Chapter Twelve
Poppy had never been more terrified in her life.
Nothing ever happened at Chemsworth, no danger had ever come for them.
For all their childish worries about a two-headed monster that ate twins and various other terrible ideas Henry had put into their heads, they had always been quite safe within the Hall’s thick stone walls.
Now they were being taken out of the house by the same devils that had robbed Miss Millthorpe.
Where would they be taken to? Would they be let go? Or perhaps Henry’s stories of pirates roaming the countryside looking for people they could indenture as servants had a grain of truth in it? How would she and Pansy get away?
How had she been living in a lovely dream, thinking of Mr. Lelander all the day long, only to find herself in this situation?
They had decided to follow Miss Millthorpe down the stairs, afraid she was on the verge of being hardheaded and trying to make her way home.
After they’d tracked her down to the ballroom, they discovered that Miss Millthorpe had thought she’d seen movement near the stables.
Convinced the housebreakers were back and unsure of whether the ballroom doors to the balcony had been locked, she’d made her way downstairs with the only weapon at her disposal—an umbrella.
As the lady was urging them to go back to bed, they saw the shadow of a figure out of doors.
They’d hid behind drapery. Poppy was shocked to hear the handles on the balcony doors jiggle.
That person lurking in the dark was trying the doors.
However, those doors were locked. She’d thought that was the end of it.
But instead, a fist wrapped with cloth broke through the glass. The figure stepped into the ballroom.
Poppy was certain her pounding heart must be heard throughout the ballroom.
Miss Millthorpe was more daring. She clobbered the fellow over the head with her umbrella.
Her ability to bestow a blow with enough force to fell a man had never been tested until that moment. As it happened, the force was found a bit lacking. The man barely staggered.
And then they saw that he had a pistol pointed at them.
When they were forced to walk toward the front hall, Poppy had been very relieved to see Mr. Lelander and Lord Burkhart. Until she realized they could do nothing against a pistol.
Then she’d seen Smuckers too, and he was in the drawing room pointing some sort of pump-can at the baron while the gentleman sat in a chair.
It was very confusing. What was Smuckers pointing with?
It looked like the can the gardener used to mist the roses.
Why was he acting so threatening toward the baron?
Their butler took that moment to spray at the baron’s eyes and now the gentleman could not see properly. What in the world was in the can?
And then the housebreaker began talking to Lord Montachet and referring to him as Wagner.
That was not his surname though. His name was Louis Montagu, Baron Montachet. Why would this criminal seem to know him and call him Wagner?
The realization of what was really happening had swept over her in terrifying clarity.
The baron was not a baron. The baron was one of the housebreakers.
They had all been taken in. That was why he did not wish to go with them to the cottage to check on Miss Millthorpe.
That was why he’d disappeared for most of the day when they’d returned with her.
That was why he’d not said much at dinner, and when he did his voice sounded odd.
He’d worried that Miss Millthorpe would recognize him.
They had harbored one of the lady’s attackers at their own table. They’d welcomed him in and given him a room.
Poppy had hoped these two men would have second thoughts and only wished to get out of the house and get away now that they had been revealed. That was not the idea they had, though.
The idea they had was to take someone with them to guarantee they would not be chased.
Poppy had been singled out, but then good old Pans had insisted on coming with her.
They were never separated, she said. It was very like her sister to boldly put herself in danger like that.
Of course, while she did not imagine she was as brave as Pansy, she would have done just the same.
She could not have watched Pansy taken alone.
The man called Gennings pushed them both ahead of him through the front doors. It was dark and the chill wind whipped snow in her face. They were only in their dressing gowns and the cold air hit her like a brick. Her slipper slid on the ice.
She flew through the air as if she’d been launched like a cannonball, landing on her back in the snow. She was not alone in it.
Everyone had fallen. The step was a sheet of ice. Poppy rolled away from the men, then she saw the pistol lying as a dark outline in the snow. She dove for it as Mr. Lelander and Lord Burkhart raced out and both promptly flew off the step and into the snow.
“I’ve got the pistol!” Poppy cried.
“Good show, Pops,” Pansy said, scrambling to her side.
Mr. Smuckers and Miss Millthorpe, apparently being advised by what they’d just witnessed, stepped carefully on the step, slipping and sliding, but they did not go over. Mr. Lelander wrestled with the baron, while Lord Burkhart was on top of Gennings.
