Lord Hawkridge's Secret

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His fair brows snapping together, Charles went striding over to the door. ‘I consider Sarah a very valuable member of this household. When she does decide to remove back here I expect you in particular to treat her with a deal more respect than you have been wont to display in the past, otherwise you might find yourself packed off to Bath to spend a prolonged visit with Great-aunt Henrietta!’

By the look of mingled resentment and fear which flitted over exquisite features, Sebastian felt sure that the matron in question was somewhat formidable and not a firm favourite with the beauty of the house.

‘What on earth do you suppose has come over him?’ Drusilla asked, appearing genuinely bewildered, as Charles swept out of the room without uttering anything further. ‘I cannot imagine why he’s so out-of-all-reason cross.’

‘Ahh, I expect it is spring nipping at him, my dear,’ Sebastian enlightened her with a crooked half-smile, as he slipped her arm through his and patted her fingers reassuringly. ‘But do not be alarmed, child. It is unlikely that you shall ever succumb to the affliction.’

Chapter Five

Emily was swiftly forced to accept that she was nowhere near as intrepid now as she had been as a child. Years before, she would never have taken the least account of the chill night air, wouldn’t have nearly jumped out of her skin at the mere hooting of an owl, or imagined that every sound and every shadow was something sinister, just lying in wait to entrap her. Moreover, after twenty minutes of scouting the fringes of the wood, made infinitely more eerie by brief glimpses of moonlight filtering through the thick canopy of foliage high above her head, she was forced to acknowledge that this was not perhaps the most sensible course of action she had ever taken in her life.

Even if she was right, and Lord Hawkridge was here somewhere, concealed in the undergrowth, finding him would be a virtually impossible task. She could hardly call out his name, thereby alerting anyone else who might be lurking to her presence. Furthermore the wood covered a wide area, so there was no guarantee that Sebastian would have positioned himself in this particular section.

Yes, it had been unutterable madness for her to attempt to confirm her suspicions in this way by coming here tonight, she silently told herself, pausing beside the trunk of a sturdy elm. She glanced back over her shoulder in the general direction from which she had come, and had almost decided to abandon her efforts, and return to where she had left her mount tethered at the edge of the wood, when she detected the snapping of a twig directly behind her. The next moment something solid struck the backs of her legs just below the knees, felling her in a trice. All at once a large hand clamped over her mouth instantly smothering her cry of mingled fright and pain, while a substantial amount of bone and muscle effortlessly pinned her to the ground, confining her arms and making it impossible to reach the weapon concealed in the pocket of her borrowed jacket.

Eyes, glinting ominously, peered down at her from above the woollen muffler successfully concealing most of her captor’s face. Then just for a moment they widened fractionally, as he unexpectedly pulled off her floppy hat, allowing the long hair to tumble about face and shoulders, clearly revealing her sex.

‘I’ll wring your dratted neck, my girl!’ an unmistakable voice growled, and Emily, totally unmoved by the threat, almost cried out in relief as he removed his hand from over her mouth and pulled down the muffler to reveal an expression which betrayed more clearly than words ever could his annoyance at discovering her here.

‘What the blazes do you imagine you’re playing at, Emily?’ the man she had been searching for demanded, easing himself away so that she could remove the pistol, which had been digging painfully into a certain part of her anatomy, and sit up. ‘And what the devil are you doing with this?’ he added, removing the firearm none too gently from her fingers.

Given his present mood, she decided it might be wise to answer, even though she considered the question totally unnecessary. ‘Surely you didn’t imagine that I’d ever be stupid enough to venture out unarmed?’

He appeared not one iota appeased. ‘Where the deuce did you get it from?’

‘It’s Grandpapa’s.’

He regarded her now with acute suspicion. ‘Do you mean to tell me you’re here with his full knowledge and approval?’

