Chapter Eleven
W hen Captain Harraway heard about Waterford’s visit, he was torn between racing off to find the villain, and sticking close to Miss Ellen’s side for every minute until the scoundrel was found and dealt with.
He compromised by sending Jake back to the village to find the man and report. Jake spent two hours talking to everyone he could find, but wherever Waterford had gone, it wasn’t Ealing.
At least the captain accepted that answer and sent Jake off to have his dinner with Kat, which was both delightful and frustrating, for they ate in the servants’ hall, and how is a man to do his courting under the eyes of an entire household when most of the people present thought his woman was a man?
He didn’t see much of Kat that next day, for the captain had decided he didn’t want to be separated from Miss Ellen, except—for propriety’s sake—at night, and even then, he would only go as far as the village.
So Jake was given the commission of hiring a vehicle and team, and driving the seamstress into Town.
He dropped her off at Peckwith’s Bazaar, where she said she could do most of her shopping.
Then he posted several of the captain’s letters, took the captain’s notice to quit to the landlord, and packed up all his and the captain’s belongings.
It didn’t take long. All the furnishings came with the room. As to personal possessions, he and the captain were used to traveling, and hadn’t acquired much along the way.
“We are paid up to the end of the quarter, and shall be back to stay on Tuesday night,” Jake told the landlord. “After that, you are welcome to rent the rooms to someone else.”
He had one more errand for the captain, which gave him the opportunity to carry out an errand of his own, and then it was back to Peckwith’s Bazaar.
The seamstress had finished most of her shopping when he got there.
“I need to go to this address,” she said.
“I have a look in mind for my lady’s wedding dress, and no-one has the particular type of lace I want, but they have given me a note for the man who owns this warehouse. They think he might have it.”
Jake had hoped to be back by early afternoon, but he kept his sigh to himself and sought out the address. The man there sent them to another, and the afternoon was already half gone before they left London, but at least the seamstress was satisfied.
She slept most of the way home, so Jake had only his own thoughts for company, and lovely thoughts they were, too. Today, he and Kat had been promised time off to visit the vicar, but they had agreed that, if he was not back by half past two, Kat would go without him.
Given it was now Saturday, their banns could be read three times, once at each Sunday service, and in just a little over two weeks, they could be married.
There was always the risk Kat would change her mind.
She had demanded a courting, and he hadn’t so far been able to do much.
But he had plans for the next two weeks.
Plans that involved compliments, courtesy, declarations of his feelings, flowers, and presents—little tokens like the ones in his pockets.
He turned the buggy into the tree-lined driveway of Carr Abbas with a sigh of pleasure. Soon, he would see Kat again. And with Kat on his mind, he almost reacted too late to the horseman who burst out of cover, already firing at them.
His body must have reacted before his mind, for one hand pushed the seamstress flat on the seat while the other held firm on the reins to turn the horses’ panicked start into a controlled gallop.
He burst out of the trees and into the courtyard before the house, slowing the team to coax them through the arch into the stable yard. The hoofbeats of their attacker had faded away as they approached the house.
“Was that a gunshot?” quavered the seamstress. “Did someone shoot at us? Was it a poacher?”
“You are safe now,” Jake answered. “Let’s hope that man’s bullets didn’t harm your fabrics.”
As he intended, the possibility of damage to her purchases diverted the seamstress’s mind, but he answered her question silently in his mind.
“No, ma’am. That was not a poacher.” He might not have been able to see details in the short time the man had been in view, but he knew the bulky shape.
The terrible aim was another indicator. Lieutenant Lackwit Waterford had just tried to murder him.
As soon as Jacob had reported the ambush, he and Captain Harraway rode off to see if they could find any trace of the attacker, and to report it to the magistrate.
Kat was disappointed that she couldn’t immediately tell Jacob about her visit to the vicar, but, of course, dealing with people who shot at him took priority.
Captain Harraway and Miss Ellen had both accompanied her to the vicarage, and just as well.
The vicar had been inclined to take umbrage at a woman in man’s dress.
Kat was certain the word “abomination” had been on his tongue when Captain Harraway had explained—straight-faced—that it was his strategy, and Miss Ellen had wept a judicious tear as she confided how comforting it had been to have Kat dressed as a man.
