Chapter Five
In the morning, Mima admitted to being a little sore, but when Pel apologized for being a beast, she assured him that her aches were worth it. “It is just like the first gardening of the Spring, husband. The muscles ache, but it is a good ache. One knows one has done something worthwhile.”
That deserved another kiss, and if they had not been going out, Pel might have been tempted to return to bed, which would not have done her aches and pains nearly as much good as the fresh bathwater he ordered.
Downstairs, the cousins and other relatives greeted them with good wishes for the day and sly jokes that Mima probably understood a lot better this morning than she would have last night.
Pel engineered their escape by pointing out that they had an engagement with those who were coming with them on their first visits to tenants and neighbors.
He’d ordered a curricle, since it was a fine Spring morning, and extra cushions to make the seating comfortable for Mima.
It waited below when they emerged onto the front steps with those of the cousins who intended come with them today, and so did a newly arrived carriage, escorted by several of Mima’s cousins on horseback.
A footman in Ilton livery leapt down to open the door.
Mima’s hand tightened on Pel’s arm as the marquess her father descended from the coach. “What is he doing here? Is he planning to come, too?”
They did not have to wait long to find out.
“Ah,” said the marquess when he saw them on the steps. “Jemima and Lord Pelham. I am glad I caught you before you left. Is your father in, young Townswell? I need to talk to him, and to the pair of you, too.”
Pel sent the butler for his father and had a word with his aunt, who acted as his father’s chatelaine, and she took the rest of the young people off to one of the parlors, to be served food and drink while they waited.
By that time, the duke was coming down the stairs. Ilton looked up at him and commented, “You have a good lad there, Harwood. Good head on his shoulders. That’s not what I came here to say, but it bears mentioning.”
Pel’s father, who had been looking alarmed and ready to be irritated, softened at Ilton’s praise. “I’d be pleased if my heir was more like him, and that’s a fact,” he said.
Good Lord. Was that praise? From Father? Pel was so surprised that he stopped walking, and Mima had to tug on his arm to keep him moving in the wake of the two fathers.
Ilton said nothing more until they were in the duke’s study with the door firmly shut behind them.
“Came on my own,” he commented. “That crowd of young people caught up with me on the road, and when I said where I was heading, they came along. I told them I wanted to visit my daughter. Couldn’t let them know, you see.
Not until I had spoken to you, Harwood.”
“You intrigue me,” said Pel’s father. His tone was non-committal, but he was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on Ilton.
“Do you know where your son Clayton is?” Ilton asked next.
Harwood pressed his lips together.
Pel answered. “No one has seen him since the day before yesterday,” he said.
“It is the same with my daughter Margherita,” Ilton said. “Nor spoken with her, either. Not the servants, not any of her friends, and Jemima, you went to see her before we left for Coombe, you said.”
“Yes.” Jemima was frowning. “I called and called, but she ignored me. At least, I thought she was ignoring me.”
Ilton took a deep breath, let it out without speaking, and then took another. “I think she has been kidnapped, and I believe my brother-in-law had something to do with it,” he blurted, all on one exhale. “So, I wondered if young Clayton was also missing.”
“She had locked herself in the tower,” Jemima objected. “How could she have been kidnapped.”
Pel was pursuing another thought, and spoke almost at the same time. “My lord,” he said to Ilton, “you suspect your brother-in-law. What makes you think so?”
Ilton answered Pel. “He was missing the afternoon before last when we left for the church, and only reappeared yesterday evening. When he discovered you had married Jemima, he was shocked. I would say even angry. He recovered quickly. If you and Jemima had not made me suspicious, I might not have noticed.”
He sighed and shook his head. “And I probably would not have realized how barbed his words were when he praised the marriage while making pointed remarks about how untrustworthy Harwood and his people were. Begging your pardon, Harwood.”
“No offense taken, Ilton,” Father grumbled.
“So, you think he had both your daughter and my brother kidnapped to stop the marriage, not realizing that Mima and I had already agreed to go ahead with it,” Pel guessed.
Ilton nodded. “Then, this morning, Edwin came to me claiming that Margherita was missing. He made sure to do it in front of half the household, and to go on at length about how the Townswells could not have had anything to do with it.”