‘Of course not,’ she answered, truthful to the last. ‘Although it was he who inadvertently confirmed what I had begun to suspect. And I simply had to come and try to discover if my suspicions were correct and you were the mysterious “Kestrel”.’ Excitement brightened her eyes. ‘What on earth are you about, Hawk?’

If anything he looked angrier than before, and certainly in no mood to satisfy her curiosity, as his next words proved. ‘You’ve come very close on several occasions in the past to receiving your just deserts, Emily Stapleton, but never more so than now.’

Indignation held her mute, but only for a moment. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ she hissed, in no doubt as to precisely what he was threatening. ‘Besides, I’d squeal my head off, and scare away whoever it is you’re hoping to see.’

His distinctly unpleasant smile was a threat in itself. ‘I’m a patient man. I can wait.’

She didn’t doubt that he was in earnest, and so decided it might be in her own best interests not to annoy him further, and merely regarded him uncertainly for a moment, as she positioned her back against the tree trunk beside him. ‘May I have my pistol back?’

‘No, you mayn’t!’ he snapped, slipping it into his own pocket. ‘You can sit still and be quiet.’

She dutifully obeyed the hissed command, until sometime later when the church clock at Kempton began to chime the midnight hour. ‘I can’t hear anything, can you, Hawk?’ There was no response, so she remained quietly scanning the woodland surrounding them for a further lengthy period. ‘Of course, whoever it is who is meant to be coming might be in quite a different part of the wood,’ she suggested as the clock solemnly tolled the passing of the hour.

This won her a brief, considering glance from attractive, almond shaped eyes which were noticeably less angry now. ‘There are others positioned about the area.’

She didn’t attempt to conceal her amazement. ‘You brought others from London with you?’

‘Only my servants. My groom is somewhere about.’

She relapsed into silence again, considering what he had told her, and, more importantly, what he was keeping to himself. ‘Then you must have attained help from Sir George Maynard,’ she finally announced, after deciding the local Justice of the Peace must have been the one in whom he had confided. ‘I hope Sir George’s people don’t stumble upon some hapless poacher,’ she added, after failing to elicit a response.

She was more successful this time. ‘If they see anyone, then I suspect it will be someone thus engaged. I expressed my doubts to Sir George when I saw him yesterday evening.’ He sounded quite matter-of-fact, as though he wasn’t expecting a successful outcome to the night’s escapade. ‘It’s such a deuced odd location. Why arrange an assignation in a wood when you can hold a meeting in the comfort of a house, or inn? It just doesn’t make sense.’

‘But that’s what the man told me, Hawk,’ she assured him, at last feeling the effects of sitting too long on the cold, damp ground.

His response to the shiver was to reach out and place an arm about her, drawing her closer to share the warmth of his voluminous cloak. Only for an instant did she stiffen, then he felt her relax against him, as she had done on scores of occasions in the past. He smiled to himself, remarking as he did so, ‘Anderson was near dead when you found him. He could not have been too coherent.’

She raised her eyes to the rugged profile that had remained etched in her memory during their years apart. ‘Anderson? Was that his name? What was he doing down here?’

‘He was an agent, Emily. And a damned good one.’

She frowned at this. ‘A spy, you mean?’

‘If you choose to describe it so, then yes. But he was working on behalf of this country. He was obtaining information for a man who is determined to uncover a network of spies.’

Again she studied the strong contours of his face, her eyes coming to rest on the shadow of stubble covering the cleft in his chin. He seemed inclined to confide in her now, so she felt no compunction in asking, ‘Is that what you do?’

‘Only in as much as whenever I discover information which I think might prove valuable I pass it on. My objective is somewhat different. I am determined to uncover the identity of the man who was responsible for the late Lord Sutherland’s demise, and who has been the brains behind several successful jewel robberies.’

Emily had read reports in various newspapers during recent years of the theft of certain well known and highly valuable items of jewellery which, as far as she was aware, had never been recovered. She had also known the late Viscount Sutherland, and remembered well those occasions when he had stayed in Hampshire with Sebastian. They had been very close friends since boyhood, more like brothers, and she didn’t doubt that Simon’s death must have been a bitter blow to the man beside her.

