Carola Dunn (20 page)

“You know your parts?” Mr. Daviot asked.

“No one won’t never b’lieve I’m your vally,” said Daylight Danny for at least the tenth time, gazing down at the frieze coat, moleskin waistcoat, and baggy-kneed unmentionables that covered his massive person.

For the tenth time, Mr. Daviot patiently reassured him. “The Redpaths are all too aware of my aunt’s unusual choice of servants. They will think she hired you for me. As my valet you should be entertained by the upper servants rather than in the kitchen, giving us another string to our bow.”

Danny sighed. “Right, sir. I got the rest by heart.”

“Miss Carmichael?”

“Yes. It is so clever it cannot fail. It must not fail!” Miranda cried.

Mr. Daviot took one of her clenched fists in a warm, comforting clasp. “It even explains why you are in such a tweak,” he teased.

She attempted mock indignation: “To have Lady Wiston prefer Baxter’s company to mine!”

“No one in his right mind would,” he said laughing. “It’s a weak point in the story, I admit. We’ll gloss over it.”

“No need.” Miranda’s effort to summon up an answering smile failed dismally. “You forget, they don’t believe she is in her right mind.”

The carriage pulled up before a sprawling brick manor-house with lights shining in several windows. Though sizable, the building had nothing grandiose about it, no pillars, porches, or pediments. It looked like a one-time farmhouse converted and extended into the comfortable home of an unpretentious country squire.

Danny opened the carriage door and let down the steps, while Miranda put on her bonnet. She expended an aniseed comfit in order avoid being bitten as she clipped Mudge’s leash to his collar.

“Drive straight round to the stables, Ted,” Mr. Daviot reminded the coachman as Miranda followed Danny to the front door. “Don’t wait to see if they let us in. Go on into the kitchen right away, leaving the horses harnessed, remember. Whichever way things turn out we’ll want to get away without delay.”

“Aye, sir. Good job it’ll be a moonlit night. I’ll do my bit, never fear.”

Horses’ hooves crunched on gravel. Danny lifted the brass door-knocker, a fox’s mask, and beat a resounding tattoo.

Mr. Daviot joined them on the step. The door swung open, and he strode forward as if perfectly certain of his welcome.

“Here we are at last!” he said, handing the disconcerted footman his hat and pulling off his gloves. “I’m Daviot, and this is Miss Carmichael, of course. And my man, Potts.”

“Yes, sir. But, sir.... That is, what...?” stammered the bewildered man. “I mean.... Oh, Mr. Wick.” He turned with relief to the approaching butler. “Mr. Daviot and Miss Carmichael. Were we expecting...?”

“I’m afraid there is some mistake, sir,” said Wick, puzzled but not visibly dismayed—but for a flicker as his gaze passed across Danny’s admittedly distressing face and figure. He seemed to be more of a countrified old family retainer than a starchy town butler.

“What, is my aunt not yet arrived?” Peter Daviot glanced at Miranda, laughing. “And she so eager to get on she would not wait for the carriage to be repaired! The postilion must have lost his way.”

“I hope she has not met with an accident,” Miranda said forebodingly.

“Surely not, or we’d have come across them. No, the poor old dear is wandering about the lanes somewhere nearby, I wager.”

“Your aunt, sir?” queried the butler.

“Lady Wiston.” As Mr. Daviot spoke the name, he and Miranda and Danny all scrutinized the faces of Wick and the footman. Miranda, for one, saw no sign of perturbation. If Lady Wiston was here, they did not know it.

“The late Admiral’s widow, sir? On her way here?”

Miranda stepped forward. “I am her ladyship’s companion. Do I understand Mrs. Redpath is not expecting us? Mr. Redpath is not yet come home?”

“No, madam, the master’s in London.”

“Oh dear, I knew all was bound to go awry with such hasty arrangements!”

If James Redpath had left London when Lady Wiston was abducted, to accompany her hither, he had a good hour’s start on them. He should be home by now.

“You’d best speak to the mistress,” Wick decided.

Two minutes later, Miranda and Mr. Daviot, with Mudge trotting behind, were shown into a small sitting-room decorated in charming flowered chintzes. A pretty young woman set down her embroidery hoop and rose to greet them. At least, she would have been pretty but for her peevish expression. A stout middle-aged matron continued to sit by the fire, her needle poised over her stitchery as she examined the visitors.

“Wick, close the door,” Mrs. Redpath said fretfully. “It is windy tonight. You know the draught always gives me nervous spasms.”

