This Rake of Mine (31 page)

Miranda was glad to see the old butler as well, but she had to wonder if anything at Thistleton Park was what it seemed. Its dead mistress was alive. The dignified and proper butler was a highwayman.

"A former highwayman," Birdwell said, as if having heard her thoughts. "I gave over that profession years ago."

"Not that it doesn't come in handy on days like today," Lady Josephine chuckled, then she looked over Felicity, her eyes narrowing. "You're Langley's girl, one of the—" Her words trailed off as she looked over at Tally. "Ah, yes, the twins. That explains much. Took after your mother in looks and inherited your father's nerve and wit. You'll be a formidable pair one day."

Miranda watched the two puff up with pride. Goodness, all they needed was encouragement from the likes of Lady Josephine.

"My lady, Mr. Birdwell," Miranda said, "we can go on all night getting acquainted and worrying about tea, but meanwhile Jack… I mean to say Lord John and Mr. Jones are going to be transported tomorrow to Hastings and then—" She didn't want to finish her statement, because even saying the words "will be hung" seemed tantamount to giving up. "We must do something. Tonight."

The woman shot a glance at Birdwell, who nodded at her, as if giving his agreement that they could be trusted.

She then cast her intense gaze over each of them. "What I have to say is to be kept in the utmost confidence. There are more lives at stake than just that of my no-account nephew. I will have your word on it, each of you."

The girls each promised, as did Miranda.

And then they listened as Lady Josephine explained everything to them.

And at the end of her unbelievable story, Miranda glanced out the window and into the darkness.

Jack, oh, Jack, why didn't I see it?

The man she'd loathed, the man she'd thought a wastrel, was everything she had ever dreamed a man could be.

And now once more, she was about to lose him.

But this time, she wasn't going to let propriety or decorum or the ideas of others stand in the way. Now that she could see that Jack wasn't the dissolute rake she'd thought, it was time for her to be the woman she had hidden all these years.

The woman she was meant to be, Nanny Rana might say.

"Then there is only one thing we can do," Miranda announced as she rose from her chair and threw her shawl around her shoulders. "When Sir Norris arrives in the morning to take them to Hastings, I think it only fair he find an empty jail."

Clearing his throat, Birdwell said, "That is a fine plan, Miss Porter. However, there is only one problem with it."

"What could it be?" Miranda asked.

"They're locked in," Lady Josephine pointed out. "But your spirit does you credit." She got up and paced about the room. "Too bad Malcolm is gone. He was a dear boy with explosives. Quite handy in such circumstances." She glanced over at the girls. "Any of you have a talent with gunpowder?"

Felicity looked horrified, Tally disappointed, and Pippin almost willing to give it a try just to please the old gal.

"Really, my lady, it is a rather small jail," Birdwell interjected. " 'T'would do more harm than good."

"Pity," Lady Josephine said. "Might give Sir Norris a fateful case of apoplexy to have his jail blown up."

"If only Mr. Stillings was here to help us," Pippin said.

Birdwell cast a glance over at Lady Josephine, who, if it was to be believed, looked like she was blushing. "I believe, Lady Philippa, I can solve that mystery," he said.

Taking up the candlestick, he went down into the cavern, then returned leading a bound and gagged Stillings.

"My sincerest apologies," the butler offered. "But I am afraid he saw us moving Mr. Grey's body out of the house, and Bruno knocked him out before Lord John could stop him. With Sir Norris about to arrive, we all thought it best that Mr. Stillings recuperate in the tunnel."

Mr. Stillings was untied, and after he got over the indignity of the entire situation, Pippin and Miranda were able to convince him to help them.

However, as it turned out, the driver knew nothing of explosives and even less about breaking into jails. His only thought was seeing to the horses, and so he excused himself.

With his departure, Lady Josephine sighed and rubbed her chin. "Then we will just have to do it with less flair. Find someone to pick the locks."

"I think I can be of help with that task," came a reply that surprised everyone.

All eyes turned toward Tally. The girl grinned. "I can pick a lock."

Lady Josephine reached over and with one finger pushed Miranda's lower jaw closed. "Miss Porter, close your mouth. 'Tis unladylike to gape."

