Miss Ryder's Memoirs (24 page)

* * * *

Sir John waylaid me as I was going back into the house, and guided me rather firmly down a sunny path leading away. “Where are we going?” I demanded, two or three times. But all he would say was, “You’ll see." He didn’t seem particularly annoyed with me, so I quickened my pace to keep up with him and hoped we didn’t have too far to go.

When we were out of sight of the house, I began to give him sultry, smoldering glances. At least, that is what I hoped they were. His lips twitched with amusement and he muttered something about my being the most provoking girl he’d ever met. Well, I wasn’t about to disagree with him because I secretly suspected that he liked being provoked, in more than one way. We trotted on past the open pond and right up to the rocks hiding the secret one. He made a cursory inspection of the area and then waved me along to follow him. We arrived in the glade with our shoes in hand and our feet making wet patterns on the warm rocks.

“I don’t know how I resist you,” he sighed, drawing me into his arms in a most charming way. “One would think that you had some kind of spell over me. Just what is this web you weave, my dear child?”

“I am not your dear child. I’m nearly twenty-one years old and quite a grown woman."

“I remember.” He smiled reminiscently and suggested that we sit on the rocks.

When I had seated myself, he gazed off at the trees and said in a thoughtful voice, “Your cousin is convinced that your mother is the highwayman, and I must confess that I’ve had to reach the same conclusion. It could have been you, except that there are too many clues pointing to your mother—Antelope, for one.”

“And another?”

His lips twisted ruefully. “Your mother, touched as she is by the spirits of the dead, is simply the more likely person to go out and rob folks on the high road. But you will have to explain to me what you were doing out the other night.”

“I meant to follow her. And then, when I found that I was being followed, I determined to convince both you and Cousin Bret that I was indeed the highwayman.”

“Why?”

“I think I had some idea of protecting Mama. We’ve had a long talk now, she and I. It won’t happen again. It was one of her ghosts, a Cavalier relative who looked like Papa but offered her a chance for some excitement and adventure.” I shrugged. “I don’t suppose you would understand.”

“Well, not perfectly,” he admitted, “but I have a great deal of sympathy for your mother. Our problem now is that Cummings says he has evidence of her robberies. Is it possible that he’s found her store of booty?”

“No. The room is locked and none of the purses is missing.” It gave me chills even to mention the robbed items that way. More than anything I just wanted them out of the house and returned to their rightful owners. “How are we going to get rid of those things?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” His arm had come around my shoulders and he drew me close to him. “I doubt if your mother is going to know to whom everything belongs. But the village constable will have had each incident reported to him. We’ll hide everything in some safe location in the village and send an anonymous note to the constable. He can find it, return the goods, and get all the praise. How does that sound?”

I felt so wonderfully safe and protected in his arms. The most I could do was nod.

“And what shall we do about your cousin?” he asked.

“I have a plan for Cousin Bret.” I hadn’t intended to tell him, but I had told him everything else and I realized suddenly that I trusted him completely. There was something so strong and honest about him that I wondered I had ever doubted his sincere desire to help my family. He had always wanted to help Robert, and he had come to want to help the rest of us, with his sympathy for Mama’s foibles and his acceptance of Amanda’s correctness, and his . . .

Was it love for me? I couldn’t tell. All I knew then, looking into his deep, intense eyes, was that I loved him. And I would share my plans with him. I would have been willing to share a great deal more than that with him—if only he had asked.

* * * *

Later we separated before we reached the house, Sir John to ride Thunder and me to carry out my plan for the strongbox and the booty. He had allowed as how my plan might work, and that I had a perfect right to carry it out, at least these initial stages, on my own. How delightful it was to find a man who didn’t balk at the slightest irregularity. Really, I considered myself most fortunate.

I found the strongbox key right where it always was, and made my way to the attics, where the strongbox was in its usual place, surrounded by other wooden boxes and wardrobes containing old clothes. Nothing could have been better for my purposes.

