“Charfield, we meet again. Do you know what’s about to happen, or am I going to have to say something silly like,
Burn,
old fellow, the jig is up.”
“What? What the devil is going— Put down that weapon, you underbred scum. I order you! What’s this?
Redgrave?
You...you
know?
”
Valentine sighed. “First he blubbers, and now he states the obvious. Cecil, you’re looking a mite green about the gills. Are you all right?”
“I...I...I...
Oh, dear...
”
Twitchill had just very neatly tapped Frappton’s employer on the back of his head with the butt of his weapon.
“Yes, precisely.” Valentine skirted past the now-recumbent Charfield to approach Frappton. “Did you do as I instructed you last night?”
Cecil was looking down at his employer, bug-eyed. “When...when you came to my room? I...I...yes, I did, sir. Packed it all up and put it in the wardrobe, just as you said to do. Even added my nightshirt and cap this morning. But...but I cannot possibly remain on this horse all the way to London. I can’t, sir. Please don’t make me.”
“He can’t, sir,” Twitchill agreed. “Sorriest thing you’d ever to want to see, him bouncing down the road and saying
ow, ow, ow
each time his rump said good-day to the saddle. I’ll get him to the village and put him on the mail coach, if that’s all right.”
Valentine tried not to smile. “That seems reasonable, Cecil. My man Piffkin has undoubtedly already taken your case to my coach. Twitchill here will retrieve it and make sure it rides with you on the mail coach. Agreed?”
“Yes, sir. But...but what about
him,
sir?”
Charfield was just beginning to stir, moaning and holding a hand to his head as he attempted to sit up. Twitchill stepped on his chest, putting him back down.
“As I told you, Cecil, your employer here ordered you back to work while he extends his visit in the country, and that is what you’re to say if anyone should ask. It’s also all you want to know. Charfield—order Cecil back to London, will you? I don’t think he’s the sort who can lie with any authority.”
“The hell I will! Ride to the estate for help, man. Go!” Charfield shouted, still struggling to rise, but not making any progress. The coachman was a very large man, with very large boots.
“Oh, no, no, no. That wasn’t quite right. Twitchill?” Valentine prompted. “I think our friend here needs some encouragement.”
The coachman’s heavy boot was pressed harder against Charfield’s ribs.
“All right, all right! Frappton...take your worthless ass out of here...go...go back to London.”
“Well done, Burn. Splendid,” Valentine said brightly. “You’re off now, Cecil, and with a clear conscience. Or do you still doubt what I told you last night?”
Frappton mutely shook his head, then looked down at his employer. “You...you were going to make me look the traitor, and then
kill
me. And...and the boy, what he said about the boy. Everything Mr. Redgrave said was true. I hope you hang!”
“And all said without a giggle.” Valentine clapped politely. “Huzzah. Cecil, today you are a man.”
“Thank you, sir,” Frappton answered, sitting up somewhat straighter in the saddle. “Today I am a man-
hee-ee-ee
. Oh, dear.”
“Practice, Cecil,” Valentine said kindly. “Some things take practice. Twitchill, I’ll have that rope now if you please.”
The coachman tossed down a burlap bag containing two lengths of rope, among other things Valentine had requested.
Valentine’s brother Maximillien had taught him several Naval knots, and one particular way of trussing up a captive that he applied now. He bound Charfield’s ankles and wrists behind his back and then pulled another length of rope up through both and looped one end around the man’s throat, bowing him backward as he secured both ends at the wrists. It wasn’t a comfortable position, and struggling would only tighten the rope around his neck, but Valentine found he could not bring himself to care about the man’s comfort.
While Valentine worked, Twitchill assisted Frappton from his mount and onto his employer’s.
“Very neat, sir,” the coachman congratulated his employer. “I should be getting back here in an hour or so, to take him up in your coach and deliver him all personal-like, with your compliments.”
“Along with a note tied round his neck, yes.” Valentine was now down on his haunches beside his captive, testing his handiwork. “No hurry in returning, though. Take time for a bird and a bottle. He’s not going anywhere.”
Twitchill and Frappton rode off, Twitchill whistling a tune while leading the outrider’s horse, Frappton punctuating each step his new mount took with a steady stream of “Ow, ow, ow.”
