Chapter Nine
L ady Day dawned cloudy and grim, but fortunately the rain held off as the tenants lined up to pay their rent. It was the Riese tradition that the rents were paid to the steward in public, at a table set up in the courtyard at the foot of the steps to the main entrance of the house.
Pol sat beside the steward, who was back from his sister’s, and recorded the payments in the rent books for farms, village, and other properties as the steward received them and counted the money. Oscar watched from the parlor that overlooked the main entrance and appeared from time to time when a tenant he had a particular interest in—one of his cronies or one he was bullying—took their place at the front of the line.
He was there, a broad grin of expectation on his face, when it was the turn of Madame Haricot. “Well, Madame?” he said, gloating. “I do not suppose your circumstances have improved in the past few days? Where is your pretty seamstress?”
Madame Haricot ignored him and spoke to the steward. “Five pounds, Monsieur . Count them. I wish there to be no mistake.”
Oscar, who was leaning against one of the pillars at the side of the steps, pushed himself upright and strode over to confirm the evidence of his ears. “Five pounds? How did the likes of you come up with five pounds?”
“It was not easy, Monsieur ,” the lady said. “The amount is extortionate. However, I am a skilled dressmaker, and I have friends. It is done. Paid and written in the book. Be aware, Monsieur , that I am never going to let you despoil my daughter.”
“Paid? No. I forbid it!” Oscar shouted, ignoring what Madame Haricot had said.
“Madame is correct. It is paid and written in the book,” Pol pointed out.
Oscar glared at Pol and then turned his scowl on Madame Haricot. “This is not over,” he threatened, and stalked back up the stairs.
“Keep your daughter out of his sight,” Pol advised. “It will only be for a few days. Until he goes to London.”
“It is good advice, Madame,” the steward agreed.
She nodded. “I know it.”
“Here is your receipt for the rent,” the steward said. “I have signed it, and Mr. Allegro has signed it.”
The next in line was waiting. Madame Haricot left and the routine of rent day continued. Oscar came out of the house again and sloped off toward the stables. Ten minutes or so later, Pol glimpsed him riding down the carriage way. He was probably going to find some cronies to drink with.
By noon, the rents were all taken. Or, in the case of a few unfortunate people, marked as unpaid. Pol was helping to pack up the records when Madame Haricot came hurrying up the driveway.
“Mr. Allegro, is my Jacqueline with you?” Her face was drawn with worry and pale with distress.
“No, Madame.” Pol’s mind flooded with worrisome images. “I have not seen her since yesterday.”
“She wanted to go to the squire’s this morning. To explain she could not work in the stables anymore. I told her to go in girl’s clothes. It would be safer, I thought, now those wicked boys know who she is. She has not come home, Mr. Allegro.”
“May I go and look for her?” Pol asked the steward.
“Yes, lad. Go. I shall finish clearing up here,” the steward assured him.
“I’ll get my horse, Madame,” Pol said. He strode toward the stables, and Madame Haricot kept pace. Fair enough. If his child was missing, he would want to join the search, too. “Do you ride?” he asked her. “Or do you want to come up behind me?”
“Pillion, Monsieur . I have not ridden in years, and then it was sidesaddle.”
As fast as he could, he saddled Ajax and buckled a pillion pad to the saddle for Madame’s comfort. Ajax was not his usual ride, but he had been used to carry pillion passengers before and could be trusted not to object.
Within minutes, he was swinging into the saddle. He rode the horse to the mounting block, and Madame took her seat, perched on the pad as if it were a chair, with her legs dangling side by side. She gripped the saddle with the hand nearest to it and said, “Ready, Mr. Allegro.”
Ten minutes later, they stopped outside the squire’s stable. Pol swung one leg over the horse’s neck to make an awkward descent and then helped Madame Haricot down. “I shall speak to the stable master, Madame. Will you ask for your daughter inside?”
“The little miss left three quarters of an hour ago by the stable clock, Mr. Allegro,” said the stable master. “She went her usual way, along the back road. I daresay, she’s stopped along the way to talk to someone, or to sit a spell. No need to rush back to sewing. I wouldn’t want to sit still all day sewing, and neither does she, I’ll be bound.”
“We came along that road from the Hall, but she might have been on the far section of the road, beyond where the bridle path from Westerville joins. Madame and I will check. I was in time to stop her being harassed by the Whitely boy yesterday, and one of his friends.”
