Chapter 8
Eight
The knock on the door proved to be a servant from the inn and Miss Westbrook’s maid. “Miss Brownlee,” Thom said, “how may I be of service?”
“Mr. Medlock, Mrs. Westbrook has locked the young miss in her room, and Mr. Mills is riding to Norwich for a bishop’s license.
Miss Westbrook refused to marry Mr. Mills, but the mistress intends to compel her.
And sir? She locked Mr. Mills and Miss Westbrook in the parlor.
Together. Alone. She is telling everyone that the young miss is ruined. ”
Thom turned to collect his coat. “We’ll see about that. How is Miss Westbrook holding up?”
Brownlee frowned, looking puzzled. “She does not seem worried,” she admitted. “Sir, she told me to come and tell you what was happening, and to give you this.”
She handed over a crumpled note. It looked as if it had been written on a piece of torn off brown paper, of the type used by shopkeepers for wrapping purchases.
Miss Westbrook had made full use of every inch of space.
“Dear sir. Be on your guard. He of whom we spoke still has his eye on his first goal. He has not gone far. Respectfully, AW.” And then, in tiny print across the bottom of the other side of the paper, “A trap might catch a rat.”
Interesting. “Miss Brownlee,” he said. “Is Miss Westbrook in immediate danger, or will she be safe if I take fifteen minutes to reach her?”
“She is safe for the moment, sir. Mr. Mills will not be back from Norwich until tomorrow night. He is a wicked man, Mr. Medlock, and I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to support this marriage. Even if my Miss Arianna is ruined.”
“Which she is not. For I shall wed her if she will have me. Would you please find Mr. Brewster? I need him to ask my friend, Mr. Benniston, to step up here. I need a word with my friend before I go, Miss Brownlee.”
The maid bobbed a curtsey and hurried off.
Thom arrived at Mrs. Peabody’s within the fifteen minutes he had mentioned, and demanded to see Miss Westbrook. Mrs. Peabody, the landlady, was flustered by the request.
“Mr. Medlock, Miss Westbrook has gone up to bed,” she said.
“I have reason to believe that Miss Westbrook has been locked in her room against her wishes,” said Thom sternly. “I also understand that she was subject to insult this afternoon from a man I can only describe as a villain. As her betrothed, I wish to see for myself that she is safe and unharmed.”
Mrs. Peabody frowned, clearly disturbed by Thom’s claims. “Sir, is Mr. Mills not her betrothed?”
“Mills is taking advantage of Mrs. Westbrook’s credibility,” Thom insisted. “Miss Westbrook sees right through the man. Mrs. Peabody, please allow me to see my betrothed, or, at the very least, her mother.”
“Bother Mrs. Westbrook,” muttered the landlady, under her breath. She opened the door to the parlor. “Please wait here, Mr. Medlock.”
And wait he did, for a good fifteen minutes. After that, he’d had enough. He mounted the stairs to the next floor and shouted, “Miss Westbrook! It is Medlock! Where are you?”
Two doors opened along the passage that led from the stairwell, and two elderly ladies peeped around their edges, both wearing the kind of lacy mobcap his grandmother put on to sleep in. “Young man,” said the eldest, “what are you doing here at this time of night?”
“I am looking for my betrothed, ma’am,” Thom told her. “I have reason to believe she is being confined against her will. Can you tell me where to find Miss Westbrook?”
Slightly more of the lady emerged into view. “Miss Westbrook is betrothed to that scoundrel Mr. Mills, who arrived here in Fenwick with a completely different woman,” she declared. “She thought he was her betrothed, too. But in the end, he ran away and she married someone else.”
Interesting. But Thom did not have time to be diverted. “Miss Westbrook is of age and knows her own mind, and if her mother is fooled by Mills, she is not. I am here to rescue her.”
“How exciting,” murmured the other woman.
The first woman narrowed her eyes at him, as if trying to stare into his soul. After a moment, she told him, “The Westbrooks have rooms on the next floor. The first two doors on the left from the stairwell. Connecting rooms. Miss Westbrook is in the second.”
Thom tossed a quick “Thank you” in the lady’s direction as he hurried back to the stairs. He didn’t have to go looking for Mrs. Westbrook. She must have heard him calling, for she was waiting for him, her hands stretched to bar his entry through the door from the stairwell.
“Leave immediately,” she said, “or I shall call the constable.”
“Do so, and I shall tell him you are imprisoning your adult daughter against her will, and threatening to marry her to a villain for your own financial advantage,” said Thom.
The second part was a guess, based on what little Miss Westbrook had said, but the change in Mrs. Westbrook’s expression hinted that it had hit home.
Her uncertainty was momentary. “You have no right to question how I discipline my daughter,” she declared. “You cannot see her. Leave immediately.”
Thom didn’t have the patience for this. He picked Mrs. Westbrook up and put her behind him, then strode down to the second door from the left. A key lay on the table between the two doors. Thom picked it up and fitted it into the lock.
“Stop that,” screeched Mrs. Westbrook, who had got over her momentary surprise at being manhandled, and was now dragging on his arm, trying to stop him from using the key. He used his other hand to turn the key, and called out, “Miss Westbrook, I have unlocked the door.”
