Temptress in Training (35 page)

He needed to find D'Archaud. He assumed the man would be with the actors, in the kitchen. And, truth be told, he was a bit hungry.

He proceeded with his unwanted entourage, getting lost a time or two and finally having to ask them for bloody directions. They patiently escorted him to the kitchen, located in the rather mazelike lowest level of Dashford's sprawling home. Lindley had to admit he was rather more partial to his own estate, so very well designed and symmetrical. But, to each his own, he allowed. Dashford and his new bride seemed content enough here. Somehow.

He found D'Archaud sitting with the other actors, busily devouring cold meat. Once the man caught sight of Lindley, he gave every impression of suddenly wanting to devour something more along the lines of the earl's liver. Well, that was fine with Lindley. He'd love nothing better than to go fist to claw with D'Archaud. Throttling that man would be a pleasure.

Except that he'd already decided to put Sophie's wishes ahead of his own pleasure.
Damn.

“I hope someone's seeing to lunch for your daughter, D'Archaud,” Lindley said, not bothering to hide his sneer. “Wherever she may be.”

D'Archaud threw his stool back and would have lunged at Lindley but for his brother-in-law's intervention.

“Now, now, this is hardly the place for it,” the Frenchman muttered.

“I'll kill him, St. Clement,” D'Archaud hissed. “You would, too, if it was your daughter he'd run off with.”

“You left her in a bloody brothel to fend for herself, D'Archaud,” Lindley growled, and this time he used that word accidentally.

“That gave you no right to treat her as your personal whore, Lindley!”

Well, that was too much. He could not stomach the man speaking that way about Sophie. He dove for him, forgetting his vow of tolerance and planning to rip the man's throat out.

The footmen stopped him. Between footmen, actors, and shrieking kitchen staff, Lindley was unable to so much as harm a hair on D'Archaud's useless head. Neither was D'Archaud able to lay hands on him, either.

“Enough!” St. Clement announced in his bellowing accent. “D'Archaud, tell him what you know.”

D'Archaud clearly disapproved of that notion. “What? But he's—”

“Kill him later,” St. Clement ordered. “For now, he wants to help Sophie.”

D'Archaud's face puckered into a sneer of disgust, but his fists unclenched and he met Lindley's eyes square on.

“You want to save Sophie?” he asked.

“I do. And as much as it nauseates me to think it, I intend to let you go free, D'Archaud.”

D'Archaud gave a rude snort. “Why do I find that so difficult to believe, monsieur?”

“What do you know about Sophie?” Lindley asked, ignoring the man's scorn. “Where is she?”

D'Archaud swore in French. “She's been taken by Eudora and held for ransom.”

The man suddenly seemed deflated, sinking back into his seat and half knocking it over again.

“That's why he came here,” St. Clement said, stepping close to his brother-in-law's side. “He wanted to find the treasure to pay the ransom and save his daughters.”

Lindley was caught by that last word. “
Daughters
, D'Archaud? Plural? You have more than one daughter out there in danger?”

“Yes, I do,” the man declared. “And a wife, too. Well, she'd have been my wife by now if that damn bitch would have allowed it.”

Lindley was fairly certain he knew what bitch D'Archaud meant, but he asked anyway. “Eudora?”

“Yes, Eudora. She's been using my family against me for years. She and her damn puppy, Fitzgelder.”

The pieces were finally falling into place. It seemed perhaps D'Archaud had not abandoned Sophie in that brothel as much as Eudora had manipulated him into leaving her there. His cooperation ensured Sophie's well-being. Indeed, somehow he found the man's outrageous claims oddly believable.

After all, everything he said appeared to corroborate Tom's story that Eudora and Fitzgelder were somehow partnered in all this. And hadn't Eudora been the one to tell him Fitzgelder would be expecting a package several days ago? The package that contained the locket.

Of course this had all been about the locket. Eudora had been hunting this treasure right from the start. She'd been using everyone around her as tools to get it.

“Damn her,” he said under his breath, then looked over to D'Archaud. “When was the last you heard from Eudora?”

“Yesterday,” D'Archaud replied. “I was to find the treasure, then give it to Fitzgelder to take to her. She indicated she was holding my family where I would never find her.”