‘I did read an account of his death in the newspaper, Seb,’ she admitted softly. ‘But I understood that it was an accident.’ All at once she knew that this wasn’t the case. ‘What really happened?’

He gazed down at her, and even in the gloom she couldn’t fail to see the sadness in his eyes. ‘He committed suicide, Emily. For the sake of the family, Simon’s young brother and I did our best to make it appear an accident. I had been with Simon that evening. About an hour after I had returned home, his brother Michael came to fetch me in the carriage. He had been staying with Simon for several weeks, and had been out with friends that night. When he arrived back at the house, he discovered Simon in the library, slumped over the desk, the note he had left splattered with his blood.

‘We destroyed the note, and Michael and I informed the authorities that Simon was recovering well from the death of his wife. I told them that he had planned to spend some time with me in Kent, that we intended, among other things, to hold a competition at my ancestral home to see who was the best shot, and that I had left him earlier in the evening cleaning his pistols. The truth of course was very different.’

His sigh seemed to hang in the night air for a long time. ‘Two months before, his wife had been journeying to her parents’ home in Surrey when her coach was attacked. She had been carrying several items of jewellery with her, including the famous diamond necklace Simon had bestowed upon her shortly after their marriage. The report in the newspapers stated that she had suffered a miscarriage shortly after the attack and had died as a result. This was not true. She was violated, Emily, and then strangled. The female companion travelling with her suffered a similar fate, and the coachman and groom were murdered also.

‘Poor Simon never recovered from the death of his wife and his unborn child. Had I known what he intended to do that night I would never have left him. But I vowed, when I saw him laid to rest beside his wife, that I would avenge their deaths, no matter how long it took me.’

For several minutes Emily didn’t trust herself to speak. She may have been gently nurtured, shielded from birth from the more unsavoury aspects of life, but she knew well enough what had happened to Lady Elizabeth Sutherland.

‘Dear God!’ she muttered at length. ‘How dreadful…And how totally unnecessary. Those responsible for the attack on Lady Sutherland didn’t need to resort to such lengths. Why didn’t they simply steal the jewels and go?’

‘Because they’re unspeakable fiends, that’s why,’ he spat between gritted teeth. ‘Lady Sutherland and her servants are by no means the only ones to have fallen foul of those devils over the years. When Lady Melcham’s diamond necklace was stolen from her home, her butler became a further casualty. Although the authorities have no idea as to the identities of the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes, it is generally believed that the brains behind them is someone of my own class, someone who moves freely in Society and discovers by various means the whereabouts of these highly prized items of jewellery at times when they are most easily purloined—when they are being carried about the country, for instance, or when they are left in a house while the master and mistress are away, with fewer servants to guard them.’

As Emily sat quietly digesting what she had learned, something occurred to her as rather odd. ‘You mentioned that all the pieces stolen are well known. That being the case, how on earth do the thieves dispose of them? Surely no one in this country wealthy enough to purchase such highly prized items would be foolish enough to do so, and risk prosecution?’

‘We believe they are being sold abroad. In fact we are reasonably certain that Lady Melcham’s necklace and the one which belonged to the Sutherland family are now in the hands of an Italian nobleman who possesses another in the set. They are being taken out of the country by the same means by which secret information is passed on.’

‘Smugglers?’

‘Yes, Emily. And unless I’m very much mistaken Anderson got wind of a shipment of goods being landed hereabouts. I expect too that he learned that a valuable pearl necklace, which was recently reported stolen, would be taken out of the country on the same vessel landing the contraband.’

‘Yes, that’s possible,’ she agreed. ‘We’re only a matter of three or four miles from the coast here.’