Jack awoke in near darkness. His head hurt like hell and the rest of him didn't feel much better. He tried to rise up from the cold, wet stone floor, but his head spun, and he collapsed back down.

Even as he fell, he heard a laugh that sent a chill through his bones that had nothing to do with the cold stone floor beneath him.

"So the mighty Tremont is finally waking up. Keeping London hours, eh, Dandy?"

"Sir Norris," Jack muttered, more as a curse than a greeting.

Then it all came back to him. Malcolm's death, Miss Porter's betrayal—make that Miss Mabberly's betrayal.

He didn't know which stung more, the fact that she was alive or the fact that she hadn't come to him first. Asked him about the passageway, about Grey.

Oh, yes, and he would have told her the entire truth, he thought, rubbing his aching skull. No, trust had always been in short supply around Thistleton Park.

And then there was Dash. Unreliable, unpredictable Dash.

If Jack wasn't back on that beach tonight, there with Dash's gold, who knows what the arrogant, crack-brained Yankee would do with a cargo more precious than all the jewels in London. Probably sail back to France and sell the other agents he now held hostage to Bonaparte.

The ironic fact in all of it was that Bonaparte would most likely pay him more money than Pymm would.

He struggled to his feet. "Let me out of here." Jack clung to the bars, if only to hold himself up. "You don't realize what you are doing. I have to be—" Then he stopped, not knowing how far he could trust Sir Norris. Though the man was a magistrate, he wasn't the smartest or most discerning of fellows.

And he certainly wasn't the first person Jack would want to trust with the fate of England.

"Be where, you bastard? Back on that beach? Stealing my livelihood right out from beneath my very nose? Well, I'm done looking the other way on your little midnight forays. You've skimmed from my profits for long enough." He slammed his walking stick across the bars of the cell, nearly taking Jack's fingers off—if Jack hadn't pulled them back just in time.

"Sir Norris, you have it all wrong. If you would just hear me out—"

"Hear you? Hear the word of a Tremont? Lies and deceptions. Your aunt was always one to talk at me until she had me in circles. A regular vixen, she was, what with her wiles and charms." The man stepped back and shook his head. "I'll not listen to a word you have to say. Unless you want to tell me what is coming ashore tonight and who your supplier is. I'm always in the market for a new source for brandy."

Jack sat back on the floor and shook his head.

"Not brandy, eh?" Sir Norris said. "Tea, perhaps? Fetching a good price in London right now." He snapped his fingers. "That's it, isn't it? Tea. I thought as much. I'll be rich by morning. Negotiate a good percentage with your fellow and have all the business from Hastings to Dungeness to myself. Or at least my fair cut of it."

"You'll be dead if you go down there," Jack told him.

"And good riddance," Bruno muttered from his corner.

"Kill me?" Sir Norris let out a mighty snort. "Think you can frighten me with your lies? Why the devil would he kill me? It is really quite simple; either he gives me his cargo or I light off a few rockets. Then my regular contacts—let us call them our friends from Calais, who have been after this fellow for months—will solve the problem for me. They'll have his ship before he can get through the surf. I've seen to that."

Jack sprang from the floor and shook the bars. "You can't do that. Everyone on board that ship would die."

"Then I suppose I won't have to negotiate a percentage with the fellow, will I?" Sir Norris sneered. He reached down and snapped open his pocket watch. "Time to go. Got some tea to unload." He turned to leave, his henchmen at his heels.

"No, you can't do this!" Jack protested. "The man coming ashore isn't one for games or negotiations."

"Everyone negotiates," Sir Norris told him. "Or else they find themselves in the same position as your friend in the garden." He opened the door and started to leave.

Jack had nothing left to lose. For everything was lost if Sir Norris went down to that beach.

"The very fate of England is at stake, man! Do not do this!"

Norris stopped and turned. "The fate of England?" He laughed. "Your aunt could have come up with a better tale than that. And been a might bit more convincing." And then he left the jail.

Left Jack to his fate.

«
^
»

"P
icking locks, Miss Thalia?" Miranda said over her shoulder as they quietly approached the village jail.

