Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1) Page 13

  “It’s his name in me father’s journal,” Tony hissed. “Justice. In me pa's own hand. ‘Meet Justice at the Hasslington Tollbridge,’ it says. I ain't made it up. An it's less'n two mile from th' place me pa stuck ’is spoon in th’wall. If Justice ain't the one done it, then lay odds he knows who did.”

  Cranshaw, Coffee, and Grey set out into the crowd under cover of Wolfe's raging tones, all three of them in search of Justice, all three doubting that the man could hold any responsibility in the murder of their friend's father. “But we'll git hold of ’im and give ’im a chance ta set Tony right,” Cranshaw muttered. “Niver seen sich a strong-headed bloke in me life. What do ye figger ’is lay be, Coffee? Ye ever ask ’im?”

  “Me? I ain't about to ask ’im,” answered Coffee. “Ye take a look at them pistols o’ his an' that mare he's ari-din', an' ye tell me if ye'd consider ’is lay any o' yer business, Bob.”

  “Nope. Puts me out o' joint sometimes, is all. Ye reckon ’is pa rode the High Toby an' Justice give ’im ’is comeuppance?”

  “Naw,” Grey muttered. “I don't reckon Justice done give nobody their comeuppance in ’is whole life. Wrong man.”

  While Tony waited for news of Justice, the earl, surrounded by a group of agitated, shouting men and women, sat studying the man on the platform. Deframers’ arms flailed in the air above him. Weapons, from small swords to very evil-looking cudgels, jerked in angry arcs. Even Bear stood and shouted with the rest. Geordan, however, remained cross-legged on the ground staring upward through a tangle of flexing legs and stomping boots at the intimidating personage on the platform, and tried to think why the man with the crooked nose seemed so familiar. Once or twice someone stepped on the earl or kicked into him, and he leaned one way or the other, but mainly he stayed where he was and puzzled over the man. When at last Wolfe had ceased speaking and the uproar that assaulted the earl's ears began to die, Bear suddenly remembered the earl's existence and knelt rather hurriedly down beside him. “Ye all right, lad?” he asked in his gruff voice. “I never thought. Ye could ha' gotten trampled t'death down there.”

  “N-No,” Geordan answered with a shake of his head d-did not get t-trampled.”

  “Bear, what have you got here?” The owner of the gentle voice knelt down beside Geordan and smiled at him. The earl grinned back into deep brown eyes fringed with long, dark lashes.

  “Why, I got me a new friend, Molly. This here be Geordie. Geordie, this be Molly.”

  “H-Hello,” the earl said. “You are very p-pretty. Is that all right to s-say?” he added with a quick glance at Bear.

  “It is perfectly all right to say,” smiled the young woman, “and very nicely said, too. Did you work at Sandburn with Bear?”

  “N-No,” Geordan answered as the young woman sat down sociably beside him. “I have n-never w-worked in a f-factory.”

  “His brother is a bookkeeper,” Bear added. “Th'lad followed 'im out here tanight an' then got hisself lost.”

  “I d-did not,” Geordan objected. “It is T-Tony who is lost.”

  “Well, then we must find him,” said the young woman. “Do you know who Tony is, Bear?”

  “No, but he's leadin' a little Welsh mare behind ’im. Chestnut wi' a gold mane an' tail. I reckon they ben't many o' them awanderin' about th' place. C'mon, m'lad,” Bear urged, rising and offering a hand to Geordan. “We'd best be off alookin' afore he leaves wi'out ye.”

  “Oh, your brother would not do that, would he?” queried the young woman, standing and taking the earl's arm.

  “N-No,” Geordan said, “ex-ex-cept he d-don't know I'm here.”

  “No, and we don't want him to neither,” Bear offered, going on to explain the earl's situation to Molly. “But if he has a horse, he will certainly leave you behind,” she exclaimed. “However could you have fol-lowed him without one?”

  “I h-have a horse,” Geordan said. “His n-name is M-Mouse, but he is b-back there. He d-does not like I-lots of p-people.”

  “Well, that's all right then,” agreed Molly, giving the earl's arm a quick squeeze and turning about to look through the jabbering crowd for the sight of a man leading a Welsh mare. Bear began to inquire again of acquaintances if they had seen such a man, and Molly asked among the women that she met. Once or twice someone nodded and pointed one way or the other. Following their directions, the three moved on through the throng, coming at last to the shadows at the far side of the platform.

