Miss Ryder's Memoirs (21 page)

As I watched Sir John take the stairs two at a time, it occurred to me that Mama would not necessarily have hidden the booty in her own room. In fact, seeing that energetic male body bounding upward, I became positively convinced that she had hidden it in my brother’s room, since he had not been home in such a long time and was not likely to arrive anytime soon. Unless Sir John was able to convince him to come for Public Day. When the baronet was out of sight, I followed more slowly and discreetly up the stairs.

Robert’s suite was in the same wing as Mama’s, which would have made it very handy. And what was even more significant was that Robert, as a child, had devised any number of hiding places for his own treasures. I had managed, over time, to discover all of them. Or so I hoped. Mama would have known where they were, too, because Robert trusted her when he was very small and would have shown them to her, and forgotten later that any growing boy would have done anything so indiscreet.

There was the false back to one of his dresser drawers. A carpenter had built it for him when he was very young. But the false compartment was empty, and I felt a great disappointment. Surely it would have been the simplest place for Mama to hide her stolen treasures. I had a moment’s hesitation before I started methodically searching through the other locations.

There was a space under one of the floorboards, which was in turn under the bed. I had to move the bed some distance to uncover it, and I became convinced in the process that this would indeed be the location of Mama’s ill-gotten gains. But no. After all the struggle and the attempt to make no noise, all I found in the space was dust and cobwebs. Ah, well, that was only the second possibility.

I proceeded to the deep caverns of the closet, well behind the hunting clothes that Robert had left here when he took most of his wardrobe up to London with him. Nothing. I searched in the dressing room, where there were storage boxes and even a locked cabinet, with no success. Surely Mama would have hidden it here. It was so much safer than her own room. But I could find nothing.

I stood in the middle of the floor, looking about me, wondering if I had forgotten anything. Robert’s room is spacious and light in sunny weather when the heavy draperies are pulled back from the windows. Because of the darkness of the rainy day, I had found it necessary to push back the draperies on the western set of windows. There was little point in opening the other set, as they faced north, with several large, leafy trees blocking any light from entering. When Robert was away we kept the draperies closed, to prevent the furniture and carpet from fading in the sun.

The draperies were a royal-blue velvet, quite handsome. Robert had been quietly thrilled when Mama had the room done over many years ago, when he was still a boy. They made him feel grown-up, I think, and almost invulnerable. As I was about to close the western draperies, my mind locked suddenly on the other set of windows.

Because of their placement, those window coverings were probably not touched from one month to the next. I went over to the draperies and began to shift them, reaching for the tie to secure them against the wall. My hand encountered something cold and hard. At first I thought it was merely a knob on which to hook the pull, but I was quite mistaken. When I pushed the folds of velvet out of the way, I found a small box resting at the corner of the windowsill, almost as if it belonged there. It might have contained a boy’s treasures and been left there as a reminiscence. Even when the draperies were caught back against the wall, it was hidden from view by the folds.

The lid wasn’t even locked. I think perhaps the box itself had been one of the prizes Mama had gained on her adventures, for I did not recognize it. When I lifted the lid, my breath caught in my throat. There were jewels and coins and watches, all of them glittering wondrously in the wet afternoon light. But something else caught my eye. Hanging from the rod above, where it could only be seen from the back, which was against the wall at this point, were several very elegant and undoubtedly expensive necklaces. My eyes very nearly popped out of my head. How very risky for Mama to leave these things so much in the open. And yet, until now, they hadn’t been discovered. Really, it was too much.

“So that’s where you keep them,” Sir John said, causing me to jump a good foot in the air. Really, the man had an absolute penchant for frightening people. And who would have believed that a man so large could be so quiet on his feet? I hadn’t heard a sound. And yet it was obvious that he’s been standing there for some time. No doubt the surprise of the find had entirely engrossed my attention.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked, defensive to the death.

“Just trying to recover my losses. What are you up to? Looking for a necklace to wear this evening, perhaps?”

