Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 (20 page)

Step by step, limping without her crutches, Claire went straight to Flavian, her body shaking with rage. “Give me every ha’penny or I will call the magistrate. He will decide Abella’s fate, and I will testify.”

His eyes shifted and he backed away. Turning away from her, he paced the room flexing his hands as if he were deciding whether to crush the furniture or tear out of the room. At last he stopped. “I’m sorry. It’s all so much to take in at once. Abella … ” He held his wrists like he didn’t trust his hands not to strike something. “She seemed so innocent … that voice … her smile.”

“She is deeply ill.”

He nodded and looked down. “Please don’t go.”

“Then you must choose.”

For a moment, his body tilted toward her, sending her heart fluttering. Then he bit his lip and moved away. “What if I built her a separate house far away on the property … ? She knows she’s done wrong. She understands there are consequences.”

Claire banged a fist into her palm. “Look at me. The girl is mad.”

He took her shoulders. “I see you, but let me try.”

Claire struggled away from his grasp. “You turned a blind eye to Abella’s behavior, and it very nearly cost me my life. Now send for the coach and leave me alone!” Limping badly, she put the bed between them and glared until he turned away.

He went to the door and twisted the knob, then hesitated and glanced back at her. The hurt she saw in his eyes made a sob rise to her throat, but instead of bursting into tears, she beat back the excruciating pain in her heart and screamed, “Get out!”

Claire did not sleep. By the time morning silvered the landscape, she was awake and sitting at her writing desk completing a request to her father for more funds. Unable to secure a private coach on such short notice, she’d found two seats on the stagecoach that was scheduled to arrive at nine. At seven-thirty, she heard Betty’s gentle tap on the door. The lady’s maid entered with a tray of chocolate and rolls. Tucked under the plate, there was a sealed envelope with only her name written on the front. “It’s from ’is lordship. Mr. Marlow saw him riding out first thing.”

Now that she thought of it, Claire had heard hooves on the drive, but she’d been so lost in thought, she failed to register them. Steeled for anything he might throw at her, she broke the seal. The wax was still soft.

• • •

With only four passengers in the stagecoach, the ride was sublimely comfortable. Sunshine magnified the colors of leaves and grasses, wild flowers, and whitewashed houses. The horses — a motley team of one white and three bays — pulled easily over the hard road. But even if rain pelted the landscape and a crowd of drunken soldiers crammed her in a corner, it could not have darkened Claire’s mood. She rested her head against the leather squabs. Safe, contented, in love, she couldn’t keep a smile from her face.

Mrs. Gower peered impishly over her fan and whispered loud enough so the be-whiskered grandmother with the little boy asleep in her lap could hear, “Ah, the look of a maiden in love. I’ve seen it before — and a merry match it makes.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Like the Prince has a belly.”

Claire laughed.

“You’ll not find better than Lord Monroe in London, I warrant you.”

The elderly lady lifted her head from her knitting and stared at Claire. “Were you visiting his lordship?”

“Indeed she was,” Mrs. Gower said, “and the pair will be married by spring.”

“
Lawks
, what a fortunate match. He’s a good man, that one.” The woman leaned forward and the disrupted child flailed a little in his sleep. “Mrs. Roger Hemplewaith is my name. My brother was vicar of Bingham Hall a way’s back. The Admiral had us over for dinner many a fine evening.”

Claire extended her hand, “Lady Claire Albright, and this is my chaperone, Mrs. Uriah Gower. Do tell me what the Admiral was like.”

“As stalwart and steady as rock,” said Mrs. Hemplewaith, lifting her whiskered chin with pride. “It was that oldest child — we called him,
Lancelot Owe Lots
, after
Lancelot du Lac
of the King Arthur tales. Drank, gambled, and took his fill of women. He died not a moment too soon for my taste.”

“Oh, I’ve seen that behavior before,” said Mrs. Gower. “Bored they get and turn to cards for amusement.”

