Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette (10 page)

Astounded, Harry sat up straighter, folded the letter, and
reached quickly for the next.

Sir Colin
: (he read)

Do you seriously think to fob me off with such
nonsense? l am not a child, sir, and know bribery and corruption when I
see it! If you have accepted his money, I will pay you more! If,
however, you are afraid of him, I will hire guards to watch you day and
night until he is brought to trial. Search your conscience and write as
soon as you can to,

Annabelle Carlson

This letter had been inscribed with obvious agitation, since
the writing was nowhere near as neat as that of the first and beneath
the signature, as if in desperate afterthought, was scrawled, "Please,
please
—help
me!"

"The Devil!" muttered Harry, and took up the third letter.

Villain
! (this began abruptly)

So he has terrified you into silence! I had heard
you were an honourable man. I know you now for the cringing, fawning,
lying servility that you are!

("By God!" Harry growled, and his hand tightened furiously on
the page.)

I write this reminder, well knowing it will merely
afford you laughter. A gallant young man was murdered before your
cowardly eyes
—
and you turned away! A helpless
woman is victimized
—
and you care not
!

. Day and night my prayer is that someday you may
reap the bitter fruits of what you have sown!

Annabelle Carlson

"Well… I'll be damned!" gasped Harry.

From behind his hat Diccon murmured, "Reg'lar fire-spitting
shrew, ain't she?"

"Devil take you!" Harry exploded. "You read my letters! How
dare
you, sir? You'd no right!"

"No more did you," shrugged Diccon. "You ain't the—as y'might
say, addressee."

"Sir Colin Redmond was my father!" Harry flashed, coming to
his feet and glaring down at his benefactor.

Diccon poked up the brim of his hat. "Is that a fact—
Mister
Allison
…
?"

Harry's face flamed. Diccon grinned and allowed the brim to
flop again. Not until then did it dawn on Harry that yesterday the big
man had once addressed him as 'milord' and later as 'Sir Harry'.
Between his injuries and the shock of losing Lace, it had slipped his
mind. "How did you know?" he demanded.

"Tried t'find out who you was," Diccon murmured. "Said you
wasn't a lord. Hands wasn't calloused. Handkerchief had three initials.
Then I read them letters." One bright eye was visible through a large
hole in the brim. "Curiosity. Y'might say I'm like them Greeks. They
had their faults. I got mine."

"Yes," said Harry, tight-lipped. "You have, indeed!"

By reason of a bruised knee. Harry limped slightly as he
followed the winding lane. Diccon had given him directions reluctantly,
having warned him to "stay clear o'that lot!" but he'd already lost
much time and had set out determinedly for Sanguinet Towers. The sun
was hot now, and he began to wish he had his hat. He had taken a
courteous but cool farewell of the Trader. Regarding him through the
hole in his hatbrim, Diccon had bidden him take care but had not
bestirred himself to shake hands. Fuming, partly because of that
omission and partly because the man should have been so ungentlemanly
as to have read private letters, Harry had politely expressed his
thanks for Diccon's kindnesses. Trading in turn, he had then placed his
hat on a fallen tree, observed that it might not fit, but the buckle
was of silver, and departed.

Now, his pique having cooled, he reflected that it was quite
ridiculous to have expected Diccon to have behaved any differently. The
man was a simple wanderer—and a good-hearted fellow… Harry's steps
slowed. There had been something oddly likeable about him and that
humourously inclined donkey. And perhaps it
had
been logical enough for Diccon to attempt to discover his identity. Yet
the name and direction should have sufficed, instead of which he'd
admitted to having read all three letters. Unforgivable!

He came at length to a rise, atop which stood a gate and
gatehouse, with a long brick wall stretching off to either hand. A
meadow-lark soared upward carolling blithely, the pure notes recalling
a never-to-be-forgotten voice of sweet purity, an angelic face, framed
by hair of palest gold…

"Wot you think you be a'grinning at?" A leathery-looking man,
arms akimbo, stood before the gate. He wore the green of a gamekeeper
and had a narrow face, ferrety eyes, and an expression of sneering
vindictiveness.

"I have business with M. Sanguinet," Harry advised coolly.

