Cynthia Bailey Pratt (19 page)

“We
shan’t have trouble, you mean.”

“Jocelyn, my dear, don’t be a fool. I can’t—”

“If Constable Regin captures Arnold, I shall have no choice but to confess that I rendered him unconscious with an un-ripened gourd.”

The smile she loved crossed his usually austere face. “You did what? You didn’t tell me that. Is there nothing you can’t do?”

Softly she answered, “I’ll do anything if someone I love needs me.”

Hammond cleared his throat and looked at the ground. “Please, my dear girl ...”

Jocelyn went on, more normally. “Arnold needs to be gotten away from here. His parents are in Oxford, as you know. I can give this responsibility to them. I hope they can arrange to reconcile Lord Netherham.”

“Who?’

“His is the big house in the park. Arnold poached on his land.”

Hammond laughed. “Did he, indeed! I’ll tell you; I like that boy. I wouldn’t want one precisely the same, as I prefer to sleep at night, but there’s something admirable about the scamp all the same.”

Jocelyn frowned as she studied him. Since coming down, he’d behaved oddly, almost as if. . . Jocelyn cried out, “Stop it! You’re playing a part with me. Just like at the inn! And yesterday, with Cocker in the garden! Treating me like the . . . like the enemy! How dare you?” She ran at him, her heart twisting in her bosom. Nothing at all had changed between them, though she’d fooled herself in thinking it had. She slapped him with all her might and would have run out if he had not caught her.

“Yes! I admit it! Stop, stop now.” His face red with her fingermarks, Hammond tried to draw Jocelyn toward him, his hands on her upper arms. He fought to meet her eyes, but she looked away. Hers were wet. He had no doubt they were tears of fury. Still they affected him.

He said against his will, his voice a husky whisper, “You’re more dangerous to me than Fain or the French. You know you are. You’re so ... I suppose
gallant
is the word I’d choose. That’s why I chose you to help me, that’s why I ask you to help me now. Help me, Jocelyn. Help me to do my duty.”

Though his words touched her, and would serve to warm her later, she could only say, “Are you going to take Arnold and me with you to Oxford?”

“No, I’m not.” Not letting her speak, he entreated, “Listen to me! Do you think I want to leave you here? Go away from you? You know what’s at stake. Fain got away last night. Thanks to my weakness, he’s got a day’s start on me. If I take you two along, I’ll go that much more slowly. If I can get the letter and Fain, I’ll come back. I promise you.”

“Thank you,” Jocelyn said shortly. “Most likely, Arnold and I will be in Australia by then.”

“Then, by God, I’ll come to Australia!”

Demonstrating more restraint than he’d known he possessed, he ran his hands down her back as though smoothing down raised hackles. Jocelyn meant to hurl herself out of his embrace but found her hands instead entwined in his lapel. Still angry, she raised her chin defiantly. She felt a whispered chuckle against her cheek as he kissed first it, then her mouth. His whiskers tickled her, as lightly as the pressure of his lips.

Greatly daring, she touched the back of his neck where his hair grew low and curling. He crushed her against him, kissing her powerfully. Jocelyn kissed him back with shy enthusiasm.

After a moment Hammond raised his head, keeping her close against him. He sighed, his chest expanding between her arms. Gazing deeply into her eyes, he held his hand against her cheek for a long moment and then murmured, “I’m going to try again for Fletcher’s horse. Is there a rear way out of here?”

Taken aback—she should have known!—she said, “Only the window upstairs.” Her empty arms fell to her sides. It was impossible to hold him against his will, so she let him go.

“I will see you soon.”

“Yes.” In a few moments she heard his boots scrape on the wall outside. Mr. Quigg raised trellised roses at the back of the cottage, and their still-gray stems would see Hammond safely down, if at the cost of a scratch or two.

After Hammond had gone, Jocelyn remained in the dreamy world of the now imaginable future. She looked around the odoriferous cottage, smiling as if she found it a lily-scented paradise. Sitting in the rockable chair, still warm from him, she indulged in womanly fantasy for some time. She ignored the fact that she knew nothing of Hammond except that he had lost his employment with the government. For all she knew, he could be the criminal she’d once thought him or, for that matter, king of the Canary Islands. She could only hope he’d keep his promise to come back. But with Hammond, one never knew.

The ringing of the church bell, a beacon still in spite of fire and war, reminded Jocelyn that she should see about the noon meal. She wondered when she’d have the opportunity to show Hammond what a fine cook she was. So far, the only meal he’d eaten at her hands had been prepared by Helena.