It was the little things that mattered, Valentine thought as he watched them go. Charfield’s mount supposedly on the road to London, Frappton’s mount back in the stables in Fernwood, alongside the mount Valentine had ridden out on earlier.
“Ah, isn’t this lovely,” Valentine said, making himself comfortable on the grass. “Just the two of us.”
“You can’t do this! They’ll know I’m gone! Damn you, Redgrave, let me up. I’ll tell you anything you want.”
“Really? Or would you sneak a knife from your boot and plunge it into your own chest?”
Charfield was sweating profusely now. “Why...why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” Valentine said as he checked the man for any hidden weapons. “Because you’ll hang in any event, I suppose. Or perhaps because your fellow traitor Weaver—or should I say Webber—managed to snatch a pistol from one of his captors and turn it on himself.”
“Christ.”
“Christ? Not Satan? Yet just last night you seemed so fervent a believer.”
“That’s all hogwash, and you know it. Comes in handy, I’ll give you that. Look here, Redgrave. I know what you want. You want information, and I can give it to you. I’ll give you all of it. Just let me go.”
“What? No offer of money? Riches beyond my wildest dreams? Unlimited licentious pleasure in the arms of a dozen willing virgins? The seat of honor to the right of Bonaparte when he dines in triumph at the palace? I’d had such hopes. Damn, you disappoint me.”
“Yes, yes, that, too! Anything you want!”
“Thank you, but no. As you must be well aware by now, I’m having some jolly good luck finding out everything I need on my own. Care to try again?”
Charfield was a traitor—for whatever reasons he deemed important—but he wasn’t stupid. “You’re one of those bloody idealists, aren’t you,” he said accusingly. “Incorruptible. Doing it all for king and country. But that means you won’t kill me, either. I’m too important to you, alive.”
Valentine reached into the sack once more, to retrieve a pistol he then calmly aimed at his captive’s head. “And there’s where you’d be wrong. I’m
doing this
as you said, for family, Burn, and family trumps all. You stepped on the wrong tail, you see, when you and your little group of merry pranksters first put foot on Redgrave land. I don’t need you. I’ve got
Post,
don’t I? In fact, you’re rather in the way.”
He cocked the pistol.
“But...but that man said he’s taking me somewhere.”
“That was said only for Frappton’s sake. Me? I simply want you out of my way. See that well behind us? Dry, deserted. It will be a long time until anyone finds your bones. Not the insects, though. They’ll undoubtedly find you very quickly.”
Charfield stared at the pistol. A dark wet stain began spreading in the area of his crotch. “But...but I don’t want to die.”
“There aren’t many who do.” Valentine knew he had him now. “But I can be a reasonable man. Tell me what you know, quickly, before we’re missed, and I’ll see that you’re delivered to Perceval intact and breathing, I suppose you’d like to say—if not quite dry. I imagine you’ll hang, but if you sing to him the way you will now sing to me, perhaps you’ll be allowed to live out your days in the Tower.”
Less than thirty informative minutes later, as he still had much to do, Charfield was gagged, a black hood over his head, and Valentine was on his way back to the stables on Frappton’s mount.
Poor Charfield. He believed he was being taken to Perceval, to strike a deal that would save his miserable skin. In truth, when the captive was relieved of his hood, the first face he’d see would be that of Simon Ravenbill, Marquis of Singleton.
Stupid, gullible, clearly minor player in the Society Harold Charfield. As if he’d hand the man to an uncooperative, only half-believing Spencer Perceval on a platter, so he could conveniently disappear to save the Crown a trial (or a messy explanation). No, no. Not when the Redgraves might still have need of him.
CHAPTER NINE
D
AISY
HAD
WORRIED
Agnes would throw up her hands in horror when she saw both William and the bucket, but she hadn’t counted on the nursery maid being country-born and bred, and therefore delighted to show off some of her expertise in both mud-sculpting and tadpole rescuing to the clearly dazzled children.