The stable master spat. “That one. He’s been trouble from day one. Should have got rid of him months ago, but there. The squire wanted to help Mrs. Whitely and give the boy a chance.” He shook his head. “Glad to see the back of him, but we’ll be sorry to see Jackie go, and that’s a fact. She might be small compared to some of the boys, but she’s a hard worker. And she has a gift with horses.”
Madame Haricot emerged from the house, shaking her head, her face creased with worry.
“The stable master says she left three quarters of an hour ago, Madame. Along the back road, he said.”
“Hurry.” Madame suited actions to words, picking up her skirts to run to the mounting block.
In less than a minute, they were on their way. “Pray God we find her before that devil does,” said Madame.
*
Since Jackie had to pass the shack on her way home, she stopped to collect the male clothes she had kept there, and the other items with which she had furnished the single room in the years since she first discovered the building.
She wrapped everything up in a blanket and made a parcel out of it, then found it was too bulky to carry and split it into two parcels, using her Jack Le Gume cloak for the other. She then decided to sweep out the shack. She was leaving it better than she found it, having done some basic repairs on the roof and the corners of windows, but something in her felt this final clean was a thank you to a place that had been both refuge and jumping off point for her adventures.
Carrying a parcel under each arm, she made her way back to the lane that led to her cottage. Maman had planned to go early to pay the rent at the manor, but even if she had been delayed, surely, she would be home by now. She and Jackie had a few minor sewing tasks to finish, but their main task today and for the next several days was to sort everything and decide what they would take with them, what they could usefully sell, and what to simply leave behind.
Composing lists in her mind, she was not paying much attention to her surroundings. Not until she heard someone shout, “There she is. Get her!”
That was sufficient warning for her to swing around, buffeting her would-be assailant with one of the parcels. Dan Whitely, curse him. The blow knocked him off-balance, and the second one she delivered with the other parcel sent him sprawling.
But then someone grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her and locking her arms to her chest. “Take them parcels, young Dan,” said a growl close to her ear. “There might be summat we can sell.”
The man held Jackie up off the ground, so that her struggles had no purchase, and Dan dodged her attempted kicks and forced her to drop the parcels. Both assailants ignored her screams and her shouted imprecations in English and French as they dragged her into the bushes.
“Get us that there rope, Dan,” the man behind her ordered. “And your kerchief. Her yellin’s makin’ my head hurt.”
“Why my kerchief?” Dan whined.
His partner wasn’t having any discussion on the matter. “Just do it.”
Jackie didn’t want either kerchief. Both assailants smelt as if they never washed, and heaven alone knew what other substances might have been wiped with or onto the disgusting object around Dan’s neck. She renewed her struggles and managed a lucky kick on the man’s knee that had him yelling and loosing his grip.
She almost slithered free, but he recovered quickly and fetched her a whack across one cheek that sent her tumbling to the ground. “Bitch,” he snarled. “You’ll pay for that.”
He threw himself on top of her, holding her down by the weight of his body. He was another of the Whitelys—an older, dirtier, and meaner version of Dan. Fear almost swamped her, but she fought it back, determined to be ready to take any opportunity to escape whatever they had in store for her.
With Dan’s help, the older Whitely forced her mouth open and shoved Dan’s foul kerchief to ball up inside her mouth, then tied it in place with his own. If she vomited, she would choke, and not vomiting took all her focus when she should have been fighting to free herself.
All too soon, he had the rope bound around and around her, tying her arms to her sides so that all she could do was helplessly flap her arms.
The older brother sat back on her hips and grinned down at her. “Nice bubbies,” he commented, grabbing one of her breasts in a meaty hand and squeezing hard. “That’s for kickin’ me, bitch.”
She glared at him.
“We gotta take her to the viscount, Bill,” said Dan.
“Not yet,” said Bill. “How’s he s’pposed to know if I have her first?”
Dan wasn’t so sure. “He won’t like it.”
“Who’s gonna tell him?” Bill sneered. “You?”
“Her, maybe?” Dan suggested.
Bill scoffed. “Her? Why would he listen to her? I’m ’is mate! She’s nothing but a lyin’ teasin’ bitch. That’s right, ain’t it, bitch?” He squeezed her breast again.
Dan was not finished. “Pete won’t like it, neither.”
Whoever Pete was, the mention of him made Bill furious. “Pete ain’t the boss of me,” Bill snarled. “Comin’ home, throwin’ ’is weight around, tellin’ me I have to get a job, tellin’ Da to stop drinkin’. Who does ’e think he is?”
Grabbing one of Jackie’s breasts in each hand he squeezed again, so hard that Jackie cried out. “You won’t be tellin’ no one nothin’, bitch,” he growled.