“Yes, she was.”

“Was? What do you mean,
was
?”

“I mean I just got word this morning that Sophie has escaped.”

“Mon Dieu!”

Now St. Clement rejoined the conversation. “
Escaped
? You mean, she is safe?”

“I mean she is missing,” Lindley clarified. “Eudora does not have her, but apparently no one else does, either.”

“But there's no telling what could happen to her!”

“I can think of several things that could happen to her,” Lindley said. “None of them pleasant. First of all, I need to know just what we're up against. Do either of you have any special friends out wandering the countryside who might run across her?”

Both Frenchmen shook their heads.

“Fortunately I do, so I'm hoping they find her before anyone else.”

“Such as Fitzgelder,” D'Archaud said. “He has a whole army of rogues waiting to catch any one of us off our guard. Surely if Eudora has lost Sophie, Fitzgelder's
mercenaires
will be looking to find her.”

“Then clearly I need to have a little chat with Fitzgelder,” Lindley said and realized he was quite looking forward to it, actually.

“I'll go with you,” D'Archaud said.

“No. I need you here,” Lindley instructed and then glanced over his shoulder at the two footmen still standing watch over them. Fitzgelder was upstairs, locked in his room with instructions that he not be allowed to leave. Lindley would just have to go up and pay a visit, and Dashford's orderly footmen would simply get in the way of conducting business.

“Keep them here,” he said softly.

The Frenchmen nodded. Suddenly they went from being his enemies to his accomplices as St. Clement leapt to his feet and announced in his grandest accented tones yet that he and his marvelous players would like to perform scenes both comic and tragic to amaze and enrich Dashford's kitchen staff. Lindley stepped aside and watched as the troupe instantly jumped into action, moving furnishings and captivating the household staff with their dramatic efforts.

It took no more than ten minutes before a howling King Lear had even the watchful footmen entranced in theatrical fascination. Lindley slipped out the back of the room and found his way to the staircase. Indeed, Fitzgelder was going to have something to answer for.

 

S
OPHIE WAITED FOR WHAT SEEMED HOURS BEFORE SHE
heard the first sounds of approaching voices. Tucking herself deeper into the shadows, she hid behind the crumbling stone wall that marked off a sort of picturesque garden. She had crept down from the tower and ducked out a rear door that clearly had not been used in decades. Indeed, this whole end of the abbey was long fallen into disuse, and Mrs. Wimpole had assured her there would be little reason for Madame to take note of Sophie in this area.

So far the woman had been right. Their plan had been put into action, and Sophie was simply awaiting her chance at escape. All that remained was to create enough distraction that Sophie could make her way from this overgrown garden to the nearby stable. Mrs. Wimpole promised there would be a horse for her.

She'd eaten as much luncheon as she'd been able, but her stomach was in knots from nerves. So many things had to work just right in order for this to succeed. Now all she could do was cross her fingers and watch.

If she craned her neck just right and pushed aside a branch or two of the heavy boxwood, Sophie could see the moat. Any moment now she might expect…Ah, yes. There was Wimpole now, accompanied by an old man who must be the groom she'd been told would assist in this deception. On cue, the men started pulling something heavy from the moat just as Sophie could hear Mrs. Wimpole's cries in the distance.

“This way, Miss Eudora!” the housekeeper was saying as she came into view leading a reluctant Madame. “See? Oh, how dreadful! How awful!”

Madame stopped following the woman a good thirty paces from the men and their soggy bundle. She wrinkled her nose and watched the men intently before asking, “Is it her?”

Mrs. Wimpole checked the large, Annie-shaped form that was slowly being hauled up onto the bank. The woman's gown, now muddied and dripping, was unmistakable. The bedraggled wig they had made from the sacrifice of Annie's own dark locks did exactly as it was intended; it hung every which way, obscuring the crude facial features Sophie had fashioned and giving the object a feel of authenticity she had been nearly afraid to hope for.

By heavens, Sophie had done a most excellent job of creating a faux-Annie, if she did say so herself. She could be absolutely proud of her craftsmanship if the whole thing were not so very disturbing. My, but with Mrs. Wimpole weeping and wailing over the form, the scene could very easily be mistaken as something horrible. Sophie wondered if perhaps she ought to worry for herself, thinking up such a dreadful scheme.

