Elizabeth Kidd (21 page)

“My brother was concerned about her, and called earlier,” Antonia said soothingly, understanding that Kedrington was leaving further explanations to their host to supply. “You had not yet returned then, so he came to us.”

“I see. I was out of town—on business, you understand—until only a short time ago. None of the servants has been able to supply any hint of where she has gone, for she said nothing to any of them about leaving. I was on the point of calling in the Bow Street Runners.”

“You should have called on us,” Antonia chided him, still in the soothing voice designed to lull him into confiding in her. “We are naturally eager to help.”

“Thank you. I would have done so, certainly, but I did not wish to worry you any sooner than necessary. There may be some perfectly simple explanation…although I confess I cannot think of one.”

Kedrington had been observing his host closely during this exchange, and now said, “Would you object to showing us Miss Melville’s room? Perhaps we may notice some clue which the servants have missed.”

Melville hesitated for a moment, then seemed to resign himself. “Yes, certainly. Please do not think me inhospitable—that is, ungrateful for your assistance. I fear I have simply not had time to think….”

He rose just as the butler returned to enquire if any refreshments were required, Mr. Melville having neglected to ring for any. Melville, still distracted, requested the man to bring tea and sherry to the drawing room in five minutes. Antonia observed him during this little scene and decided that, on the whole, his behavior was too much that of a worried parent to lead her to believe that he had had any previous knowledge of Elena’s disappearance or was in any way responsible for it. She did not know why she still could not warm to him.

They proceeded silently up the stairs, all—except her husband, Antonia guessed—slightly uncomfortable with this peculiar exercise. Antonia hesitated for a moment in the doorway to Miss Melville’s room, reluctant to intrude into such a private domain, but her husband apparently had no such scruples. He touched nothing, but his eyes took in everything. She could not tell if he saw anything of interest, but hoped he would tell her later if he did.

She herself noted nothing unusual—it was a pleasant, airy room, feminine but almost impersonal, as if Elena hid her private self away behind cupboard doors or inside drawers—or she had an inordinately conscientious maid.

The only discordant note in the immaculate room was struck by a crumpled ball of paper on the floor beside a wastepaper basket. When Antonia leaned over automatically to pick it up, she noticed several more like it in the basket. She extracted several of them, then opened one, and another. They all began the same way, some going on for several lines, others stopping abruptly after only a few words.

My dearest Carey,

Once again I must seek your forgiveness and beg you, if you can, to forget. Should you be unable to forget me, for I shall never forget you, it would be my greatest happiness to think we might begin anew….

Antonia tore her eyes from the page and tossed the crumpled sheets back into the basket. She knew it! She had been certain that Elena still loved Carey, and here was the proof! Elena must have been attempting to put her feelings in words—could she have succeeded and sent a final clean copy to Carey before she went away, perhaps telling him where she had gone?

She slipped one of the rejected letters into her pocket. If Carey had not received a letter, she would show him the draft, and beg Elena’s forgiveness later for her interference. But not to do anything would be worse than doing the wrong thing.

“Are any of her clothes missing?” Kedrington asked. Melville opened a wardrobe and said he thought there might be, but he could not tell. Antonia looked over his shoulder into a neat row of dresses hanging from pegs and hats lined up militarily on a shelf above them, and decided that at least the walking dress Elena had worn when they last met in the park was not there.

“Perhaps…” she began. Both gentlemen looked to her, as if only another female could learn anything from an apparently—to their eyes—undisturbed feminine sanctuary.

“Perhaps she has only gone away to think.”

“To think?” Melville inquired, mystified.

“About the future,” Antonia supplied. “About her betrothal to Carey. Perhaps she has had second thoughts and is unsure how to approach him again.”

There was a silence as the gentlemen attempted to understand this. “But
where
might she have gone?” Kedrington asked, “to—er, think.”

“That is a puzzle,” Melville conceded.

