The boy would have heard Charity call him “Rolly,” and worse, would be able to describe him. Dominick had stared at his mama’s “friend” throughout the meal he’d started spewing up minutes after finishing it.
Charity, being so quick-witted, had perceived the problem. She’d told Vawtry to take the boy because that was the safest, wisest thing to do.
He was “worth money,” she’d also said.
Vawtry had considered all this while cowering under a damp pile of hay, undecided which way to run and wondering whether he had a prayer of escaping the innyard unnoticed once he did decide.
But the place had not erupted with men commanded to hunt Roland Vawtry—or anyone else—down. No more satanic roars had issued from Vawtry’s recently abandoned chamber.
Eventually, he had collected his courage and crept from the hay wagon.
No one accosted him. He walked as coolly as he could to the stables and asked for his horse.
It was there he learned of his reprieve.
The Marquess of Dain, he was informed, had all the inn servants—and not a few customers as well—running themselves ragged because his boy was sick.
Then Roland Vawtry saw that Fate had given him a chance to redeem himself in his beloved’s eyes.
It did not take long to figure out how to accomplish that.
After all, he had nothing to lose now.
He was not only five thousand pounds in debt, but facing, he had no doubt, a rapid dismemberment at the Marquess of Dain’s hands. Dain had other things on his mind now, but that wouldn’t last forever. Then he would hunt his former comrade down.
Vawtry had one chance only and he must take it.
He must carry out Charity’s plan…and he must do it all himself.
Chapter 19
Mrs. Ingleby had told Jessica that when Athcourt had been enlarged and remodeled in the sixteenth century, the layout had been similar to that of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. The ground floor had been the service area primarily. The family apartments had occupied the first floor. The second floor, lightest and airiest, thanks to its high ceilings and tall windows, had held the state apartments.
In Dain’s grandfather’s time, the functions of the first and second floors were reversed, except for the Long Gallery, which continued to display the portrait collection.
The nursery, however, as well as the schoolroom and nursemaids’ and governess’s quarters, remained where they’d been since the late fifteen hundreds, at the northeast corner of the ground floor—the coldest and darkest corner of the main house.
That, Jessica told Mrs. Ingleby, shortly after Dain and Phelps had departed, was not acceptable.
“The child will be distressed enough at being separated from the only family he’s known and brought to a cavernous place filled with strangers,” she said. “I will not exile him to a dark corner two floors away, where he is sure to have nightmares.”
After a consultation, the two women had agreed that the South Tower, just above Jessica’s apartments, would be more suitable. Whatever needed to be moved out of the South Tower rooms could easily be transported across the roof walkway to one of the five other towers. The servants could do the same with items brought in from other storage rooms. That would leave a few very long trips from the present nursery to the new one, but only a few. Most of the room’s furnishings had been put into storage twenty-five years earlier.
Thanks to Athcourt’s grand army of servants, the project made rapid progress.
By the time the sun set, the new nursery was furnished with a bed, a rug, fresh linens, and handsome yellow draperies. The latter were not quite so fresh, but acceptable after a good shaking out in the twilight’s clear air. Jessica had found a child-size rocking chair as well, rather battered but not broken, and a pull-along wooden horse minus half its tail, and most of the set of wooden soldiers Phelps had mentioned.
Mary Murdock, who’d been selected as nursemaid, was sorting through a trunkful of His Lordship’s boyhood belongings for enough garments to see an active child through the days before a wardrobe could be made up for him. Bridget was removing the lace collar from a small nightshirt, because her mistress had told her that no boy of the present generation would be caught dead in that fussy thing.
They were working in the North Tower storage room, which had become the campaign’s headquarters, for it was to this place the previous marquess had consigned most of the artifacts of his second wife’s brief reign. Jessica had just unearthed a handsome set of picture books. She was piling them onto the windowsill when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of light in the darkness beyond.
She bent close to the thick glass. “Mrs. Ingleby,” she said sharply. “Come here and tell me what that is.”
The housekeeper hurried across the room to the west-facing window. She looked out. Then her hand went to her throat. “Mercy on us. That must be the little gatehouse, my lady. And it looks to be…onfire.”
The alarm was sounded immediately, and the house swiftly emptied as its inhabitants raced out to the gatehouse.
The small pepperbox structure guarded one of Athcourt’s lesser-used gates. Its gatekeeper normally spent Sunday evenings at a prayer meeting. If it burnt to the ground—which was likely, for the fire must rise high before anyone could see it—the loss would be no catastrophe.
