednesday to witness the happy event. You can wed without me.”

Rose bent her head. Her beautiful white-blond hair, so often the focus of Matilda’s jealousy, suited her like a halo suited an angel. “I cannot have a big event when my nephew is missing. Mr. Courtnay will understand.”

“Doesn’t he have a lot of his business partners coming to the dinner afterward?”

Rose folded her hands over her skirt. “He had a party not too long ago to belatedly celebrate Cousin Lewis’s marriage to his daughter.”

“It was a lovely event,” her mother reflected. “Such flowers in early March!”

“We’ll do the same thing, when Jacob is found,” Rose said.

Matilda wiped away the tears that sprang to her eyes at her sister’s brave voice. Poor Rose. She’d wanted marriage so badly, so much so that she was risking her health by marrying a widowed Liverpool industrialist just to have a chance at a normal life. Now the kidnapping had ruined her pleasure at a proper send-off.

“I wish we would hear again from the kidnappers,” Gawain said. “Resolve this.”

Matilda wasn’t sure she agreed with that. While they waited for the news, there was still hope. She vacillated from minute to minute between hope and despair. Surely such blackguards would not want to keep a child alive, at risk of being found. So much easier to . . . well, she couldn’t reason that out, even in the privacy of her own head.

Rose stood. “I need to telephone Mr. Courtnay. He is waiting to hear from me. And I shall have to go to Liverpool on the evening train.”

“Why, dear?” her mother asked.

“I have to cancel everything,” Rose said. “There are so many people involved.”

Matilda squinted at her sister. She was up to something. For a moment a crazed fantasy swept through her mind. Her sister, changing her mind about wedding a man old enough to be her father, has her nephew kidnapped in order to cancel her wedding. But no, that was absurd. Besides, Rose didn’t have a cruel bone in her body.

Daisy entered the parlor with a silver tray. Sir Bartley took the card.

“Ewan Hales is here,” he said.

Gawain looked up with a frown. “Surely he wouldn’t come here uninvited to discuss the flour problem.”

“Daisy, send him into my study. I’ll be there in a minute,” Matilda said.

“You don’t need to deal with him,” her father said.

Matilda shook her head. “He might know something useful.”

“I’m going back to London tomorrow to get the special license because Theo still lives,” Gawain said. “I’ll take Hales back on the train with me and have a firm chat with him about showing up here.”

“Special license?” Rose asked.

“Our idiot sister thinks now is the time to marry Theodore Bliven.”

Rose stood suddenly. “What?” Her parents echoed the word.

“It will help Jacob. Mr. Bliven is dying,” Matilda said, holding herself very still.

“That is madness!” her father exclaimed.

Matilda put her hands to her throat, wanting to strangle her father instead. “I don’t know that I can even manage it before he dies. Obviously we’ve had trouble securing the license.”

“How much longer does he have?” her mother asked.

“He could be gone any moment,” Gawain said. “It didn’t look good. I’m all for it, to be honest. Anything to help poor Jacob.”

Their mother made a keening noise and slumped into an armchair. Rose bit her lip, looking faintly irritated.

“I am going to pack,” she said. “Gawain, will you take me to the train station?”

“Of course.”

“I am going to see Mr. Hales,” Matilda said. Her feet felt like heavy bricks as she passed over the carpet and into the hallway. She needed sleep, yet couldn’t rest.

Lines of fatigue bracketed Mr. Hales’s mouth, Matilda could see, as he rose from the chair in front of her desk. She noted his scuffed shoes, the valise next to the chair.

“You look like you are on the run.”

He stepped forward and took her hand, pressing it between both of his. She soaked up the warmth of his hands, while noting the tired sag of his suit and the smell of soot and train on his hair and clothing.

“It has been a long day. I went to Redcake’s and resigned in person to Lord Judah, then I went to my new office at Douglas Industries and met my subordinates, then I packed and caught the next train here.”

“Why did you come?”

One of his hands left hers and, outrageously, caressed her cheek. “I could not stay away.”

“I’m returning to London tomorrow to marry Mr. Bliven,” she whispered, knowing before she said the words how foolish she sounded. She ought to be scouring the streets for her child, but she’d wandered for hours this morning, despite the rain. What was she supposed to find? Greggory and a team of men were combing every tavern in the city, trying to find Andrzej Majewski, the horse dealer. They had men watching Izabela’s mother’s house, just in case she was involved somehow. Mrs. Miller had been interviewed repeatedly, even on the telephone by Dougal Alexander, the private inquiry agent. They had soaked up all the advice the Scotsman had on finding a missing child, pasting notices on lampposts, talking to street sellers and the proprietors of local shops, sharing sketches and photographs of Izabela and Jacob.