“My own dear handmaiden, instead of a stranger, however well recommended by others.” A delicate shudder. “Vicar, I do not know how I would have managed without Kat Fivepence.”
After that, the vicar had announced that Kat would be delighted to be back in skirts, and Kat had agreed.
The vicar had commanded that the transformation be completed before the banns were read for the first time tomorrow, and Kat had agreed.
Hopefully, her meek compliance would soothe his hackles.
After all, they were all going to London on Monday, and after that, she would have to be a maid again, anyway.
Captain Harraway had given Jacob a glowing recommendation to match the one for Kat given by Miss Ellen, and the vicar took their names and their entirely fictional birth dates—for neither she nor Jacob had the least idea of the actual day they had been born, and in Jacob’s case, even the year was a guess.
Waterford was a worry, but Kat was confident that Jacob and Captain Harraway were more than a match for the man. Meanwhile, her heart was singing.
Waterford had escaped again. Gone to ground, the captain said, and Jake was sure he was right. The sneak attack on Jake was an escalation that could not be ignored, and when they lost Waterford’s trail, they took the evidence they had found to the magistrate.
He was sympathetic but not inclined to do anything. “After all,” he said. “No one was hurt. It might have just been an attempt to frighten.”
“With a loaded gun?” Captain Harraway asked.
“Yes, very foolish,” the magistrate said. “I shall have some harsh words with him if he returns to Ealing. But I imagine he took fright at the results of his stupid actions and is now far away.”
And whatever they said, the magistrate could not bring himself to believe that “an officer and a gentleman” could make an unprovoked attack on a servant.
“May I have one of your pistols to carry, Captain?” Jake asked as they rode away from the magistrate’s manor house. “I think we should both be armed whenever we leave the house until Waterford is found.”
“I agree,” said the captain. He had a new set of flintlocks that he’d purchased a couple of months ago—a pair that held two shots each, and that were easy to load with specially prepared ammunition.
They stopped by the inn to collect them, and Jake and the captain spent an hour that evening wrapping bullets and charges of powder in paper.
That night, the captain took the first shift to guard Carr Abbas, and Jake relieved him at three in the morning. Nothing disturbed the night, though, and Kat joined him as the sun rose, to stroll around the house with him as he continued to check for anything unusual or out of place.
“I am changing back into skirts today,” Kat told Jake. “I shall miss the freedom of men’s clothes, but there’s something pleasing about the swing of a skirt.”
“You can say that again,” Jake told her. “I won’t mind, either, when I’m the only man who gets to admire that shape of your bottom.”
“Jake!” She protested, but she was laughing at the same time .
“You are such a pretty woman, Kat,” he said. “How on earth people haven’t seen you for a woman all the way through, I do not know.”
“People see what they expect to see,” she replied. “You told me that, many years ago, and I’ve always found it to be true. No one would have questioned us, you know, if Captain Harraway had not happened to be the true owner of Carr Abbas.”
“Quite a coincidence,” Jake said.
“I’d like to think it was meant to be, but I can’t help but wonder. Mrs. Dove-Lyon knew that Miss Ellen was not truly the Lady of Carr Abbas. Might she also have known that Captain Harraway was the owner?”
“Probably,” he agreed. In fact, almost certainly. According to Skippy, she had extensive files on each of the regulars at the Lyon’s Den. He chuckled. “How that must have amused her—to make a marriage between the true lord of Carr Abbas and the false lady.”
“It will be a good marriage, will it not? Miss Ellen deserves a good husband.”
“The captain will care for her, protect her, and cherish her,” Jake assured his darling. Would it work to suggest he wanted to care for, protect, and cherish Kat? She’d probably hand him his head.
“That will suit her,” said Kat. “In her whole life, no one has ever thought about her first or looked after her needs before their own.”
“You have, Kat,” Jake pointed out. “You have been putting her first since before I met you.”
Kat shrugged. “That’s different. She was the first person to ever be kind to me. Of course, I look out for her. Just as you look out for your captain.”
Jake nodded in acknowledgement. “We were lucky to fall in with them, were we not? Now we just need to get them married, and then marry ourselves, and look out for them for the rest of our days.”