North Nightingale, Lord Chilton, looked from Mr. Ffalkes, who didn’t look to be all that bad a man, but did look to be stubborn as a stoat and perfectly ready to do anything to gain what he wanted, to Miss Derwent-Jones, who was ready to raise that poker and strike Mr. Ffalkes on the head, to the whimpering Owen, whose eyes were now tightly closed above the line of blankets, and said, “Do you know, Mr. Ffalkes, that Miss Derwent-Jones has been sleeping in my bed for the past three nights? Did you also know that I invariably awaken her in the morning, my fingertips smoothing over her eyebrows? Do you know how much I enjoy watching her comb her hair and bathe?”
Mr. Ffalkes just stared at him.
Caroline could only stare at him. He’d told the exact truth. It sounded like she was a strumpet. She understood that he was trying to save her from Mr. Ffalkes.
“I want my inheritance, Mr. Ffalkes. I want you to sign over the papers to me right this minute. I want what is mine by right.”
“Nothing is really yours, my girl. You’re naught but a female and thus are incapable of dealing with your own affairs. Your father was a fool to leave things thusly. No, you will have a husband—I—and I will deal with everything, including you and my son. I will even accept you though you’ve consorted with this man whilst your poor cousin Owen was here suffering by himself.”
“Surely this is a melodrama,” North said to the fireplace. “A very bad melodrama, much like the one in London last March where this young man was convinced his love had betrayed him and thus went on a rampage and killed a goat by mistake and—”
“That is enough, sir!”
“Actually,” North said gently, “it’s ‘my lord.’ Contrive not to forget your manners, else I will have to challenge you to a duel and wound you and then both you and Owen would be laid up side by side, complaining.”
“Arrogant young puppy.”
“Now, that is just fine, so long as you identify me after your string of descriptive words.”
Caroline stared at the two men, drew herself up, and said, “Mr. Ffalkes, now that you’re here, you will take over Owen’s care. I’m leaving. Lord Chilton, thank you for your assistance. I very much appreciate it.”
“You’re not going anywhere, my girl!” Mr. Ffalkes grabbed her arm as she walked past him and jerked her about. North watched transfixed as she raised the poker and struck Mr. Ffalkes hard on his shoulder.
He yowled, releasing her. “You damned bitch, I’ll—”
She hit him again on his other shoulder, then threw the poker to the floor. She dusted her hands, picked up her valise, and began to pile her clothes into it.
“You’ve killed me.”
“No,” she said, not looking at him, “but I wish I had. Leave me alone, Mr. Ffalkes. I will have my solicitor contact you.”
She picked up her cloak and strode from the bedchamber. Mr. Ffalkes made to go after her, but Owen, emerging from beneath his fortress of blankets, said, “No, Father, do let her go. She won’t wed me and she won’t wed you. She doesn’t care about her reputation. Please, Father, give her her money. End it now and let’s go home.”
“I won’t give her a bloody sou, and you, you faithless sniveling hound, I will see that you suffer for the muddle you’ve made of everything.”
“Muddle? Father, I became ill. If I hadn’t become ill, then you would never have found us.”
“Don’t be a fool, Owen. I know where she’s going. To her aunt Ellie in Cornwall, in a godforsaken place called Trevellas. If I hadn’t found the two of you here, I would have continued on there. It’s better I found you here, though, for that blasted woman would have tried to protect her.”
North felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. Trevellas? Aunt Ellie? For an instant he felt light-headed, then a searing pain went through him, a pain that would be her pain very soon.
“It has been quite an experience,” North said to Mr. Ffalkes. He nodded to Owen, who said unexpectedly and with a good deal of liking, “Thank you, North, for taking care of me. I hope I will see you again. Perhaps you can teach me more strategy at piquet.”
“Humph,” said his father.
“Perhaps,” North said. “Good-bye, Owen, Mr. Ffalkes.”
Mr. Ffalkes gave him a cold bow, saying nothing. He turned to his son and said, “You will remain here, Owen, and keep yourself warm, though how you can bear all those blankets is beyond me. I’m going after Miss Derwent-Jones. She won’t get far. She won’t bring me low this time. I will handle things. I am a man and I am devious and I will see to it.”
