Night of a Thousand Stars (5 page)

“Of course,” I said automatically. There was a pang in my heart when he said Father hadn’t many years left, and I thought of how drastically my little drama must have upset Father’s routine. “I’ll do everything I can to make certain he’s not upset,” I promised. “And I will find something to do with myself. I won’t make him regret having me here. You have my word, George.”

He gave me a grudging nod and turned back to his washing up.

I thought of the ruby ring nestled in my underclothes upstairs and took a deep breath. “I’ll go to London. I have a few things I ought to attend to, and I’ll take Masterman. She’s looking peaky from all this country air.”

George nodded again, this time with slightly more warmth, and I smiled. “Besides, who knows what will happen? Perhaps I will seek an adventure.”

Four

The next morning I dressed carefully in one of my honeymoon travelling ensembles, a beautifully cut suit of salt-and-pepper tweed with an emerald silk shirtwaist. There was a daring green feather in my cloche, and green gloves to match. My feet were neatly shod in high French heels and my stockings were the sheerest silk. I had planned on wearing a plain dark grey affair with very little embellishment, but Masterman had firmly squashed that notion.

“I think not,” she said with a decisive air. “What if you should run into Mr. Madderley or any of his circle? Do you want them to see you looking like a whipped dog? No, miss. You go up to London with your head held high and wearing something smart.” I didn’t have the will to argue, and as I turned this way and that in front of the mirror, I had to admit, Masterman knew exactly what she was doing.

“A stylish outfit will do wonders for a girl’s pride,” I murmured.

Masterman pretended not to hear, but I saw her satisfied expression. She dressed herself in a sober costume of dark blue tweed with a discreet gold watch pinned to her lapel and hurried us off to the tiny train station with five minutes to spare.

The train made good time, and we stopped first at the bank where Gerald’s family kept their valuables. There was a brief, painful interview with their banker, who took the ring from me as if he were receiving a holy relic and issued a receipt, which he handed to me with just his fingertips.

“Did you see that?” I fumed to Masterman as we emerged from the bank. “He didn’t even want to touch my hand. It’s as if I were a leper.”

“What did you expect, miss?” she asked reasonably. “He’s the Madderleys’ banker and you’re the woman who threw over Mr. Gerald.”

“I suppose,” I grumbled. “It’s still rude.”

“You’ll be in for worse,” she warned. “So you might as well steel yourself and get it over with.”

“How would I do that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Lunch at the Savoy,” was the prompt reply.

I shuddered. “I’d rather walk naked into a pit of vipers.”

She gave me one of her inscrutable looks and lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “As you wish, miss. But the sooner you face them down, the sooner you’ll know what you’re made of.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn’t. She was right, of course. They were just a pack of society gossips. The only whip they wielded was the lash of disapproval. And what sort of adventuress would I be if I couldn’t stand a little gossip?

I squared my shoulders. “Very well. But there’s something else I need to do first.”

* * *

I had made an airy mention of adventure to George, but I hadn’t understood my real reason for going to London until my feet turned automatically towards the church. I owed Gerald the return of his ring, but that did not matter as much as seeing Sebastian again. I had thought of him ceaselessly since he’d left the cottage, and I couldn’t imagine why.

Of course there was his kindness, I told myself. And those rather gorgeous dark eyes. And what I suspected might be a spectacular pair of shoulders under his cleric’s garb. And a superbly noble profile, which suited his waving dark hair. The combination was very nearly Byronic. I ticked his attributes off on my fingers. He was cool in a crisis. Most men wouldn’t have had the steely nerve to help me escape from my own wedding, much less to do it with a smile. He’d been terribly understanding when I had prattled on about the troubles I’d had with Gerald in the bedroom. He must have been dreadfully shocked, but he hadn’t made me feel the least bit awful about any of it. And he’d been a perfect sport about letting Gerald punch him without hitting him back and complicating everything. He had been an absolute brick, a thorough hero when I needed him, and I hadn’t even thanked him properly.

It was only to thank him that I wanted to see him, I decided. It was just good manners, after all, and I had been brought up to know what was right even if I didn’t always do it.

None of which explained why I didn’t tell Masterman where we were going. I just knew I was in no mood for questions, and Masterman’s were invariably uncomfortable ones. I only wanted to see Sebastian and thank him once and for all and that was it, I told myself firmly.

