I rose, realizing my visit was over. "Does he woo the gentry much of the time?"
"To be sure. He's not at all right for a country parish, though he tries his best on Sundays. You'll be there Sunday morning, will you? Sitting in the Lacey pew. It's been empty too long."
I knew a command when I heard one. "Certainly, Mrs. Landon. And thank you for the repast. It was excellent."
"You were always were too thin, young master Lacey. I hope that lady you marry has a fine cook who will fatten you up."
Lady Breckenridge's town chef enjoyed experimenting with odd Continental cuisine, so I wasn't certain about that. The man would never serve something as wholesomely good as toasted bread with butter.
I departed the vicarage, knowing that the silver plate would be as safe with Mrs. Landon as in the Bank of England, and resumed my search for Cooper.
*** *** ***
Cooper had disappeared from my house yesterday afternoon about the time Grenville had arrived. I went back to the Lacey house and hunted in a pattern that began there and radiated in an ever-expanding circle.
I found no sign of him anywhere--not stuck in a marsh, buried in a dune, hiding in an outbuilding at a farm, nothing. I began to be annoyed with the man. No farmer had taken a man fitting his description anywhere in a cart, though they were happy to tell me about Brigadier Easton hightailing it to Amsterdam in a fishing boat.
I hoped Easton had landed safely. I'd told him to write to Grenville, so I'd have to wait until a letter arrived at Grenville's London house to be certain he was all right.
In spite of the closeness that Denis claimed with Cooper, I wondered if Cooper hadn't simply returned to London or found something new to do. Perhaps Ferguson had found the artwork in the windmill, and Cooper had knocked him on the head and absconded with it. On the other hand, if Cooper and Denis had such a bond, I could not see the man walking away without word. Something had happened to him, and I hoped it was not something sinister.
I saw no sign of Lady Southwick's horse either. I started assuming both disappearances were not coincidental.
I returned to my house again to find that Buckley had indeed put out the word that I wanted help with the repairs. Several village men had come. It was too late for them to start today, but I told them I would be working on the walls and roof very soon. I sent them and Denis's men away for the night, and Bartholomew and I closed up the place as best we could.
I told Bartholomew to make his way back to Lady Southwick's. The evening was still light and warm, so I turned my horse down the road to Binham.
My route took me past a flint quarry and ruins from Roman times as well as several modern windmills, all pumping, pumping, pumping to drain the perpetually wet land. Some of the windmills were a hundred years old, others built within the last twenty years.
Binham Priory, once the home of Benedictine monks, was now picturesque ruins. Indeed, when I arrived, it was to see that several of the ladies had sketch pads on their laps, drawing the empty stone arches.
I left the horse with one of the Southwick servants and made my way to the waiting group. Before I could reach them, Rafe Godwin stepped in front of me.
"You've been damned insulting, Lacey," he said. "I have half a mind to call you out."
* * * * *
Chapter Ten
I was tired, unhappy with my progress, and at the end of my patience. "Done. I will meet you in the morning."
Rafe took a step back, face going white. "I do not truly mean we need to draw pistols. But I take umbrage at your behavior. You've slighted our hostess--coming and going as you please, sending messages that you refuse to grace us with your presence. Lady Southwick has shown you the kindest condescension allowing you to stay in her house, and you have taken the worst advantage of her."
I continued walking, planting my stick firmly. "I spoke to Lady Southwick about my wanderings, and she knows that much business keeps me from entertainment."
"It is insulting to Lady Breckenridge as well," Godwin went on. "She should toss you out and have done with you."
"I rather believe that is her choice, Godwin."
Godwin gave me a look of intense dislike. He was a London dandy who'd attained dandyhood alongside the great George Brummell. Brummell, unhappily, had fled to France, ruined by debt, and Godwin had decided he was Brummell's heir. The rest of the world, unfortunately for Godwin, considered Grenville to be Brummell's natural successor.
Godwin, however, did not adhere to Brummell's Spartan dress sense, as Grenville did. Godwin liked bright colors and strange trends in fashion, such as puffed pantaloons and brightly striped waistcoats. Today he wore a waistcoat of loud pink and green and had so many things dangling from his watch fob that he rattled.