“Aye,” the grandmother agreed, adjusting the child’s head on her lap.

“But then the brother must have done well at gaming,” said Claire. “The estate is beautiful.”

“Ah, you should have seen it when Lancelot got his clutches into it! And my brother not getting a pence of his wages till that girl came to Bingham Hall.”

Mrs. Gower’s fan increased its beat. “What’s that you say?”

“The little mad girl — it’s her money brought the family back from ruin. Nasty thing, what with her bringing the throwaways home and all the rest.”

Something hard and sharp knocked in Claire’s stomach.
Abella’s money?
Was it possible that was why Flavian wouldn’t put the girl away, because of her money?
And did he think her dowry would replace Abella’s funds?
She didn’t know what to say, but the older woman eyed her closely, waiting for a reaction. “Yes … ” she managed.

“Then that’s why the servants seem devoted to her,” Mrs. Gower said.

“And they’d have to be now, wouldn’t they?” said Mrs. Hemplewaith. “Put up with her shenanigans or lose your pay. So everyone at Bingham Hall treat that mad girl with fine kid gloves, they do.”

Mrs. Gower nodded. “And his lordship leads the pack.”

“And he’d have to now, wouldn’t he? What with her holding the purse strings and all. Just to keep her happy, we all put our broken wares by the gate. Sure as gold, she come and take ’em.
Lawks
, I had the prettiest jelly pot, and this nipper,” she gently rocked the child’s shoulder, “he knocked it clear off the shelf. Crashed into a hundred pieces it did, and gooseberry jam everywhere. ‘I’ll see what’s done,’ says I. So I swept the mess up and left it near the gate. The boy and I ducked low by the window. Soon, along comes that mad girl with her cart. Took that jelly pot, careful to scrape up the jam what spilled in the grass, put the whole thing in the cart. And the smile on her face — like she’d just found a guinea!”

Mrs. Hemplewaith’s narrative ended just as the coach rumbled onto the cobblestoned main street of Lyndhurst. At a courtyard in front of the Oak Inn, the driver drew the vehicle to a halt. “Changin’ the ’orses,” he called. “Ya got thirty minutes.”

Claire stepped out to remove her crutches from the path of the older women as two lads dashed past her, screeching in delight. The boy in the coach leaped to his feet and pushed Claire further into the street so he could get a better view of the boys. From around the corner came the sound of a tambourine and drum, and then into the square poured a band of brightly costumed strollers. The men wore mismatched doublet and hose; their shoes were dust covered, and bedraggled ostrich plumes dangled from their hats. The women, eyes darkened with coal, exposed their ankles, surreptitiously lifting mud-caked hems to the delight of the men who left their shops unattended to watch. Claire tried to sink back into the coach, but now the grandmother and her charge crowded the door. Strollers graced the south of England frequently, but Claire didn’t trust that Abella wouldn’t be in their midst.

A huge man in a princely ruffle made of tattered paper separated himself from the troupe. “We are the stuff that dreams are made on!” he shouted, a shovel-shaped beard exaggerating his jaw. “Give me your hands if we be friends!”

More shopkeepers and patrons spilled into the street, forming a circle about the players. Children squealed and ran between adults’ legs. “Ladies and gentlemen, one and all,” the actor continued, “tonight sweet England’s mists shall recede, and in its stead the sands of Egypt blow. Join us for
Anthony & Cleopatra
— a most tragic love story, by the great William Shakespeare!” A smattering of applause erupted.

Cautiously, Claire hobbled across the courtyard toward the inn.

“Following our revels in this fair city, we shall on to London and Drury Lane, where the Siddons themselves will weep at our so worthy production,” the man continued. “Fail not to attend Squire Farnsworth’s barn tonight at eight. There will be oranges!” More applause erupted, but was drowned out as the troupe banged their instruments and began dancing in a ragged circle.