Nothing had brought forth any useful clues.

“I wish you would not,” Mr. Hales said. “I do understand the impulse.”

“Why do you care?”

His dark eyes stared into hers. He sighed, and she wondered if his exhaustion was bringing out a new aspect of his personality. Certainly she’d seen sides of him recently that had never been evident before. He’d been tossed into a stormy, uncertain phase of life, just as she had.

His fingers caressed her cheek again. “I simply cannot stay away. I do not know how to be more eloquent than that, Miss Redcake.”

“You cannot think to court me now,” she whispered.

“I cannot court you at all,” he said. “You understand that.”

She thought of Alys with her marquess, Gawain with his Indian princess, and told herself,
No, I do not understand that
. And yet she had not hidden away her child, her shame. She was beyond Society. It was completely out of her reach now. But this was Ewan Hales, too, her father’s secretary. She wanted to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. Betsy Popham’s discarded follower was now above the touch of Sir Bartley Redcake’s daughter.

“Then you should avoid me,” she said, her voice gaining strength as she stepped back from him. “Why cause either of us pain?”

“You need help.” His hands dropped. “I can be an extra body on the street. We need to keep knocking on doors until the right person answers. Someone knows something. People don’t vanish into fairy rings.”

Behind Matilda, the door opened. Quick footsteps sounded on the carpet.

“I found it!” Greggory called.

M
atilda whipped around. Ewan let his hand drop, knowing her hope was probably far greater than the reality.
It
was not likely to mean her son.

“What did you find?” he asked.

Greggory spread his fingers across his chest. “The White Horse tavern. It’s on the northern outskirts of Bristol. The Gipsy camp is supposed to be in Fiddlers Wood.”

“Isn’t there coal mining near there?” Matilda asked, brushing fine hairs off her forehead. The tiny hairs poked straight out, giving her a hint of a lion’s mane.

“Used to be.” Greggory bobbed his head. “It’s a pretty wild area.”

“Good place to hide a Gipsy camp,” he said, wishing he knew the Bristol area better. “We can finally find the horse trader.”

“I’ll get my things.” Matilda smiled, and his heart ached to see the naked hope in her eyes.

“We’ll need lanterns. It will be dark soon,” Greggory said.

Ewan stared at the Redcake cousin. “You can’t think to take Matilda out there, to a lawless camp, after dark?”

“You can’t think we’ll wait until morning.”

“Did you go to the tavern yet?” he asked.

“No,” Greggory said. “I only just found out where it was. I went to one called the Folly and they told me. I thought I’d better come back for more men.”

In the hallway, they found Matilda’s brother and father, throwing on heavy coats. Ewan thought he saw the handle of a pistol going into Sir Gawain’s coat. Matilda’s mother made wringing motions with her hands as Matilda tucked a heavy scarf around her neck and pulled on a cloak. A bonnet covered her red hair. The boot boy had to be sent to hire a hansom so they had room for their party, Greggory having let his go back to the stable after the six-mile journey he’d taken to the Folly.

At least they had almost two hours of daylight left, though they would burn most of that checking the tavern and the camp. A brief argument ensued as to splitting up the party.

“I’m going to the camp,” Matilda insisted. “I might see Jacob there, or even Izabela. You won’t recognize them.”

Mrs. Miller appeared in the doorway, a heavy cloak around her shoulders. “I should go too, Miss Redcake, to see if I can spot Izabela.”

“Have you ever seen this Majewski character?” Gawain asked as they went outside.

Mrs. Miller shook her head. “I’m not really sure. All those dark men look alike to me. I’d have sent off anyone who loitered around the house, but if he visited her mother’s home, I might have.”

“Take her,” Ewan said. “Another pair of eyes to spot the nanny.”

Gawain nodded. “Father, you and I should go to the tavern. I think Greggory, Ewan, and the ladies should go to the camp.”

“Unarmed?” Sir Bartley asked, incredulous.

Gawain grinned. “They aren’t going in for a battle. They are merely escorting two ladies who want their fortunes told.”

Sir Bartley shook his head. “What if you see Jacob or Izabela? They might need to be taken by force.”

“Matilda,” Gawain said, “if you see them, mark their location but don’t get into a fight. We’ll meet back at your house and we’ll call in the factory men.”

“If I see my son, I’m going to take him,” Matilda retorted, her color high.

“We’ll be fine in a fight,” Greggory said. “I box, you know, and Hales here looks to be in good shape.”

“I know those Gipsies are likely to be a puny lot, but don’t risk it,” Gawain said. “You hear me, Greggory?”

Greggory sneered at him but didn’t respond, just handed Mrs. Miller into the carriage.

“We need to leave,” Ewan said.

