The Folly at Falconbridge Hall (18 page)

Vanessa slept fitfully and woke while it was still dark. She hadn’t slept well; worried that Lovel was still at large. Might he return here? She longed for Julian, yearning to have him close. Was he missing her too? Or was he too absorbed in his work to even think of her?

Early the next day, Inspector Knott directed the uniformed policemen over the grounds. They fanned out across the lawns, disappearing into the wood.

Knott came to see her. “Maurice Lovel is the ring leader of the group of thieves,” he said. “His cousins ran the traveling fair as a cover for their nefarious business, which is why they stole from different counties. Lovel hid some of his spoils at Falconbridge Hall, most likely beneath the folly where the broach was found. We shall have to take up more of the folly floor, I’m afraid.”

Vanessa went to the window. Bobbies dotted the landscape, disappearing in all directions. “We suspected Lovel to be a bit of a rascal,” she said. “But certainly not capable of something such as this. Surely he wouldn’t risk stealing a painting from his place of work?”

“I doubt that he did.”

“Then who did, Inspector?”

“I believe it was Miss Lillicrop. Mr. Lovel has a reputation as a ladies man, I believe.”

Vanessa turned to face him. “Yes, he was.” She could believe Lovel had more lovers than Molly. “He might have seduced Miss Lillicrop, but why murder her?”

“It’s simply supposition at this stage, but the man we have locked up has told us his version of events.”

Vanessa waited impatiently for him to take out his pipe and tap it against his palm. Once again, he didn’t attempt to light it. A habit perhaps, or else he feared she would object to him smoking in her drawing room. “We believe that Miss Lillicrop removed the painting from the house without Lovel’s knowledge.”

“The gypsy caravans in the painting may have drawn her to it.”

“Like Lovel, Miss Lillicrop might have liked to take things which didn’t belong to her. I expect never to know the whole of it. We have been told that Lovel, so enraged and fearful that her actions could bring the police down on his head, struck her down.”

“Poor woman,” Vanessa said. “She just wanted to please Lovel. I’ll be greatly relieved when he’s apprehended.” She bit her lip. “Do you think he is still in the area?”

“I wish I could say confidently that he wasn’t. We’ve uncovered the gang’s cache of valuables, so he’ll have little money to flee. But the fellow’s proving to be hydra-headed. Cut off one head, two grow in its place.”

A policeman came to the door. “It appears that Lovel has well and truly scarpered, Inspector. We searched his room over the stables. His belongings are gone, and the stable boy hasn’t set eyes on him for several days.”

Knott followed him out only to return a half hour later. “I must remove my men, my lady. They are needed elsewhere and there’s nothing further we can do here.”

“But what if Lovel returns?”

“That would be foolish of him and he’s not a foolish man. Still…” he hesitated, “I’ll leave a policeman in the area.”

Knott departed, leaving Vanessa to stalk the floor. Knott spared little sympathy for Agatha. He believed her a thief. She remembered the drawing of a butterfly she’d found in the desk of the attic bedroom the first day she’d arrived. What had happened to it? She hurried up to the attic bedroom again and crossed to the drawer. It was empty.

Seeking out the upstairs maid, she asked her if she had seen it.

“I did, my lady,” Millicent said. “I moved it with your things and put it in your dresser drawer. The bottom one.”

In her bedroom, Vanessa knelt to open the drawer of the heavy mahogany dresser. She removed the drawing and studied it. With her newly acquired knowledge, she recognized it as a black and vermillion
Catagramma,
and it was most certainly Julian’s work. Had he given it to her or was Knott right. Did Miss Lillicrop, like a bowerbird, take things that appealed to her?

*****

Another restless night passed, and the next day boded to be long and distracting. Vanessa was sitting in the drawing room after lunch, when she heard the front door.

Soon after, Johnson appeared. “A telegram has arrived, my lady.”

Holding her breath, Vanessa read it. “His lordship is coming home, Johnson,” she said as a bolt of pure joy rushed through her. “But, wait! His boat docks later today! He wishes me to meet him. I must tell Blythe; she’s practicing her scales.” Julian was coming home to chaos. What had happened to bring him home so early? Might he be wounded or ill?

Heading for the schoolroom, she met Mrs. Royce in the hall. “Mrs. Royce, I have splendid news. His lordship returns today.”

