All About Love (50 page)

Phyllida’s tongue burned with the need to ask why. She glanced at Flick, and saw the identical thought in her eyes. They both drew breath, then turned their attention back to the shelves and continued pretending to search.

Silence fell, broken only by the steady shuffle and thump as books were hauled out, then returned to their places. After some minutes, Phyllida glanced across the room. Lucifer caught her eye; he nodded.

Phyllida moved across the bookcase as if starting on the next shelf, and slid out the brown, buckram-covered tome whose spine bore the title
Aesop’s Fables
in simple gold lettering. She weighed the book in her hand, then opened the cover—she could see where Lucifer had lifted a corner of the front cover paper. She pressed her fingers into the thick cover; there was a softness behind the paper. Lucifer had said he’d checked; she trusted he’d known what he’d been doing.

Shutting the book, she marveled that such an innocent-looking thing could be responsible for three deaths. For depriving Lucius Appleby of his sanity. Certainly his humanity. It had nearly accounted for her, too.

Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her head and looked across the room at Appleby. “I believe this”—she held out the book—“is the volume you seek.”

Appleby nearly stepped forward, nearly stepped away from Sweetie, but at the last he pulled back. He couldn’t read the title. He stared at the book hungrily, then licked his lips. He flicked a glance at Lucifer and Demon. “Everyone stay still.” Appleby tugged Sweetie to her feet, then locked his arm about her shoulders as before, the knife in his right hand. He nodded at Phyllida. “Hand the book to Mrs. Hemmings, then retreat to where you are now. Everyone else, stay where you are.”

Phyllida did as he asked. Mrs. Hemmings turned to Appleby. He beckoned her forward with the knife. “Give the book to Miss Sweet.”

Mrs. Hemmings approached cautiously, then pressed the book into her old friend’s trembling hands. “There, now.”

Mrs. Hemmings stepped back.

“Good.” Appleby glanced briefly down at the book. He was shaking. “Open the front cover.”

Sweetie fumbled but did so. His gaze on Lucifer, Demon, and the other men, Appleby grasped the cover, not looking but pressing his fingertips into the concealed pocket. A fleeting expression of unutterable relief, of flaring victory, traversed his face, then his expression blanked.

He closed the book. “I want all of you to move to the end of the room, up against the bookcases.”

Lucifer hesitated, then moved down the room. The others followed. All except Lady Huddlesford. She stood her ground.

“Miss Sweet is nearly done in.” Lady Huddlesford lifted her chin; she had never looked so imperious. “If you want a hostage, take me.”

Miss Sweet blinked. Trapped against Appleby like some poor, innocent bird, she peered at Lady Huddlesford and visibly rallied. “Why, thank you, Margaret. That’s a very kind offer, but . . .” Despite Appleby’s arm, Sweetie straightened her spine. “I believe I’ll manage. It’s quite all right, really.”

Lady Huddlesford considered, then inclined her head. “If you’re sure, Amelia.” With that, she swung majestically around and joined the others.

“If that’s settled”—Appleby’s voice sounded strained, wild excitement mingling with something closer to panic—“we’ll leave you. I’ll take Miss Sweet as far as the wood. I’ll hear any footsteps long before you reach us. If I do, things will not go well for Miss Sweet. However, if you remain precisely where you are until she returns to you, you have my word she will not be harmed.” He paused, his gaze flicking over Lucifer, Demon, Jonas, Sir Jasper—if he was searching for understanding, there was none to be had. “I never meant to kill anyone, not even Jerry. If there’d been some other way . . .” He blinked, then straightened. Pulling Sweetie with him, he shuffled sideways to the door. “I will kill anyone who gets in my way.”

“We’ll wait here.” Lucifer kept his voice calm and steady, as he had throughout.

Appleby nodded. “In that case, I’ll bid you farewell.”

Under his breath, Lucifer murmured,
“Au revoir.”

They waited. With a raised hand, Lucifer stopped anyone from moving. “He’s on the edge—we’re not going to give him any reason to panic.”

