Chapter 21
Kitty and Louisa, at the back of the house, heard the forcing of the door downstairs from where they waited in the little parlour they shared upstairs, between their respective bedrooms.
“It sounds as if they have, indeed, come,” said Kitty.
“Oh, dear,” said Louisa. “I had hoped it was all a hum, but apparently not.”
“I won’t let them hurt you,” said Kitty, gripping her pistol, and thumbing back the safety, and standing ready. “They were supposed to come; Mr. Pringle worked very hard to entice them, so they could be captured and executed or transported.”
Down in the library, the men waited, grimly. The Hardcastles were already wanted for murder, so there was no need for them to make an overt move, but being caught in the act built a better case.
Tom and Billie Hardcastle were no strangers to breaking and entering. Getting in the back door of the house hardly took a minute.
“Gawd, you’d fink a queer cuffin would ʼave a ʼarder ken to crack, wood’n yer?” said Billie, the wounded brother, who was now recovered from the score of a ball along his arm.
“’E ain’t finkin’ nobody’d crack ʼis ken in daylight,” said Tom. “Less yappin’, an’ more priggin’!”
They helped themselves to cider, bread and cheese in the pantry, on the way into the house, ignoring the pewter candlesticks in the servants’ quarters in the expectation of more precious metals further in.
The dining room was a disappointment to them. It was decorated in the latest style, with Wedgewood plaques and Wedgewood vases and candlesticks.
“Gawd, look, Tommy, china candlesticks, bloody old nipcheese, where’s ve silver?” said Billie.
“I dunno, but some toffs value vat junk,” said Tom. “It ain’t worf nickin’ though.”
“Barbarians,” muttered Sir James, who could hear the strident voices,
“Well, I says we goes look for ʼim; ʼe’s an old man, an’ if we tickle ʼim up a bit, ʼe’ll soon tell us where the best loot is stashed,” said Billie. “An’ then we can finish ʼim off. I fancy killing me a queer cuffin.”
“The housemaid, Mollie, said ʼe’s got some kind o’ invalid niece to stay, and ʼer governess,” said Tom.
“Well, they ain’t likely to hamper us any,” said Billie. “Dependin’ ʼow old the governess is, might be one each to swive as well before we cut them.”
Hugo growled low in his throat.
He was behind the door as Tom came through, with Pringle on the other side.
Pringle’s gun spoke, and Tom Hardcastle went down.
Billie saw the Bow Street Runner move forward, and left his brother to flee the house, going back the way he had entered, through the back door.
Hearing the back door bang, Kitty looked out of the window, and saw the rough-looking man fleeing. Before Louisa could protest, she ran out of the room and down the back stairs, incidentally missing Hugo who went through the dining room. Kitty ran out of the back, and across the yard, through the kitchen garden where she had seen Billie go; even as Hugo exited and set off round the house towards the road where he assumed the younger Hardcastle was more likely to go.
Kitty’s ribs started hurting as she followed the fugitive, who went out through the orchard, and over the fence onto the road there.
Kitty fired.
By as much luck as judgement, she hit Billie Hardcastle, who fell over the fence and down onto the sunken lane. Kitty followed, slowly, and with much care, but neglecting to reload her pistol.
She slithered down the slope onto the road, snagging her hair on a weed of some sort growing on the bank; at which point a piece of bad luck occurred.
Along the road came a curricle, driven by Abelard, Viscount Haselbraid.
He was a sick man; but not as sick as perhaps his half-brother might have hoped. He pulled his horses to a stop.
“Gad! Are you still shooting people, wench? I never expected to see you, here,” he said, recognising Kitty.
“Go away,” said Kitty, pointing her pistol at him.
He laughed.
“Now, I heard the shot, and I don’t think you’d had time to reload,” he said. Sick he might, but he pulled Kitty up beside him in the curricle effortlessly, even so. “I hadn’t finished with you!” and he drove off.
Kitty was in pain; it had strained her healing ribs chasing the younger Hardcastle, and even more so, being heaved up into the curricle. She half collapsed, gasping, and fighting not to sob. She was almost swooning, and had little idea of where she was being driven.