“Has she no acquaintances in the country—or even another part of London?” Antonia enquired.

Melville shrugged helplessly, apparently forgetting the fictitious cousin he had employed before when Elena did not wish to receive them. Antonia had not forgotten, and this confirmed her opinion that Melville was truly concerned about his ward. “She may have friends I have not met,” he said, “but…perhaps I should call in the Runners after all.”

“No, don’t do that,” Kedrington said. “Let me make a few discreet inquiries first. We would not want to broadcast her disappearance any sooner than necessary, would we?”

“No, no, of course not.”

Melville appeared somewhat relieved at this offer and recovered some of his more usual dignity. He escorted his visitors back to the parlor and engaged them in only slightly stilted conversation over refreshments for ten minutes until Antonia decided it was past time for a polite departure. Her husband appeared lost in thought, so there was no telling when he would think to say his farewells.

* * * *

“Well?” she demanded, when they had had returned home and were once again comfortably situated in his lordship’s study. “What do you think has happened?”

“Something unexpected—to Melville, at least.”

“That much was obvious,” Antonia objected. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“I am all agog.”

“Where
does
that expression come from?” Antonia asked, momentarily diverted. “It is a most curious one.”

“It is one of the mysteries of the English language,” he informed her pedantically. “Doubtless we stole it from some other language, as we did with so much of our vocabulary. Not to mention our art treasures, as you have repeatedly observed. But tell me what you think.”

“About what? Oh—I beg your pardon. However nimble my mind may be, I am slow-witted when it comes to keeping up with you. What I think is that Elena has been kidnapped by whoever is behind this plot to steal the marbles in order to blackmail Dimitri into doing something for them which he does not wish to do.”

He thought about this. “Very interesting.”

“Thank you.”

“But indistinct. What something, for example?”

“Taking the blame for the theft?”

“If he is indeed involved in it, I should think taking the sole responsibility would be a prize of the highest order. He would gain the support of the anti-Elgin faction and become a hero in his homeland.”

“Oh. Well, suppose he
was
involved, and has changed his mind—being an honorable man at heart—and he is being blackmailed into continuing to take part.”

“Speaking of odd turns of speech, you have taken quite a fancy to blackmail.”

“An indisputably English word, I believe.”

“It would be.”

“I see what you mean. It is a rather dismal word to take credit for.”

“And who do you see as being behind this plot?” he asked, getting back to the point.

“Oh, dear. I was afraid you would ask me that. There are so many possibilities—most of which you have been so disobliging as to point out—that I cannot make up my mind.”

“And what has happened to your theory that she has simply gone away by herself to think about the future?”

“That remains my belief on the grounds of its being the simplest. However, as we discussed before, one must consider all the possibilities.”

He made no reply to that, and Antonia could see him almost visibly turn his mind to some other subject. When he made no further observations, however, she asked, “What are you thinking now?”

He smiled. “About how this room has become the equivalent of the Duke’s tent during the war, or any meeting room at the foreign office where strategy is planned.”

“But we have not come up with any plan, much less any strategy.”

“That comes after we consider all the possibilities.”

“And you have always said you did not wish to enter political life yourself. It appears you have a knack for it after all.”

“As do you, my love.”

“Perhaps, but the nation would never be so sensible as to allow females into elected office.”

The possibilities to which this topic might have led were left unexplored when Trotter knocked on the door. Then, bidden to enter, he handed his lordship a letter.

“By the by, Trotter,” Antonia said. “Has there been any message lately for my brother?”

“No, my lady.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, Trotter.”

When the butler had departed, Kedrington opened the note.

“It is from Carey,” he said.

“Do not tell me he has found Elena!”

“No, but he has found her trail. This letter was sent from Croydon. He has been enquiring at all the posting inns going south, and had a bit of luck when an ostler remembered Miss Melville from his description.”