Miranda avoided exchanging a glance of triumph with Mr. Daviot. How clever of him to recall correctly that Marjory Redpath was the ex-companion his aunt had described as a hypochondriac!

“Lady Wiston is not here, ma’am?” he said with cheerful insouciance.

“Certainly not, Mr. Daviot,” she snapped. “I cannot imagine why you should suppose she might be.”

“Why, because she set out from the inn well ahead of us. You see, the carriage wheel started to wobble, so we stopped to have it mended. Aunt Artemis was wild to get here—well, stands to reason, she hasn’t seen you in quite a while, I gather—and she chose to go on in a post-chaise with her maid. I stayed behind to supervise the repairs. Didn’t take long. We were soon on the road again, Miss Carmichael and I—”

“Indeed!” Mrs. Redpath, momentarily distracted, glanced from him to Miranda and back in a way that made Miranda squirm.

“Yes, we got going again quite soon, but we were sure my aunt would arrive before us.”

“You mistake me, sir. I care not why you expected Lady Wiston to precede you. What I fail to understand is why she was travelling to Redpath Manor in the first place.”

“By Jove, doesn’t seem very odd to me, ma’am.” Mr. Daviot’s tone carried the merest hint of sarcasm. “She is your husband’s aunt-by-marriage, after all, and she was your...ahem, you resided with her for some time, did you not?”

Mrs. Redpath flushed. “Lady Wiston rarely leaves London,” she said defensively.

“But that’s just it. In Town at this time of year there is a good deal of putrid fever about. Aunt Artemis—”

“Putrid fever!” She backed away, her handkerchief pressed to her mouth.

“Typhus. Gaol fever.”

“I knew it! Gaols, hospitals, back-slums, I knew she would catch some dreadful infection sooner or later.”

“Oh no, ma’am,” said Mr. Daviot, shocked. “She has not actually come down with the fever yet or she could not travel. It is to avoid it that Mr. Redpath suggested removing hither for a few weeks. Such a healthy situation, here on the Downs close to the sea, is it not?”

“Putrid fever! She will bring it with her. She cannot come here. I will not have her in the house! What can James have been thinking of to invite her? You must go away, quickly. Find her. Stop her coming any closer. Go away!” She flapped her hands at them as if driving geese.

Mudge took exception to the gesture and started to bark, tugging on the leash.

Mrs. Redpath had not previously noticed him. “Take it away!” she cried, tugging hysterically on the bell-pull. “That dreadful dirty creature. Animals carry disease. I do not permit dogs in my house! Wick, show these people out at once, and if Lady Wiston arrives do not let her set foot over the threshold! James must have run mad!”

* * * *

The carriage rolled northwards through the night. Moonlight silvered fields and trees, leaving inky shadows which might conceal lurking highwaymen—or simply ditches.

Considering the latter the greater hazard, Ted refused to hand over the reins to either of the amateurs. Slumped on the rear-facing seat, Daylight Danny snored, as did Mudge on the floor. Mr. Daviot lounged back in his corner, his long legs stretched out before him. Miranda could not tell whether he was asleep.

She took off her bonnet for comfort though she was sure she could not possibly sleep. The time they had wasted in going to Redpath Manor made her want to scream. From the first she had known Lady Wiston was not there, certain that Lord Snell had whisked her away to his lair in the north.

Mr. Daviot had dismissed Miranda’s arguments and overruled her. Every extra instant of suffering endured by his aunt was his fault.

The bubble of tension within her threatened to burst out in a storm of reproaches. Somehow she succeeded in holding her tongue. The damage done by her last outburst was all too fresh in her mind. If she had not driven him to spend his days at the Explorers’ Club, he would have contrived to put a spoke in Lord Snell’s wheel.

How could she have been such a ninnyhammer as to fancy for so much as a moment that the baron had any interest in her beyond winning her support against Lady Wiston? Why had she ever wished for his regard? She had never felt comfortable with him. She did not even like him. Like the veriest servile toad-eater, she had let his title blind her to his manifest faults.

Between the two of them, she and Peter Daviot had made a dreadful mull of everything—and Lady Wiston was paying the price.

Fighting to banish memories of the visit to Bethlem, Miranda concentrated on the sounds of the night. Horseshoes thudded on packed earth, clinked now and then on stone; the harness jingled and wheels creaked; an owl hooted in the distance, answered by another not far off; somewhere a dog barked, or perhaps a fox. Danny and Mudge snored on. Restlessly Miranda dozed.

