“That’s how they came to fall in love,” Mr. Dunstan said.
“And then she was kidnapped,” said David, adding drama to his words, but smiling withal.
Rani leaned forward, her eyes wide. “No! What happened?”
“Sir James rescued her, but it was a near thing. All in all, kidnapping of any innocent has her up in arms.”
“I see,” Rani said, thinking. She sipped some tea. She closed her eyes and relaxed in her chair. “In here,” she said, tapping the side of her head, “I can hear Krishan laughing and the tumble of words when he is excited. I must hold that in my head and heart,” she said, touching first her forehead and then her heart. “It makes me smile and holds my fear away a little.” She looked toward the house back door. “But I know he is out there somewhere, and I am so frightened for him. I would walk every street and alley if I felt it would help me find him.” Her eyes glistened.
“Mr. Martin will find him,” David assured her.
“I pray for it,” she whispered and gave a long sigh. The warmth of the kitchen, the comforting smells of food, relaxed her, and she felt depleted. She did not know how much longer she could keep her eyes open. “I am tired,” she said abruptly.
“As I am sure you are,” Mrs. Dunstan said. “Fear and stress will do that to a body. Do you remember your way to your room?”
“Yes, yes,” Rani said with forced brightness, willing the exhaustion at bay. “Thank you.”
She started to get up. David rose and pulled out her chair for her.
“Sleep well and try not to worry too much, though I know that will be difficult. I will return in the morning.”
Rani bowed her head, then left the kitchen.
“A most remarkable woman,” David said, after the door closed behind her. He looked at Charwood and Mrs. Dunstan. “She has been frightened—terrified even; however, she has stood up to her fears. You should have heard her at the Bow Street office! By her manner, you would think she would be a wallflower, but she spoke right up.”
“That’s foreigners, for you,” growled Charwood, his chair scraping against the floor as he stood up. “Can’t trust them.”
“What?” David asked.
“Mr. Charwood!” remonstrated Mrs. Dunstan. “That will be enough. Madam will not accept that attitude, and well you know it.”
“Bah!” the butler said. Angrily, he strode to the passageway that led to the servants’ rooms. He stopped to look back at them. “You’ll see, you both will.” With that parting comment, he stomped down the hall.
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Mrs. Dunstan. “This is so unlike the man, and I’ve worked with him for three years!”
“His behavior speaks of an unknown history,” David said. “Don’t let it bother you, Mrs. Dunstan. Sir James and Lady Branstoke will sort it out.”
“I dare say,” the woman said; however, her face wore a troubled frown.
* * *
Charwood quietly lethimself out of the Branstoke townhouse. Mrs. Dunstan’s insistence on the maids oiling the door hinges monthly served his purpose, though he thought it a nuisance task for the servants. He crossed the yard to the gate leading to the mews—another oiled nuisance—and let himself out into the mews. He climbed the outside stairs of the stable to the groomsmen’s rooms. George Romley was the only one in town, the others either at Summerworth Park, the Branstokes’ country home in Kent, or had been given leave to spend time with their families for the holidays.
Mr. Thornbridge had no right to ask Romley to take messages for him. And to believe someone could kidnap a child in the daytime from a bustling dock? Bah! Worse, to claim the child was some relation to the Earl of Soothcoor. Impossible. He’d always taken Mr. Thornbridge for an intelligent man. It ground at him that he should be taken in by whatever conspiracy that Indian woman was involved in. And Mrs. Dunstan merrily taking it all in, too, and treating the woman like visiting royalty made his stomach crawl.
Blind and stupid, that’s what they were. You can’t trust anyone from India. His brother learned that to his demise. And they looked like the bloody thieving Romanys. At least the gypsies kept to themselves. The Indians flooded London and were getting above themselves, what with opening coffee houses and bath houses and infiltrating the service ranks, taking jobs away from the hard-working English. Damn the merchantmen for hiring the lascars in India for one-way ocean trips. It was all the fault of that East India Company. The government let them do whatever they wanted.
He pounded on Romley’s door. “Wake up, Romley! Damn it, wake up you clodpoll!”
The door opened to a bleary-eyed Romley, who squinted against the light from Charwood’s lantern.
“Charwood! What the bloody ‘ell you want? “
Charwood pushed past Romley to come into his room. He sneered at the size and the rough wood. He turned to look at Romley. “We need to talk.”
“Can’t it wait until morning?”
“No, you’re leaving in the morning, remember?”