As we walked to the door of the church where I was to have been married, I turned, giving Masterman a pious look.

“Masterman, I’d like you to wait in the park just opposite. I wish to step into the church for a bit of private reflection.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Unless you plan to reflect aloud, miss, I would hardly be in your way.”

“Private,” I repeated gently. She huffed a little but took herself off in the direction of the park.

I went into the church and crept quietly into a back pew. It was one of the great churches of London, stately and ancient, the stone smelling of incense and time. There was something comforting about the old stone walls, and I felt the strain of the past months ease a little as I sat. The choir was in the stalls, practising something restful, and before I knew it, my chin was bobbing on my chest, my breathing soft and slow.

“Pardon me, miss.” There was a gentle hand on my shoulder and I awoke with a horrified start to find a clergyman with a kindly face standing over me

“Oh, I am sorry! I don’t know what came over me.”

The kindly face smiled. “Don’t tell the vicar, but it happens to me more than you’d think.”

“That’s very gracious of you,” I said, smothering a yawn. “I say, I don’t suppose you could help me find someone? I actually came to speak with the curate.”

The smile deepened. “Then you’re in luck. You have found him. I’m the curate, Mr. Hobbs.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry, I mean the other curate, Mr. Cantrip.”

“There is no other curate, miss. I am the only curate for this parish.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry, but there was a Mr. Cantrip here. He said he was—” I broke off, thinking furiously.
Had
Sebastian said he was the curate? Or had I simply inferred it from the dog collar?

Mr. Hobbs’ gentle expression turned thoughtful. “I say, aren’t you Miss Hammond? The young lady—”

“Who ran out on her wedding to the heir to Viscount Madderley? Yes,” I said automatically.

“I was going to phrase it a little more delicately than that,” he told me with only the mildest hint of reproach.

“Oh, it’s all right, I understand it’s what everyone is saying.” I was still thinking hard. Perhaps I had misunderstood. Sebastian might not be curate of
this
parish, but he must be associated with another.

“Mr. Hobbs, do vicars ever lend their curates?”

The smile was back, this time a shade rueful. “Well, we are men of the cloth, you know, not books in a lending library, but I regret to say some vicars do indeed treat us as such.”

“You mean a vicar who had an important service to perform might request help from another parish?”

“Yes, these things do happen.”

I brightened. “That must be it. Sebastian Cantrip is another parish’s curate and he was simply borrowed for the wedding.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Hammond, but if you are referring to your—er, wedding,” he said with a cough, “there was no borrowed curate. It was my job to assist the vicar at your nuptials.”

I resisted the urge to light a cigarette. “Do you mean no one from outside your parish was expected?”

“No indeed,” he said proudly. “We took great pride in our ability to execute everything to the viscountess’s specifications.”

His last remark proved his involvement, I thought grimly. Mother had planned everything to the smallest detail, but Gerald’s mother had come from a family populated with bishops and her pet hobby was all matters ecclesiastical. The viscountess had expressed no interest in the wedding whatsoever except when it came to texts and hymns and vestments.

“And you don’t know a Mr. Cantrip?” I persisted.

“Indeed not, although if I did, I should think it a very great joke,” he said, the smile once more in evidence.

“Oh, why?”

“Well, as it happens, I am a fancier of unusual names. I collect them, as it were, and Cantrip is most singular.”

“In what way?”

He shrugged. “I should presume it was a pseudonym. Have you never heard the word before? A
cantrip
is an old Scots word. It means a witch’s trick, a spell. The very word means
deception
.”

I rose slowly from the pew and fished in my bag for a note. “For the collection plate, Mr. Hobbs. Thank you for your time.”

I went out into the street, blinking at the weak sunlight. The church had been a haven of cool security, but now I felt oddly off balance, as if someone had just proven the sky was green. I walked slowly across to the park and sat on a bench, thinking hard.

“Private reflection my eye,” said Masterman as she slid onto the bench next to me.

“I beg your pardon?”

“If you wanted a nap, there’s many a place better than that,” she told me.

I shrugged. “I nodded off. It’s been a very trying time,” I replied to her, but my mind was elsewhere.

I had been overwrought that day, but it wasn’t as if I had
imagined
him. In the first place, too many other people had seen him. And in the second, how had I got myself down to Devonshire without him driving me?

“Of course he drove you,” Masterman was saying.