Just as Claire made the stairs to the inn while the actor shouted, “Give me some music! Music, moody food of us that trade in love,” a high, perfect note floated into the afternoon air. Terror made Claire whirl around. Being lifted off the back of a chestnut mare and onto the shoulders of two actors was Abella, dressed in nothing but a sheet tied with cheap gold cord.

The girl’s eyes went dark when she saw Claire, and her note stopped abruptly. A terrible silence ensued. The other actors looked confused, and a few members of the audience tittered and followed Abella’s stare.

Spreading her slender arms wide, Abella sang, “
He took a stick down off the rack, Fal al lal lal lal li-do, and on the back went rickety-rack, of Ruggleton’s daughter of Iero
.”

The crowd laughed, and Abella threw her head back and laughed with them.

So frightened she could scarcely breathe, Claire struggled up the rest of the stairs and retreated into the darkness of the inn.

• • •

On the Poole Road headed west, Flavian worried for the hundredth time if he was going in the right direction. The thief-taker’s letter said only that Abella had joined a troupe of stollers, The King’s Players, but the spy simply assumed the company would continue its normal circuit. So far, he’d asked everyone he’d met if stollers had come by, and not a one said yes. “Blasted fool,” he mumbled, cursing the thief-taker for not finding out the company’s route.

Killen’s head went up at the sound of
baa-ing
. Over a rise trotted a herd of wooly sheep and a black and white dog nipping at their heels. “
Wheet-wheeeo
,” came the sound of a whistle, and the dog instantly began circling the sheep just as a herder topped the rise. The wreckage of a beaver hat sat aboard his head, and long strands of dirty hair flopped beside his face. He wore threadbare breeches and a homespun coat patched with gunny sacking.

“Morning to you,” Flavian shouted over the bleating sheep.

“And to you, my lord, the herder said, removing the top hat gently so as not to tear hand-stitching on the rim. Obviously overwhelmed by Flavian’s fine clothes and horse, the man twisted the hat nervously in his hands. “Can I be helping you in some way?”

“You can, sir,” Flavian said, “Have the King’s Players been by this way? They’re stollers.”

“I wouldn’t be in a position to know as much, my lord.”

“Thank you then.” Disappointed, Flavian pressed his heels to Killen.

“But there was strollers here but a few days back.”

Flavian drew rein.

“They asked the master’s wife if she’d any bits of finery for their stage shows.”

“Was there a girl with them — a pretty girl with black hair and dark eyes?”

The herder’s lids narrowed. “And what’s a strapping rich man like yourself wanting with a young thing such as she?”

“You saw her then. Did you learn where they were going?”

Suspicious, the man folded his arms and eyed Flavian with disgust.

“She’s my daughter,” Flavian blurted. If the herder looked shocked, Flavian didn’t catch it. His own shock at having finally said the words aloud reverberated like a shout through an empty house. “She’s my daughter,” he repeated, more for himself than the herder.

“Then you’d best hurry,” the man said. “She’s a beauty, and the lads won’t wait long. Ask in Christchurch. God speed you on your way.”

“Christchurch? But that’s east. I thought they made a circuit west to Poole.”

“The master’s son be quite taken by your daughter, if you’ll pardon me saying so, my lord. He learned where The King’s Players were headed and got caught saddling his pony.”

Flavian turned Killen around and threw a coin to the herder. He had miles to make up and quickly. He had to find Abella before she hurt someone, or from the sounds of it, before someone hurt her.

• • •

A moment after Claire banged shut the door to the inn, Mrs. Gower burst through. “Did you see the singer? Did you see her?” the elderly woman panted, wide-eyed with alarm. “What are we to do?”

Claire bit her lip, a rising tide of terror nearly washing reason aside. “We must get word to Flavian.”

“Abella, here. Good God, what if she’s following you?”

Heart thumping against her ribs, Claire forced her mind to concentrate. “She’s on her way to London. We have to go back. We have to let him know.”