At once a terrible foreboding assailed Abbie. What if O’Leary had molested her? Penfel would have to marry her! Her own reputation would suffer as well. She was in charge of the girls. And with such a scandal hanging over its head, Miss Slatkin’s Academy would never be trusted to look after another student.
After a moment’s anxiety, Abbie could no longer stand waiting. She crossed the road just as the men separated, going in different directions, Farber remained outside the front door. She ran forward and spoke to him.
“What is happening?”
“O’Leary is not in the tavern. Penfel is clambering up to the balcony to try to get a look in at the bedroom windows. There is no access to the balcony from below. He will have to scamper up one of the posts. The younger lads are waiting behind, one on either side of the inn to catch O’Leary if he makes it down from the balcony. We’ll get him this time, ma’am, never you fear.”
“But will he already have harmed Lady Susan?”
Farber shook his head sadly. “I fear it is a possibility. O’Leary has a hot eye and a busy hand for the women. Though Lady Susan is not exactly his type.”
It seemed a long time they waited, worrying and watching as Penfel went from window to window, listening and trying to peer through the curtains. When he had made the whole circuit, he clambered down and joined them.
“He may have her in one of those rooms. There is no telling from outside. I’m going in. I’ll ask for a room.”
Farber looked doubtful. “This is not the sort of establishment that caters to lords.”
“I’ve never been inside. They won’t know who I am.”
“They’ll know you’re not their sort!”
Penfel looked offended at this charge of a respectable appearance. “I might pass for a royal scamp, with some little changes to my costume. I’ve heard our local highwayman, Jack Rasher, dresses like a gentleman. I’ll say I’ve held up a carriage and need a private room for a few days.”
“They’ll know you’re not a local cove.”
“True, Jack Rasher doesn’t like intruders on his turf. I’ll be from another parish. Once I’m inside, I can investigate more thoroughly. Perhaps there are rooms hidden belowstairs or some such thing.”
As he spoke, he removed his hat and placed Farber’s vastly inferior one on his head. He removed the diamond pin from his cravat, pulled off his cravat, and handed it to Farber. “May I borrow your kerchief?”
They exchanged cravat for kerchief. These few modifications altered his appearance slightly, but it was his rakish expression and low accent that perfected the transformation.
“
‘Tis hard work being on the scamp lay, never placing your head on the feathers till the sun is out. I wager the coves won’t recognize Weston’s work,”
he said, loosening his jacket and squeezing it into wrinkles to conceal the exquisite cut of London’s premier tailor. “I’ll need more loot.”
He pulled his watch from his pocket and detached the chain from his waistcoat. He added watch and chain to his diamond cravat pin, pulled a crested ring from his finger and his purse from his pocket. He looked to Abbie. “Stand and deliver, miss! Your ring and necklace or your life.”
She removed the little pearl ring from her finger and the antique necklace with emerald chips from her throat and gave them to him. Now that he was ready to go, she was seized by a terrible fear that she would never see him alive again.
“Would it help if I go with you? I could pretend I’m your—doxy,”
she said, choking over the low word.
He looked up from his collection of jewelry and grinned. “You wouldn’t fool a schoolboy,”
he said, in his own accents, “but I admire your spirit. Is there any point asking you to return to the carriage?”
“No.”
“I’d like to go in with you,”
Farber said, “but I fear I would give the show away. Those fellows can smell the law a mile away.”
“You stay here with Miss Fairchild. If you see O’Leary darting out, grab him.”
On this speech, Penfel cocked Farber’s hat over his eye, winked at Abbie, and swaggered into the tilting inn to request a very private room for a few days’
rustication.
The proprietor, a shifty-eyed man with a vast stomach, was wary. “How did you hear about me?”
he asked.
“From a cove in my line of work. I’m not poaching on Jack Rasher’s territory, if that’s what worries you, I had a spot of trouble just outside Epsom. Fear I may have killed a cove. He didn’t want to part with his purse.”
He patted his pocket that jingled from its contents and smiled.
“I don’t need no details. I’m an honest businessman.”
“I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t reliable, now, would I? I’ll need a very private room—with a way out, if you know what I mean.”
As he spoke, he put his hand in his pocket and drew out the jewelry, assessed it as if selecting a piece of the proper value, and returned it to his pocket. “Best pay in cash,”
he said. “These sparklers are hot.”
He handed the proprietor a bill of large denomination.