He got no further. Someone exploded out of the bushes and charged into him, setting him sprawling. She recognized Pol Allegro, even through the snarl that distorted his face as he punched Bill again and again, both fists flying with a speed and force against which the other man’s attempt at a defense was swiftly overwhelmed.
Could he fight two of them? Dan was not yet an adult, but he was a big youth, and he had just picked up a large dead branch, which he was lifting as a club. Jackie tried to make a noise to warn Pol, but it was no more than a squeak.
Then a fourth player entered the scene. “Drop that branch, Dan Whitely,” said her mother’s voice.
Jackie managed to shift her head enough to watch her mother step out of the bushes, a pistol held steadily in her hand.
Dan almost obeyed the authoritative voice, but she could see him stiffen as another thought occurred to him. “You won’t shoot. You’re a woman.”
“I am a woman,” Maman agreed coldly. “I am the woman whose daughter you kidnapped and tied up. Drop that branch and untie my daughter, or I shall shoot you in the knee and untie her myself.”
Something in her tone convinced him, for he did as he was told, kneeling beside her to fumble with the ropes. He was in between Jackie and the two men, and she could see little of the fight, but the sound of flesh thumping into flesh and the paroxysms of the legs she could see told her that it continued. Pol was still on top.
As the rope loosened, Jackie wriggled her arms out of it and clawed at the gag.
“Mr. Allegro, I think the man you are hitting is unconscious,” Maman said.
Pol stopped to check, then stood, lowering his bloodied knuckles. Jackie’s anxious eyes picked out a livid bruise high on one cheek. Apart from that, he bore no wound, and certainly nothing that could have supplied the red marks spattering across his light blue coat, high on one side, with a few splashes on his cravat. Jackie’s assailant, whose face was a bloodied mess, was a more likely source.
His cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Thank you, Madame . My apologies, ladies. You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
Jackie looked at Bill’s battered face and her stomach gave up the fight. She scrambled to her feet and raced to lose her breakfast under a bush. Even that tasted better than Dan’s kerchief. “So disgusting,” she said, and turned on Dan. “Don’t you ever get your clothes washed?”
“You’re hurt,” Pol commented, taking a couple of strides toward her, and putting up his hand as if he would touch her cheek. She suddenly realized how much it throbbed even as he checked his movement. “Did this pond scum hit you?” He poked Bill with his boot.
“Ye’ve killed him,” Dan whimpered.
“He’s still breathing,” Pol told the boy. “He’ll live to be hanged or transported.” He scooped up the rope that Dan had dropped on the ground and used one end of it to tie Dan’s wrists.
Dan’s eyes opened so wide that the whites showed all the way around the pale irises. “It weren’t our idea,” he complained. “T’viscount told us to get her.”
Pol cut the rope with a long tail, which he handed to Jackie while he began tying Bill with the rest. “I suppose it is not your fault, then,” said Pol, kindly. “Just tell the magistrate that you were following orders, Whitely. I daresay he will take that into account.”
Sneaky. Dan is fool enough to think he’d be allowed free with that excuse, so won’t cause any trouble . Bill stayed unconscious—and he did not rouse as Pol hoisted him across Ajax’s saddle, tied him in place, and fastened the tail of Dan’s rope to the saddle.
“I’ll take those pistols now,” he said to Maman, and she handed over the one she’d held on Dan all this time plus another that she took from one of her pockets.
“We will have to turn this pair in to the magistrate,” Pol said. “Ladies, do you feel able to come and bear witness to what happened?”
Maman nodded. Jackie agreed, but said, “I need something to clean my mouth. It feels as if I have been eating garbage.”
Pol had taken a pouch from his saddle and was loading one of the pistols from it. He handed it to Maman and felt around inside his coat, coming out with a flask. “Brandy,” he said. “It might help.”
It did. It burned her mouth and then scorched its way down her throat, but still, under the flavor of the alcohol, she could taste mud and corruption. She had another swig from the flask.
“Careful,” said Maman. She shot a glance at Dan Whitely and lowered her voice. “We do not want to give the magistrate any reason to disbelieve you.”
Pol put the flask away and loaded the other pistol. Jackie’s eyes widened as she realized that Maman had held Dan at bay with an unloaded weapon.
“Maman?” she said. “Did you know it had no bullets?”
Maman shrugged and spread her hands. “What was I to do? Let that boy hit Mr. Allegro, and then have both brothers turn on us? Non .” She shrugged again. “It worked.”
“It worked very well,” said Pol. “Let’s hope that handing them over to the magistrate also works.”