Nearly two hours of giggles and creativity had followed. With a myriad of hopefully human figures, three-legged horses, long-tailed cats and other delights made of the good clay mud from the stream lined up on a tray placed on the windowsill to dry, Agnes had shooed Miss Lydia and Master William off to bathe them in the tub filled with hot water from the kitchens...and Daisy had at last made good her escape.
And she’d known just where she had to go.
As Valentine’s rooms were in the guest wing, away from most of the hustle and bustle of the household, she hadn’t expected to be stopped and questioned as to just where she was headed, and that proved to be the case. Still, she looked up and down the hallway, and then up and down the hallway again, before rapping on the door she knew was his.
“Mr. Piffkin?” she asked a moment later, when the door was opened a crack.
“Miss Daisy, I presume,” was the answer, just before the door opened a bit wider and she was unceremoniously yanked inside and the door shut behind her. “He said determined. I said pig-headed. I suppose we both were right. With all respect, Miss Daisy, what in blue blazes are you doing here?”
Now that her arm had been released, Daisy brushed at her sleeve and stepped past the bald-headed man, heading farther into the room before turning to face him. “My impression, Mr. Piffkin, gained through things Valentine has said to me about you, is that you are both friend and keeper. He needs both at the moment, plus the information I have for him. Where is he?”
Piffkin looked at her for some moments. Uncomfortable moments. “Levelheaded, not at all missish or silly. Direct. Tolerant of his ways and more than capable of tugging on the reins when needed. No flaming beauty, I suppose, but a sweet, intelligent face a man would feel comfortable growing old with. Yes. I would never have thought it, frankly, but you’re just what he needs. Perfect. Very well, Miss Daisy. Master Valentine is out stirring up mischief. I wouldn’t frown so. He’s quite accomplished at it. He’ll turn up.”
Daisy was left speechless. But not for long.
“That...that was all quite interesting, Mr. Piffkin. But you and he don’t know what I know. They’re onto him. I overheard Lord Mailer and an unknown man discussing him in the library, and then the unknown man handed something to Mailer, telling him he knew what to do with it. I’ve spent the last two hours imagining all sorts of things. A ceremonial knife these monsters place some sort of stock in somehow? A small, easily concealed pistol Mailer can slide out from his cuff when Valentine conveniently turns his back? All manner of things. He has to be warned, Mr. Piffkin, and we must all three of us leave here immediately. And Lady Mailer and the children, of course. I won’t leave the children behind.”
Now it seemed to be time for Piffkin to go in search of his tongue.
He rubbed at his shiny pate, as if to warn his brain it needed to be completely alert. “Onto him. I knew this was all going much too smoothly, but he said Lord Mailer had swallowed his story whole. Clearly someone else did not. I’m not half done carrying out my instructions...” He looked at Daisy. “Are you quite sure, miss?”
“I see no need to argue the point, Mr. Piffkin, as I know what I heard. And it’s more than two hours since I heard it, so we shouldn’t be standing here, wasting time. You see, what I don’t know is if Mailer believed me about why I was outside the library in the first place. What did Valentine tell you to do? Perhaps I can help.”
Piffkin spoke even as he began packing up Valentine’s belongings.
Some of what he’d been instructed to do was already done.
Cecil Frappton’s tapestry traveling bag was already at the small country inn, with no trace of the man’s presence left behind, and the clerk probably already safely halfway to London, while Harold Charfield was headed elsewhere.
Valentine’s evening dress had been pressed and laid out, and a hot bath had been ordered for five o’clock, as it was important to continue the charade that All Was Well.
A note had been delivered to Harold Charfield’s valet just ten minutes earlier, informing him to pack and be ready to leave in the coach as soon as possible, to meet up with his employer back in London.
“Why?” Daisy asked. She was following along, but just barely.
Piffkin lifted a stack of undergarments from one of the drawers and held it close to his chest, his back prudently turned to Daisy as he shuffled sideways over to the portmanteau and quickly stuffed said intimate apparel inside. “A messenger direct from the prime minister intercepted Mr. Charfield, the clerk, and Master Valentine as they were out riding, and Charfield commissioned Master Valentine with informing his host and valet that he and Mr. Frappton were heading straightaway to London—Charfield on his horse, the clerk put in irons and stuffed into the nondescript black coach the accompanying soldiers had brought with them—and with no time to waste returning here. And, of course, for his coach and valet to follow. It would seem a major discrepancy has been discovered within Mr. Charfield’s office, and the clerk suspected of treason.”