The proprietor examined him a long minute, then nodded and gave him a key. “Back of the storeroom at the end of the corridor, next to the stairs. Behind the stacks of linen, you’ll find a door. The room’s small—has a bed and washstand. Under the washstand’s a trapdoor leading down a flight of stairs to the cellar. The cellar door there only opens from the inside. Safe as churches. There’s a bell by the bed. I’ll give it a ring if anyone comes asking for you, but there’s no need to panic. No one’s ever been caught there. You need food, wine?”
“Just a bed,”
Penfel said, as he didn’t want servants going to see he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
He picked up the key, the proprietor directed him
down the corridor, and he went toward the linen
closet. In the corner, he saw a staircase leading up to the bedchambers. Without even opening the door of the linen closet, he darted up the stairs and began
listening at the bedroom doors, opening them if they
weren’t locked. All the unlocked rooms were empty.
The men in the rooms didn’t want anyone taking them by surprise. Between listening at keyholes and listening through the walls of the empty rooms, he was soon convinced O’Leary was not in any of the regular bedrooms. The obliging proprietor had arranged some more private accommodation for O’Leary and Lady Susan. If it was as well concealed as his own room, he would have a difficult time finding it.
He was beginning to think Farber must make an
official entry. The “honest businessman’s”
livelihood
depended on defending his “guests.”
He wouldn’t
hand O’Leary over peacefully. There would be a
huge brawl, gunshots, wounds, possibly even a
death. The whole affair would be a local scandal by
morning, and whispered about in London when the
trial began.
And he would have to marry Lady Susan. No, there had to be another way. But as he stood, racking his brains, he couldn’t imagine what other way was open to him. And there wasn’t a minute to spare. Lady Susan’s honor might even now be in terrible jeopardy.
“I don’t believe O’Leary has her abovestairs,”
Penfel reported to Farber and Abbie when he slipped out the cellar door and met them again outside the Duck and Dragon. “How could he have taken her in if she was protesting? She would have been hollering ‘The Duke of Wycliffe’
at the top of her lungs. I doubt the proprietor would stand still for that. It’s not as if O’Leary is one of his regulars.”
“Perhaps she was drugged. He might have let on she was ill,”
Abbie suggested.
“The inn has some hidden rooms.”
Penfel described his own hidey-hole to them, which was arranged just as
the innkeeper had said.
Farber nodded. “I’d best go in and make it official. We’ve no time to waste.”
Penfel’s jaws locked in grim resignation. He could only look his desolation at Abbie, whose eyes mirrored the emotion. She read in his look that his feelings for her were not a passing fancy, not a flirtation, but the beginning at least of true love. Unspoken between them was the knowledge of how this would affect their romance. Abbie hardly knew whether she was more sorry for Penfel, having to spend the rest of his life amid the Wycliffes, or for herself, never seeing him again.
She opened her lips twice, but no words came out. She cleared her throat and said in a strained voice, “O’Leary must be in a room similar to the one you have, Penfel, if only we could find it.”
“How do we do that, other than asking the innkeeper where O’Leary is?”
Farber asked. “That will make him demmed suspicious.”
Penfel’s brow furrowed in thought, then he looked up with a beam of hope flashing in his eyes. “Not necessarily. Why could I not claim to be a friend of O’Leary’s? Birds of a feather, you know. I’ll mention hearing O’Leary’s Circus is playing hereabouts, and inquire about my old chum, O’Leary. It can’t do any harm to try. I’ve given the notion I’m fagged and want only my bed, but that is no matter. I’ll say I can’t sleep.”
“Ask for a game of cards!”
Abbie exclaimed. “I shouldn’t be surprised if they know O’Leary is a Captain Sharp.”
“A good idea! I’ll go at once. Stand by, Farber, and keep an eye on Johnnie and Singleton to see they don’t do something foolish.”
Penfel hastened back to the cellar door, which he had propped open to allow himself to reenter his hidey-hole. While Farber and Abbie stood, waiting on nettles, Lord John came creeping silently around the side of the building, wearing a broad grin.
“I believe I’ve found them!”
he whispered.
“Where?”
Abbie and Farber demanded in unison.
“There’s a wee shack in the woods. I noticed a servant from the inn taking a bottle of wine into the woods, and followed him. He didn’t see me. I haven’t investigated yet. I thought I’d best tell Penfel. Where is he?”
“He’s inside,”
Farber said. “We’ll let him do what he’s doing, in case your wee shack is a red herring. Let us go and have a look at it.”