"If you find me insulting, then choose your seconds and have them call on mine," I said. "But tomorrow. This evening, I have pressing business."
I knew that Rafe Godwin was, at heart, bone lazy. He often talked about meeting people at dawn or boxing them at Gentleman Jackson's, but in truth, he avoided any activity that made him so much as perspire.
Godwin scowled. "See that it doesn't come to that."
Lady Southwick, coming toward me, heard our last exchange. "I have a better idea, one far less violent," she said. "A shooting match. In the garden, tomorrow morning. I will have my majordomo set it up. You will shoot, won't you, Captain? I hear that you are a crack shot."
I was not certain where she'd heard that. She seized me by the arm and dragged me to where Grenville politely held a pencil box for one of the sketching ladies. Lady Breckenridge was deep in conversation with Reaves and another of the gentlemen a little way away.
"Captain Lacey is going to show us how well he shoots," Lady Southwick announced to the company, then she drifted determinedly toward Reaves to take him from Lady Breckenridge.
"Ah, Lacey, there you are," Grenville said in his ennui-filled dandy's voice. "I'm afraid you've missed the repast, old son. We made short work of it."
"I found sustenance," I said. "Toasted bread and butter."
"Toasted bread and butter," Grenville said, with a half-wistful look. "Takes one back to nursery days."
"I was visiting the housekeeper at the vicarage," I said. "She used to give me bread and butter when I was a lad. Perhaps she hadn't noticed I'd grown."
"Shortsighted, is she? Well, so good that you could come. Have a look at the ruins. So frightfully medieval." Grenville nodded at the priory then directed his gaze at the lady's sketch as though it absorbed his entire attention. The lady, the wife of a minor aristocrat, ignored me completely.
I walked to the ruins as Grenville had directed me. I'd found them a wonderful playground as a boy--the soaring pointed arches, especially in moonlight, had fulfilled the chilling fantasies of a nine-year-old lad.
Lady Breckenridge deserted her admirers to meet me for a stroll around the tallest of the standing walls. "This is too ghastly, Gabriel," she said, rubbing my arm as though she thought me cold.
"Picturesque, the guidebooks say."
"I am hardly in the mood for flippancy. I do not mean the ruins; I mean this house party. Poor Grenville is put out at you, and Lady Southwick is full of innuendo. I will endure one more day, and then I am returning to Oxfordshire. Yes, I do know that staying with Lady Southwick was my idea. Do not cast it up to me."
"I said not a word."
"I will make a brief hiatus in London to speak to an architect about your house. Then I will be off to Oxfordshire. I miss my boy." I heard the sadness in her tone. She loved her son, though she rarely spoke of him. It was a private thing, I'd understood when I'd at last seen them together.
I laid my hand over hers. "Next summer, we three will come here together. My house might be livable by then."
"An excellent plan. Do you know, Gabriel, why I am annoyed with myself?"
I smiled down at her. "Because you wanted to observe how I would respond to Lady Southwick, who so blatantly makes herself available to any."
/>
"So you guessed that. I profess to be ashamed."
"A natural worry, after what your husband put you through."
Her fingers closed more tightly on my arm. "He hurt me, Gabriel. I will admit that to you. And so I became a callous, rather reckless woman in response. I pursued you with a ruthlessness that makes Lady Southwick tame in comparison."
"There is a difference," I said, stopping. "I never minded you pursuing me."
We stood for a quiet moment, while the peace of the ages flowed around us. It must have been a terrible day here, when King Henry's men came to tear down the walls.
Lady Breckenridge cleared her throat then went on in a brisk voice. "You flatter me, Gabriel. I found out about your Miss Quinn, by the bye. She eloped with a banker's clerk from Cambridge."
"I heard he was a solicitor."
She looked annoyed. "I do wish that if you meant to find out these things yourself, you wouldn't set me to ask questions of ladies I do not like."
"I found out by chance, and I think more than one version of a story is beneficial. Tell yours, please."
We'd walked far from the others and stood beneath the archways of the long-fallen priory. I wanted to know what Donata had discovered, but I was distracted momentarily by sunlight on her dark curls that flowed from under her tilt-brimmed hat. I wanted to lean down and take a curl in my mouth.