As she drifted across the garden, the smell of Constable Regin’s pipe smoke recalled her to her senses. He was still there, recumbent on the other side of the path. Jocelyn waved at him gaily and went into the house. Though her heart was light because Hammond would return, he had done nothing to help her. He was gone, leaving behind him one bereft female and a large and gaudy problem.

The kitchen table was empty of dishes. In sudden panic Jocelyn called out, “Miss Hargreaves!!” Had the housekeeper left already? What had Arnold done to her?

The sturdily built housekeeper came down the steps from the dining room. “There you are, miss,” she said. “I wondered if you’d gone out. I couldn’t hold the chicken mousse back another instant, or it would go flat, so I served without you. Hope you’re not displeased, miss.”

“Not in the least,” Jocelyn said, following the broad back of the housekeeper into the dining room. When she cooked, she served every meal except dinner in the kitchen because, though informal, it was easiest for her. Miss Hargreaves, however, apparently did not serve in the kitchen.

One look at Mr. Fletcher’s face in the dining room and Jocelyn knew that Helena had not forgiven him during their last interview. He paid no attention to Mr. Quigg’s story of near-piracy in African waters.

“Got the glooms, doesn’t he?” Hargreaves whispered as she set a filled plate in front of the girl.

Jocelyn tasted the meal. “How wonderful! Even better than Helena’s quiche because I hadn’t anything to do with it.”

Hargreaves said, “Thank you, miss,” and returned to the kitchen.

Rapping the table with her knuckles, Jocelyn looked sternly down at Granville and Arnold. “I want the two of you to pay strict attention to me. Pardon my interruption, Mr. Quigg. Arnold! Listen! If either of you say anything or do anything to frighten away Miss Hargreaves, you can get your own meals, for I won’t cook for you. Do you hear me?”

If the boys had not been truly fond of their cousin, they might not have taken her seriously. They knew her well, so hurriedly grunted their assents through mouthfuls of the new housekeeper’s excellent bread pudding.

Jocelyn could do no more than send a sympathetic glance Mr. Fletcher’s way while the boys sat there. Any other signs of interest would pique their curiosity too much. Already they noticed that Mr. Fletcher read no book at table and exchanged many glances and whispers over this unusual lack.

After they ate, Miss Hargreaves insisted on a proper bath for each of the boys, quelling Arnold’s attempted escape. “You may have removed the top layer of the dirt under the pump, young sirs, but if I know boys, and I do, there is depth after depth of dirt lingering behind. Why, I could start seedlings behind your ears. Master Arnold! Into a hot tub and I’ll be along to scrub your backs.”

Granville protested at this. “I can scrub my own.”

“Not half so well as I’ll do it.” Hargreaves rolled up the sleeve on her right arm. It was a strong arm, yet undeniably feminine in contour. “When you’ve beaten so many cakes as I have, you develop a tone.” Arnold gaped in amazement, and Jocelyn could almost swear he was willing to beat cakes to acquire such muscles.

Once alone with Mr. Fletcher, Jocelyn found him grasping her hand. “Miss Burnwell, I ... I don’t know what to do. Please, help me.” His large eyes were full of anguish.

“What is it? Is there something the matter with Helena?”

“I don’t know,” he said, clutching at his wavy brown hair. “I’ve knocked twice this morning, and she never answered. Please go up and beg her to talk to me.”

“The poor girl was sound asleep when I last looked in on her, Mr. Fletcher. But I will go see if she would like something to eat. I don’t think she’s eaten any breakfast.” Jocelyn went down into the kitchen. Over the sound of vigorous splashing, she said, “Miss Hargreaves, did Miss Fain take breakfast?”

His hair shining against his scalp, Arnold spluttered in the large copper tub before the stove, his exposed shoulders pinker than Jocelyn had seen them since he was born. “Help!” he cried when he saw his cousin. “She’s drowning me.”

Rather heartlessly, Jocelyn laughed. “A drowning every now and then is good for you, Arnold.”

With a strong hand Miss Hargreaves sent the boy beneath the waves again. “Miss Who did you say, miss?”

“She’s probably still sleeping. Like the rest of us, she was up half the night. I’ll wake her now, and then take her a morsel to eat, if she wants it.”

Miss Hargreaves nodded as she continued to scrub at Arnold, ignoring his heartrending cries for mercy. “Be still, boy, or I’ll get the brush out. This is nothing but a cloth.”