  “Coffee,” Bear roared out at a rather disheveled man just walking away.

  “Aye?” The man turned and seeing who called, strolled back to the little threesome. “Bear? Somethin' I kin do fer ye?”

  “We be lookin' fer a cove, Coffee. Be this lad's brother. Be leadin' a little Welsh mare behind of 'em.”

  “Tony?” the man with one arm asked, staring at the earl incredulously. “Yer lookin' fer Tony?”

  Geordan nodded, his eyes wide, staring at the empty sleeve before him. “Wh-Where's your other arm?” he asked, catching at Coffee's fine gray eyes with his own. “Are you h-hiding it?”

  Coffee looked deeply into the awed blue eyes, then glanced to Bear and over to Molly. A great laugh roared from him at their expressions. “Why, I lost it, lad,” he explained, still chuckling. “Went to sleep one night, I did, on th' ground at Salamanca, an' when I woked up th'thin' were gone.”

  “R-Really?”

  “Yep. Leastways that's all I ’member ’bout th'affair. Now ye tell me, me fine fella, be ye truly Tony's brother?”

  “Y-Yes, sir, an' . . .” the earl's voice floated away on the night air; he blinked once; his body stiffened, trembled, and then went limp. He pitched forward and Coffee caught him with the arm he did not lose at Salamanca.

  TONY, frustrated when Cranshaw had returned with the news that Justice had departed the gathering, was already cantering angrily back toward home. Once past the docks, he gave the little mare her head and hurtled down the cobbled streets, furious at himself for having again missed the object of his search. Been almost a year he thought, finally reining the mare into a trot. Almost a year, and I have yet to see the villain's face. But the time will come when I will see it clearly across a field of honor.

  It had not occurred to him, in all this time, to lay charges against the man or to send the Runners after him. He had no longing, in fact, to see the man brought to trial nor to watch him swing from the gibbet at Tyburn. The Talbots had always quietly and privately gone about handling their own business. Tony would quietly and privately handle this business as well.

  He brought the little mare to a walk and into the stable yard just as the Watch was calling three. His anger and frustration greatly dissipated by exhaustion, he dismounted and wearily went about tucking the game little horse in for the night. When at last he stumbled up the back stairs and into his own bed, it was closing on four. That was why he awoke so groggily when Parsons swept his bed curtains aside at seven o'clock the next morning and why he had such a hard time understanding what it was the elderly valet was attempting to communicate to him. “I am sorry, Master Tony. I know you were out until quite late last night, but you need to be awake now,” that gentleman pleaded rather loudly.

  “Hmmm?” Tony mumbled, turning over and struggling to open his eyes. “What, Parsons?”

  “Please, Master Tony, wake up!”

  “I'm awake. I'm awake,” Tony mumbled, not at all sure that he was. “What is it? M'mother here?”

  “No, that is not until Sunday.”

  Tony pushed himself into a sitting position, his back resting against the squashed feather pillows, and rubbed at his eyes. When he opened them again to stare at Parsons, the paleness of the older man's face and the near panic in his demeanour did much to focus Talbot's attention. “Parsons? What is it? I have never seen you look so frightened.” He paused for a moment, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Is it Geordan? Is it another seizure? Well, we knew it might happen after the first one. They usually come in twos or threes. Is it
bad, Parsons?”

  The valet, who had been holding Talbot's silk dressing gown, helped him into it, waiting to get a word into Tony's one-sided conversation. “If it is so strong a one as to frighten you, we will send for Dr. Richards, or have you done so already?”

  Parsons waited a moment to see if there was a likelihood he would be listened to before Tony rambled on. It seemed there might be. “’Tis not a seizure,” he said somewhat panicky.

  “No?” Tony asked, an eyebrow cocking now that he was fully awake. “What then? Is it about Geordan?”

  “His lordship is missing,” Parsons gasped, unable to restrain himself longer. “He has disappeared. His bed has not been slept in and his horse is gone from the stables, and Tyler says it don't appear he took nothing with him. No, not even his coat. Just his oldest buckskin breeches and that patched cambric shirt he is so fond of and the most ramshackle of his riding boots.”

  Talbot stared at the valet, not believing at all what he had heard. “There is some mistake, Parsons. Perhaps he has gone riding with Miss Mapleton. And certainly his bed has been slept in. He went off to bed last night long before I left the house.”