“That’s none of your business,” I told him. “Oh, I wish you would leave me alone. Take whatever is yours and be off, will you?”

Sir John reached around me and lifted the box from the windowsill. His breath came in a sharp whistle. “Good Lord, how long have you been at this game? Do you go out every night?”

“You know I don’t. And I wish you would leave before I call one of the servants.”

“I think you would be ill-advised to call anyone. Except perhaps your mother.”

Had he started to suspect my mother again? Couldn’t the man make up his mind? I wanted him to suspect no one but me. “Please don’t tell Mama. I’ll manage to get everything back to whoever it belongs to, but you mustn’t let her know. It would devastate her.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” His voice was so dry with irony that he nearly coughed. “Catherine, isn’t it time you told me the truth about what’s going on? When are you going to trust me?”

That was a question that I had come to want answered, too. In some ways I did trust him. As with my heart, I suppose. But did I dare trust him with the family honor, when Mama had actually robbed him? Robert was one of his friends, of course. That would count for something, but I could not tell how much.

“Mama is still disturbed by my father’s death,” I said. I was edging away from the window and the curtains. He might not have seen the hanging necklaces and I didn’t wish to draw his attention to them.

When I said nothing more, he looked inside the cache and fingered through the goods, presumably trying to find his own items. After a moment he drew a purse from the pile. As he lifted it, I could distinctly hear the jingling of many coins. He must have been carrying a great deal of money with him at the time. To entertain the young woman, I supposed, and in high style. Me he merely kissed on picnics and when I was out riding in the middle of the night.

“So that’s yours, is it? Well, then shut the box and put it back. I’m not going to have you fingering through all the rest of the booty.”

“Do you really call your haul booty?” He looked intrigued by this possibility. “Do you call yourself a highwayman, too?”

“Certainly not. I’m an adventurer. Nothing so crass as a highwayman. Only dishonest people are highwaymen.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way. Do you consider it an honest activity, stealing watches and purses from your neighbors?”

“I very seldom steal from my neighbors,” I insisted. “At least not the ones I like. Most of them have been strangers, or obviously wealthy enough to sustain a piddling loss.”

“Still, it’s not for you to decide where their wealth is to go.” He said this sadly, as though the lesson were one he knew I could not understand or would not be able to grasp. Why, the poor man had begun to believe that I was totally immoral. And then I saw the lurking amusement in his eyes and realized that he thought to catch me out in my “confession.” I refused to be fooled by him.

“Perhaps not. But I have decided to do it.” I swung away from him and motioned him to follow me. “I’m going to lock this door after you’ve left so that you can’t come back in here and remove the purses. You don’t, after all, have the first idea to whom they belong. You will have to trust me to return everything on my own."

He eyed me closely for a moment but must have decided that I wasn’t going to change my mind. So he left by the dressing-room door and I locked it after him, with a key from the inside of the door. The servants would be confused by finding the door locked, but it wouldn’t last for long. I was determined to remove the evidence as quickly as possible from Robert’s room and conceal it in my own. No one was likely to look for it there, except Sir John himself, and I planned to protect myself against him.

Chapter 14

As I let myself out of the room and was locking the door, Amanda appeared in the hall and wanted to know what I was doing. It’s easy to fool Amanda when you tell her something she wants to hear, so I said, “Oh, I believe Cousin Bret is making a habit of coming into Robert’s room and pretending that he’s master of the house. I cannot bear to think of it. So I’ll keep the doors locked for the time being. Will you tell Lucy? She won’t be needing to clean in there for a few days, I should think.”

“Cousin Bret is undoubtedly the most unconscionable, despicable, ungrateful, obnoxious person I have ever met in my entire life.” Once Amanda got going, she could keep going for some time, and I wanted to distract her, so I allowed her to go on and on about our undesirable cousin.

“Imagine the nerve of him! Thinking that I would consider marrying him. Why, that is the most ludicrous thing I’ve heard in years. Really, Mama should send him away. I think she is far too generous, allowing him to stay on here for as long as he wishes. Don’t you think it would be a good idea if I wrote to Robert and asked him to hint Cousin Bret away from here?”

