Damsel in Disguise (18 page)

But those were dangerous thoughts. He’d best not let himself ponder along those lines. People got hurt when they gave Julia credit for having a heart.

“If I may say, sir, you’d be wise to let her go,” the scullery maid was saying.

He couldn’t quite pull his attention back to her. “What?”

“Your lady friend, who just ran off on you,” she said. “It was awful what she did to you.”

“Yes, it was.”

“But you should let her go. I daresay it could be dangerous for you if you don’t.”

The wench had no idea how right she was. “Indeed, it would be.”

“A broken heart will heal, sir.”

Now he finally took his eyes from Julia and turned them on the girl. She was entirely too young to have any idea what she was talking about, but he appreciated her concern. He wished he could take the advice she offered, but he knew he wouldn’t.

“Here,” he said as he managed to dig out a few more coins. “Keep track of these. You and that Jeb fellow might find a good use for them someday.”

She curtsied and thanked him repeatedly so that he was enormously uncomfortable. He finally found some excuse to get away from her and wound his way through a gauntlet of well-meaning patrons who milled about the yard and asked after his welfare. Each one thanked God for his safety and expressed their astonishment that such a thing could happen in a respectable place.

No one seemed to have seen anything to indicate what might have caused the fire, and it appeared the general populace had not been enlightened to the fact that it was intentionally set. Well, he was in no hurry to inform them. The last thing he needed was public panic and local constabulary entanglements. He’d just quietly look into things.

The first thing he needed to do was verify the servant girl’s tale. Had someone actually come to request Lindley’s carriage in the middle of the night? Was it indeed gone now? That would be easy enough to determine.

He slipped into the carriage house. No carriage. He hadn’t really expected to find it there, of course. The girl would have known he might look.

He snagged a passing hand and asked the boy what he knew of it.

“Aye, it’s a mystery to me, sir,” the young man said. “Jeb had to go all the way down to Geydon to get it. Waited there all day for them to fix it, too . . . An axle was broke, or something. He finally got it back here tonight and last I saw it sat right here in the carriage house. Real pretty and fixed it up right nice. Don’t see many of those high-perch phaetons here, we don’t. You might go ask Jeb what happened to it, though. He’d be the one what knows.”

“Jeb, is it? I might just do that.”

Indeed he
would
do that. A few questions ought to quickly absolve Lindley and his impeccable wardrobe, else they’d damn him for sure.

Rastmoor only had to question two more sooty servants before locating the infamous Jeb. He wasn’t surprised to find the man strapping and well-featured, but he was disappointed in his understanding of gentlemen’s attire.

“Well, how am I supposed to know who tailored his clothes?”

Rastmoor took a deep breath and wished to God for something to drink. “I don’t give a blow who the bloody tailor was,” he said with false calm. “All I asked was if the man appeared well-tailored or not.”

“I don’t know from tailors, sir,” Jeb defended. “Truth of the matter is, I didn’t happen to notice the man’s clothes. If you ask me—and begging your pardon, sir—one quality gent’s the same as another.”

Quality
. There was that word again. “So he was quality, was he?”

“With a gig like that? He’s quality for sure.”

“But how were you certain it was his carriage? Couldn’t anyone have come in and ordered you to harness it up?”

Jeb straightened up his shoulders and set his jaw. “I don’t give out a gentleman’s carriage to just any bloke that comes along to ask for it, sir. He’s the self-same man what told us to go fetch it from Geydon. By God, the self-same man and no one but him.”

So, that was his proof. It had been Lindley, after all. His own friend was a part of the plot to kill him. Damn! And it sounded as if Sophie was with him, willingly. This meant that very soon Fitzgelder would know Julia was here. That is, if he didn’t already know. At worst, Lindley and Sophie would reach London just after noon tomorrow, taking that locket and everything they knew straight into Fitzgelder’s drawing room. Fitzgelder could have people after Julia within an hour of that.

A set of ill-fitting men’s clothing would hardly protect her then.

He left Jeb to mutter about the oddness of the upper classes and meandered back to where a few servants and patrons still milled in the yard. For the most part, it appeared guests and servants alike were returning to normalcy. Rastmoor found Julia’s gray form among the others and watched as she bade a polite good evening to the two ladies they had met on the previous night. Thankfully, they and the sleeping babe appeared unharmed by the recent events.

Of course, they would be. They had been safely across the hall, in the room Rastmoor should have had. Only Julia had known which room Rastmoor was truly occupying tonight. The thought gnawed at him.

Could he really credit her with plotting his demise? Every part of him revolted at the thought. He watched her gracious smiles and tender glances at the still-slumbering babe. Fool that he was, he simply couldn’t imagine Julia capable of murder. He waited until she was alone then slid up beside her.

“Everyone survived?” he asked casually.

“A few minor burns and disturbance of the lung. Nothing serious. We’ll all have sore throats for a day or two, I expect,” she replied, clipping her words and keeping her eyes on anything but him. “Quite fortunate no one here knows you well. They were most eager to save your life.”

“Yes, I’ll have to thank them,” he said, ignoring the slight.

“Did you have a nice conversation with the scullery maid?”

He did not ignore the pointed tone to her voice and hoped it was something akin to jealousy. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

“Lovely. She seems quite your type.”

“Quite yours, as well,” he replied. “She corroborated your story to the letter. Oh yes, I heard all about the male and female voices arguing in the darkness. Pity this chit didn’t manage to get a good look at them, either.”

“Perhaps now you believe me?”

“I believe Lindley and Sophie are involved, and they drove off together while everyone else was fighting the ruddy blaze.”

“What?”

“Says your kitchen wench . . . and her hot-tempered beau in the stables there.”

