Vexing The Viscount (29 page)

Isabella sighed.
Say what one will of Geoff, he has a knack for appearances.
“Geoffrey just discovered a remarkable case of port. He thinks it’s the best he’s ever had, but he’s dying to have another man’s opinion.”

Meri clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms with enthusiasm. “I’ll drink to that. When it comes to port, everyone’s entitled to my opinion.”

“And here’s our tea,” Isabella said amid the laughter as Nanette brought the silver tray in and placed it on the low table. Isabella waved her away. She liked to pour out herself, but Nanette knew enough to hover nearby in case something else was needed. “Why didn’t Jacquelyn come with you?”

“She said Charlotte was too young to enjoy London yet, and dragging the boys about town would make her feel too old,” Gabriel said. Their daughter, Charlotte, was nearly eleven, and the twin boys were eight.

“Those two would out devil Old Patch himself,” Isabella said, remembering how she’d had to hide every bit of her delicate breakables the last time they came to visit. “Well,
Jacquelyn must enjoy having Daisy back home to help corral those two little imps.”

Nanette erupted in a fit of coughing.

Gabriel cocked his head at Isabella. “Daisy is here. With you.”

“No, she left for home, oh, it must have been over a fortnight ago.” Panic bubbled in Isabella’s chest. “We expect to hear from her any day, saying that she arrived safely.”

“Well, she never did.” Gabriel turned an evil glare on Lord Wexford. “She was in your care. Why didn’t you escort her home properly?”

“I offered, but she wouldn’t hear of it.” Geoff rose from his perch on the settee arm. “So I arranged for her to travel with a widow and her daughter who w ere going to Bath. I put her on the coach myself.”

Gabriel Drake and his friend began talking at once, and Geoff’s voice chimed in, his tone harsher by the minute. Isabella was trying to think how to soothe all the ruffled masculine feathers in the room. She had to shut them up long enough so they would realize that angry talk would solve nothing. Then they might actually come to a decision about what must be
done
about this calamity.

But then she noticed Nanette sending her furious, silent signals and decided the men would have to shift for themselves. When her maid slipped into the hall, Isabella rose quietly and followed her. She hoped the discussion would not come to blows before she returned. Geoff was an amateur pugilist, and acquitted himself admirably in arranged matches, but Gabriel Drake had been a fighting man all his adult life and no doubt held little truck with sporting rules.

Nanette was wringing her apron in her hands when Isabella joined her.

“Nanette, is there something you wish to add to the discussion?”

“
Oui
, madame, most desperately I wish it, but I cannot.”

“And why is that?” Isabella asked, trying to sound calmer than she felt.

“Because I swore I would not,” Nanette said with anguish. “And you know, madame—who knows better than you?—that I am a trustworthy keeper of the secrets.”

“Yes, Nanette.” Isabella nodded. “I’ve always appreciated your discretion.”

“Then you know I cannot go back on my oath, not even if it means…” She dissolved into tears. “Even if I knew a street name, a place where one might find…”

“There, there.” Isabella patted her servant on the shoulder. So Nanette knew where Daisy was staying in London. “Perhaps it’s not as hopeless as that. What
precisely
did you swear to?”

“I swore not to tell a living soul.”

Isabella smiled. “Then your dilemma is solved. You can’t tell me, even though I know you want to.”

“But, madame—”

“I’m not finished, Nanette.” Isabella picked up a figurine from the foyer table.

It was the naughty little statue of Pan that Daisy had left in her room. It was just risqué enough for Isabella to need to display it in her foyer, where her visitors could be either shocked or amused by it, as they chose.

“You swore, and I would not have you break your oath for worlds,” Isabella said. “Therefore you must not tell a living soul.”

Nanette erupted in fresh sobs.

“However, you can tell Pan here.” She waggled the statuette between her two fingers. “He is not a living soul, but he’s an extremely good listener. Unburden yourself to him, my dear, and if I should happen to overhear your counsel”—Isabella shrugged expressively—“it will not be your fault.”

Daisy pleaded with Mr. Crossly, but he was adamant.

“I’m sorry as I can be, miss, but it don’t change the particulars,” he said, scratching his freckled, balding pate. “We rowed all the way around the blasted place. That island yonder has no proper dock, no way for me to know where’s a safe place to pull me shallop along. Not a curl of smoke to be seen. That tells me no one lives there. And if no one lives there, it stands to reason there’s cause for it. Most likely, no decent place to make landfall.”