The eyes of the leathery man drifted with slow impertinence
from hatless and bandaged head to scratched, dusty boots. The cut of
those boots and the set of the jacket across the broad shoulders spoke
of the Quality, as did the tilt to the chin and the cultured accents of
the deep voice. But the condition of both man and clothes told their
own story, wherefore the thin lips of the gamekeeper twisted into a
mocking grin. "Well, "oity-toity! Does yer now? Down on yer luck, is
yer, me royal 'ighness?" Harry frowned and stepped a pace closer. The
gamekeeper jerked his thumb toward the woods and said a contemptuous,
"Go on! Out've it!"

"In view of the fact that I am not yet
in
it—I cannot very well get
out
of it. And since
neither your manners nor your face commend themselves to me, you will
be so good as to stand aside."

The gamekeeper proving unwilling, it became necessary for
Harry to be more explicit. Massaging his skinned knuckles, he then
stepped over his antagonist, climbed the gate, and went upon his way.

The drive wound upward through scattered trees, and as he
strode along, the letters haunted him. "… My beloved brother is dead…
bribery and corruption… the cringing, fawning, lying servility that you
are… " And most ominous of all, "Day and night, my prayer is that
someday you may reap the bitter fruits of what you have sown…" Was this
the answer to his father's untimely death? Had this demented woman,
whoever she may be, so hated Colin Redmond that she had contrived his
destruction? To what Enquiry had she referred? And who was the man she
obviously feared and believed responsible for her brother's death?

Pondering thus, he came at last to where the drive wound
around a high bank, after which the trees fell away to reveal a great
house below, rising squarely from a moat-like pond in the centre of an
expanse of green lawns. Starting down the slope, Harry's appraisal was
not approving. Constructed of grey stone, the mansion was even larger
than he had imagined. It was four storeys in height, but appeared
taller since the corners were rounded off and lifted into towers with
conical roofs. Despite its size, however, it presented the appearance
of being huddled together, as though it hugged itself jealously and
regarded the outside world with eyes of cold suspicion.

The sudden thud of running feet alerted Harry and he swung
around, prepared for conflict. His late antagonist, reinforced by three
comrades and armed with a business-like looking club, bore down on him.
Harry dodged the first man, grassed the second, ducked as the club
swung at his head, drove home an uppercut that sent a chubby fellow
staggering backward, and was himself knocked sprawling by a solid right
to the jaw.

The whirling kaleidoscope of green and grey slowed and settled
into two sturdy legs, one foot drawing back. Indignant, Harry raised
his aching head. "Do not dare to… kick me. Damn… your eyes!"'

The movement of the boot was arrested. Four angry faces, two
of them quite damaged, glared down at him.

'E don't
talk
like no poacher, Fritch,"
observed the owner of the foot. "Sounds more like me old Colonel."

"Well, 'e don't
look
like no old
Colonel," pointed out the ferrety-eyed gamekeeper angrily. "Planted me
a facer, 'e done, an 'aint got no business 'ere, of that you may be—"

"What are you men about?"

Harry dragged himself to one elbow. The man who had ridden up
on a magnificent black mare hooked one booted leg casually over the
pommel and leaned forward, scanning him with disdain. It would have
been difficult to say whether he was nearer to thirty-five or fifty.
Dressed in jet, relieved only by the snow of cravat and cuffs, his
clothes were superb and he wore them with assured grace. His hair was a
glossy blue-black, curling about a dark-complected face. The nose was
slim and straight; the bones of cheek and jaw finely chiselled, and the
skin over them having an almost stretched look. The mouth, full and
sensual, was smiling, but the smile went no further than the lips; and
it was the eyes that caught and held Harry's attention. For in that
darkly beautiful face were set eyes so light as to be almost
colourless; large, brilliant eyes, holding an expression of hungry
ferocity barely held in check, and of themselves so alien that for the
first time in his life the mere appearance of another human being
caused Harry, at least inwardly, to recoil.

"This 'ere intruder hassaulted me, Monseer Sanguinet," said
Fritch aggrievedly. "Tipped me a leveller, so 'e did!"

"In which case," purred Sanguinet, his accent barely
discernable, "you failed. And failure you must know displeases me."

"But… sir . . !" whined Fritch.

