This Rake of Mine (30 page)

Except it turned out to be the last thing he was able to see, for it was then that he was clouted over the head, and he slumped into blackness.

"You've killed him!" Miranda said, rushing forward to Jack's collapsed form, dropping to her knees beside him.

"Better now than costing the Crown the jury fees and the court's time, I say," Sir Norris spat as he regained his feet.

She ignored the repugnant man and pulled off her gloves, her bare fingers seeking out Jack's neck.

"Is he—" Felicity asked, coming forward with her sister and cousin. The girls huddled together in a tight knot.

Miranda shrugged, a sense of helplessness enveloping her as she searched for a sign of life. Then finally, beneath her fingers, she made out the dull thudding of his heart.

"Oh, thank heavens, he's alive," she said, heaving a sigh.

"What's all this?" Sir Norris said, nodding at his men to take Jack away. "You come to my house all ready to see the man arrested and now you want him treated to silks and kid gloves?"

"I just don't think—" Miranda began.

"Miss Porter, I don't care what you think. You can share your misguided notions with the jury."

"What do you mean, the jury?" she stammered, rising to her feet and facing him, all the while her gaze remained on Jack. What had he been saying before they'd struck him? Something about a "greater good"?

Whatever had that meant?

"The jury," Sir Norris repeated. "You will be required to testify. All four of you."

The baronet's words finally sunk in. "Testify?" Surely, she hadn't heard him correctly.

"Of course. You found the body, Miss Porter, you and those girls of yours. You'll have to testify at the inquest."

Testify? Miranda could only manage to shake her head. They couldn't testify, especially in public. Word of it would surely ruin the girls.

And worst of all, their testimony would condemn Jack.

Oh, Jack
. Her heart stilled, and for once her reason held sway. There was more to this than met the eye…

"I don't think we will be available to testify, Sir Norris," Felicity said, as if declining an improper invitation. "We are expected at Lady Caldecott's by nightfall. And since we would be compelled to tell the truth, it was actually Brutus who found the man." She crossed her arms over her small chest. "We had very little to do with it."

Sir Norris looked at her. "And who is this Brutus?"

Tally came forward, holding up the key witness. "My dog."

Sir Norris choked and coughed. "A dog? You expect the dog to testify?" His face was now bright red, and he turned his displeasure toward Miranda. "You and your charges aren't going anywhere."

She shook her head. "Sir Norris, it is impossible—"

"It is not only possible, miss, but I demand it. Try to leave the shire, and I'll see the four of you locked up beside that villain to ensure your testimony."

"Lock us up?" Now it was Miranda's turn to grow outraged.

The girls looked equally askance.

"Oh, yes, miss. Don't try my patience on this. I've spent years hot on the heels of these wretched Tremonts, as my father did afore me, and now that I've caught one of 'em red-handed, mayhap they'll think twice afore they send another of their lot down here."

"And where exactly do you expect us to stay?" Miranda asked, her temper rising quickly.

The man blew out a disgruntled breath, then he waved his hand toward the manor house. "Stay here. Been good enough for you so far, and now that Lord John is well in hand, at least you won't be sleeping with one eye open to keep these young ones intact." He laughed at his crude joke, then whistled for his dogs.

Jack was tossed none too gently into the back of a wagon that Sir Norris had commandeered from the shipwright. Mr. Jones was already there, shackled and tied down.

Miranda hurried over and peered over the rails at Jack, who lay still and deathly quiet.
What have I done to you?
Unconsciously, she reached out to touch his arm, to reassure herself that he was still alive.

"Git yer hands off of 'em," Mr. Jones growled at her.

Even though she knew the giant of a man was shackled, Miranda snatched her hand back at his fierce and protective tones.

"Haven't ye done enough?" he spat. "If only he had listened to me and sold the lot of you off the day you arrived." He shook his head. "Too noble for that. Always doing what's right. Trying to make a good name for himself. Not that I expect the likes of you to understand." He turned his face away.

Miranda took a step back. Those were more words than she'd ever heard the man speak in one sentence, and there was a passion, a faith in them, a faith in Jack, that echoed her own suspicions about this enigmatic man lying between them.

