Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Old Pightle
Long Ditton
“Are you sure I can’t carry you over the puddles?” Hugh watched Emma hike up her skirts as she trudged beside him along the muddy lane, his attention straying to each inch of exposed ankle instead of the path ahead. “I should have insisted Rowton lend you his boots.”
She laughed. “He hates me already. Imagine if I ruined them and lost his tatty tricorn. I only wish I knew why the wretched thing mattered.”
He could tell her.
He should tell her.
Hell, she’d given everything of herself last night. Part of him was still there in that damned marquee, his hands on her skin, buried so deep he’d thought the pleasure might kill him.
The least he could give her was one scrap of truth.
“It belonged to my grandmother’s coachman.” A strapping man with ink-black hair and a heart a damn sight softer than Hugh’s father’s.
She stopped, one hand going to her hip. “So it means something to you, too. Why didn’t you say so? I would have turned the house upside down.”
Because her inquisitive mind would not have rested there. “I didn’t need to. You made an oath, and I trust you’ll keep it.”
“I shall get that hat even if I have to wrestle it from Melinda myself.” She snorted. “I should have taken my father’s pistol.”
“There was little room to spare in that opera dress.”
“You would know. You never stopped looking.”
The joke was a cue to change the subject. Yet he was in the marquee again, her body warm beneath his, her breath hot against his mouth.
“Perhaps the hat should stay lost.”
She met his gaze and, for once, didn’t ask why.
Good. He wasn’t sure how to explain it. He might be the son of the cruellest bastard in Christendom. He might be a coachman’s by-blow. Either way, anyone tied to him risked waking one day with a stain on her name.
He could have told her last night.
She could have mentioned Howden’s letter. Had she opened it and read it in secret? Was she simply buying time?
He’d made a living reading what people tried to hide. There had been no calculation in her face. Only something he badly wanted to trust. Yet he could almost hear his father whispering, You’d be no one’s first choice.
The lane bent sharply between hedgerows, revealing a cottage with smoke-stained brick, a sagging gate, and three hens pecking in the mud.
Two children crouched near the gate, poking a stick into a puddle while a lop-eared dog tried to drink from the other end. The younger boy sprang back when he saw Hugh.
Emma smiled. “Is that your puddle?”
Shoulders hunched, the child nodded.
“Permission to cross, Captain.” Emma saluted him.
His mouth twitched as he straightened. “Who goes there?”
“I wish I could tell you, but we’re here by order of the King.”
The boy laughed, nerves forgotten.
Hugh knew that kind of caution. Emma had not charmed the child. She had made herself small enough for him to feel safe.
A woman came hurrying out of the cottage, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Get yourselves inside now and wash those mucky fingers. You can help me with the baking.” She watched the children scamper away, then turned, her gaze sweeping over the fine cut of their coats with open suspicion. “Can I help you? Are you here from the agency? Is it about my daughter Sarah?”
Emma cleared her throat. “We’re here about Miss Bellingham. Her brother gave us this address, though he forgot to mention your name.”
“Miss Bellingham, you say.” The woman quickly removed her apron and tucked it under her arm, hope flickering across her face before she could stop it. “You’ve seen her? Has she heard from Sarah? Is that why you’ve come?”
Hugh stepped forward. “Is there somewhere we can speak privately? Away from the children.”
The light in her eyes died, and she brought a shaky hand to her mouth. “It’s bad news, then. I always knew this day would come. London’s no place for a country girl. I’ve imagined all sorts of horrors.”
Hugh bit back a curse. Bellingham might have had the decency to leave more than an address and a trail of frightened women.
“There’s no need to think the worst.” It was a kindness he rarely offered, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. “We’re not here about Sarah.” Yet the girl was plainly missing.
He noted her expression, distress and relief at war. He knew that battle well.
“What has Miss Bellingham got to do with us?” she asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to establish. She’s missing. We believe she may be living under another name. It’s important we find her.”
The woman pressed her hand to her chest. “When you do, ask her why she lied about my Sarah.”
“They knew each other?” Emma said. “What did Miss Bellingham tell you?”
“That she’d not heard from Sarah. But a young woman doesn’t vanish without help. Now you tell me Miss Bellingham is missing too.” After a quick glance at the field behind the house, she said, “Let me fetch my husband. I’ll say no more until then.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Emma turned to him. “What is this about? Dead men and missing women. Yet somehow it’s all connected.”