“Well, that is good news,” Antonia said. After a moment, however, when Kedrington made no comment, she said, “It is good news, isn’t it? Now that we know Dimitri was responsible for taking her there, Carey will not have to face a kidnapper and Elena will explain everything to him.”

“You’re right, of course.”

“And,” Antonia went on, a happy thought striking her, “they will have a little time alone to talk and to settle their differences. I’m sure they will come back to us reconciled and we can announce their betrothal after all.”

“I’m sure you’re right again, my love.”

Chapter 19

The day after Carey Fairfax left London in pursuit of his bride, Lord Kedrington left his own wife at home anxiously awaiting further news from her brother and took himself to the Strand. His object was a club known as the Socratic Society, which he knew to be patronized by Greek expatriates. The building which housed it was situated in a little lane off the Strand and had begun life as a coffee house. It had been a hotel when the Society took it over, and a little of both previous incarnations lingered into the present one. In recent years, it had become known as a hotbed of Greek nationalism, and it was said by some that the coming war for independence from Greece’s Turkish rulers would be launched from there.

Kedrington had been introduced to the club by Lord Byron the year before the poet’s departure from the London literary and social scene. Kedrington reflected wryly that if any English artist, however brilliant the light he had previously cast, removed himself from his setting, it was as if he had never existed. The notion that Byron could be thriving and producing his best work somewhere other than in his native land was as foreign to many so-called patrons of the arts as Greece itself. His works were still sold and read, of course, but as those of a foreign artist.

Kedrington entered the small, unmarked building that housed the Socratic Society and handed his hat to the porter. “Good afternoon, Kostis.”

“Good afternoon, my lord,” the porter replied, gratified to be remembered. “We have not seen you for some time.”

“Do not reproach me for it, Kostis. I confess I have become lazy, lulled into stupor by the rich food and drink to be had in the clubs of St. James’s.”

“We will enliven your spirit here, sir, not dull your senses.”

Kedrington grinned. “Is anyone about whom I may know?”

“Do make yourself comfortable in the sitting room, my lord, and I will bring you a coffee. There are very few members here at present, but more will be arriving for dinner shortly.”

Kedrington followed this advice and made himself comfortable in a corner of the room where he would not be immediately seen by anyone entering by the only door. The only other occupants of the place were three young men, students by the look of them, poring over the same copy of a Greek newspaper and speaking in low but intense tones among themselves as a pall of tobacco smoke rose above them.

The porter came in with the promised coffee, and Kedrington thanked him. He sipped at the thick, sweet brew, then picked up a copy of the
Examiner
and prepared to wait.

He was shortly rewarded when Dimitri Metaxis strode into the room and joined the group around the table in the opposite corner. He did not immediately notice the other occupant of the room, which gave Kedrington a chance to study him.

He was a handsome young man, his features stronger, masculine variations on Elena Melville’s exotic good looks. He was dressed respectably, but neither in the first stare of fashion nor the newest of apparel. His cuffs would doubtless prove to be frayed, Kedrington thought, on closer inspection. His hair was in disarray, doubtless from his walk here, and after cursorily running his hand over it, he paid no more attention to his appearance. He looked like a man who had weightier matters on his mind than the cut of his coat or the length of his hair. Doubtless he did.

He did not, however, look like a desperate man, Kedrington reflected—at any rate, no more so than any young man with more energy than physical releases for it. Carey had been that way when he first came to Spain and had picked up the behavior again on his return to England, where sparring sessions at Jackson’s and curricle races were tame sport compared to being shot at by French artillery.

Nor did Dimitri look like a natural plotter. His countenance was too open, and his manner, judging by the animation of his gestures, too expressive to lead anyone to suppose he had any talent for prevarication. Kedrington decided that the time had come to put this theory to a test.

He put his coffee cup down with an audible clatter and rustled his paper. Dimitri immediately turned around, blanched when he recognized Kedrington, and bolted for the door. The viscount, quicker on his feet, was there before him.