Gawain shook his head. “No fighting, Hales, understood?”

“We have to let Matilda have her head,” Ewan said. “Whatever comes.”

“You’re a braver man than I,” Gawain said, clapping his hand on Ewan’s shoulder in soldierly solidarity. “But try to be inconspicuous. We don’t want the kidnappers on the run. Gipsies are a mobile lot.”

“That is rather the point,” Ewan muttered as he followed Matilda into the carriage. He watched her fight anxiety as the carriage rumbled north through Bristol, over bumpy cobbled streets, wishing he could hold her hand. Staring out the window, he saw the hansom turn off behind them, heading for the tavern. They continued down muddy farm lanes toward Fiddlers Wood and the Gipsy camp.

The first thing they saw was smoke from campfires. Then they saw a motley collection of covered wagons, proper caravans, and tents. The low canvas tents predominated, and the scent of animal hung as thickly in the air as smoke.

“They are called
vardos
, the wagons, I mean,” Greggory said. “I went to a Gipsy horse fair with my father once, and we ate food prepared on a stove inside one. They actually have chimneys and can be very beautiful and gilded inside.”

“Ironic that they have the same taste as the highest aristocrats,” Ewan said.

Only one of the wagons was of the brightly painted variety, probably belonging to the head man. He saw some donkeys hobbled near tents, but no horses. Had they really found Majewski’s home, or was this some other, poorer camp?

When their carriage stopped, a dozen children, some wearing nothing more than a shirt, ran toward them.

“Secure your money; they are fearsome pickpockets,” Greggory advised. “This is when I’d want a pocket with teeth.”

Matilda sighed and pulled a small purse from her reticule, then tucked it into an inner coat pocket. “I might need money, though. I wonder if I can bribe possible informants.”

“Let’s ask about Majewski first,” Ewan said. “If they’ve never heard of him, we’re sunk.”

“Or Izabela. Her last name is Pickett.”

“I don’t recognize any of the women,” Mrs. Miller said, playing with a long thread on the hem of her shawl.

“What about the men?” Ewan saw three men huddled at the side of the fancy
vardo
. The doors were covered in carvings of horses and the rest was painted brightly in stripes of red and green.

“I can’t see that far away so clearly,” Mrs. Miller confessed.

Two girls, old enough to be minders of the children though not quite their mothers, approached.

“We want the
drabarni
,” Greggory said. “That’s the fortune-teller.”

“We want Majewski,” Matilda said in response. “I am not going to play a game, some sort of idiotic subterfuge. Anyone would look for Izabela’s suitor under the circumstances. There is no point in being underhanded.”

“But Gawain said—”

“He’s not here,” Matilda snapped.

The girls stopped moving, confused by Matilda’s tone. Ewan could see her forced smile at them was hard-won.

“Andrzej Majewski?” she asked. “Is he here?”

One of the girls darted away. The other one stayed, but her expression hardened, and Ewan wondered if he’d mistaken her small size for youth. He nodded at Greggory, who wandered off, keeping the runner in sight.

“We need to get Mrs. Miller close to the men,” he whispered to Matilda.

She didn’t nod, but she took a few slow steps forward while reaching into her coat. Her hand came out with a couple of shillings. “Andrzej Majewski?” she repeated.

“What you want?” the young/old Gipsy girl asked.

“A horse,” Ewan said when Matilda hesitated. “He is a horse dealer, yes?”

The Gipsy relaxed slightly. “He doesn’t do business here.”

“We came all this way,” Mrs. Miller said, smiling sweetly. “Do you have a
drabarni
? I’d love to have a cup of tea and have my leaves read.”

“That’s kitchen stuff, not for us,” the Gipsy sneered. “Our
drabarni
reads runes and cards.”

“Not palms?” Matilda asked.

The Gipsy snorted. “Our
drabarni
is the real thing. She’s read for Princess Alexandra.”

Ewan sincerely doubted the Princess of Wales would have visited a dilapidated camp like this one, much less received a reading from the local wisewoman. He exchanged a cynical glance with Matilda, who tossed the coins at the Gipsy’s feet.

“There will be more if you take me to Mr. Majewski.”

The Gipsy swept up the coins and dashed away, her bare feet blackened with dirt.

Mrs. Miller looked confused. “What is that girl doing?”

Matilda shrugged. “Majewski is here. The question is, what does he know?” She glanced around, her weight balanced on her toes.

“We should walk the camp, see if you can spot Izabela,” Ewan said.

Matilda nodded and he took her arm. Mrs. Miller strolled next to them. He kept an eye on the men, watching for signs of trouble, as they scanned the faces of the women and children. Within five minutes their task became harder as mist started to drift between the trees. Twilight descended. The Gipsies steadily fed the fires as they prepared their evening meals, and the flames sent their faces in and out of shadow.