Minutes crawled past. They heard the scrunch of gravel, the sound dying away as Appleby dragged Sweetie through the kitchen garden toward the wood. They exchanged glances but no words. They were all thinking of Sweetie.

Then came a patter on the gravel, drawing closer to the house. It was so light a sound, they were too afraid to imagine it was footsteps. Then the baize door at the back of the hall banged the wall; in a rush of pitter-patter steps, Sweetie appeared in the dining room doorway.

“He’s gone!” She fluttered her hands furiously. “Away through the woods he ran!” She flung out an arm in the general direction of the wood—then fainted.

Lucifer caught her before she hit the floor. He carried her into the drawing room and laid her on the
chaise
.

Later, when she recovered and told her story to the assembled ladies of the village, Miss Sweet was, for the first time in her life, the heroine of the hour.

As afternoon edged
into evening, Lucifer, Phyllida, Demon, and Flick, with Jonas, Sir Jasper, Mr. Filing, and Cedric, gathered in the library to make a new plan.

“I’ve sent Dodswell to fetch Thompson and Oscar,” Lucifer told them.

“Aha!” Demon said. “So
that’s
what you meant by
‘au revoir.’
”

Phyllida and Flick and everyone else looked their silent question; Lucifer explained. “Someone approached the Beer smuggling gang to arrange passage to France. It had to be tonight. The Beer gang told the man to meet with Oscar’s band, who would normally run a cargo tonight.”

Jonas looked out the window. The wind had come up as the sun had gone down; the storm was moving steadily in. “No one will be running anything tonight.”

“I know that, you know that, most of us know that. The question is, will Appleby know that?”

“He was born and raised and lived most of his life in Stafford,” Demon put in. “Stafford’s about as far from the coast as it’s possible to get, so chances are he won’t immediately recognize the implications of the weather.”

“Then he’ll go to the meeting place expecting to meet smugglers.” Phyllida was sitting beside Lucifer’s desk.

“Men who have as much to hide as he does,” Lucifer observed. “That’s the only sort he’ll feel safe approaching. He intended today to be a last and successful effort. He came to the Manor with his plans made, his arrangements in place—he never intended to return to Ballyclose.”

Cedric snorted. “The horse he rode here came back a few hours ago. No other horses are missing.”

Lucifer glanced at Demon. “With us here, both with strong teams, escaping on horseback would have been risky.”

“He’s a cautious sort, yet . . .” Demon shook his head. “Fancy spending five years searching for something you’d only heard of from someone else’s letter. And then it turns out the thing’s not even still there to be found.”

“He didn’t know that. He’s obsessed.” Phyllida hugged herself. “That’s the only explanation. He’s mad.”

“This picture that Appleby thought was in the book—he said it hadn’t surfaced.” Sir Jasper glanced at Lucifer. “That seem reasonable to you?”

Lucifer nodded. “The fanfare surrounding the discovery of a lost miniature by an old master would not be easy to miss. He’s correct on that. I haven’t heard anything.”

“But if it’s not in the book and hasn’t been rediscovered, where is it?”

Lucifer looked at Phyllida. “You remember the item Horatio asked me to appraise—the item that brought me here?”

Phyllida stared. “You think it might be that?”

“It’s the sort of thing Horatio would ask my opinion on. I’m familiar with the private collections of old masters held by various members of the aristocracy as well as the Crown. Even more to the point, it’s an item he would guard very closely and tell no one else about.”

“So where is it?”

“Hidden.” Lucifer looked up at the sound of the front-door knocker. “We’ll have to turn the house inside out, but first we must deal with Appleby.”

Bristleford ushered Thompson and Oscar in, then approached Lucifer. As the others pulled up chairs to join the council, Bristleford murmured, “With your permission, sir, Covey, Hemmings, and I would respectfully ask to be included in any little excursion you might be planning.”

Lucifer glanced into Bristleford’s earnest face, then nodded. “Yes, of course. In fact, if Mrs. Hemmings can manage out there, perhaps you, Covey, and Hemmings could join us.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll fetch Covey and Hemmings.”

Bristleford retreated. Phyllida caught Lucifer’s eye; she closed her hand over his on the desk. “They haven’t yet gotten over the fact that they let someone kill Horatio.”