“Today, my lady? Indeed, excellent news.”

“Would you alert Cook?”

“I’m sure she will want to prepare one of his favorite meals. I’ve managed to replace Dorcas when she leaves to marry Bert Jenkin from the dairy.”

“Well done, Mrs. Royce. I expected to find it difficult to hire staff while this investigation goes on.”

Mrs. Royce coughed and fidgeted with the jet beads at her throat. She had recently taken to wearing jewelry and had arranged small ringlets in front of her ears to soften her sharp features. “There’s another matter I wished to raise with you, my lady.”

“Of course, Mrs. Royce, what is it?” Vanessa waited for the older woman to speak; she had never seen her appear so discombobulated.

The housekeeper looked almost pretty with her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. She cleared her throat again. “Mr. Johnson has requested my hand in marriage.” She folded her arms. “And I’ve accepted him.”

This had become the best-kept secret at Falconbridge Hall. “That’s wonderful, Mrs. Royce.” Vanessa patted the woman’s arm as a worrying thought struck her. “I do hope this doesn’t mean we shall lose you both.”

“Mr. Johnson and I rather hoped to remain in service here, if that’s acceptable.”

“I am delighted to hear it. We could do with some good news. You have become extremely important in the running of this house and you both mean so much to the family.” Vanessa watched fascinated as Mrs. Royce’s lips stretched into a rare smile.

Vanessa smiled. “I hope that you will have your wedding party here in the servants’ hall so that his lordship and I may attend. I know I can speak for Lord Falconbridge in this.”

Mrs. Royce’s face went a deeper shade of pink. “We’d be honored, my lady. Might I be so bold as to say how pleased we all are to have you as mistress? It does my heart good to see Blythe so contented.”

“That’s kind of you, Mrs. Royce. I must go and tell Blythe the news. She is supposed to be practicing her music, but she hates the scales.”

My, what love could do, Vanessa thought as she hurried to the schoolroom, marveling at her mellow housekeeper.

There was a distinct absence of any kind of music as Vanessa opened the schoolroom door. Was that minx lost in a book? The room was empty. She went straight to the day nursery, where Agnes was folding clothes. “Where is Miss Blythe?”

“I thought she went in search of you, my lady. She was hoping for one of Cook’s freshly baked biscuits.”

In the kitchen, Cook was rolling out dough. A tray of biscuits cooled on a rack. “You must have missed Miss Blythe, my lady. She asked for a carrot to take down to the stables.”

Vanessa tamped down a sense of unease as she left by the kitchen door. She half ran to the stables, finding the stable boy working alone.

“Have you seen Miss Blythe, Jim?”

Jim’s face reddened. “Yes, my lady. She visited her horse and was so upset that Buttercup hadn’t been exercised for so long she took her out.”

A shaft of fear tightened her throat. “How could you have let her go? She is never to ride alone.”

Jim shuffled his feet. “I told her so, my lady, but she insisted I saddle up Buttercup. I’m on my own here, with Lovel gone and the new groom not yet started.” He shook his head. “No good in me asking old Capstick. She’s got him wrapped around her little finger. I hoped she’d be back before you came alooking for her.”

“Saddle Flora. Be quick! I’ll ride astride.”

Jim led the saddled horse out of the stable. With dread tightening her ribcage, Vanessa gathered up her full skirt and petticoats, causing Jim to color up and stare at the ground. She climbed from the mounting block onto the horse and seized the reins.

“Do you really think you should, my lady? I mean you’ve not been riding long.”

Vanessa silently agreed with Jim. “Run for Johnson. Tell him what has happened.”

Lovel was still at large. She prayed that Blythe would appear from the direction of the bridle trail.

Astride the horse, Vanessa felt far more secure in the saddle. She reached the trail and urged Flora on. There was no evidence that Blythe had ridden this way. Once she reached the meadow, Vanessa pulled Flora up. She shaded her eyes with a hand, searching the landscape. The flat land stretched for a mile, ending in the copse of weeping willows growing along the river where they’d ridden one day with Lovel. She felt sure Blythe wouldn’t go that far alone. Her concern for her horse might cause her to rebel against authority, but she wasn’t ordinarily a naughty child. Vanessa turned her mount and cantered back across the grass. Flora, who had been languishing in the stable, enjoyed the outing and stretched out beneath her. Vanessa’s bun unraveled, spreading her hair over her face and shoulders. She swatted a lock back and glanced down at her skirts hitched up over her thighs almost to her garters. She could do little about it. She reached the fork in the path and hesitated only a minute or two before riding into the wood.