Miss Millthorpe went back and forth between them, using her umbrella to hit at the criminals when she got the chance. Though, she did accidentally hit Lord Burkhart twice.
Poppy aimed the gun, though really she did not know what to do with it. She certainly could not shoot anybody. Even if she were willing, there was no clear shot to be had.
Her father appeared in the doorway in his nightcap and a bedjacket.
“Do not step out, my lord!” Smuckers shouted. “I’ve iced the step.” The butler began spraying his pump-can on the step in what Poppy presumed was an effort to de-ice it. Whatever was in his can had burned the baron’s eyes so she supposed it would melt ice too.
“I’d like to know more than just you’ve iced the step!” the viscount shouted. “Why does my daughter have a pistol in her hand and what are you all doing rolling round in the snow and who is that man?”
Mr. Lelander hauled up the baron, or Wagner as he was actually known. Lord Burkhart did the same with Gennings.
“Lord Mulholland,” Mr. Lelander said, “these two rogues were attempting to rob you.”
“As they robbed me,” Miss Millthorpe said.
“I was suspicious of the baron when I heard his voice. It was not precisely what I heard in my cottage, but it was near. Then, when I observed him confused over which was his fish fork my suspicions were heightened. I came down the stairs when I thought I saw a shadow moving in the garden while looking out my window. I instantly took up my umbrella and came down to investigate.” For good measure, the lady used that umbrella once more on the baron, who shuddered under the blow.
“We followed Miss Millthorpe because when we heard her go downstairs rather than upstairs to her room,” Pansy said. “We thought she might attempt to return to the cottage and were determined to stop her.”
“At night? In the snow? I would never be so daft,” Miss Millthorpe said.
“We were determined to guard the house overnight,” Lord Burkhart said, “as we grew suspicious of the baron.”
“From the fish fork debacle too?” the viscount said. “I will admit, that did give me pause.”
“That was one thing,” Mr. Lelander said.
“I, my lord, was prepared to defend the house from invaders, as I have long been prepared to do,” Mr. Smuckers said. “Hence the icing of the stairs. It was a trap, you see.”
“This is all just a confusing misunderstanding,” the baron said, rubbing his eyes from Smuckers recent attack with a pump-can. “My lord, I was only admiring a painting in the drawing room. Who this fellow is, I am sure I do not—”
“Shut your trap, Wagner,” Gennings said, punctuating that statement with a spit on the ground.
“He had the Patinir off the wall. As well, he’d taken the clock from the library,” Smuckers said.
“I distinctly recognize this one’s voice,” Miss Millthorpe said, hitting Gennings over the head with her umbrella as a further identification.
“We’ll let the magistrate sort this out on the morrow,” the viscount said. “Smuckers, can you track down some rope?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“The rest of you, come back indoors, assuming the step has been remedied of ice.”
“Yes, my lord,” Smuckers said. “I have sprayed gin on it and it seems to be melting nicely.
So that was what was in the pump-can. No wonder the baron’s eyes were burning.
Mr. Lelander and Lord Burkhart dragged in the two men. They followed, all stepping carefully on the step to avoid another fall, though really, Smuckers was very clever to think of it.
As they came in, most of the rest of the household was coming down the stairs in response to the ruckus going on out of doors.
Henry, Lord Smythesdon, and Lord Hemmings helped secure the two housebreakers and arrangements were made for shifts to guard the two men. Of the two, Poppy thought Gennings the more dangerous. He’d carried a pistol, he was very rough, and he’d tried to take her and Pansy as hostages.
It was rather hard, actually, to look upon the other man and know he was not who he said he was. He was not a baron. He was not Lord Montachet. He was a criminal who had been in their midst. All along, as he’d made himself pleasant, he’d been looking around to see what he could take.
How could they have known? Especially on the first night when he’d acted so suave and devil-may-care? He’d been looking at the Patinir when he’d been in the drawing room. It had seemed like admiration, but it was in fact calculation.
They were probably lucky they had not been murdered in their beds.
“Are you all right, Miss Poppy,” Mr. Lelander said.
“I think so. Goodness, your eyes are very red.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Smuckers assaulted me with his gin gun in the dark.”
“Oh dear.”