Chapter 15
“You say the duke has departed again?” Thalia hoped that Mrs. Fisher could not hear the note of disappointment in her voice.
The housekeeper arranged the luncheon tray on the table in the Sun Room. “He has, Your Grace. Just after dawn.”
Her voice carried a note of disapproval but, of course, the older woman was in no position to say so.
“Did he say where he was going?” Thalia aimed for curiosity, but the strain of her voice bordered on fraught instead. “Not that it is of any consequence to me,” she added, no doubt making it worse. “I am just interested.”
After waking in the library that morning, she had stayed there until long after noon, busying herself with her beloved books and wondering if last night was something she had dreamed.
For some unknown reason, she had expected Henry to come and see her, to perhaps confirm that it had not been a dream.
But she had remained alone with just the stories and, when her stomach began to growl, she had sought out the Sun Room and luncheon instead.
“To London, I believe,” Mrs. Fisher said. “I expect he will return tonight.”
Thalia nodded slowly. “London. Of course. He will be tending to business, I imagine.” She hesitated, settling herself in the chair by the window, where she could eat her lunch with a lovely view of the rose gardens. “What is it that he does that keeps him so occupied?”
Her father, as far as she knew, had never done any sort of work and turned his nose up at the very idea of a titled gentleman earning their own income.
Kenneth, too, was not someone who worked.
Or, he was not before, but maybe that had changed?
Maybe, he had resolved his own debts by making his own income somehow.
I will have to ask him when I see him again.
“Oh, heavens,” Mrs. Fisher remarked, pausing to rest a hand on her hip, her eyes closing in concentration.
“I can never quite recall. A great many things. I know he has several major associates and some minor partners in business, but… oh, what was it again? I think it has something to do with spices and imports, but don’t take that as a fact. ”
Thalia stared down at the delicious array of soup, fresh bread, fanned out apple slices, a small lemon cake, and a little pot of butter.
“I suppose it must be a terrible inconvenience to him, to have to be away from his work while I am… like this.” She tapped a finger to her temple, her bruise protesting.
“He really should not bother himself with me. I ought to tell him so when he returns.”
Her mind wandered to the events of last night, her heart clenching as she thought of herself cradled in Henry’s powerful arms. She had never felt protected before, yet in his embrace, she had felt as if she were in the safest place on Earth.
To be held by a man, by a husband no less, was almost more altering to her entire existence than a terrible fall down steep steps.
Yet, it appeared that she was supposed to just forget about it. If not, why had Henry gone away again? Why had he distanced himself? Clearly, it was meant to be a lesson, so she would not disturb him like that again.
It is not as if I can control having nightmares, she thought to herself crossly, as she picked up her soup spoon. Indeed, it is not as if I can control when my memories come back either.
“Nonsense, Your Grace,” Mrs. Fisher said gently. “You are no inconvenience to him. You could never be an inconvenience to anyone.”
Thalia wished she could believe that as she began to eat her hearty lunch, savoring the rich taste of the soup.
She might have been more inclined to believe that the housekeeper’s words were not just a biased opinion, if it were not for the fact that someone had harmed her.
She had been an inconvenience to someone, enough that they had sought to cause immense injury.
Unless Henry is wrong and this was all a simple, awful accident and he is just suffering unnecessary paranoia… or he, himself, is the culprit.
She wanted to believe that even less than when Kenneth had been a suspect, but with her mind turning in constant circles about the possibilities, she knew it would be imprudent to rule anything or anyone out yet.
Indeed, right now, all she could do was hope that slippery steps were the culprit, for the simplest explanation was often the correct one, was it not?
Henry slumped into one of the armchairs in his Mayfair townhouse, so weary that his eyelids felt as if they carried ton weights instead of eyelashes.
“That is everything I could find out about the accident,” he said to his friends, who had gathered at short notice without question. “Mr. Oxlade was not an easy man to locate.”
Owen reached for the folded piece of paper that lay on the low table between them and opened it out, holding it closer to the light of the fireplace. “Two men?”
“That is what the driver said,” Henry confirmed, thinking of the man in question.