And North thought as he walked down the corridor, Like hell you will.
6
NORTH STARED AT Tewksberry, feeling a bolt of deep admiration, and tried to keep himself from laughing out loud.
“Aye, my lord, you might just look that disgusted, for that little strum—er, miss, left and without paying her shot, just as I said. What am I to do?”
He should have known, North thought, yes, he should have known. Well, and why should she have to pay for Owen, her hostage? Hostage. He fought again to control his laughter. She’d taken a man hostage. He just shrugged and said, “Her father is upstairs right now with her brother. His name is Mr. Roland Ffalkes. Quite naturally he will cover what’s owing.”
“But why did she fly off like a bird out of its cage if her father’s come?”
“It seems,” North said, leaning forward, all confidences, “that Mr. Ffalkes’s wife, Mathilda, eloped with a German footman. The daughter took the mother’s part and ran away too, the brother coming with her. She dislikes the father thoroughly. You’ll see he’s rather a nasty sort.”
“Ah,” said Tewksberry. “Ah, so that’s the way of it. A footman, eh? German, you say? Poor little mite.”
North nodded solemnly, paid his own bill, nodded to Mr. Tewksberry, and left the inn. He walked out into the inn yard, lightly slapping his riding crop against his thigh. The morning was overcast and would prove to be warm.
Rain threatened, but then again, rain always threatened in England, particularly here on the southwest coast. He called to one of the stable lads to bring out Treetop, who was probably so bored with his inactivity he’d race like the wind. He had to catch up with her and he doubted it would take him very long at all. Treetop was a magnificent beast, fleet and strong.
The boy saluted and bobbed, then ran into the large ramshackle stable set off to the side of the inn. He returned in very short order, red in the face, his eyes darting about frantically in search of help, of which there was none.
“Yer ’orse is gone, milord.”
“I beg your pardon? It’s the bay gelding with the two white socks.”
“I know, milord, but Sparkie says the young lady took Treetop and left ’er own ’orse fer ye—a brave old mare, full in the shoulders, but not a goer, milord, iffen ye ken what I mean.”
He shouldn’t be surprised, he thought, this time curses rather than amusement bubbling up. She’d done in Mr. Ffalkes and now she’d done him in as well, and with little effort on her part. She’d doubtless eyed Treetop and known she’d make better time with that superb beast carrying her than her own mare, who looked like she’d been eating her head off since they’d arrived here. She looked sleepy and lazy.
“Well, you old nag, what do you say?”
The old nag gave him a bored look.
“That bad, is it? No choice, sorry. Shall we find your mistress? It seems she’s misplaced herself along with my horse.”
Within minutes he’d found the note scribbled on a small bit of foolscap stuck in one of the leather saddle folds. He read:
Lord Chilton:
Do forgive me for taking your horse, but I don’t want Mr. Ffalkes to catch up with me. I would have to shoot him this time. I will return your horse to you, I swear. Wherever I go I will ask about Goonbell.
yr. servant
Caroline Derwent-Jones
Within five more minutes he was on his way back to Cornwall. So much for London, his man of business,
his charming mistress, Judith, who was also an actress, who wouldn’t remain faithful to him or any other man if memorizing her lines depended on it. He sighed. Well, Judith was a bit slow in her thinking even if she chattered all the time. He remembered one evening he’d just crested in his pleasure when she’d said in a chirpy voice, “How I would love to play Desdemona, my lord. Can’t you just see me in a long blond wig—yellow blond—and Iago would do me in and my handsome Moor would strangle me and then regret it so deeply that he would arrange my lovely self against the covers and the pillow and then kill himself in his anguish and—”
He’d groaned, his fingers itching to go around her damned throat. He realized now that he was perilously close to laughing aloud remembering the ridiculous matter. He’d believed Judith incredibly skilled, which she was, but stupid, which hadn’t mattered. Her incessant chatter had grated, but somehow it paled when she caressed him and kissed him and… Damnation, now he was riding after that damned chit who had stolen his horse. Treetop had never known a sidesaddle before. He hoped he wouldn’t find her in a ditch somewhere with a broken neck.