But it was working.

“See, Miss Eudora, here is the child,” Mrs. Wimpole called out, stooping over a smaller bundle that lay some feet away. “They found it just minutes ago. Such a sad, sad shame.”

Eudora took a step forward as if she might go to Mrs. Wimpole and investigate the body herself, but the old man from the stables coughed loudly over his labors with the larger “body.”

“Must have happened sometime in the night,” he announced loudly. “Looks like the fish have had plenty of time to start taking meals off of 'em. Won't make for a pretty funeral, that's fer certain.”

Well, that was more than enough to stop Madame in her tracks, Sophie was happy to see. The woman took another three steps back and pulled her wrapper up around her nose, as if the stench of death was already offending.

“Well, this is none of my concern,” she said coldly. “Silly fool, to go and commit suicide like this. Wrap them up and put them somewhere. And for God's sake, don't bring them into the house!”

“Should we contact the magistrate?” Wimpole asked.

“Heavens no!” Madame ordered. “Do nothing, do you hear me? Warren should be here any minute. We'll wait to see what he would have us do.”

Mrs. Wimpole nodded and dabbed her eyes. Sophie had to smile. The woman was every bit as accomplished an actress as Miss St. Clement. Perhaps when all this was over Sophie could find her missing friend and introduce the pair.

But now was time to concentrate on the work at hand. Mrs. Wimpole kept Madame busy with recounting the horror of discovering such a terrible thing here in the abbey moat, and Madame's man came rushing out to be near her and offer his services. They were not needed, of course, which was a good thing since Madame ordered him not to soil his hands with such work, anyway.

The important thing was that he was here instead of keeping watch over Madame's carriage in the stable or standing guard at the front of the abbey. This gave Sophie the chance she'd been needing to slip away undiscovered. She'd best take advantage of it while she could.

She took one last look at the morbid scene beside the moat and shuddered. Thank heavens it was only a sham. She'd left Annie safe with Rosie half an hour ago, hugging and kissing them both good-bye with a promise to keep herself safe and bring Papa back soon to collect them. Mrs. Wimpole assured her all would be well, and for the first time Sophie had hope that might indeed be the case.

She had done all she could here. Now, all she needed was to rescue Papa and see that Lindley did not end up dead. Surely after facilitating this, that much would be easy.

 

L
INDLEY MOVED QUICKLY THROUGH THE HOUSE, AVOIDING
any area he thought might be peopled at this hour. No one seemed to notice him; it appeared the actors were doing their job well below and had attracted the attention of all the household staff.
Excellent.
This would give him ample opportunity to slip upstairs and visit Fitzgelder.

“My lord!” someone called.

Lindley cringed and turned slowly to find Dashford's butler approaching. “I have been looking for you.”

Damn.
“Oh?”

“A letter arrived.”

What?
“For me?”

That was odd. Who the devil knew he was here? He took the paper the man extended to him. A quick glance at the seal told him this was from the Home Office. Very strange.

“It arrived yesterday,” the butler explained. “Apparently the sender thought you might still be a guest here after the wedding. Lady Dashford had instructed us to send it back today, but now that you are here I can give it to you directly.”

“Thank you,” Lindley said.

The butler seemed content to have done his duty so he bowed and went on his way. Lindley was left to wonder what information Warren could possibly be sending him that it was so urgent to follow him to a wedding in Warwickshire. He ducked into the nearby dining room to read it in private.

Someone had gone to great pains to see that the seal on the folded letter did its work without fail. Lindley feared he would tear right through the paper trying to remove it, so he grabbed up a knife and pried carefully at the unnecessarily large spot of sealing wax. Finally he had it up and unfolded the letter.

By God, it was everything they needed to convict Fitzgelder. There were names and dates and an itemized list of the charges Warren was ready to bring against the man. Oddly enough, there was no mention of D'Archaud. It seemed everything from petty larceny to murder to crimes against the Crown was laid right at Fitzgelder's awkward feet. The letter was as a gift from heaven.