"It seems that Miss Quinn pretended to be devoted to her cousin," Donata said, "until he'd been gone to war for about five years. Then she must have realized that she'd be left on the shelf if her cousin did not return, and so she set her cap elsewhere. She had ambition, Lady Southwick said. Wanted to leave dreary village life and have a house of her own in a city. London for preference.
"Then came the banker's clerk. Handsome, citified, sophisticated. He began walking out with Miss Quinn very quickly. However, the vicar, her father, put his foot down. Helena was to send this man away and wait for her cousin Terrance, like a good girl."
"Hmm," I said. "I can imagine how well that went over."
"Precisely. Next thing anyone knew, Miss Quinn was off and gone in the middle of the night with the banker's clerk and the silver candlesticks from the church. Never to be seen again. Her father wanted to declare her dead, but her mother cried and begged him not to take such a dreadful step. Her cousin Terrance returned, rushed to Cambridge, and could not find her. He gave up, came home, and is now sunk in melancholia. So ends the saga."
"Except for the candlesticks," I said. "I found them."
To her wide-eyed stare, I told her the story and about my visit to the vicarage.
"Good heavens," she said when I'd finished. "It seems you have had a much more interesting day than I've had. Why would they leave the goods behind? I assume they wanted to use them to fund their elopement to Gretna Green. Come to think of it, why would this banker's clerk or solicitor or whatever he was, need to rob the church, if he were so prosperous? Presumably he had the money to take Helena away, hence the reason she wanted to go with him at all."
"The theft of the silver might have nothing to do with Helena and her Cambridge gentleman."
"Humph. The vicar's daughter and the church silver going missing on the same night is too much of a coincidence. And there is the fact of the gown lying in your mother's chamber. What of that? The two maids I asked about it did not recognize it. Rather useless of them."
"I'd like to show the gown to Mrs. Landon," I said. "She would know if the dress had belonged to Helena, since Mrs. Landon has lived at the vicarage as long as I can remember. I would have thought of asking her immediately, but I had no idea she was still there."
"Take them to her tomorrow--after this bizarre shooting match Lady Southwick has decided to hold. I will be going then anyway."
I stopped. The late summer air wafted around us, cool with the hint of fall.
"I'll not be able to leave with you," I said. "Too many things to do here."
Her blue eyes were calm. "I know."
"I am growing used to not sleeping alone," I said. "I find I rather like it." After years of bitter loneliness, having the scent and warmth of a woman next to me all night had grown intoxicating.
"I rather like it myself." Lady Breckenridge touched the lapel of my coat. "No matter. You finish here and come to Oxfordshire. I will instruct our housekeeper to once again put our bedchambers side by side."
I lifted her hand to mine and kissed it. "I believe I would like that," I said.
*** *** ***
Because of the picnic, there was no formal supper at Lady Southwick's that night, for which I was grateful. Bartholomew coaxed a bit of cold meat for me from the kitchens, and I ate it with pleasure. I had no complaints about Lady Southwick's chef.
The only benefit of Lady Breckenridge departing tomorrow afternoon would be that I could leave Lady Southwick's as well and take a room above a pub, which I'd wanted to do in the first place. The other bachelors could stay at Southwick Hall as they liked, but I would show devotion to my lady by moving out.
Lady Breckenridge brought me the white gown, which she'd rewrapped in paper, much later that night. I was already asleep, and the crackling of the paper when she laid it down woke me.
I did not leave the bed, and a few moments later, her sweet-smelling warmth was beside me. "I've come to say good-bye," she whispered, and kissed me.
*** *** ***
Bartholomew woke me the next morning by throwing open the drapes surrounding my bed. He'd already pulled back the heavy curtains over the window, and sunshine poured in on me. Donata had gone in the night, and I was alone in the bed.
"Mr. Denis sent word," Bartholomew said as he turned away to prepare my razor and shaving water. "He would like a moment of your time."
I propped open my tired eyes. "Does he wish it on the moment?"
"Afraid so, sir."
I grunted. "Tell him Lady Southwick has engaged me to shoot at things. I will speak to him this afternoon."