She roused to lantern light outside, low, hurried voices and hooves clopping on cobbles. Another stage past.

The warm, heavy weight on her shoulder was Mr. Daviot’s head. “What...?” he muttered, half-waking. “Post-house? Sorry!” The weight vanished as he settled back in his corner. Miranda felt bereft.

With fresh horses hitched up, the landau rolled on.

At the next inn, Miranda found her head resting against Mr. Daviot’s shoulder. He made no protest and it was too much effort to move, so she did not. When the carriage halted in Portchester Square in the small hours of the morning, her arm was numb and her neck painfully cricked.

“We leave at daybreak,” Mr. Daviot announced. “An hour or so.”

To Miranda, heavy-eyed, he sounded insufferably alert. She trudged into the house and up to her room. Flat on her bed, she still felt the sway of the landau. She lay there, hearing the sounds of the household coming to life. Tilly brought a can of hot water; Baxter appeared to help Miranda change her dress and tidy her hair.

“You’re burned to the socket, miss,” the abigail said, shaking out an old grey cambric more suitable for travelling than the new coloured muslins. “I could take your place.”

Miranda shook her head. “No, I shall go on. What I need most in the world is a cup of tea.”

“Cook’s making breakfast, miss, and she’s already prepared a heap of food to refill the hamper. Mrs. Potts’s notion it was. She stayed, and for all she’s a common body, I’ll say this for her, she’s a grand organizer. She’s already got ahold of a new leg for Mr. Twitchell.”

“Splendid! How is Eustace?”

“Better, miss, though still a bit wobbly.”

“No word from Alfred or the groom, I suppose? No, it’s much too soon. But in any case, I am convinced Lady Wiston is on her way to Derbyshire. We must go!”

“It’s still pitch dark, miss. You’ve half an hour for a bite and a sup.”

* * * *

The new gas street lamps still lit the sleeping streets when Mr. Daviot took the reins and turned his team towards the Great North Road. Inside the carriage, Miranda shared her seat with Danny, while Ted sprawled in exhausted slumber on the other. The moonlight he prophesied had shone all the way from Brighton to London, but now gathering clouds hid the first gleam of light in the eastern sky. A brief flurry of raindrops dashed against the window.

Mudge was still curled up on the floor, still snoring. He had not stirred when they stopped in Portchester Square, and Miranda had forgotten about him.

 “Otherwise I should have left him at home,” she said to Danny in a low voice.

He grinned. “Maybe, miss, but he’s one as gets his own way more often’n not.”

“At least, if I had remembered him, I could have replenished my supply of comfits. I have only two left.”

The pug needed no bribe to persuade him to descend at the end of the third stage, which they reached at about the hour of the morning when Miranda usually took him out. The hour when she had fallen over Mr. Daviot, she recalled; the hour when he had kissed her.

In retrospect her anger at the time seemed petty. What was a stolen kiss in comparison with Lord Snell’s crime? In retrospect it had been a delightfully intriguing experience—and one she would not in the least mind repeating. Would Peter Daviot ever kiss her again?

After driving three stages, he looked almost as tired as she felt. Hanging on to the leash as she climbed down after Mudge at the Bull’s Head Inn at Baldock, she said, “Is it not time Danny took over?”

“Yes, he should be safe enough now, at least as long as the rain holds off. We are beyond the worst of the market-wagon traffic going into Town. Gad, I’m stiff!” He stretched and yawned and turned to speak to Danny.

 Mudge found a patch of grass and relieved himself physically. He then relieved his feelings by attempting to chase the stable cat. Miranda dragged him back to the landau by the leash, but it took a comfit to entice him back up the steps. One left.

The pug then decided he wanted to sit on the seat for a change. Standing on his back legs with his front paws on the blue velvet, he glared at Miranda. She told him to get down. He made a pass at her knee. Wearily she lifted him up. He trampled across her to where he could, by craning his neck, see out of the window.

No sign of the cat. He trampled back just as Mr. Daviot climbed in, stripping off his heavy York tan driving gloves.

 “Ouch! Devil take the beast! I’ve a good mind to toss him out and abandon him.”

“Nothing would please me more,” Miranda said regretfully, “but it is for your aunt to make that decision. I am not prepared to swear she has absolutely no fondness for him. Let me look. Heavens, he really caught you this time! Where is my medicine box?”