His hand found her elbow, more need than habit. “By the sound of it, Sarah and Miss Bellingham were friends. There’s only one thing I know for certain.” Besides the fact he wanted her desperately with every damned breath. “This is about more than a lord who may have faked his death.”
She managed a smile. “Let’s hope we learn something new today. The Sentinel needs you, and neither of us can spend forever chasing ghosts.”
Strange, how little he’d thought of The Sentinel. He wasn’t counting thunder. He’d counted the pins in her hair this morning, the buttons at her throat, the number of times she bit down on her bottom lip.
“This must be her husband.” Emma gave him a playful nudge. “He has the look of a Northman, not a Gamecock.”
The man came marching through the gate, billhook in hand. He stopped when he saw Hugh, then looked at Emma, as though deciding which of them had brought trouble to his door.
“Anne says you’ve come about Miss Bellingham.” His gaze moved over Hugh’s coat. “That true, or did he send you to rub salt in our wounds?”
Hugh stilled. “Who?”
The man gave a bitter laugh. “The same gent who gave you this address. Bellingham. He came here a few weeks back, wanting to know if we’d heard from Sarah. The damn cheek. If it wasn’t for his sister’s meddling, Sarah would be here, where she belongs.”
“When did you last see Sarah?” Emma asked gently, and the man’s grip on the billhook seemed to ease. “We might look for her while we’re searching for Miss Bellingham.”
His wife stepped forward, hands clasped. “Eleven months ago. Just before we received the compensation. If she’d waited, we could have paid for her passage to Italy. There would have been enough to spare.”
Italy. A lofty aspiration for a young woman of little means. The country kept cropping up, and Hugh didn’t trust coincidences.
He glanced at the modest cottage. The parcel of land was a mere acre. “The compensation?”
“For the accident at the mine. And for John losing his position.” She threaded her arm through her husband’s. “This was supposed to be a new beginning, but then we lost Sarah.”
A chill settled over him. “You worked at Hartham Colliery?”
“I was the bailiff there for five years.” His voice cracked, and he coughed to clear it. “The overman. The underground steward.”
Hugh’s stomach turned. “You’re John Carson.” It was not a question. “Then you were responsible for the workings. Ventilation. Where the men dug. Which seams were pushed.”
John’s jaw hardened. “All orders that came from above. Sir Robert cared about output. Coal in the wagons, money in the books. Lord Howden had his mind elsewhere most days. Horses, cards, women. Anything but the men underground.”
Then he deserved to die in an alley. “And you?”
“I did what I was paid to do.” His mouth twisted. “And I’ve lived with the cost of it ever since. But that accident … it shouldn’t have happened.”
Damn right it shouldn’t have.
Hugh couldn’t undo Hartham. But he could make mine owners answer for the men they sent below. Berridge wanted the bill passed, and John needed something that looked like penance. Hugh wanted the men responsible to pay.
Emma moved closer. Her hand came to rest at his back as though she’d done it a hundred times before and meant to do it a hundred more.
“Who paid the compensation?” she asked.
John wouldn’t meet her eye. “Jeffrey Howden. Said it was payment for his father’s mistake. More than generous, he called it.”
The answer struck hard. Not because he’d published a story without all the facts. Because Emma might begin to see Howden as a man with a conscience.
“Did all the families receive recompense?” she said.
“I don’t know about anyone else. We moved away. The families needed someone to blame. It was safer to blame me.”
“I’m told they didn’t.” Hugh trusted his man in that. Still, a visit to Staffordshire was in order. “If I’m right, you’re the only one he paid.”
He didn’t want to insult Carson by suggesting it was a bribe. He didn’t want Emma to think he was jealous of Jeffrey Howden.
The mine could wait. Bellingham hadn’t sent them here for a history lesson on negligence. He’d sent them to find his sister, and Sarah was the key.
“If we’re to find Sarah, we need a few details.” Hugh reached into his coat pocket for his leather notebook.
“May we ask how old Sarah was when she left?” Emma said. “And how close she and Miss Bellingham were?”
Anne straightened. “Nineteen.”
John touched her arm. “She’d be twenty now, love.”
The woman shook her head. “Yes, of course. Twenty. And full of dreams above her station. Her friendship with Miss Bellingham didn’t help. She invited Sarah to London, and everything changed after that.”
“Was that when she mentioned Italy?” Emma glanced at Hugh. “Most girls dream of Brighton before they set their sights on the Continent. I assume she meant to travel with Miss Bellingham?”
Anne shrugged. “She never said.”
Hugh opened his notebook. “Can you describe her?”