‘Which makes me wonder why the meeting, possibly for the exchange of the necklace, would take place here?’ Sebastian looked about him assessingly, much as he had done when they had driven out in the curricle. ‘It would have made more sense for it to have happened somewhere along the coast. Freetraders don’t hang around for long. They run the risk of being spotted by our patrolling vessels, or Preventive Officers scouting the coastline.’

‘So you think the handing over of this pearl necklace was the message Anderson was trying to get to you?’

‘Almost certainly. I’m not involved in the hunting down of spies. That is quite another gentleman’s department. And Anderson’s message was definitely for me—” The Kestrel”. However,’ he added, rising to his feet and helping Emily to do likewise, just as the Kempton church clock confirmed that a further hour had passed, ‘I think we must accept the fact that we’re not going to get our hands on the miscreants this time.’

Experiencing a mixture of disappointment because their vigil had proved fruitless, and relief that it was over at last and she could seek the warmth and comfort of her bed, Emily automatically followed Sebastian out of the wood. It didn’t occur to her that he was heading in an entirely different direction from the one by which she had arrived, until she discovered herself in a field where two horses were tethered to a fence and a very familiar, stocky individual stood guarding them.

‘What in the world are you doing here, Finn?’ she demanded to know, as they drew closer and she could see, even in the dim light, that his astonishment was no less marked than her own, though she managed to conceal hers rather better. Then she recalled the suspicion that had filtered through her mind the day before when Sebastian had addressed her groom by name. ‘Evidently you’re acquainted with his lordship, Finn. Just how well acquainted are you?’

He appeared unable to meet her gaze. ‘Well, I—er—I—’

‘Why don’t you go and collect your mistress’s horse, Finn,’ his lordship suggested before the groom’s tongue became too entangled in knots. He transferred his attention to Emily who was looking anything but pleased now. ‘I assume you did ride here and not walk?’

‘I left my mare over there.’ She gestured behind her. ‘In the next field.’

Finn needed no further prompting and swiftly mounted, leaving his lordship to soothe the ruffled feathers of a female who it had to be said was not always easily pacified.

‘You can stop glowering at me, you little termagant!’ his lordship ordered without preamble. Unfortunately the command lacked any real conviction owing to the fact that he was singularly unsuccessful in keeping his voice steady, and was quite unable to suppress a smile. ‘You didn’t honestly suppose that after watching you leave Hampshire in your grandfather’s carriage I would conveniently forget your very existence, not to mention break the promise I had made to your mother to take care of you?’

Emily turned away lest her expression betray the heartache this simple admission engendered. Even now, after almost five years, the pain never lessened whenever she began to dwell on the fact that the only reason he had been prepared to marry her was to fulfil the promise he had made to her mother. Oh, he was fond of her, right enough—anyone with a ha’p’orth of intelligence couldn’t fail to perceive that. But affection was no substitute for that most tender of emotions.

‘Be reasonable, Em,’ he coaxed, quite failing to appreciate that the tense set of slender shoulders might have stemmed from something other than pique. ‘I couldn’t just leave you in your grandfather’s care. He would never have maintained a proper guard over you.’

‘So you employed Finn to do the job, to spy on me!’ she snapped, sounding genuinely miffed, and to a certain extent she was. ‘Exactly whose servant is he—yours or my grandfather’s?’

‘He’s yours, Emily,’ Sebastian corrected. ‘And he’s devoted to you. You know that.’ Grasping her shoulders, he gave her no choice but to turn and face him squarely. ‘Yes, it was I who acquired his services initially, and sent him down here. But he has your best interests at heart, not mine. He merely agreed to help to keep a lookout in this section of woodland tonight.’

She might have been generous enough to acknowledge the truth of this if something else hadn’t suddenly occurred to her which added substantially to her annoyance and which enabled her to ignore the continued touch of those shapely hands on her upper arms. ‘And I suppose it is you I have to thank for putting that ridiculous notion into Grandpapa’s head about engaging the services of a duenna?”