“Well! You seem a little more tractable than last time,” said Haselbraid. “This time, I am not going to lose you, and you are going to pay for shooting me, and causing me a lot of trouble. If you’re good, I might even marry you, even if you ain’t an heiress. Because in that dress I can see fine well you are female, which I was in doubt of before. Especially with that young sprig I shot.”
“You shot my brother who was looking for me,” growled Kitty. “Mr. Bottringham told me about it.”
“Oh, seen that irritating fellow, have you? What are you doing here so far north?”
“Eloping with him,” said Kitty. She was starting to get her second wind. She watched for sharp curve to the right, and when they were going round one, she barged Haselbraid hard, so that he overbalanced and fell clear out of the curricle. Kitty grabbed the reins. It would be harder without a whip, which Haselbraid had clung to, but Kitty was a good driver. She drove on a way, and found a village, and pulled off the road.
Here, Kitty did something which she was later to acknowledge was monumentally stupid.
Instead of asking at the inn for the way back to Buckden, she removed the pocket watch she still carried from her pocket, pointing the hour hand at the sun, and bisecting the angle between it and twelve o’clock, as Hugo had showed her.
“Now, was that north or south?” she wondered. “Oh, it must be north, because compasses point north. So, I must go the opposite way.”
She found the road in the village which went the way she had chosen most nearly, and set off on a determinedly northerly direction, believing that she was going south.
Hugo and Pringle reached the road, and decided to split their efforts, one going each way. It was Hugo who came upon the moaning Billie Hardcastle on the road, more dead than alive, and deduced, from the way the grassy bank showed signs of slithering, that someone had come down it. Indeed, it looked to be a sliding fall more than a slither So, who had shot him? On closer inspection two people had slithered down, one lighter than the other, and a lock of auburn hair was caught on a thistle half way down. Kitty! But then, where was Kitty? Had she walked the wrong way to try to find the front of the property, unable to scramble back up?
Hugo found two branches which he lashed together, and tied Billie to this makeshift means of transportation to drag him back. Pringle had given up and came to find him, and they ministered rough first aid to Billie, who might live to hang.
“Where did she go?” demanded Hugo, when Billie was approximately sensible.
“Ha! Seized by some gent with a curricle, she was,” said Billie. “I hope he hurts her bad.”
“You get your phaeton, sir; this one will live or die as pleases the Good Lord,” said Pringle.
Hugo ran up the drive to harness his team to his phaeton and set off, out onto the road, wondering why some gentleman would snatch up Kitty. Was it some lecher who thought her a peasant with whom he could have his way? Or some officious fool, taking her up to appear before the magistrate for shooting a man? He was still wondering when he became aware that he was about to overtake a man, walking, and he pulled up to ask if this pedestrian had seen anything.
“Haselbraid!” he cried, on recognising the man.
“You!” snarled Haselbraid. “That little bitch of yours has stolen my curricle, though she’s avoided coming past me again. For the love of God, take me to the gates of my country seat, at least.”
“If you try anything, I’ll kill you,” said Hugo. “You look ill.”
“I haven’t been well since she shot me,” said Haselbraid climbing wearily, and with much effort, into the phaeton. “And all my hair is falling out.”
“Maybe someone is poisoning you,” said Hugo. “I would, if I was in your household.”
“The hell! Can it be that? Damned if I know who, though,” said Haselbraid.
“Well, if you want a suspect of who might want to kill you, I suggest you consult the parish records for anyone born in the last eighty years or so,” said Hugo.
“Damn you! It’s there,” Haselbraid indicated the gates of his hall.
Hugo let him out.
“Seriously, in your shoes, I’d try to come to an accommodation with whoever is poisoning you,” he said. “I’ll let Sir James Ambleside know; but I don’t care enough if you live or die to interfere further, as I have Kitty to find.”
Haselbraid snarled at his assembled household.
“I’d like whichever of you is poisoning me to know that Sir James Ambleside is aware. It stops now and I won’t call for an investigation. Just leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”
He stalked off.
His half-brother resisted the urge to mop his forehead; it would be a rather obvious move and would draw attention to himself.
Like both the butler and the cook.
Well, that was worth knowing. John Hasel had been worried that his half-brother had been showing signs of arsenical poisoning, which might be put at his door, and invalidate Peter’s claim.