  “No, sir, no. He does not ride with Miss Mapleton until Wednesday. Martin has not seen him at all this morning. Mouse was gone even before the stable boys finished breakfast. It was Martin who came asking where his lordship had gone that set us all to looking for the lad. He is not here, sir, anywhere. Even now Tyler and Simpson are combing the neighbourhood for a sight of him.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “SHHH,” Molly hissed as Coffee wandered through the door to the ramshackle dwelling in the dank environs of Puddin' Lane.

  “The lad still asleep?” Coffee asked, leaning down to toss two lumps of coal onto the kitchen grate.

  “He only woke once, just after we got him in the door. Bear laid him down upon Jesse's pallet, and he opened his eyes and mumbled something, and then he be unconscious again.”

  “Aye,” Bear said softly as he wandered into the kitchen from the back room, “and th'lad's been conversin' wi' th’gods ever since. Got to find us that brother o' his, Coffee. Man must be outta 'is mind with worryin' where the boy has got to.”

  “I doubt it,” Coffee sighed, pulling a chair up to the rough-hewn table that occupied most of the space in the kitchen.

  “You doubt it?” Molly asked, pouring all three of them a cup of freshly brewed tea. “Why? Is his brother not fond of him?”

  “Well, now I don't know that, my girl, seein' as how Tony ain't never so much as mentioned havin' a brother in my hearin'. What I meant ta say was, I doubt but that he don't even know yet the lad is missin'. Prob'ly he am 't got home as yet hisself.”

  “Not got home?” Bear asked, taking a cup from Molly and sipping at the hot liquid. “O' course he's got home. Prob'ly workin' by now. Bookkeepers got hours like th' rest o' us.”

  “Bookkeepers?” One of Coffee's finely arched eyebrows cocked upward over a serious grey eye. “Ye think Tony's a bookkeeper?”

  “Ain't 'e? Geordie says ta me 'is brother works wi' great big books an' lots o' numbers. Sounds to me li' a bookkeeper.”

  Coffee shrugged and thanked Molly as she set a piece of buttered bread before him. “I'll tell ye, Bear. Tony's a reg'lar right one far as I kin see. But he's always a showin' up wi' that little Welsh mare as purty as she kin be; a set o' pistols, one ahanging on the saddle bow and one stuffed in 'is belt; an' a neckerchief o' one colour er another tied about ’is neck what might make a purty fine mask, if ye take me meanin'.”

  “Oh, no,” Molly gasped, setting a piece of buttered bread before Bear and sitting down to the table herself. “You do not mean to say that Geordie's brother is a bridle cull?”

  “I don't say it, Moll. I don't know it fer sure. What I will say is ’twouldn't surprise me any.”

  “Well, devil it,” Bear growled, “what's a highwayman doin' takin' charge of a poor, slow-witted scamp like Geordie?”

  “I reckon,” Coffee answered, swallowing the bite of bread in his mouth, “that ’e didn't have a choice, Bear. Know fer a fact their pa's a dead ’un. Prob'ly couldn't put th'boy on th'parish. I couldn't meself, be he my brother. Why, they'd ’ave locked th' poor cove away in th'asylum an' Tony'd never see ’im agin. Not ta mention what a thin' like tha' might do ta th'lad's mind.”

  “And what does he imagine it will do to his brother's mind when the boy sees him swinging from the gibbet at Tyburn or dead in the road and thrown in an outlaw's grave?” Molly hissed. “It is a senseless thing to do, and when we find this Tony, you may believe that he and I shall have a few words on the matter.”

  “But Molly, m'dear” Bear pleaded, with a wink at Coffee, “these days a man's got ta earn ’is bread how somever ’e can. An' if th’lad be talented at capturin’ th'blunt from a score o' dukes an' th like, why who better ta provide him a livin'? They ain't one of ’em what cain't spare a flimsy er two an' never miss it.”

  “It is criminal.” Molly declared, “and like to bring an early end to the man as well.”

  “Aw, ye got too many of them there scruples, Moll,” Coffee grinned. “I tole Bear how it'd be when ’e sent ye off li' he did. Learn too many fine manners from them swells, says I. Be placin’ ’erself above the lot o' us. An, ’ere ye are a spoutin' off ’bout right an' wrong jus' them biddies ye be aservin' fer.”