I blinked. “Was I talking aloud?”

“Muttering more like. Something about that Mr. Cantrip and imagining. What’s this all about?” she demanded.

I took a deep breath and plunged in. “I came to London today to thank Mr. Cantrip for the spot of rescuing he did when he drove me down to Devon. But I cannot find him. In fact, the curate in the church seems to think no such person exists.”

Masterman pursed her lips. “Of course he does. We all saw him.”

“Exactly. But who was he, if not Sebastian Cantrip, curate of this parish? And more to the point, what was he doing at my wedding?”

Masterman was thoughtful. “My money is on reporter. They’re a nasty lot, those journalists. Probably infiltrated the wedding party to get some exclusive information to publish in his newspaper.”

“He is not one of those filthy reporters,” I countered with some warmth.

“How would you know?”

“Because he just isn’t,” I retorted stubbornly. “He’s kind.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re smitten with him.”

“Don’t be vulgar. I’m nothing of the sort. It’s only good manners to thank people when they do you a good turn, and he might have got into real trouble helping me run away.” I paused, horrified. “You don’t think that’s why he’s disappeared, do you?”

Masterman gave a short bark of a laugh, the first I’d ever heard from her. “I hardly think so. What do you expect, miss, that the Archbishop of Canterbury keeps a special prison just for wayward priests? Locks them up with only bread and water, never to see the light of day?”

She laughed again and I gave her a sour look. “You needn’t be so foul, Masterman. It was an idea. I never said it was a good one.”

She sobered and her expression was a little kinder. “Miss, don’t take it like that. I was only having a bit of fun.”

“At my expense.”

“Well, you were the one being silly,” she pointed out reasonably. “Now, why don’t you work backwards? That’s what I do whenever I’ve misplaced something. Where was the last place I know it was, and where before that?”

“He isn’t a misplaced hat or bit of knitting, you know.” It felt pointless, but I hadn’t a better idea, so I obliged her. “The last place we saw him was in the cottage. He said he was returning to London.”

“And where before that?”

“In the motorcar,” I began, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew. “Oh, Masterman, you utter genius!” I clasped her hand in excitement. “I saw a garage ticket in the glovebox when I was looking for a packet of cigarettes. A garage ticket fell out, a ticket with a—oh, drat. I can’t remember the name now.”

“Of course you can,” Masterman said confidently. “It only requires a bit of concentration. Close your eyes.”

I obeyed, burrowing in my memory for the name. Something Irish, of that I was certain. And an address in Hampstead.

“O’Loughlin’s,” I said, my eyes popping open. I regarded Masterman with real admiration. “You are quite useful.”

She gave me a thin smile. “You are not the first to make that observation, miss. Shall we go?”

In a very short while we found ourselves in Hampstead, standing on a main road. It seemed logical that a shop or post office would best know the garages in the area, and a quick visit to the latter provided the exact address. The garage was in the next street, and we hurried there, growing more excited with each step.

The garage man was wiping his hands on an oily rag when we appeared, looking a little out of place amongst the spanners and grease. I flicked Masterman a look indicating she should stay behind me. She obeyed, keeping a little distance as the garage man came forward.

“Can I help, miss?”

I put out my hand, then thought better of it when he apologetically showed a soiled palm.

“I hope so. Are you the proprietor, Mr. O’Loughlin?”

He grinned. “Naw, miss. I’m Wilson. Never has been an O’Loughlin here. I gave the place that name because the quality do like their Irish chauffeurs, don’t they?”

I returned the smile. “Clever of you, Mr. Wilson. I’ve come because I’m trying to find an acquaintance of mine, a gentleman who assisted me under some very trying circumstances. He gave me a ride when I rather desperately needed transportation. I’m afraid I didn’t have a chance to thank him properly and it’s rather got under my skin. It would have been about a week ago. He drives a pretty little Talbot tourer. Painted blue? Quite fast?”

The garage man’s face brightened. “Ah, yes, a right little beauty, isn’t she? And Mr. Fox is a good customer, he is. Always ready with a pleasant word and what matter if he forgets a bill now and then? He always pays it and a little more when he realises. A real gentleman.”

“Mr. Fox, you say? I’m afraid I didn’t catch his name when he gave me a ride.”

“Sebastian Fox,” the garage man said promptly. “He lodges in the next street with Mrs. Webb what keeps the big house on the corner.”