“Nothing less than a pistol would convince Cousin Bret to depart,” I said, thinking that I might be reduced to that, all things being equal. “But you might as well make the effort. Robert will be annoyed, of course, that Cousin Bret has been bothering you, but he will undoubtedly wish to do something about it, and maybe that something will include his coming down here to deal with the matter himself.”

“What a wonderful thought! I shall write to him this instant.”

A woman of her word, she scurried off to find her quill and foolscap, for she liked to write a good, long letter when she had determined to write one at all, which was not very often. Robert complained that he was unable to read half of what she wrote, because she crossed her lines, but it never made Amanda change her style. I wasn’t sure it was a perfectly good idea having Robert come down at just this moment, but I figured Sir John would be pleading the case as well, and Mama, and one more effort wouldn’t make much difference.

Exhausted by my exertions and by all the stories I’d been forced to invent, I too wandered off to my room, thinking of where I could manage to hide the money and trinkets. At length I determined on the closet, behind several older gowns and hats that wouldn’t likely be touched by my maid in the near future. I doubted that Sir John would be willing to search though every article of clothing in my closet, for there were many of them. Things should be perfectly safe there for a while.

Amanda didn’t appear until much later in the afternoon, but Cousin Bret had managed to find her as soon as she descended from her room. He was indulging in a type of behavior that he must have considered courtly, but Amanda merely stared coldly at his attempts to be amusing. When Sir John followed me into the room, it was evident that he’d made a decision about Cousin Bret’s rights with regard to Amanda.

“I believe your cousin has clearly stated her position with regard to your attentions, Mr. Cummings. So let us have no more of them.” With that he turned toward Amanda himself and proceeded to charm her anew with his own brand of amusing tales. I could tell that she hadn’t forgotten his bad reputation, but when he was of a mood to be entertaining, it was hard to resist him. Mama arrived in time to hear one of the more scandalous
on dits
that he told, and she tucked her hand under his arm.

“You’re a rascal, sir. How very unkind of you to describe the lady as of limited intelligence. Why, I met her years ago and I can tell you that she’s nothing of the sort. She hasn’t, in fact, a drop of sense or learning.”

With which she gave a merry laugh and warned him that he was only to tell her three more of these tales before dinner would be ready. She looked so youthful and happy when he was talking that for a moment I almost forgot about her midnight activities. But I would have to speak to her. If for no other reason than to be sure that the purloined items were returned to their rightful owners.

And I would have to figure a way to keep her from riding out anymore.

* * * *

I excused myself just a little early from the evening’s amusements. I didn’t want it to be so late that everyone would decide to go to bed at the same time, or so early as to make them wonder at my disappearance. I had to claim the headache again, and Sir John regarded me with narrowed eyes, but he made no attempt to obstruct me.

The first thing I did was to search Mama’s room. It wasn’t terribly difficult to find the cape and mask, which worried me, because it meant that her maid must surely have seen them. My plan was to remove the clothing and hope that she wouldn’t ride out without it. For the time being, I placed it in a box under my bed with a tie around it, and a clever insertion in the knot that would tell me if anyone untied it. And if my maid found it, I would simply claim that I planned to wear it as my Public Day costume. Perhaps Mama had used a similar excuse.

There was a light tap on my door just as I was thinking about going to bed. It had not the sound of my maid’s hand, nor Amanda’s, and I opened the door cautiously. Sir John slipped inside the room just as though I’d invited him. “I wanted to see if you were feeling better,” he explained.

Which was not his intent at all. He moved close to me and I was very aware of his nearness. Though I have a certain amount of height, he was several inches taller than I, and seemed to tower over me in the flickering light. His hands came to the sides of my waist and he smiled at me with such force that I almost gasped. What I should have done was to pull away from him then, certainly, and possibly slap his hands as well, but I remained still as a statue, waiting to see what would happen next.