She must have been standing just inside it, for the door opened and there she was. Quite without meaning to, Thom opened his arms, and whether she meant to or not, Miss Westbrook walked into them. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you. I so hoped I could count on you, and here you are.”
“Arianna Westbrook,” Mrs. Westbrook shouted. “Unhand that man! You are to marry Mr. Mills.”
“Never,” replied Miss Westbrook, presumably to the marriage, for she retreated from Thom’s hug. “Mama, Mr. Mills is a villain.”
“Mr. Mills has compromised you, you foolish girl. You must marry him.”
“Nothing happened,” Miss Westbrook insisted. “Furthermore, there would be no question of anything happening if you had not locked me in the parlor with him, and no one would have known if you did not keep telling anyone.”
“None of that matters,” said Mrs. Westbrook. “You are compromised. You must marry.”
“Marry me,” said Thom, without thinking, the words as much a surprise to him as they apparently were to Miss Westbrook. Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened.
“You?” From Mrs. Westbrook’s tone, any disinterested observer would think he was something many-legged that had just crawled out of the marsh.
“You think you are worthy to marry my daughter, Mr. Medlock? A tradesman like you? Mr. Mills is a cousin of Viscount Barfoot, of Mill Court in Warwickshire. How can I waste her on a nobody like you?”
Viscount Barfoot? Mill Court? Thom had heard of neither, but in any case, if Mills did have a titled cousin, so did Thom, come to that. Not that he planned to play noble relative one-upmanship with the scoundrel, but his was a duke.
Miss Westbrook was already chopping her mother’s argument off at the knees. “I am an adult, Mama, and will make my own decision about whether I marry and whom I shall marry. Mr. Medlock, please accompany me to the parlor. Mama, you may come too, but only if you can behave.”
She marched past Thom and her mother, and Thom followed. He was, he realized, deadly serious about marrying Miss Westbrook. She was magnificent, and he would follow her anywhere.
Mrs. Peabody was persuaded to make them a pot of tea, and even served cake with it, and they sat in the parlor listening to Mama listing all the reasons why, in her view, Mr. Mills was a better candidate for Arianna’s hand than Mr. Medlock.
Arianna didn’t bother to argue. She was not going to marry Mr. Mills, and Mr. Medlock didn’t really want to marry her.
Did he? He only said it to stop Mama. And yet, he had sounded as if he meant it, and for once in her life, Arianna wanted it to be true.
A suitor she actually admired? Whose company she enjoyed?
Whom she might even be falling a little in love with, quite without meaning to do so?
It wasn’t real, but how she wished that it was.
Mr. Medlock sat next to her on the sofa, listening to Mama and sipping tea. Arianna, too, was quiet, letting Mama run down on her own. Now and then, she repeated, “I shall never marry Mr. Mills.”
And then there was an interruption. First, a barrage of knocks on Mrs. Peabody’s front door, then the low hum of voices, and then Mr. Bennington, striding into the parlor, looking pleased with himself.
“We’ve got him, Thom.” He then remembered his manners, and bowed to Arianna.
“Miss Westbrook, Mrs. Westbrook. Good evening. My apologies for bursting in, but I thought Medlock should know straight away that we caught the thief. Brewster’s idea of recruiting the lieutenant was brilliant, Thom.
It turns out the innkeeper knew Wilson was smuggler-hunting all along.
Apparently, for all his chatter, Brewster can keep a secret with the best of them. ”
“And our thief?” Thom asked. “What happened?”
“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Bennington. “Wilson was with the constable from the town, and they both agreed to the plan. Sure enough, Mills saw me and Paul in the bar, and had no idea that Wilson and the constable were waiting for him. Enter, stage left, one burglar. Our friends caught Mills red-handed, pulling jewelry out of your underthings. Begging your pardon, ladies. Unmentionables, I should have said.”
“Mr. Mills?” said Mama. “Arianna’s Mr. Mills?”
“He is a villain, Mama,” Arianna said. “I tried to tell you.”
“Impossible. It is impossible. He is the cousin of Viscount Barfoot. He is going to marry you, Arianna. He cannot be a thief.”
“Where is he now?” Mr. Medlock asked.
“On his way back to town with the constable, to be locked up. We’ll be needed tomorrow to make a statement to the local justice of the peace, a squire called Fenneman. I hope the good diving weather holds off until the next day.”
Mama was still repeating, “Impossible. Impossible.”
“So that settles that,” said Arianna to Mr. Medlock. “You shall be pleased to know that your chivalrous intervention is no longer necessary.”
“If you mean my offer of marriage,” said Mr. Medlock, “I hope you will allow it to stand until you are ready to give it your serious attention. I do wish to marry you, you know.”
Ariana stared at him. He seemed sincere, but it couldn’t be true, could it?
“It is late,” Mr. Bennington pointed out. “We should leave the ladies to their slumbers, Thom.”
“Just promise me you shall think about it,” said Mr. Medlock, taking both of Arianna’s hands in his. He lifted one of them and kissed it. “I shall have to visit the justice of the peace tomorrow, but may I come to see you after that?”
Arianna nodded, for she did not trust her voice to obey her if she tried to speak. Promise to think about his offer? She was certain she would not be able to think about anything else.