Jocelyn rapped lightly on the door of the chamber next to her own. After waiting a moment, she knocked harder and called, “Helena? Wake up, dear.”

Pressing her ear against the solid wood, she listened for any sound. The door was thick, but surely she would hear a groan or sob, even if Helena did not wish to open the door. “Helena?”

Jocelyn ran down the stairway and into her uncle’s library. In one of the desk drawers lay a jumbled assortment of keys, supposedly one for every door in the house. She took down from a shelf a precious bowl, too fragile to stand the trip to London but the nearest container to hand. Jocelyn dumped the keys in the bowl and ran back up the steps, catching her foot in her hem and nearly tripping. Kneeling, she began trying the keys in the lock of Helena’s room. Mr. Fletcher found her at it a few minutes later.

“I’m a fool!” she said bitterly when he inquired into what she was doing. Up on her feet as though propelled by a spring, Jocelyn dashed to her room, removed the key from her door and fitted it into the lock. A moment later she stood inside the empty bedroom. The bedclothes sprawled on the floor, as if pushed away in a hurry. Helena’s valise, dropped on Mr. Fletcher last night, was no longer in the corner. A much-blotted note lay on the pillow.

Jocelyn,

You have been kindness itself, but blood is thicker than water. I realize that Nicholas is not dead. I know where he has gone. Please tell Mark I’m sorry. He should not come after me.

Affectionately, Helena

“I don’t understand,” Mr. Fletcher said, frowning like Arnold when he wished to keep from crying.

“She wrote this in great distress of mind,” Jocelyn said, more to herself than to him. “Look at the water blotch by your name. A tear, I think.”

“How can she say Fain isn’t dead?”

“What evidence is there that he perished in the fire? None. Hammond didn’t believe it, either.”

“Hammond!” Mr. Fletcher clutched again at his hair.

“Mr. Fletcher, have you a horse?”

“Yes, as I told Captain Hammond last night—”

“No,” Jocelyn interrupted. “He’s taken that one. Another horse.” When Fletcher still looked blank, Jocelyn fought down the desire to shake him and said, slowly and clearly, “We must follow Helena. We must go to Oxford. You and Arnold and I.”

“Oxford? What makes you think Helena has gone there?”

“Because her brother is there, Hammond is going there, and . . . and the Czar will soon be there!” Fletcher’s jaw fell three inches. The War Office trained its soldiers well. Within a few moments Mr. Fletcher forced down his panic at the thought of Helena alone on the roads and took an active interest in the organization of the party.

“I don’t see why Arnold must accompany us,” he said.

Past all concern over her reputation, Jocelyn gave a brief description of Arnold’s latest trouble and her own part in his rescue. Like Hammond, Mr. Fletcher boggled at the thought of Jocelyn dotting a constable on the head.

“That’s not important now,” she said impatiently. “We must hurry away. I only hope we catch up to Helena quickly. I don’t know when she left, of course, but if she’s on foot, she can’t have gone far.”

After a few moments thought Jocelyn told Miss Hargreaves she had received a communication from Mr. and Mrs. Luckem, inviting her and Arnold to come to see Cousin Tom win his race. Her conscience blushed at this bold-faced lie. She ignored it. The truth would not serve nearly so well.

Arnold was beside himself at the thought of going on a journey, and Jocelyn almost despaired of making him understand that he was in serious trouble. Stern and sharp by turns, she packed their two small bags, keeping him running back and forth to his room to collect the things he’d need in the probably vain hope of wearing him down. Taking for herself only a change of chemise, underclothing, and a shawl, Jocelyn filled the rest of the space with Arnold’s clothing. He’d be making a protracted stay with his parents, she hoped, while she would be returning to Libermore at once. She must return to Libermore before Hammond, or, she thought with a smile, he might go off to Australia to find her.

Surprisingly, Granville helped her the most. Once the danger to Arnold was clear to him, he supported Jocelyn’s story with many a groan at having to miss the trip. “My duty is here,” he proclaimed with theatrical fervor. Miss Hargreaves looked at him suspiciously.

Further, Granville pledged to keep Constable Regin occupied long enough to give them a chance to get clear. Granville also promised to misdirect any inquiries that reached him, whether from the constable, the magistrate, or Mesdames Swann, the most dangerous of the group. He practiced a studied vapidity, which, unfortunately, he never got to use.