Tally had the cheek to grin from ear to ear. "Would you believe it if I told you I hadn't the skill until I came to Miss Emery's?"

Miranda groaned. "You aren't going to cozen me into believing you learned larceny at Miss Emery's. In truth, did you learn this from one of your countless nannies?"

"No, it's true. Kit Escott taught me," she said quite proudly.

This caught Miranda's attention, and she turned around and stared at Tally. Miss Kathleen Escott was one of Miss Emery's finest triumphs, having married very well, even though it was rumored that the circumstances had been rather questionable.

Not that such a thing ever mattered to Miss Emery: A good marriage was all she asked of her former students. It was better advertisement than an ad in the
Morning Post
.

Still, Miranda was having some trouble believing Tally. "Are you telling me the Countess of Radcotte taught you how to pick locks?"

Tally nodded and grinned. "I'm certainly not as accomplished as she is, but she claimed I was the most adept student she'd ever trained."

"We shall see exactly how adept you are, Miss Thalia," Birdwell said, dousing the lamp he held and pointing toward the low, squat building that sat in the middle of the village square.

Miranda glanced around the little huddle of houses and shops that sat at the crossroads. It looked like so many other English towns that had grown up bordered by great estates, or sitting as this one was, at the intersection of two roads.

And luckily for them, the jail was not much more than a small stone cottage.

"Do you think anyone else is in there?" Miranda asked Birdwell.

"No. Sir Norris is too tightfisted to pay someone to stay the night."

Miranda nodded, then glanced back at the jail, which was situated out in the open, as bright and obvious as a plum atop a cake. And to make matters worse, the full moon overhead seemed to have settled its bright beams directly on the front door.

"Not the best of nights for this," Birdwell muttered. "Would be better if it were a few nights from now and pitch black."

"Spoken like a true highwayman," Miranda whispered back at him. "But you are right, the moonlight could reveal our intentions if someone happens along. I want you to stay back here and act as a lookout—"

Birdwell sputtered a protest. "Miss Porter! I will not be left behind—"

"It is better if you stay here," she told him. "If we are caught, we will have the protection of our names and families to rely upon. But you, Mr. Birdwell, if your true identity were revealed, would hang."

He still shook his head.

"It is better this way," she told him, placing her hand on the sleeve of his coat. "One of us must go with Tally to help. If you were to go and the two of you were caught, that would leave only me left to save Lord John. I haven't the aptitude for picking locks or your experiences with evading the law. If we fail, Lord John will be better served with you to act as our backup."

The butler heaved a sigh and nodded. "If anyone happens along, I will make this whistle." He made an odd little chirping. "Drop down and throw your cloaks over your heads, you will blend into the shadows and most likely not be seen."

Miranda nodded, then started quietly and quickly across the village square with Tally beside her.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Miranda asked her, still dubious about taking one of Miss Emery's students on a midnight raid of one of the King's jails.

"I hope so," Tally whispered back.

The village around them was unsettling in its quiet. Not even a bit of rough laughter arose from the nearby inn, the common room dark and empty.

Tally knelt before the door and fumbled in her bag for her tools. "Odd that Lady Josephine had a pick set, don't you think?"

Given what they had learned of Thistleton Park this evening, Miranda couldn't imagine anything about Lady Josephine that would surprise her.

Or about Jack…

The lock rattled stubbornly as Tally first tried it, and Miranda's heart sank. Dear God, what if they couldn't set Jack free?

That would leave Felicity, Pippin, and Lady Josephine to wait for Dash's arrival alone.

Tally continued to try her hand at opening the locked door, muttering what Miranda suspected was not only Russian but also not in the least ladylike.

More of Nanny Tasha's lessons, no doubt.

Then, after one last oath, the lock made a loud click and the door gave way.

"I did it!" Tally whispered. "I did it!"

"You did!"

"The only other thing I've ever opened," she said excitedly, "is Miss Emery's wine cabinet."

Miranda paused and looked at her.

"I mean… I didn't really… Oh—" Tally finished her rebuttal with another bit of Russian.

"Let's just pretend I didn't hear that," Miranda told her.