"I didn't mean for this—" she started to tell him but stopped, realizing that nothing she could say would make up for what was about to happen to Jack… or to Mr. Jones.

"But Sir Norris, what about that poor man?" she asked, pointing back at the body in the garden.

"I would suggest burying him, miss. A little deeper this time." He chuckled as if he'd never heard such a fine jest.

"The man deserves a decent committal, sir," Miranda told him, ignoring his mocking tones. "In the churchyard and with the blessing of a man of the cloth."

Sir Norris's gaze rolled heavenward, as if he were searching for his last vestige of patience. "If you want a Christian burial, I'll send the vicar up to give that sot a few words, but don't expect to see him buried in the churchyard. He's probably as immoral as the rest of the lot around here and unfit to lie alongside the good people of this shire. Bury him here, miss. With the rest of the Tremont rabble."

Miranda's hands went to her hips. "Sir Norris, I protest—"

He threw up his hands. "Enough, miss! And don't even think about leaving. Obstructing justice would see you transported at the very least, hanging beside Tremont if I have any say in it."

And then just as suddenly as her world had fallen apart, Sir Norris and his company were gone and Miranda found herself alone with the girls, standing in the yard of Thistleton Park.

"Miss Porter?" Tally asked, coming to stand at her elbow. "What are we to do?"

"We are going to get to the bottom of all this, that is what we are going to do."

Miranda wasn't so sure of her plan several hours later when they still hadn't succeeded in opening the secret panel in the library.

Not that they had spent the entire time trying to open it. They'd had another task to handle first—burying the stranger in Jack's garden. They hadn't been able to find Mr. Stillings, (or Mr. Birdwell, for that matter), so Miranda had pleaded with the workmen to dig a grave. Not one of them could be induced to help until she'd gone and fetched her reticule and offered a ridiculous sum for the task.

It wasn't so much the digging of the hole, one of the lads had confessed. It was digging around the Tremonts already buried there that had made the locals leery.

But finally it had been done and the man had been buried, his grave marked with a bouquet of flowers the girls had gathered. Then Miranda had set forth on the next item of business.

Getting that passageway open. She was convinced it would help to answer their questions. But their attempts had yet to even budge the wall.

Tally and Felicity sat on the couch with Brutus snoring between them. Pippin lay on the floor before the shelves.

"I give up," she declared. "I am bruised from head to toe trying to fall on this again."

Miranda was of a mind to agree with her—there was no way to open it other than her much earlier idea of using an ax.

"Couldn't we offer those men outside an extra bit of gold to break down the wall?" Felicity asked.

"I've already tried," Miranda said. "They won't do it. That Jonas fellow says digging a grave is one thing, but he won't be opening walls and letting out the ghosts that live in this house."

"Ghosts," Tally scoffed, which gained her an arched glance from her sister and cousin. "So I might have believed the stories a little bit last night."

"What are we to do, Miss Porter?" Pippin asked. "They'll move Jack and Mr. Jones in the morning to Hastings and then there will be no saving them."

"I don't know Pippin," she admitted.

"What about Jack's brother?" Felicity suggested. "We could send urgent word to the duke."

Miranda had considered it, but she had to imagine that the Duke of Parkerton's response would be much the same as her father's might have been.

I'll not waste good money after bad.

"I think the better course would be to send word to my solicitor." She had money… and there was no one to naysay how she spent it. And she would spend it, she thought, looking around for a pen and paper. Every last shilling if it meant helping Jack.

At least to see him fairly tried
, she reasoned as she attempted to reconcile the blood on her nightrail with the man who, as Mr. Jones said, was "trying to make a good name for himself."

Pippin rose from the floor and stared at the wall, her hands on her hips. "I wish Mr. Birdwell hadn't disappeared as well," she sighed. "For it is well past supper and we missed nuncheon and tea." With this complaint she shot Miranda an aggrieved look. When that didn't result in any sympathy, she turned her attention back to the library wall that was the root of all her problems. "I am fair to famished with all this work." She kicked the bottom shelf with her slippered foot, and then leaped back as it creaked and then moved, leaving an opening wide enough for someone to slip through.