“But—”

“If I was to tear the bottom out of the boat on some rocks under the surface, well, how would I feed me family, I asks ye? Besides, if I was to lose me livelihood, Mrs. Crossly would tan me hide and pin it up on her kitchen wall.”

“But our agreement was for you to take us to Braellafgwen.” Daisy glared first at Mr. Crossly, then at Lucian, who stared disinterestedly into the distance, refusing to take part in the discussion.

He might at least make himself useful instead of merely ornamental
, she thought with vehemence.

“No, I agreed to take ye upriver to an unnamed location. If ever a spot looked as if it were lacking a name, it’s that little hamlet there just between them trees.” Mr. Crossly swung the tiller around. “I can set ye alight at this village dock and ye can see if there’s a ferryman what can take ye
the rest of the way, or ye can ride back to London town with us now and call this a pleasure cruise.”

“Mr. Crossly, this is wholly unaccept—”

“That’ll do, Mr. Crossly,” Lucian finally spoke up. “Leave us here for now, but we’ll need you to fetch us back to town later.”

“You want me to come for ye tomorrow, then?”

“No.” Lucian eyed the island that divided the river into equal channels. “Better give us two days.”

The river man nodded and deposited them on the dock.

Daisy watched the tilt boat head back downstream with a sinking feeling in her gut. They were so close. She could see the island, its outline hazy through the mist that rose around it. But if they couldn’t find a way over to it, they might as well have stayed in London. Of course, if they had to find a ferryman, so would Fitzhugh. Perhaps the other trea sure seekers hadn’t gotten too far ahead.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Were you speaking to me?” Lucian said as he started up the goat track toward the village.

“I don’t see anyone else here,” she answered testily. “How do you propose to proceed?”

“So I’m allowed a say in my own expedition now? I thought you were making all the travel arrangements,” he said, not slowing his stride.

“So I did.”

“And look how well that turned out.”

“I got us this far.” She scrambled up the slope after him. “We’ll just have to find someone to take us to Braellafgwen.”

He stopped and extended a hand to help her over the crest of the rise. The tiny hamlet spread out before them, a collection of ramshackle huts around a little stone church. Besides the church, one other structure looked as though it might have been erected after the Norman conquest. A
shingle with a picture of a boar on it twisted in the breeze over the only proper door in the village.

“A public house?” Lucian wondered.

“Or, please God, an inn,” Daisy suggested hopefully. “Thanks to you, we’ll be here two days.”

“And nights,” he muttered under his breath.

“Don’t presume to think about it.” She wasn’t ready to forgive him yet, certainly not enough to allow him to share her bed.

“Think about what?” He raised a questioning brow, but the smolder behind his eyes told her exactly what was on his mind. For a moment, the memory of heat, the wickedness of his mouth on her surged back over her in palpable waves. Her belly clenched.

She almost slapped him for resurrecting that memory, but he offered her his arm in the nick of time.

“Well, my Lady Clavenhook, adventure calls among the rustics. Shall we sally forth?”

“Let’s. But tread warily, Sir Knight,” she warned. “Or Lady Rowena of the Deadly Pike will be forced to rise again.”

Sir Alistair consulted his map once more. They’d met the other tilt boat heading back downriver, without its passengers, but the bends in the Thames prevented them from seeing where Viscount Rutland and Miss Drake were put ashore. An island rose ahead of them, mist-wreathed and ethereal even in the early afternoon.

“There,” he said, pointing toward it. “That’s Braellafgwen.”

“It may be, but the party you’re followin’didn’t put in there,” the boat’s captain said. “An ill-omened sort of place, that island be. I’ve heard tales. Reckon the folk you’re after have gone to that village over there. Fine little dock they have, to be sure.”

“Nevertheless, that island is our destination.” Alistair rolled up the small map he’d torn from the pages of Edlington’s
Age of Magic
and stuffed it into the turned-back cuff of his jacket.

“That’s as may be, gov, but lookit how steep the land lies. No proper beachhead, not according to the charts. Without no dock, we got no place to put ye ashore.”

“Just get us close enough,” Alistair said. “We’re not afraid of wet feet.”