He had the grace to look a little shamefaced. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I thought you might like some feminine companionship, although I did not press the issue when your grandfather wrote and told me you were set against the idea. I could understand that you’d not take too kindly to being chaperoned, after years of relative freedom. But as I’d made that pledge to your mother, I was determined to do all I could to keep my word.’

Torn between respect and resentment, Emily regarded him in silence for a moment. ‘Very well, I can appreciate the reasons behind your actions in the past. But you will oblige me, Lord Hawkridge, by not interfering in my affairs in the future. And as for you,’ she added rounding on her groom, who at that moment arrived back, leading her horse, ‘your continued employment as my servant is far from certain, Judas Finn. You and I shall be having a long talk tomorrow.’

Removing his hat to scratch his grizzled hair, Finn watched his young mistress mount without assistance and ride away. ‘Don’t much like the sound of that m’ lord. How much ought I to tell her?’

‘As little as possible, Jonas,’ Sebastian replied, casting the groom a meaningful look. ‘When I feel the time is right I’ll inform her that I have every right to interfere in her affairs. In the meantime—’ he delved into his pocket for John Stapleton’s pistol, and handed it up to the groom “—give her this. It might go some way in restoring you in her good books.’

Not appearing wholly convinced, Finn did what he had been entrusted to do, and set off at a gallop to ensure that his lordship’s ward came to no harm.

Although Emily attained very little sleep that night, she surprisingly arose little later than usual the following morning, and was more than willing to acquiesce to Sarah’s request to make a trip to the local town.

They spent a pleasant hour visiting the shops, where Sarah purchased various bits and pieces, and then returned to the inn where the carriage awaited them, only to be informed by Finn that he’d learned that the road home had become blocked by a hay cart which had shed its load.

‘Oh, not to worry,’ Emily responded cheerfully, quite forgetting that her faithful groom was not precisely basking in the sunshine of her approval at the moment. ‘We’ll return by way of the coast road. It’s a pleasant morning, and it’s a pretty run.’

‘I’ve lived in Dorsetshire for as long as you have, Em, and I’ve never travelled this way before,’ Sarah disclosed as the carriage turned off the main road and they bowled along a narrow country lane with many twists and turns.

‘I’ve ridden along here only once, shortly after I came to live with my grandfather. The road passes through Gremlock. It’s a small fishing village and quite quaint,’ Emily informed her, and then smiled to herself as her companion appeared content to stare out of the window at what for her was unfamiliar landscape.

True to her word Sarah had remained awake to unlock the door during the early hours. Agog with curiosity she had accompanied Emily back upstairs, but the instant Emily had said, ‘As I told you, I went out to discover if something I suspected was true. My suspicions turned out to be correct. But more than this I cannot reveal, lest I betray the trust of—of a friend,’ Sarah had not attempted to discover more and had returned quietly to her own room.

Emily could not help but admire Sarah’s placid nature and self-control. Had their roles been reversed, and she had been the one to remain awake to unlock the door, she felt sure she would have persevered until she’d discovered much more.

‘Now, what’s to do?’ Emily muttered, abandoning her reverie, as the carriage came to an unexpected halt in the middle of Gremlock’s main street.

Pulling down the window, she poked her head out, and was informed by Finn that it was only a drayman unloading, and they wouldn’t be delayed for very long. Leaning out a little further, Emily caught sight of a barrel being rolled down into the tavern’s cellar, then raised her eyes to see the inn’s weathered sign swinging to and fro on its rusty hinges.

‘Oh, dear God,’ she murmured, her face losing every vestige of colour. ‘Whatever have I done?’

Chapter Six

One might reasonably have supposed that any gentleman of wealth and rank, and therefore in a position to command most any luxury, could not be other than highly satisfied with his lot; and to a certain extent Lord Hawkridge had enjoyed the privileged life he had been leading in recent years. Yet he could not deny that there had been occasions, sadly too numerous to count, when he had been afflicted by rank boredom. And never more so than now!