He didn’t find her at all. She must be an excellent rider, for Treetop could be a handful even for him. For a stranger? For a female stranger who had the gall to put a sidesaddle on his massive back?
Unlike Miss Derwent-Jones, he didn’t have to hide himself during the day, and whatever else she was, stupid wasn’t it. He knew she’d continue the same habit of sleeping during the day and riding only at night. Thus, he rode through Exeter on to Bovey Tracy, rested for several hours in a copse of maple trees beside the road, then rode in one long spurt to Liskeard. He put up at the Naked Goose Inn and slept for six straight hours. He was off again at six o’clock in the morning.
The weather had held, thank heaven for that, and he’d made excellent time. He might be riding a horse he would disdain in any other circumstance, but he found that the mare did have grit and a good deal of endurance. It never occurred to him to sell her or leave her at an inn and rent another horse. No, even though he didn’t know her name, he quite liked her. Toward the end of that first long day, just as he was growing near to Liskeard, he’d named her Regina, for that’s what she’d become. “It’s just a temporary name,” he told her, patting down her fat neck, “just until we find that damned mistress of yours. If she survives the meeting with me, why then, you can return to her and to your old name.”
When he’d come out of the Naked Goose Inn in Liskeard early the following morning, he knew she’d seen him coming, for her head went up and she whinnied at him, nodding her head. Then when he reached her, she’d butted her head against his hand.
“You’re quite the seductress, aren’t you, Reggie? Have a carrot, old girl, then we’ll be on our way.” He stroked her soft muzzle, fed her until he swore she was grinning at him, then mounted and off they went, all the way to St. Agnes today.
He wondered what he would do when he met Caroline Derwent-Jones again. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, telling her that someone had killed her aunt. He wondered what he would do when Mr. Ffalkes came here to get her. He sighed. He didn’t want to be involved with this girl, with her bravado and her innocence, ah, and he couldn’t forget that her ready wit had made him laugh at least twice, had made him resort to wit and conversation that had come rather easily and made him not at all uncomfortable. He’d felt a bit like he’d felt at Chase Park with the Wyndhams, a temporary feeling at best, this liking and comfort he’d found with Marcus and his bride, Duchess, and their servants, who were better friends than most people gained in a lifetime. No, he’d left Yorkshire, deeming it time for him to return to Cornwall, to face those demons that awaited him there, finally, to take over his birthright, for he’d become Viscount Chilton fifteen months earlier upon the unexpected death of his father.
Above all, though, he’d wanted his solitude. He did better alone. He had his dogs, his horses, his house that was vast and empty save for the few servants who had lived their lives there, it seemed, knowing nothing else save the Nightingales.
No, he didn’t want to deal with Miss Derwent-Jones again. Once was quite enough. He didn’t want to admire her delicious little ears or those nicely arched eyebrows of hers that he’d smoothed down with his fingertips each time he’d awakened her, or that long graceful neck, save to close his fingers around it and squeeze. Most of all, he didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her aunt was dead, murdered, stabbed in the back, and thrown over the ledge at St. Agnes Head.
He rode directly to his estate, Mount Hawke, looming high and stark atop a gently rising hill above the village of the same name, the protector of those villagers since the time Henry VIII had chopped off Katherine Howard’s pretty head. Indeed, the estate records showed that the great doors were affixed to Mount Hawke on the exact day of her beheading.
He hated the bloody mausoleum, more a square-built castle really, with four towers that weren’t good for anything, large drafty staircases and corridors, stone floors that echoed footsteps as if an army were marching through, cold as the devil those bloody floors were, save where his ancestors along about one hundred years later had thrown down thick Turkey carpets. It was built all of mellow gray stone quarried nearby at Baldhu, and still quite beautiful if one were objective, which North wasn’t. And the pile belonged to him and he was supposed to cherish it, since it had passed from father to son in an unbroken chain for nearly three hundred and fifty years, quite a feat in itself, the continuous propagation of male after male. It was impressive, he admitted, in a rather foreboding, menacing sort of way, standing tall atop its own private hill, casting its shadow over the slopes of the hill and the town below.