After the episode with Miss Patterson, the shadowed, muffled silence sent shivers up her back. “
Blythe!
”

Her call was met with silence. Gasping with fear and exertion, Vanessa rode on. She called again as birds fluttered away through the trees.

Nothing.

There was a pile of fresh horse dung on the path. Blythe would not ride here alone. A terrible thought struck her.
Unless she was not alone or in control of her horse.
She shuddered and called Blythe’s name again, riding deeper into the trees, emerging into the glade where she’d found Miss Patterson beside the big oak tree.

Suddenly, Lovel appeared from behind a tree. Grabbing her by the waist, he pulled her off Flora. He sneered, holding her wrists in such an iron grip she grew afraid he would break a bone.

“Let me go, you’re hurting me!” she yelled, helpless against his brute strength.

“I knew you’d come.” He was dressed in gypsy attire, a leather jerkin and peasant shirt. Over the full trousers, he wore a sash, and tucked inside was a bloodcurdling knife. A bright bandana covered his head.

“Where is Blythe? What have you done with her?”

A new black beard sprouted from his jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot. He wore a gold ring in one earlobe and looked almost mad and very dangerous. “If you want to see Blythe again, you’ll do what I say.”

“Bring Blythe to me now!”

Lovel’s gaze roamed over her as she tugged at her skirt. He stared at her hair hanging almost to her waist, and a disturbing light appeared in his eyes.

“The police are here searching for you.”

“We’ll be long gone before they arrive.”

“What do you want? Why have you risked coming back?” She found herself breathless. “It surely can’t be for revenge. You were always treated well.”

“The Watch confiscated our cache of money and valuables. Money for me to leave the country. I fancied trying my luck in Australia. They say you can rise to the top there if you use your brains.” He straightened and, to her relief, loosened his grip on her, as his expression grew abstracted. “I, a Romani prince, have been treated like horse dung beneath people’s feet in this cursed country. If you want Blythe back unhurt, you will go up to the house and get money for me. I’ll take jewels, anything valuable. But I prefer money.”

Trying to suck oxygen into her lungs, Vanessa looked directly into his black eyes and saw the fear there. He was like a cornered rat fighting to find a way out. “I insist on seeing Blythe first.”

Lovel took a fistful of her hair and wound it around his fingers, jerking her head back. “Would you like me to soften you up first? I’m happy to do it. I can show you how a real man loves.”

“A real man?” Vanessa scoffed. “I am married to a man worth a thousand of you.” She remembered the sounds Lovel had made in the folly and shrank with horror. “A woman has died in this clearing. You are inhuman.”

He shrugged. “She was with child. Weak she was.”

“So you refused to marry her. Her family would have cast her off.”

“She was not of gypsy blood.”

“Murderer! Why did you kill Agatha Lillicrop?”

He hesitated, as Vanessa searched the trees frantically for a sign of Blythe. “I didn’t mean to kill her,” he said after a pause. “She made me angry. I hit her a bit too hard.”

Chilled that such a violent man had Blythe in his power, she cried, “Let Blythe go! Have you no conscience?”

“I can’t afford a conscience. Only the rich can indulge themselves. You wish to see the child?” He put a hand to his mouth and made a hoot like a barn owl. Immediately, a swarthy man stepped out of the bushes at the far side of the glade. He held Blythe struggling in his arms, small and vulnerable, her blue eyes enormous.

“Release Blythe, Lovel, and I’ll do as you say.” She tried to pull away, but he held her tight. “You can have both jewels and money. But you must let Blythe go first.”

He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. First give me the money and then the child goes free.”

Vanessa drew in a deep breath, willing herself to remain calm while her fingers curled into fists to strike at him. “I’ll get them. Promise me you won’t hurt her.”

“I’m glad you see sense. But you’re a smart one all right.”

Lovel caught hold of Flora’s reins. His big hands touched Vanessa with outrageous familiarity, as he hoisted her onto the saddle and slapped Flora’s haunch.

“Don’t worry, Blythe, I’m coming back for you!” Vanessa yelled, riding as fast as she could make Flora go.