Miranda rushed forward. "What did you do, Pippin?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I just gave it a good kick."

"And that is the answer to many things," came a rattled, cronish voice. "Men and dogs, sometimes all they understand is a good kick."

Tally and Felicity bounded to their feet, and Miranda stepped in front of them, pulling Pippin behind her as well to face this newest surprise.

"Who goes there?" Miranda asked.

From out of the opening in the wall came a spry old woman. She must have been seventy if she was a day, but she moved with the agility of a young lady in her first Season.

"Oh, stop gaping like a bunch of mackerels at the market. It's not like you didn't know the passageway was there, or so Dingby tells me."

"Who are you?" Miranda demanded.

The lady's regal brow rose in a noble arch of displeasure. "I am the lady of this house, if you must know, you impertinent piece of baggage."

Tally's brow furrowed. "You mean you are Jack's wife?"

The old woman laughed—well, cackled, as if she had never heard anything so funny. "Married to that bounder? I think not. That lot belongs to another." At this, she sent Miranda a pointed glance.

Shaking off the chills that ran down her limbs, Miranda looked a little closer at the woman, a wild notion taking hold. "Lady Josephine?"

The old woman eyed her slowly, taking Miranda's measure, then nodded. "Just as that no-account nephew said, you are too smart for your own good. Yes, I am Lady Josephine."

"But you're dead," Pippin said, taking a step back.

"Never believe everything you hear, young lady."

"But Sir Norris told us—" Felicity said.

"Sir Norris? That horse's ass? He hasn't the wit to clean out a stall, let alone to know what end the mess came from."

Miranda looked at the woman again, let her words resonate through her memory. She had heard this lady's voice before. "You were in the library with Lord John the other night. You're Mrs. Pymm."

Lady Josephine nodded. "Yes. And you were snooping about."

"I was not snooping."

The old lady laughed again. "I would suggest going with the first theory, for if you weren't nosing about, then what were you doing seeking out my nephew's company at that hour of the night?"

Miranda blushed at the lady's accusation.

"They share a
tendre
for each other," Tally confided.

"A '
tendre'?
Is that what they call it these days?" Lady Josephine snorted. "We called it something else. A grand passion. Now that's a phrase that means something. One you don't waste your time dillydallying over either."

"Lady Josephine, what is the meaning of all this?" Miranda asked, determined to steer everyone back to the matters at hand. "Why are you hiding in your own house? And where is Mr. Birdwell?"

"Birdwell? Who the devil is—" She smiled, then nodded her head. "You mean Dingby? He's somewhere back there." She poked her head back into the crevice and called out, "Dingby, Dingby Michaels? Where the devil are you?" She rubbed her chin. "He was right behind me. For a highwayman, it's hard to believe he can't find his way in the dark." She nodded to Pippin and pointed a bony finger over at the sideboard. "Fetch that brace of candles for me, like a good girl."

Pippin did as she was bid.

"A highwayman?" Miranda sputtered, still trying to reconcile the fact that Jack's infamous great-aunt was alive. "There is a highwayman in there?" she said, pointing at the cavern and pulling Pippin away from the entrance by the back of her skirt.

Lady Josephine heaved a sigh. "It isn't as if the place suddenly got rats. And I can honestly say there have been far worse criminals come through that hole than Dingby." The lady blew out an aggrieved breath and took the brace of candles from Pippin. Then she poked them into the entrance and called out, "Dingby, do be a love and come out. That idiot neighbor of ours is long gone and there isn't a noose in sight." She shot an apologetic glance at her audience. "Even after all these years, he still gets a mite skittish when the magistrate comes calling." She glanced back into the passageway. "There you are. Thought I'd lost you. Come now, the young ladies have been looking for you."

And out of the passageway stepped a rumpled and dirty Mr. Birdwell, looking much older and a bit tattered from his experience.

"Mr. Birdwell!" Felicity said, coming forward to help her ally in matchmaking. Then she paused. "Or rather, Mr. Michaels. 'Tis good to see you well and safe."