Sanguinet lifted one gloved hand. A lazy movement, but the
fingers might have gripped a crossbow to judge by the speed with which
the Ferret slunk away.

"My estate," smiled Parnell Sanguinet, "bears signs. And the
signs read—in English, mark you—'trespassers… will… be… shot!' " His
gaze slid to his men and his shoulders shrugged in a Gallic gesture
that reminded Harry of Camille Damon. "
Eh bien
?
So—shoot him."

Harry stared, then laughed scornfully. "
Coûte que
coûte . .
?"

The pallid eyes widened a trifle and returned to him. "It
shall cost
me
nothing, sir." He gestured once
more and Harry was hauled to his feet. The scene blurred, but he kept
his head up and from an echoing distance heard Sanguinet demand, "How
are you called?"

"Harry… Redmond. I have come—" His rather indistinct utterance
was checked by a startled, "
Pas possible
!" and
Sanguinet leaned forward, his eyes glowing slits as he scrutinized
Harry intently.

"He was with that there trader fella, Monsewer," put in the
fat individual. "I seed 'un s'marnin."

Briefly, Sanguinet remained rigidly still. Then, his breath
hissing through shut teeth, he relaxed, "You have come down in the
world, monsieur," he sneered. "And as to
why
you
have come here—this to me is of
peu d'importance
.
I would be much wearied to discuss either the loss of your ancestral
estates, or…" the shapely mouth twisted mockingly, "or the
so-nonsensical death of your papa."

Harry swore and lunged forward, but was restrained by strong
hands.

"Since you are nobly born," Sanguinet went on, "I permit that
you leave. But—be warned. If upon my property you again set your feet,
I
shall
have you shot. And—"

"And thrown to the dogs?" mocked Harry. "You are the one who
is nonsensical, Sanguinet! This is 1816—not the Dark Ages! And you are
'monsieur'—
not
'monseigneur'! I tell you now that
I intend to discover what happened at that damnable card game and why
my—"

The Frenchman's black brows had met during this defiant
outburst, and now one hand flung imperiously upward. To his rageful
astonishment a hand came from behind to clamp hard across Harry's mouth.

"I have a dislike to be interrupted," announced Sanguinet.
"Your papa was so foolish as to challenge me when he was—how do you say
this… ? In his cups? He lost—
logiquement
. That his
whelp comes whining to me for mercy, I find disgusting. Besides which…"
He grinned suddenly. "Mercy is a commodity of which I have none." He
pointed his riding whip at the struggling Harry and said with deadly
intensity, "Offend me once more, Redmond, and you will discover me to
be—
vraiment—a
monseigneur!" He twisted in the
saddle with lithe ease, drove home long spurs, and rode toward the
house, calling over his shoulder, "Rid me of him…
tout de
suite
!"

Half strangled and all but sobbing with fury, Harry was spun
violently about. A large and knotted fist drove at him. There was no
chance to avoid it. The beautiful spring morning exploded, and ceased
to be.

His head was filled with merciless gnomes, each pounding at
his skull with cruel pronged hammers. And as though this were not
torment enough, his boots had never been intended for long hikes over
rough country lanes on very warm afternoons. Harry began to feel sick
and, weaving onward, did not allow himself to think of what he would do
if he did not find the friendly pedlar and his humorously inclined ass.
At last he approached a copse that looked vaguely familiar, but it
seemed to shimmer oddly before his gaze and he put out one hand to
steady himself against a tree… He flinched to an ear-splitting blast of
sound and was surprised to discover not only that he had fallen to his
knees but that he was all but nose to nose with a droll and familiar
countenance, topped by long ears threaded through a forlorn beaver hat.
"Mr. Fox…" he muttered thickly, and then was puzzled to discern dark
skirts aproaching, together with a ripple of feminine laughter. He
peered upward and struggled to his feet, brushing impatiently at his
clouded eyes.

She wore the same round gown as when he'd last seen her, and
her dark hair, although still pulled into the tight knot atop her head,
was even more unattractive since strands and wisps had come loose and
straggled down untidily. It was the poor half-witted girl who'd sat
beside his Golden Beauty at Mrs. Burnett's genteel boardinghouse! "You
. . !" he gasped. "But—how—"