They strolled the camp, circling the edge of the woods. Ewan spotted Greggory next to a man, talking animatedly.

“Think that’s him?” he asked.

The walnut-skinned man looked to be about thirty, with thinning black hair that stood up in tufts. He had a well-defined black mustache and sideburns. In waistcoat and shirtsleeves, he stood with arms folded across his chest and legs spread wide, his head at an arrogant tilt.

“Handsome devil,” Mrs. Miller said. “I can see Izabela liking him.”

Greggory spotted them and they walked over. “This is Mr. Majewski.”

Ewan shook the man’s hand and his companions nodded. Thankfully, Matilda kept her emotions in check.

“I was just telling him that Izabela Pickett has gone missing,” Greggory said.

The man clicked his tongue against his palate. He had an air of defiance, with no hint of surrender in him. This characteristic reminded Ewan unpleasantly of the Earl of Fitzwalter.

“What do you say to that, sir?” he asked.

The man shrugged and pulled a half-smoked cigar from a waistcoat pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “What’s it to me?”

“We thought you were planning to marry the girl,” Ewan said.

Majewski sneered. “Too fast, that one, too flighty. If she cannot make up her mind who to wed, I say to the devil with her.”

Mrs. Miller blinked next to him. Ewan wondered how much freedom Matilda had inadvertently granted her nanny, that she seemed to have so much time for men.

“When did you see her last?”

The man shrugged again and strolled toward the nearest campfire. He bent over the open flame and puffed on his cigar until it lit. Matilda’s lips were tight.

“I want a look in that
vardo
,” she said.

“Has Izabela ever been here?” Ewan asked.

The man turned to them with a feral grin. “How would she have the time for that, all but enslaved to that one?” He pointed at Matilda, and tilted his lean hips in her direction. “Such a polite household for that bastard child of yours.”

“What do you know about him?” Matilda asked in a voice that might have been chiseled from ice. Ewan pulled her arm closer to his body.

“I know his name,” Majewski said. “That’s a dangerous thing, you know, sharing a name with the world. People can use it to hurt him.”

“Who do you know who wants to hurt my son?” she asked, taking her arm from Ewan’s hand and stepping toward the campfire. Ewan stayed close.

The man smirked. “Anyone who is jealous of such a fine healthy boy and his rich mother, I suppose.”

“Where did Izabela take him?” Matilda asked. “Is she a victim or a kidnapper? You know I can pay you plenty for the information.”

“I know you can call the police. Have them come in here with clubs and send us into the wind. Maybe we’ll go now and save you the trouble.”

Ewan heard a muttered imprecation in a language he didn’t understand, and an older woman stepped forward, majestic in numerous brightly colored shawls, though her dress underneath was a plain mourning gown.

“We haven’t called the police,” Matilda said. “I want my son back, quietly. I won’t cause any trouble to your people. Just give me my son.”

“We don’t have your son, Miss Redcake,” the woman said. Her air of dignity matched Majewski’s. Was he her son?

“You know my name?” Matilda rejoined.

“My son has heard Izabela speak of you,” she said, confirming her identity. “But the girl has not been here, nor has your son. Andrzej broke with her last month.”

Ewan narrowed his eyes at the man, who nodded significantly. He swore as insight hit him. Had the break spurred Izabela into some folly? “Was she expecting a child of her own?”

The old woman muttered something that sounded foul, whatever language it was in.

“It wasn’t mine,” Majewski muttered, sounding abashed for the first time. He puffed hard on his cigar stub and gazed at the sky.

Matilda put her hand to her forehead. “There is yet another man, then.”

Mrs. Miller shook her head. “I cannot believe all this was going on under my oversight. I am so sorry, Miss Redcake.”

The housekeeper seemed kindly enough, but she’d had a blank spot in front of her eye where the nanny was concerned. She had found the girl the job, though she was apparently little more than a whore, and ignored her doings.

Matilda swayed, and Greggory grabbed her arm. She slumped, and Ewan, shocked, caught her with one arm behind her back, then slipped another behind her knees as they buckled completely.

Majewski pointed to the
vardo
impassively. “Take her in there.”

Ewan followed the old woman into the
vardo
. It was difficult to balance on the steps, which were as much ladder as staircase, but thankfully, he only counted to seven before his feet touched the boards of the wagon itself. He saw the bed on the far wall but decided to set her down on a narrow, cushioned bench built into the side wall, opposite the stove, for fear that beasties would be lurking in the bedding. While Majewski and his mother looked clean enough, the black-bottomed soles of the Gipsy girl made him question camp hygiene. Miss Redcake didn’t need lice or bedbug bites on top of her other woes.