Unable to rest, Henry had woken with the birds that morning and gone directly to Farhampton in secret to see if he could have a private word with the man who had been driving the carriage on the night of Thalia’s first accident.
However, at the coach house, he had been informed that Mr. Oxlade was removed from Gibbs Carter’s employment shortly after the incident.
The stablemaster had given a last known address, but it had taken Henry three visits to three different places before he had managed to track the driver down. Kelvin Oxlade had not been in good condition, driving a cart at London’s docks, clearly half-starved and impoverished.
But the man had been willing to impart what he knew, perhaps to spite the ‘gentleman’ who had released him from steady employment.
“I tried telling him at the time,” Kelvin had said gruffly.
“Said to His Lordship that it wasn’t my driving that caused it.
I didn’t come off the road because I lost control.
We came off the road because we were being chased and I was doing my best to get Miss Carter to safety.
I’d have done anything to keep her from harm, Your Grace. I swear it on my life.”
“Who was chasing you?” Henry had asked, feeling a surge of pity for the man.
“Can’t rightly say, as I didn’t see them properly,” Kelvin had answered with a frown, as if he had asked himself the same question many times before.
“They were waiting on the road. I swerved the carriage to get past ‘em and managed that, but then they started riding after us and a carriage isn’t as fast as two unhitched horses. I admit that I did lose control when the wheel hit a ditch, but only because we were in danger. I wasn’t drunk like His Lordship claimed I was. I never drink.”
“And when the carriage overturned, what happened then?” Henry had pressed, growing more suspicious of Gibbs Carter, Thalia’s father, with every word the driver had said.
Kelvin shrugged. “I was thrown and got knocked out for a while, but when I came to, there was no one there. The riders had gone and Miss Carter was inside the carriage, right where I left her. Unharmed. A bit dizzy, a bit dazed, and there was a bit of a bruise on her head and some scratches and that, but alive and untouched by those brigands.”
“Did they say anything to you at any point?”
Kelvin had paused for a moment, scrunching his eyes and scratching his chin.
“They did, as it happens. When I saw ‘em in the road. They told me to stand and deliver, and no one would get hurt, but I don’t recall seeing any pistols. I think that’s why I went around them.
If they’d had pistols, I might have gone right through them. ”
“Sounds like highwaymen,” Luke said, peering over Owen’s shoulder to read the account that Henry had taken from the driver.
“Sounds like, maybe. Were they? That cannot be assured,” Owen replied, his eyes skimming over a few of the additional notes that Henry had made. “All a bit too coincidental, if you ask me.”
Henry nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
“What do you mean?” Luke leaped over the back of the settee and settled down beside Owen.
“Why would they be waiting on that stretch of road?” Owen said.
“From what I can glean here, it was late at night when Her Grace set out from Farhampton. This note here says that her brother was at the Maybrook crossroads, so the ‘accident’ took place somewhere between the two. Why would a highwayman wait there, where no one is likely to pass by? The crossroads, I could understand, but that Farhampton road is barely used.”
Henry clawed a hand through his hair. “It is almost as if those ‘highwaymen’ knew that someone would be coming.”
“And they were not visibly armed,” Owen added, for Luke’s benefit.
“They disappeared when the carriage overturned without taking anything. Kenneth did not mention seeing anyone pass him by when he rode to see where his sister might be. So, the riders went the opposite way, back toward Farhampton, having gained nothing though the driver and Her Grace were in no position to fight back. For a brigand, it makes no sense whatsoever.”
Expelling a breath, Henry sighed. “I am glad that you do not think I have simply gone mad, making mountains out of molehills. That first accident, at the very least, was no accident.”
“No, I do not think it was,” Owen agreed, his eyes narrowing at the pages of Henry’s writing.
It was a greater relief than Henry knew how to put into words, to see in his friend’s eyes that he had not taken leave of his senses. The first accident was not a coincidence, and he doubted the second was, either, though that was harder to navigate. Harder to explain. Impossible to prove.
“I could investigate further if you like?” Owen said.
Henry gave an appreciative nod. “Thank you.”