“They saw them?”

“They did.”

“I told you it was Lindley! I told you!”

“Yes, so you did. As I suggested, we might not be so quick to absolve Sophie from all wrongdoing.”

“Insufferable man,” she hissed. “Obviously she was arguing with Lindley because he is holding her against her will. Now he’s taken her away again! We must find them. Which way did they go?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

“Well? Which way? Surely you did think to ask, didn’t you?”

He pulled his brows low. If he told her the truth, she’d no doubt head off on some foolhardy crusade to save her friend. If he told her nothing, she’d simply go find out from Jeb and his wench all on her own. If he lied and suggested they hurry off in the wrong direction, there might be a chance he could get her to safety.

And Fitzgelder would have the locket along with all the family secrets it contained. One thing he wouldn’t have, however, was Julia. Rastmoor’s gut tightened at that thought. He could still keep Julia from Fitzgelder, whether she wanted it or not.

She was glaring up at him, one skeptical eyebrow cocked at an angle and one smudged fist jabbed into her hip. Her cropped hair stuck out in odd places. Her clothes sagged. Her feet were bare but nearly as black as the earth. By God, he could have laughed at her if he hadn’t wanted so fiercely to drag her back up to their burned-out room and get another fire going. Murder and scandal be damned.

“They went north,” he lied calmly. “I’ll see about hiring a conveyance.”

He’d hired a dilapidated gig. It was all the ostlers could muster for them in the middle of the night, and Julia supposed she should be grateful. As much as she’d rather not be wedged here so tight against Rastmoor’s warm, solid body like this, she knew she’d never have been able to stay atop a horse. Every muscle ached, her throat was raw, and her tired eyes simply would not keep open. Indeed, she was thankful for the secure seat beneath her bottom, uncomfortable though it might be.

They’d been driving for hours. The pink glow of dawn was just now beginning to erase the darkness of night, and the first songs of morning birds could be heard in the trees and hedgerows around them. The bony nag that plodded along before the gig tossed his shaggy mane, and the harness jingled. A mist clung low to the ground; its origin was the river that ran quietly along beside the narrow road.

“Are you sure they came this way?” Julia asked, more to keep herself awake than to actually get an answer.

Rastmoor shifted the reins in his hands. “I know Lindley. I know where he’s going,” he said.

That’s what he’d said earlier, too, when they’d passed through a sleeping Warwick without so much as pausing at the crossroads to wonder if Lindley had turned off. They’d passed one lonely farm cart along the way, and Julia urged Rastmoor to ask whether the driver had seen Lindley’s fine carriage pass by, but he flatly refused. Stubborn prig.

They had been only a few miles past Warwick when Rastmoor turned onto another, smaller road. It twisted and wound along beside the Avon, and she asked about his decision but, as usual, he’d simply assured her he was convinced he knew Lindley’s destination. Of course she’d reminded him the most logical thing for Lindley to do would have been to take Sophie—and the locket—directly back to London, but that only seemed to make him ill-tempered. He’d told her to keep quiet and use the remaining travel time for resting. As if she could.

Being jostled back and forth against him like this was not exactly conducive to resting. The small conveyance was clearly built for short daytime jaunts and wide-awake persons who were not the least bit attracted to one another and who didn’t mind having to hold on to the seat for dear life. If she did happen to take his advice and allow herself to rest, she’d likely tumble right out of the gig to lie in a snoring heap on the side of the road. Rastmoor would likely leave her there, too.

Or worse, she might find herself snuggled up next to him mumbling in her sleep how much she’d missed him these past three years. By God, she was
not
about to let that happen.

“How can you be so sure you know where Lindley is headed?” she asked again. “You didn’t exactly perceive early on that he was a part of your cousin’s plot to murder you.”

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

Well, certainly he knew what he was doing. She only wished he’d share it with
her
. Where were they going? What did he think they’d do when they got there? Did he really understand they were most likely heading straight into honest-to-goodness danger? Instead of being short with her, he ought to be spending their travel time planning and considering the situation. All this ridiculous brooding was quite irritating and certainly unproductive.

But she was too exhausted to persist in conversation. Besides, despite her worries for Sophie, it would honestly be a relief if they got wherever it was they were going only to find Rastmoor’s assumptions were wrong. No doubt it made her a bad friend to poor Sophie, but a large part of Julia truly hoped they were heading quite the opposite direction from the people who wanted Rastmoor dead.

But poor Sophie. It was impossible to believe she would ever be a willing accomplice in what had occurred. Julia may not have known her long, but she simply couldn’t imagine Sophie hurling torches up into Rastmoor’s room. No matter what he might say about the girl’s character, Julia knew Sophie’s involvement with Lindley was not by choice. If Julia were a true friend, she’d have not settled for Rastmoor’s brusque replies. She’d have pestered him to hurry the nag, beg information from locals, and overtake Lindley.

She hadn’t, though. She simply let their little gig clatter slowly along, secretly hoping they were miles and miles from Lindley and poor Sophie and plots against Rastmoor. Oh, but she ought to be ashamed of herself. Once again she was willing to sacrifice a friend on account of Anthony Rastmoor.

The slow, rhythmic hoofbeats altered their tempo. Rastmoor tugged the reins, and Julia tried not to be aware of the taut muscles in his arm when she was forced to lean against him as the gig lurched. They were leaving the main road and turning onto another lane.

Julia frowned. Their gig felt especially shabby as they passed by an imposing stone gatehouse. No one appeared to stop them, and Rastmoor gave no indication of hesitating. For the first time since leaving that posting house in Geydon, he urged the horse to pick up the pace. Julia’s chest tightened.