It was nearly dark when he rode up the wide carriage drive that made deep curves back and forth many times so the ascent wouldn’t be too steep before reaching the great black iron gates. Since there was no more threat of invading armies or invading neighbors, comfort was the thing. He imagined that when it was built, it looked like a clumsy helmet sitting atop a naked man’s head, all impressive and isolated and alone.
Tom O’Laddy, the Nightingale gatekeeper for longer than North had been alive, greeted him with a huge grin, showing the empty space that should have held his front teeth, the result of a fight he’d won. He sighed, then fainted dead away. O’Laddy was a man of ale and jests. Too much ale, and he was a man of violence.
“Ho, my lord! ’Tis home ye are. ’Twere a short trip to Lunnon, eh? Foul place, Lunnon. Mr. Coombe and Mr. Tregeagle weren’t expecting ye fer another fortnight.”
“Good evening, Tom. Yes, I can see you’re wondering where Treetop is, but this sweet old girl is Reggie and she’s really quite a surprise, lots of heart. How’s your nephew?”
“He’s still on the weak side, my lord, but Mr. Polgrain sends the lad some of his special broth every day and thus he’s on the mend.”
“Excellent. Next time tell him not to fall out of his boat and nearly drown himself.”
“Aye, my lord, the boy’s properly learnt his lesson. Actually, it was that little nit of a blacksmith’s daughter who’d pushed him out of the boat. It seems he was making advances and she didn’t like it.”
North grunted, at least he tried to, but a smile came up instead.
He rode through the great gates and still upward, the carriage path growing even wider now as it neared that monstrous edifice that had tried over the past three centuries to become more a home than a fortress, and he supposed it had succeeded. There had even once been a drawbridge, considered in the enlightened sixteenth century to be quite unnecessary, but that drawbridge had saved Mount Hawke from Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead soldiers in the bloody civil war in the next century. Long since, the wide deep gully had been filled in and an orchard planted, now thick with apple trees, rippling down the sides of the slopes, beautiful, really.
Men, he thought, as he pulled Reggie to a gentle halt and looked upward at the massive rising blocks of gray stone that went up and up until they seemed to reac
h the dark skies themselves on overcast days. Men must fight and conquer or die trying. They couldn’t seem to content themselves with what they had even if it was really quite sufficient. He himself had been a soldier, and it had been his goal to stop Napoleon, at least that’s what he continually told himself. Truth be told, he liked a good fight. He liked to test himself, his strength, his wits, on any and all opponents. He supposed he would have done very well in medieval times. With Napoleon tucked away on Elba he couldn’t imagine any more war on such a scale. Sometimes it depressed him. He knew it depressed his friend Marcus Wyndham, as well. And now Marcus was well married and running his own estate, just as North would now do as well. He marveled at the ways of life.
He rode Reggie to the magnificent Mount Hawke stable, a long brick building with tack rooms, large stalls, hay bins, everything his obsessive great-grandfather could think of. He dismounted Reggie, waved to Pa-Dou, and waited until the frail old man had come to take the mare’s reins.
He chatted with old Pa-Dou, watching in amazement. Hard to believe his arthritic gnarled fingers could so skillfully handle the horses’ reins and saddles.
Tomorrow he would go to Goonbell. He found himself grinning as he clasped the huge brass knocker and slammed it against the oak door. Goonbell. Good Lord, what if instead of Mount Hawke—surely a name that sounded rather splendid—he lived in Mount Goonbell overlooking the village of Goonbell.
He was chuckling when Coombe, his butler and his father’s butler before him, opened the doors to him and blinked to see his master actually laughing.
North eyed the astonished Coombe, realized the reason for his astonishment, and said, “I was just thinking how odd it would sound were we called Mount Goonbell, and not Mount Hawke. It both amuses and terrifies.”
Coombe appeared to ponder this for a moment, then said, “Surely laughter is too strong a reaction to such an unfortunate thought, my lord.”