Abbie said, “No!”
in a firm voice. “We shouldn’t all leave. Someone must stay here in case Penfel needs help. You stay, Farber. Lord John and I will investigate and let you know what we learn.”
Farber considered her command and said, “Happen you’re right. But don’t try to apprehend O’Leary. Come back and let me know if he’s there.”
“Right,”
Lord John said, and he and Abbie ran off, with Lord John brandishing the pistol.
It was not a look they had so much as a listen. Lord John led the way along a path into the woods, that were black as pitch. The only sounds were the menacing whisper of leaves overhead and the occasional rustle in the grass as a night creature went about its job of seeking food. After a few hundred yards, they came to a small cottage of weathered clapboard. Were it not for a sliver of light around the drawn curtains, it would have been invisible in the darkness of the surrounding forest. Its size suggested it was only one room. They went on tiptoe, making a circuit of the little house, trying for an open curtain to determine who was within.
All the curtains were drawn tightly, but the window at the back was open an inch for ventilation. An echo of voices came from within.
“You will certainly hang if you touch a hair of my head,”
Lady Susan said, in her usual complacent accents. Abbie was never so glad to hear it in her life. She and John exchanged a triumphant smile, then applied their ears to the raised window to try to gauge the situation within. It did not seem Lady Susan was in any immediate danger.
O’Leary’s voice was bored. “I wouldn’t touch you with a pair of tongs, miss. You are about as appealing as a dead spinster.”
“That’s not what you said yesterday!”
“You ain’t the sort that improves on acquaintance.”
“The chief magistrate is my uncle. I have two cousins who are Supreme Court judges. Every Runner and constable in the country will be out looking for us. You will hang from the gibbet for this night’s work, O’Leary. And incidentally, a duke’s daughter is called ‘lady,’
not ‘miss.’
”
“Shut up, you shrew.”
“Furthermore, my papa is not at Wycliffe or his smaller estate, Elmgrove. He has gone to Dugal Castle, his estate in Scotland, on business. It will be weeks before you could get your ten thousand pounds, even if he ever agreed to give you a penny, which he would not. He is against encouraging crime. If he paid you, not a lady in the land would be safe from such cunning rogues as yourself.”
“He ought to pay me for taking you.”
“You shan’t get a sou. I would like some cocoa, if you please.”
“Drink your wine.”
“It is horrid, sour stuff. Tastes like vinegar. Papa, the duke, would not allow such an inferior vintage in his cellar. I want cocoa—now.”
“Shut up, you demmed clapperjaw.”
There was a very brief silence, then Lady Susan spoke again.
“I want something to read. Get me the journal.”
Abbie deduced that Lady Susan was not tied up, or she could not drink or manage to read a journal. O’Leary must be holding a gun on her. This could make her rescue even more difficult and dangerous.
In spite of O’Leary’s heinous character, Abbie began to feel a smidgen of pity for him.
He apparently handed Susan a journal, for she said in a scoffing tone, “Not that one. It is weeks old.”
O’Leary swore off a string of curses. “I’ll have to tie you up if I leave.”
“If you knew what you were about, you would have brought some laudanum.”
“That wasn’t necessary, was it, Miss High and Mighty? I don’t envy your husband, whoever he turns out to be.”
“I don’t envy you, when you are caught. Papa—”
Abbie assumed O’Leary had lost patience and gagged her. There was a short silence, then the front door slammed. He must have tied her up as well, or he would not leave her alone.
“He’s leaving!”
Lord John whispered.
They darted around to the front of the little building just as O’Leary headed down the path, muttering to himself.
“He’s going to the inn!”
Abbie whispered. “He’ll see Penfel! And he has a gun! Go and warn Farber, John.”
“You’ll rescue Susan?”
“Yes, of course. Hurry!”
Lord John scampered off after O’Leary, and Abbie tried the front door. It was not locked. She peered in to make sure O’Leary didn’t have an accomplice before entering. When she saw the situation was safe, she walked into a little cottage that lacked only a fire in the hearth to make it cozy. It had a stove, a cupboard, a table holding a bottle of wine and two glasses, with chairs and a horsehair sofa in the corner. Lady Susan was tied to a straight-backed wooden chair at the table. She had been gagged with O’Leary’s cravat. Her eyes were not rolling in distress, nor was there a sign of a tear. Abbie rushed forward and untied her, then Lady Susan ungagged herself.