“But...but why would Mr. Frappton’s bag already be gone? Surely the valet would also be charged with packing the man’s bag.”
“I’m going to offer to do that actually, helpful fellow that I am. No one will realize the clerk is not traveling with Mr. Charfield.”
Daisy began to feel more hopeful. At least so far, Valentine’s plan, if his plan was to save Mr. Frappton and be rid of Mr. Charfield, was working quite well. He was bloodlessly removing some of the players from the field, that’s what he was doing, which would greatly enhance his chances of success.
“Clever. To Lord Mailer and the others, the obvious conclusion is that Charfield is worried something he’s done on orders of the Society has been uncovered. He and his fellow conspirators will be too alarmed to look deeply into Valentine’s story. But if Valentine has yet to return?”
“The valet won’t be concerned with such details of timing, and our mutual charge is exceedingly clever with a credible lie. Plus, for all we know, he is already downstairs, informing his lordship of the latest events, and will be upstairs shortly. With your permission, I’m off now to lend assistance to my fellow gentleman’s gentleman, offering to transport the bags down to the coach in order to speed its departure rather than to wait for lazy footmen. If you’d be so good as to remain here, I’m certain Master Valentine will be delighted to see you upon his return.”
“You’re even going to carry the bags? Oh, yes, to make sure he doesn’t notice Mr. Frappton’s isn’t among them.”
“In part, Miss Daisy, yes. If, as Master Valentine said, things somehow had gone sideways this morning, he didn’t want any evidence of the clerk’s presence left here to be discovered. The man, according to Master Valentine, already has enough on his plate simply being Mr. Frappton. But mostly, I’m to be sure the coach departs without one of Mr. Charfield’s bags, as well.”
She racked her brain for an explanation, and believed she’d found it. “Oh. You mean the one holding his cape and horrible mask, don’t you? To show as King’s Evidence before the Bench, I suppose. Or Valentine may believe he might have a use for both.”
“I doubt there will ever be a trial, Miss Daisy, not for any of the Society. Such a thing might alarm the king’s subjects, along with staining the government. When the Society is gone, it is gone. It will simply disappear.”
Daisy headed to the nearest chair, and sat down. “You...you’re saying Charfield is dead? I probably should have asked that sooner.”
Piffkin halted with his hand on the door lever. “Better the bird in the hand, Miss Daisy. If all has gone as planned, the man will be an unwilling guest at Redgrave Manor before midnight tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
Daisy nodded absently, her mind whirling in several directions at once as she came up with her own agenda. She had to pack her meager belongings and toss the bag out the window, just as she had planned previously. She had to insist upon seeing Lady Caroline, somehow get rid of the snooping Davinia and convince her to leave with the children. The children themselves would be eager for any outdoor excursion, so they wouldn’t present any problems, and it would be easier to order Agnes to accompany them than to leave her behind and possibly blamed for their disappearance.
Not everyone would be able to pack and take bags with them. Such a procession of trunks would certainly be noticed, not that there was time to pack those bags in any case. No, Lady Caroline and the children would have to leave with only the clothes on their backs and Lady Caroline’s pin money. It was different for Daisy, and for Agnes, as well. Their possessions were few, and not so easily replaced.
Yes, that was neat. Orderly. A natural progression. Thankfully, no one seemed to much care what went on within the nursery, Lord Mailer often going weeks between so much as seeing his children, and Lady Caroline was indisposed, and not to be expected to go down to dinner.
Daisy wondered for a moment if Valentine had anything to do with the convenient absence of Lady Caroline, and then dismissed the idea. Mr. Piffkin put a lot of credence in his employer’s abilities, but it seemed unreasonable to credit anyone with that much power and foresight.
Well, no matter. She couldn’t simply sit here and stew, now could she? What was most important was getting them all safely out of here. She stood up and walked over to the wardrobe, intent on packing up the remainder of Valentine’s belongings, quoting quietly, “‘He that fights and runs away, may turn and fight another day; but he that is in battle slain—’”
“‘will never rise to fight again.’ Tacitus the Roman, I believe.”