He beckoned both into his study.
“Which of you is using arsenic?” he demanded.
Both shuffled guiltily.
It occurred to Hasel that his purging herbs might actually have saved Haselbraid’s life, in removing the poison, and he resisted the urge to sit down and laugh, weakly, at the irony.
“You have the choice of stopping this, or leaving with a good reference,” he said.
“I’ll take the reference,” said the cook.
“I’ll empty out those bottles which might be unwholesome,” said the butler.
John Hasel was later to laugh again at irony when Haselbraid sincerely thanked him for finding the source of the poison, and dealing with it.
“Didn’t you marry a maid who attracted me?” asked Haselbraid.
“Aye, my lord,” said John.
“And your son might be mine,” said Haselbraid.
“Aye, my lord,” said John.
“Oh, call me Abelard; you’ve earned it,” said Haselbraid. “I tell you what; I’ll make your son my heir and claim he’s my get to make it legal, and stop worrying about that aspect of getting an heiress. And I’ll offer for one who is butter-toothed and past her last prayer just to get the money.”
“I think there are ways you might come about without that… Abelard,” said John. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
“What, about to save my skin from creditors as well as poisoners?” asked Haselbraid, with a faint smile. “I think I’m off women; Bottringham is welcome to his little virago. I’m plainly not meant to wed, I don’t really like most women, and they don’t like me when they know me. I like sex, and I like being in control, but outside of the bedroom, they are too annoying for words.”
“I can save you from the creditors,” said John, who was not about to pass up a legitimate will leaving everything to his son. He despised Haselbraid; but he would do his best for him, and the lands he loved.
Meanwhile, Hugo had found some locals who had seen a lady with red hair in a curricle, who had stopped, messed about with a pocket watch, and headed north.
Hugo groaned.
She had managed to get it wrong, even with his careful instruction.
One consolation was that he had two horses, and his team was better than Haselbraid’s nag. Of that, he was certain.
Kitty was flagging. Her rib was hurting, especially having to drive.
“It can’t be far now, it can’t be far now,” she half sobbed.
Eventually she pulled over, where a shepherd was ushering his flock across the road.
“Oh, please,” said Kitty, “Is it far now to Buckden?”
“Buckden?” said the shepherd. “I don’t know any Buckden. Haven’t you lost your fiongsay?”
“What do you mean?” asked Kitty.
“Well, missy, when a young girl is travelling north at speed, it’s usually with a young man, on the way to elope,” said the shepherd.
“But… I’m going south,” said Kitty. “I worked it out using the hands of the clock and the sun.”
“Happen you worked it out wrong,” said the shepherd. “You’re going north.”
“Oh, no!” said Kitty, and burst into tears.
“There’s a place you can turn not far up ahead,” volunteered the shepherd. “But it’s a good way to the next inn.”
“Thank you,” said Kitty, a little tearfully. “Oh, dear, I came without my reticule, so I can’t thank you.”
“Don’t you worry about it, miss,” said the shepherd. “You turn around, and someone will find you.”
Kitty went on to the wide part of the road, and discovered that she was too tired and in pain to turn the curricle.
She slipped off the seat onto the verge, and curled up onto the pain, trying to hold her sore rib. She either dozed or passed out.
Here she was found by Hugo.
“Oh, Kitty!! He said.
“Oh, Hugo! It hurts!” said Kitty. “But I wanted to get away from Haselbraid, and at first, I was too scared to notice the pain, and then your trick with the clock didn’t work.”
“It’s never failed before,” said Hugo. “What did you do?”
“Point the hour hand at the sun, and between that and twelve is north,” said Kitty.
“No! it’s south!” said Hugo. “Oh, my poor little love!”
“I want to go home,” said Kitty. “I am so relieved to see you, but I want Mama.”
“My poor little love,” said Hugo. “We have both villains, if that’s any help.”
“None whatsoever,” said Kitty. “I shot one. Then there was Haselbraid.”
“Lean on me, and I’ll get you back to Sir James’s house in a brace of shakes,” said Hugo. “If I turn Haselbraid’s curricle, his horse can find its own way home.”
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