Lucifer nodded, then turned to the others. Briskly, he outlined the situation. Oscar described the area where the smugglers met, the knoll to which the Beer gang had directed the impatient human cargo. They made their plans quickly, then they rose.

“Remember,” Sir Jasper warned, “no heroics and no unnecessary violence. I don’t want to have to take anyone else up for murder.”

“There should be no need for any real action. There’s too many of us for him to escape, and other than that knife, he’ll be unarmed.” Lucifer scanned the men’s faces. “We’ll meet at the knoll as soon as darkness falls—no one be late.”

With the words “Aye” and “We’ll be there—“ the men departed.

Following them into the hall, Flick caught Phyllida’s eye. “I wonder if I could have a word.” Linking her arm in Phyllida’s, Flick turned to the stairs.

Lucifer and Demon, reaching the library door, saw the loves of their lives, heads together, disappear upstairs.

“That doesn’t look good,” Demon said.

Lucifer grimaced. “I suppose we’d better face this like men.”

His expression hardening, Demon headed for the stairs. “We can but try.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Lucifer and Demon met at the head of the stairs. Their ladies were with them. Lucifer stared at Flick. Demon stared, equally surprised, at Phyllida. Then the cousins looked at each other.

“I won’t ask if you don’t,” Demon offered.

Grim-faced, Lucifer nodded. “Agreed.”

Neither Flick nor Phyllida appeared to hear; they led the way down the stairs, stepping easily in breeches and boots.

With Lucifer, Demon followed, his gaze shifting from his beloved’s neat rear to Phyllida’s shapely thighs. As they descended the last flight, he shook his head. “I’ll be damned if any of our forebears ever had to deal with this.”

Dodswell and Gillies were waiting, mounted, at the side of the house, both holding a pair of horses saddled—no sidesaddles, Lucifer noted. There was quite a little party gathered in the twilight, none of whom seemed to find anything remarkable in Flick’s or Phyllida’s attire. As they lifted their respective ladies to their saddles, then mounted alongside them, both Cynsters’ hackles subsided—a little.

They set out. Lucifer kept a close eye on Phyllida; she sent him a sidelong glance. After she soared over the first fence and left him pushing to regain his position beside her, he stopped watching her and paid attention to their direction.

Crossing field after field, they headed south to the coast. Phyllida led the way—she was the only one who knew where they were going. The breeze strengthened, the salty tang increasing. A cottage appeared through the gloom, dwarfed by the huge barn behind it. Phyllida turned up the rutted track; she led them to the barn. They’d agreed to leave the horses there so as not to risk alerting Appleby.

The old farmer and his wife greeted Phyllida, clearly old friends. Dodswell returned from tethering their mounts. “Quite a few already in there—looks like Thompson with Sir Jasper and the others.”

“Good.” Lucifer looked around. “Oscar will walk in with the gang and ponies as usual.”

Demon, too, had been scanning the woods. “How do you want to do this?”

“Strung out, single file, slowly. The meeting’s not until full dark—we have time to be careful.”

They were. With Phyllida in the lead, Lucifer at her shoulder, they walked quietly through the woods, silently skirted two fields, then entered the last stand of stunted trees close by the cliff’s edge.

The others were there, waiting. Without words, the party from the Manor spread out, clinging to the deepening shadows under the trees almost encircling the grassy knoll. The land sloped up from the tree line to the cliff’s edge and up from either side; beyond the knoll, the cliff fell away.

They settled, crouching in the shadows, the sounds of their shuffling subsumed beneath the relentless pounding of the surf on the rocks far below. The wind was strong, blowing cold in their faces. No ship would dare approach this treacherous coast with such a wind behind it.

An hour later, the storm had taken possession of the skies; darkness had fallen like a shroud across the land. Muscles had stiffened, joints were aching, yet still they waited patiently.

Then the tramp of feet reached them. Minutes later, the night shift of the Colyton Import Company arrived on the scene. They were all there—Oscar, Hugey, Marsh, and the rest. They milled about on the lower slope of the knoll, huddling against the wind.