  “’Tis true. Molly,” Bear agreed before she could defend herself. “Ye show me th'time when but one o' them fine families what live in them fine houses done ever showed their faces down upon this side o' th'town ta bring a bit o' help er ’couragement. Ye cain't, an' that's a fact.” Bear looked his niece up and down with an odd glint in his eye. “I ain't sayin' they deserve ta be robbed, me darlin'. I'm sayin' that if they be, why it don't hurt ’em none an' it puts food in someone's belly what needs it. Ye go take ye another look at that lad in there an' ye tell me keepin' ’im fed ain't worth takin' to the High Toby fer.”

  Molly shook her head, her clear brown eyes growing somewhat clouded. “Well, I do take your point,” “ she sighed, “but there ought to be some better way to go about it.”

  “It ain't clear how, Molly,” Coffee offered. “Yer uncle here, fer instance. Thin's were goin’ all fer him an' th' brats till Sandburn come along wi’ them em machines an' took th' bread out o' their mouths. What's ’e s'posed ta do? Cain't tell Jesse an' Davey an' Abby tha' they cain't eat no more. Got to fin’ a way ta give ’em somethin’. An’ he's tryin' ta git in th’way o' makin' an honest livin', but it jist ain't there.”

  “No,” Bear mumbled, his dark eyes shining into hers. “An’ were it not for ye bringin’ scraps an' patterns an' lef'over clothes from tha' fine place ye work, the children'd have nothin', Molly. An' ye needn't think I ain't grateful fer it. What it is,” the big man added with a terrible despair in his voice, “is I'm afeared o' havin' ta send th' little ones inta th' mill, fer they'll take the women an' children. They'll take those as cain't stick up fer themselves, an' work 'em ta death.”

  “Well, they shall not take Jesse and Davey and Abby, Bear,” Molly declared roundly. “If you cannot find work soon, I shall quit my position at Conover House and hire out to an employer who is willing to pay me a deal more. The Conover sisters will not, you know, for it is their contention that I learned my skills at their hands and therefore am adequately paid for serving them.”

  “Is that t-tea?” a very quiet voice asked from the doorway to the back room. All three heads turned to see the earl, his curls madly awry, his feet bare, his clothes wrinkled, and his hand rubbing at his eye, looking shyly at them.

  “Yes, my dear,” Molly said bracingly, “it certainly is. Come in here and I shall pour you some.” She walked to the doorway, took his arm, and led him to a chair. “It will take but a minute,” she said. “You sit down right here with Bear and Coffee.”

  The earl took the seat hesitantly, glancing shyly at the men. “I am s-sorry,” he murmured, and stared back down at the table. “I g-
guess I g-got ill a-g-gain.”

  “’T'ain't nothin' ta be sorry over, Geordie,” Bear said. “’Twas just a thin’ what happened to ye.”

  “Aye,” Coffee chimed in. “’Tweren't yer fault, m’lad.”

  “Think no more about it,” Molly added, setting a cup of tea before him and a piece of bread with butter. They all three watched as the earl took a bite of the bread and chewed it slowly, getting every bit of taste he could from it. It was obvious that he wanted to wolf it down and ask for more, and also obvious that he did not intend to let himself do so. “Thank you,” he said, swallowing. “It is very g-good.”

  “You are most welcome,” Molly smiled. “When you have finished your bread and butter, I shall give you another piece, and more tea as well.”

  “N-No, th-thank you,” Geordan replied. “This shall b-be enough. You do n-not have very much, and I am n-not very hungry.”

  “Oh? Are you not? And what did you have to eat last night, sir?” Molly asked with her hands on her hips.

  “I h-had lots of s-stuff and, and caramel t-tarts, too.”

  “Ye did, did ye?” Bear grinned. “And how much of all those delicious thin's did ye eat, Geordie?”

  “N-None,” the earl admitted with a sigh.

  Coffee nodded and asked Molly for more tea. “It's a outstandin' imagination ye got, lad. ’Specially the caramel tarts. Nex' ye'll be tellin' us yer brother's a earl.”

  “N-No, sir,” Geordan said, looking up into Coffee's smiling grey eyes. “Tony is n-not an earl. I am. But I wish T-Tony would be instead, b-because I am n-not particu-ticular-ly good at it.”

  Bear, whose children had been Princes, Princesses, Kings, and Queens many times, nodded soberly. “Bein' a earl is very hard sometimes,” he said with a wink at Molly. “Maybe when we git ye home, I kin talk yer brother into bein' the earl fer a while.”