Leaving the strongbox open, I returned to the hall outside Robert’s room and ascertained that there was no one about. Too bad I hadn’t had the opportunity to put the items in my closet as I’d planned. It would have felt a lot more comfortable working there.

I let myself in with the key and went quickly to the draperies. The room was dim and had the faint air of a closed space, stuffy and airless. I would have liked to open the windows and let a fresh breeze in. But I couldn’t take the time. I felt an urgency about removing the stolen goods.

As I was working the necklaces off the drapery rod, I heard a distinct sound in the corridor outside. My hand froze where it was, lifted high to clutch the cool string of pearls. Suddenly the doorknob turned. I could see the movement and hear the sound. I quickly hid myself behind the drapery, remembering too late that I had not locked the door after myself.

Peeking out from my hiding place, I saw the door begin to open. My mind worked frantically to manufacture some excuse for my being there and for the presence of the highwayman’s spoils. Who could be coming in? Surely not one of the servants. I felt certain that it must be Cousin Bret, who had discovered the booty but who had left it here so that he could use it at his convenience in accusing Mama and forcing Amanda into marrying him.

From the hall I heard a familiar voice say, “I don’t believe that’s your room, Cummings.” I always liked the sound of Sir John’s voice, but this time it sounded particularly pleasing to my ear.

“No, it’s Robert’s room,” Cousin Bret admitted. “I thought I would just take a look at it.”

“Somehow I doubt that Robert would appreciate your investigating his room,” Sir John said in his driest voice.

“I can’t think why not.”

Despite Cousin Bret’s defiance, I could see that he was pulling the door closed, and I heaved a sigh of relief. In a matter of moments I heard both sets of steps leave the area, but I knew that Sir John would manage to keep my cousin away until I had finished my task. In the meantime I tossed the purses, jewels, and loose coins into a sack I had brought for the purpose. All the while I was trying to decide if my original plan would still work.

Thwarted in getting his hands on the stolen goods in Robert’s room, Cousin Bret would be searching for their next hiding place, presumably. And his discovery of the strongbox key, as if by accident, would prove too much of a temptation for him to resist. Or so I hoped.

When I had gathered everything from the room, I swung the sack over my shoulder and was surprised at the weight of it. Mama had certainly been an amazingly successful highwayman; you had to give her that! The hallway was clear and I raced along to the back stairs leading up to the attics. Trudging up the narrow steps to the next floor was harder than I’d anticipated, but I was in a hurry now to be finished. I wanted no one else to come upon me before I was finished.

I dumped the bag near the strongbox and allowed myself just a minute in the old rocking chair to catch my breath. When I set to work again I found that all the pieces just barely fit in the strongbox, though it was of a moderate size. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was all worth, those rings and purses and pieces of gold. And Mama not the least bit tempted to appropriate them.

After locking the box I went by a circuitous route down through the house and out into the grounds. At the dovecote I felt for the other key and placed this one directly underneath it, so that Amanda could scarcely miss it when she reached in. In her artless fashion she would undoubtedly give away exactly the information that I wanted her to.

Surely Cousin Bret would suspect that Mama had removed the spoils to the strongbox and hidden the key in the dovecote. I had left the door of Robert’s room unlocked so that he could discover that the goods were gone from there. I only hoped his mind would not dwell on the fact that it was Sir John who caught him going into Robert’s room. Mightn’t Sir John have mentioned the incident to Mama, who would have gotten the wind up? Yes, it could have happened that way, and Cousin Bret had better believe that it had!

At length I returned to my room to dress for dinner. This process had become much more important in the last few weeks. Though we had always dressed to a certain extent, it was nothing like the way we did now, with Sir John there to admire our toilettes. Cousin Bret, unfortunately, made his own share of comments on them, but that was neither here nor there.

Just when I was about to descend, I heard the distant rumbling of thunder and saw a crack of lightning. Well, there would be no walks out in the shrubberies that night, I thought, discouraged. Our scheme for fooling Bret would have to wait and I wasn’t just brimming with patience. I wanted the whole mess over and behind us—so that I could concentrate on winning Sir John’s love.