“In such a way as to make everyone suspicious of us,” Pel realized.
“It might have worked, if not for the pair of you,” Ilton admitted. “I told him it was nonsense, or if it was a Townswell, it was without Harwood’s approval, and young Martin and Brant backed me up.”
“Then you checked, and Marge was actually missing,” said Mima, making it a statement rather than a question.
Another nod from Ilton.
“Would she have come out for her uncle?” Pel asked. “Would she have gone with him without making a fuss?”
Mima narrowed her eyes. “Papa, what does Mama say about this?”
“Jemima! Your Mama would not conspire against her own daughter.” Ilton sounded more horrified at the idea than certain of his conclusion.
“She might if Uncle Edwin talked her into thinking it was the best thing for Marge,” Jemima argued.
Ilton sighed, which sounded to Pel like an agreement.
“Father,” Pel said, “we need to find out who was the last person to see Clay. Can you send some people to ask all the servants? And shall you and I ask all those on our side of the household?”
“Also,” said Mima, “what he was doing, and whether Norcross or any of his men were near at the time.”
“I have men I can trust asking the same questions about Edwin,” Ilton confirmed.
“And Mama,” Mima insisted. “We need to know if she had the opportunity to help Edwin spirit Marge away.”
“I hope so,” said Pel. “If she was involved, we can—I assume—be hopeful that our missing pair are safe and well somewhere.”
*
If the kidnappers’ goal had been to set the two feuding sides back at one another’s throats, the Marquess of Ilton had foiled the plot.
The peace for which Pel and Mima had married was saved by Ilton’s willingness to consult Pel’s father before reacting, and the reaction of both families when the two peers and Pel and Mima explained what they thought was happening.
They mobilized to search, each search party comprising representatives from both factions, and soon every lockable space in the entire district, on both sides of the river, was being systematically checked.
It wasn’t the post-wedding charm campaign that Pel and Mima had planned, but the effect was perhaps even better, for the searchers made no secret of their belief that the intended bride and groom had been kidnapped before the wedding with the intention of destroying the peace agreement.
“We do not know who the kidnappers are,” said most of the searchers, when people asked. “If you come across any information about that, please tell Lord Ilton or His Grace of Harwood.”
Pel and Mima, trying to stick to the truth without naming Norcross or Uncle Edwin, said, “Without evidence, we do not want to accuse any particular person.”
Two days passed, and they didn’t find Marge or Clay, but on the third day, they woke to discover that Lady Ilton and her brother had decamped in the night, waking a couple of stable hands to prepare Uncle Edwin’s carriage.
Though the grooms received a silver coin apiece and the command to say nothing about the early morning departure, they no sooner saw the carriage depart than they knocked on the door of the manor house and told their tale to a sleepy butler.
Lord Ilton was woken next, and said, “Good riddance to them. Let them go.” He then returned to bed.
Or that was the story Mima heard from Bella, who had heard it from her maid after the butler told the housekeeper, who repeated the story in front of several other servants, who in turn spread it far and wide.
After that, the two fathers decided they had evidence enough to lay before a judge that the disappearance of their offspring had been orchestrated by those who had flown the district and their ally, the Duke of Norcross.
They declared their intention of seeking a search warrant for Norcross’s properties, access to which he had thus far denied the searchers.
On the fourth morning, warrant in hand, Ilton, Harwood, and a large party of searchers knocked on Norcross’s door to discover that he, too, had left the county.
“Search everywhere,” Harwood ordered, and they split into smaller groups to cover as much ground as possible.
Pel, Mima, and half a dozen cousins took a Norcross farm worker as a guide to explore outbuildings, sheds, and isolated cottages to the east of the Norcross mansion, while others went north, west, and south.
It was noon, and they had drawn a blank at more than a dozen possibilities when Mima pointed down a lane they were just passing, saying to their guide, “What is down here?”
“Just an old cottage, ma’am,” said the man. “It’s haunted. Ain’t nobody goes down there.”
In direct refutation of his statement, two people were walking hand in hand along the lane toward them, deep in conversation, eyes only for one another.
“Pel,” said Mima, “I think that is Marge.”
Her husband narrowed his eyes and peered at the approaching couple, and then whooped and took off his hat to wave it, shouting, “Clay!”