Bartholomew did not look up. "His carriage is downstairs, sir, with two of his lackeys. They are waiting for you."
Nothing for it. I threw back the covers and heaved myself out of bed. Bartholomew, like a good servant, turned away from my nakedness as I pulled on my threadbare but comfortable dressing gown.
"It has come to this, Bartholomew," I said, collapsing into the chair next to the shaving bowl. "I am obeying a summons to James Denis to avoid the company of Lady Southwick and her guests. Denis has become the lesser of two evils."
"Yes, sir." Bartholomew said, concentrating on the razor.
"Pack my things while I'm gone. We will remove to the public house in Parson's Point this evening. I am afraid that your soft billet here is at an end."
"Suits me, sir. I've been bunking with three other lads, and they snore something dreadful. And the goings-on below stairs, you would not believe." Bartholomew shook his head. "Catch Mr. Grenville allowing his household to carry on like that."
I'd observed before that Bartholomew had become a snob. But I could not blame him. If below stairs was anything like above stairs, I fully understood.
Denis's lackey, who waited by the carriage, said nothing as I exited the house. As he assisted me into the conveyance, I remembered where I'd seen his scarred face before. I'd stared into his eyes one night on the Thames, when he and a colleague had beaten me senseless. To warn me, Denis had said, and to teach me obedience.
From the glint in his eyes, I knew the man remembered as well. He deftly helped me into the carriage, being careful of my bad leg, saying nothing at all.
I'd ridden in this carriage before, several times now. The polished marquetry was becoming familiar.
Not until the carriage pulled away from the house, me alone inside it, did I realize that it was only eight o'clock in the morning. While I'd always been an early riser, living alongside Lady Breckenridge was teaching me the comfort of sleeping as long as I pleased.
The carriage took me to Easton's, where Denis sat in the dining ro
om. The room's paneling had been restored to its polished quietness, and a lackey was removing a plate with crumbs on it from the table. When I sat down, he busily filled another plate for me.
Denis looked awful. I'd never seen him anything but impeccably groomed, and he was clean this morning, his suit unwrinkled, but his eyes were red-rimmed in his pale face, and dark patches of exhaustion stained his cheekbones.
I sat down at the place laid for me, to Denis's right. The footman set a steaming plate of eggs and sausage in front of me, and I tucked in, being hungry.
Denis watched me. He motioned with his fingers, and the lackeys departed, except for the man who'd helped me into the carriage.
"You've not slept," I said. The eggs and sausages were good, seasoned with herbs and fortified with butter.
Denis did not answer the observation, but when he spoke, his voice held a sharp edge. "I will come quickly to the point, Captain. When I tell you what you must do in order to work off a debt to me, I expect you to do it."
"If you mean Brigadier Easton, I delivered your message, which had the effect you desired. If you mean Cooper, I have been searching. Diligently."
He did not seem to hear me. "Instead of leaving no stone unturned, you supped at the vicarage and returned to your Lady Southwick's priory picnic. Though I had already sent your regrets."
I laid down my fork and wiped my mouth on a linen napkin. "I searched, I assure you." I explained how I'd hunted in a pattern of ever-widening circles from the place I'd last seen Cooper, describing the farms, villages, and marshes in which I'd looked for him. "He is nowhere in the area, I am certain of it. He must have returned to London or journeyed elsewhere."
"He is not in London," Denis said. "You may be sure that I have inquired. He would not journey anywhere without sending me word."
"I was not indulging myself picnicking or catching up with the vicar's housekeeper--I was pursuing another matter. I not only have searched for Cooper but have turned many possibilities over in my mind. If the death of Ferguson and the disappearance of Cooper are connected, then there are three possible solutions: Cooper was killed by the man who killed Ferguson, Cooper has gone after the killer, or Cooper killed Ferguson himself." I held up my hand as Denis started to speak. "I know you said Cooper would not have killed him. But perhaps he did it to protect you--heard Ferguson threaten you in some way. Perhaps Ferguson wanted the paintings for himself, and this made Cooper angry. Or perhaps the killing was accidental. The two men had a fight, which got away from them."