Chapter 16

It rained the better part of the next day and we all wandered about the house bumping into one another. Only by early evening were things beginning to clear. Just before dinner I found Amanda in the drawing room before the men and Mama joined us, and I said, “Try to make it tonight. The grass isn’t so wet that it will ruin your slippers. And let me know right away when you’ve shown Cousin Bret the key.”

She reluctantly agreed to this, though I could tell that she was concerned about her slippers. When dinner was over and Cousin Bret tried to get her to go walking with him, she fluttered her hands, eyed me rather petulantly, and agreed. Sir John looked amused, but he said nothing. When they had left, Mama urged me to walk out with Sir John. “But you must put a shawl about your shoulders,” she insisted. “Run up to your room and get one, so you won’t keep Sir John waiting.”

I had the distinct impression she wished to have a few words alone with him, but I was unable to linger at the keyhole because the butler was hovering there himself, waiting for a summons to bring in the port or Madeira, which was the usual habit we’d gotten into of an evening.

Instead, I rushed up to my room, grabbed the first shawl that came to hand, though it did not perfectly match my dress, and skipped back downstairs to see if I might make another attempt at listening in on their conversation. But there was silence in the room when I got there, and chagrined, I merely walked in and found them sitting in adjacent chairs, puzzling over an old book of Papa’s about the family.

We passed Amanda and Cousin Bret on our way farther out onto the grounds. She gave me a conspiratorial nod, but her brow had that puzzled wrinkle that told me they had also discovered the strongbox key. Very good. Knowing my cousin, he wouldn’t let any grass grow beneath his feet. I could count on his claiming the key and the strongbox that very night.

For Sir John’s benefit I rubbed my head the way Mama does when she is about to be communicated by one of her ghosts and said, “I have this feeling that something is going to happen tonight. I see gold and jewels.”

Sir John grinned at me. “Your sister isn’t very adept at playing these games, is she? If Cummings hadn’t been looking in the other direction, he would surely have wondered why she winked with such ferocity.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. She has managed to bring it off just fine, I would say. You can tell Cousin Bret is already scheming to get his hands on the strongbox.

“He
was
rather transparent, wasn’t he?” Sir John agreed.

There was something a little unusual about his own actions, it seemed to me. For one thing, he’d made not the slightest effort to kiss me, even when Amanda was out of view. And he held my arm in a rather formal way, not hugging it so warmly against his body as he usually did.

Thinking that he might be offended that I hadn’t given him a bigger role in the coming activities, I said, “If you wish, I will allow you to be the one to discover my cousin with the strongbox. He might not take me as seriously as he would take you, in any case.’’

We had arrived at the little wooden bridge over the stream. The trees on either side seemed to cast wide shadows. In this secluded spot I felt certain that Sir John would at last take me into his arms. But he did nothing of the sort.

He stood towering over me, staring down into my eyes with his usual expressiveness. “You’ve become quite trusting in your attitude toward me. It's certainly a change, and a welcome one. In fact, I have a good mind to run off to the border with you this very night, rather than wait for the Public Day confusion.”

I blinked at him. He was referring to the letter I had sent Robert. “How could you possibly know? Has he written to you? It was only a joke, you know. Nothing to put you out of countenance.”

“Well, if he kills me in a duel for it, you will have only yourself to blame. Robert would not take kindly to the idea of his sister eloping, even with his best friend.”

I snorted. “He was not supposed to challenge you to a duel. He was supposed to come down to Cambridgeshire so that he might sort out the whole mess.”

“You gave him very little choice,” a voice behind us said dryly.

I hadn’t heard his voice in such a long time. Stupidly, tears sprang to my eyes. I swung around and threw myself on his chest as he emerged from the shadows. “You did come, you silly, wonderful fellow. Now everything will be all right.”

“I’m sure I don’t know why you thought I couldn’t handle it myself,” Sir John protested, laughing. “Robert is such a scatterbrain that he’s likely to make a muddle of it.”