“It’s not yer feet I’m frettin’over. It’s the bottom of me boat. This water’s so silty ye can’t see a foot down. I’ll not ruin me boat for a single fare.”

“Perhaps you’ll like me to alter our arrangement.” Alistair pulled Lord Montford’s pistol from his pocket and pointed the business end toward the man at the tiller. “Now, order your men to row and take us to the island with all speed.”

The tilt-boat captain barked an order and they crept toward Braellafgwen. One of the rowers knelt in the prow, trying to judge the draft beneath the craft with his oar. As they neared the island, the current quickened and they had to row faster to maintain even their slow pace.

“Bottom’s coming up fast, Cap’n,” the crewman shouted when they were still ten feet from the steep banks of the isle. “There’s naught but two feet under the keel. Maybe less.”

The captain called a halt and the rowers shipped their oars. One of the crewmen dropped the anchor over the side to hold their position in the current.

“Shoot if ye must. I’ll not risk the boat or the crew another moment in this madness,” the captain said. “A mist like this on a cloudless day ain’t natural. This is an evil place. Don’t ye feel it?”

“What are we to do now?” Brumley whined.

“We leave ignorance and superstition behind.” Alistair
threw a leg over the side and stepped down into the dark water. It rose to midthigh. Lord Montford followed suit.

“But I can’t swim,” Brumley whimpered.

“You don’t have to swim. You can walk, fool. Now come,” he ordered. When Brumley still hesitated, he added, “Or crawl back to your well-placed wife with your manhood tucked between your cowardly legs.”

The moment Brumley lowered himself over the side, the tilt-boat crew hauled anchor and rowed away, pulling for all they were worth.

“Come along, Brumley.” Alistair sloshed toward the island. He heard a yelp behind him and turned to see Brumley step into a hole and sink from sight, his white wig bobbing in the current. Alistair scrambled back to the spot, felt under the water and grasped a handful of his hair. He jerked him to the surface. Brumley came up sputtering and gasping and trying to climb up Alistair’s arm.

“Good thing you’re not bald or you’d be a dead man,” Alistair said. He kept hold of Brumley’s collar as he waded back toward the island.

Ahead of them, Lord Montford plowed through the water steadily, but was not making much progress. He held his pistol over his head to keep his powder dry. Alistair would have to reload his later. For just a blink, it seemed as if the island retreated from them with every step, but Alistair dismissed that notion as fanciful in the extreme.

“Evil place, my aunt Fannie’s arse,” he said with derision when he finally reached the steep shoulder of the island. He’d never admit it to a living soul, but for a few heartbeats, he’d been beginning to believe the island might indeed be “ill omened.”

The men scrambled up the fifteen feet of nearly vertical face before the slope relaxed and the island spread out, a tree-covered oval with a high point in the center.

“Let’s get a fire going so we can dry our clothes,” Brumley said.

“We can’t have a fre.” Alistair wished he’d never brought Brumley into this venture if the man was going to be so dense. “Someone might see the smoke.”

“So we’re stuck here like this. Wet and miserable and…I’ll bet neither of you thought to bring any food.” Lord Brumley plopped down on the decaying trunk of a fallen ash. “Why didn’t we go to the village, like Rutland and the Drake girl?”

“Because two strangers are enough for one small hamlet to absorb,” Lord Montford said. “Three more would be impossible to conceal without the first two becoming aware of them.” He tossed Brumley a withering glance. “Since we have arrived on Braellafgwen ahead of my son and…that other person, we will be able to easily shadow them once they arrive. Our presence here must remain a secret until the opportune moment.”

“Quite,” Alistair concurred. “To that end, let us find a spot to conceal ourselves and take turns watching for boat traffic from the mainland. If we miss them, we might lose the trail.”

Permanently
, he added in silence. Besides, they’d need what ever craft Daisy Drake and Lucian Beaumont traveled in to carry them away from this cursed rock.

“Braellafgwen?” the innkeeper, whom they discovered was called Mr. Dedham, asked. “Why ever would ye be wanting to go there? No one goes there. Haunted, it is. And the woods—all full of eyes, they says.” The innkeeper’s surprise reassured them that no other party had asked about Braellafgwen recently. Perhaps Fitzhugh wasn’t dogging them, after all.