A neat stack of carefully pressed neckclothes hit the floor, ruining a good hour of Piffkin’s best work with the pressing iron. “Valentine!”
She who always thought very carefully, didn’t think at all. She simply turned and ran across the chamber, to all but throw herself at him.
“Well, now,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, “other than being very nearly strangled, isn’t this a lovely welcome.”
She pulled slightly away from him, her arms still locked around his neck. “Oh, do shut up, Valentine,” she told him, blinking back tears.
“Shut up? Or shut up and kiss me? Perhaps even
please
shut up and kiss me? Yes, I like that one best.”
His smile was a delight. His amber eyes sparkled with mischief from between long, black lashes. His dark, windblown hair framed his face almost lovingly. He smelled of leather and horseflesh and sweet grass and sunshine. He was truly the most handsome, even beautiful, man in creation.
And he was smiling at her. He was holding her. He was about to kiss her, Daisy Marchant, nobody. Daisy, she of the beautiful sister. Daisy, with the practical brain and the sometimes sharp tongue. Daisy, with her unimpressive bosom, her narrow hips, her drab outdated gowns and her nonexistent prospects.
He was smiling at
her.
And now he was slanting his head slightly and moving closer, and she was closing her eyes, and she was slightly opening her mouth for a reason she didn’t understand, and he was touching his mouth to hers, and nibbling at her bottom lip, and smiling against her mouth, and drawing her closer as he somehow freed her hair from its pins, and she was raising her hands, her spread fingers sliding into his warm waves of ebony, and—
“Master Valentine, that will be enough. Appearances to one side, Miss Daisy didn’t come here for that. Release her at once.”
They sprung apart like a pair of guilty children, Valentine’s expression caught somewhere between sheepish and outraged, Daisy heading for one of the window embrasures to hide her blushes as she twisted her hair back into its tight bun.
“Taking on the role of duenna now, Piffkin? I’ll have to alert Consuela that you’ve usurped her position. Perhaps she’ll allow you to borrow her castanets.”
Thanks to long years spent learning self-control, Daisy, hair once more tidy save for a few errant curls she could feel hanging loose at her nape, left her refuge and returned to stand beside Valentine. “I’m all right, Mr. Piffkin, thank you. Who’s Consuela?”
“One of my deceased mother’s servants still at Redgrave Manor. I’m half Spanish which, some would say, is also an explanation for the Redgraves’ wild, reprobate ways,” Valentine explained as if by rote.
Daisy blinked as a discomforting thought struck her. She’d just been kissing a man she’d just barely met and knew precious little about. That wasn’t like her, not at all. “We really don’t know one another, do we, yet here we are together, knee-deep in skullduggery. Isn’t that strange.”
Valentine grinned an unholy grin. “For some, I suppose. But not for a Redgrave. It must have something to do with our honest faces, our air of gravitas, our obvious trustworthiness.”
“No, I don’t think it’s any of those,” Daisy countered thoughtfully, and Piffkin hid a laugh behind a cough.
“Piffkin, if you’ve been entertained enough for the moment? What’s going on?”
“I believe you must ask that of Miss Daisy, sir, but I do know your self-proclaimed brilliance has put you in some danger.”
“And just when I was busily patting myself on the back. Daisy?”
Valentine listened intently as Daisy recounted all she’d heard while standing outside the library, not mentioning how she’d happened to be there, but keeping only to the pertinent parts. “I can’t be certain the other man remained completely unsuspicious of me,” she ended, “although I doubt Lord Mailer is any the wiser.”
“If he became any the wiser on any head, he’d make a tolerable doorstop. All right, I have to get you gone from here.”
“I concur— Oh, don’t look so surprised, Valentine. I’m not a fool. We
all
need to be gone from here, now. You most especially, as you’ve really put yourself in a pickle, now haven’t you? How do you propose we go about it? I already have most of a plan in mind, but I know you’ll disagree with at least half of it and wish to add your brilliance. But do hurry, as someone may remark on my prolonged absence from the nursery.”