Reluctant Escort Read online

  ‘Do that. There is nothing I would like more than your silence. How a man can be expected to think with you chattering like a magpie all the time, I do not know.’

  He went back to the curricle and examined it again but it revealed no more than it had before. From the direction in which it was pointing, he deduced that Frank had been on his way to join them and not on his way home. In that case, had Martha been with him?

  Molly, following behind him and peering over his shoulder as he bent to move aside the splintered wood, spied a piece of torn jaconet attached to the broken door. ‘Captain, would the watch have arrested Mrs Upjohn too?’

  He sighed; his companion was determined to make her presence felt and it took all his self-control to keep his temper. If it hadn’t been for her riding after him, none of this would have happened. He was angry with her but more angry with himself for allowing a slip of a schoolgirl to dictate to him.

  ‘I do not think so; why do you ask?’

  She pulled the tiny scrap of material from the wreckage. ‘This. It is from a lady’s gown.’

  He took it from her. ‘Come on, mount up. There is no time to lose.’

  Not a word of gratitude, she noticed, not even an admission that she had seen something he had missed, just a curt order to get on her horse. She could almost hate him for it. Except, of course, that she knew he was very worried about his friend, even though he pretended not to be, and worry often made people crotchety. She must make allowances.

  He almost flung her into her saddle and mounted himself with a curt, ‘For goodness’ sake, keep up.’ And then he was off at a swift canter with Good Boy beside him. When he realised she was right behind him and grimly determined, he increased their pace to a gallop. She was too busy hanging on to call out to him to slow down or ask him where they were going.

  They eased the horses into a walk as they entered a small hamlet and he picked his way over the village green and stopped outside the gate of a cottage. ‘Wait there,’ he commanded as he dismounted and went up the short path to knock on the door.

  Molly watched as a young woman in a plain brown dress with a white apron and cap answered the summons. She stood for a moment, staring at him, then, recognising him, gave a little cry of relief. ‘Oh, Captain Stacey, it is you. I have been praying you would come. The most dreadful thing has happened and I do not know what to do. Come in, please.’

  She looked up and saw Molly. Her eyes darkened and she looked annoyed, but in the face of Molly’s friendly smile she softened. ‘The young lady too.’

  Molly slipped off Jenny and joined them as Duncan ducked his head to enter the cottage. Mrs Upjohn stood to one side to allow her to precede her. Molly dipped her knee and lowered her head. ‘Mrs Upjohn.’

  Martha inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘Miss Martineau, I believe?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose Mr Upjohn told you of me?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘I am truly sorry if I have been the unwitting cause of trouble for you.’ She stood and looked round the tiny cottage. There were two rooms downstairs, a small sitting room in which they stood and a scullery behind it. A ladder led up to a hole in the ceiling, presumably to a bedroom under the roof. It was very plainly furnished but was clean as a new pin.

  ‘Never mind sorry,’ Duncan put in as Mrs Upjohn indicated a sofa and bade them be seated. ‘Martha, tell me what happened.’

  ‘We were on our way to join you and the young lady,’ she explained, standing by the hearth. She was very pale and trembling a little, Molly noted. ‘It was a bright sunny day and we were not hurrying. Frank said we had all the time in the world. And then three men galloped up behind us. Frank drew to one side to allow them to pass, but they didn’t want to pass. They surrounded us and forced us to stop.

  ‘One said he was a constable from Cromer and he was arresting Frank for holding up Sir John Partridge’s coach and stealing gold and other valuables. Of course that was nonsense and so I told them, but they took no notice of me. Another said he had been a witness and he would swear Frank was one of the robbers. I never heard anything so outlandish. Why, Frank would never do such a thing.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Duncan asked, while Molly looked on, shocked into silence. Mr Upjohn had obviously been deceiving his wife about his activities with Captain Duncan Stacey. No doubt he had been lured into a life of crime by the Captain and that was very wicked of him.

  ‘He struggled, but they overpowered him. They took the horse from the curricle and tied him onto it. They said they were taking him to Cromer to face charges. They said he would come up before the justices and one of them was Sir John Partridge. It afforded them a great deal of glee.’

  ‘I’ll wager it did,’ Duncan said laconically. ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘This morning. About eight of the clock. Please, Captain, do something. Go after them, tell them it is all a mistake. Tell them he was with you the whole time. They will listen to you.’

  ‘Of course we will go,’ Molly said.

  Duncan turned to her in astonishment. ‘What are you saying, miss? There is no question of you going. If I go, I go alone.’

  ‘But they will not believe you without me to vouchsafe your alibi; you know that.’

  ‘I need no alibi. And if you continue to make public statements like the one you made at Aylsham it will ruin your reputation.’

  Molly sighed. ‘Why? I shall tell everyone we have done nothing improper and they will believe me. It is not as if we are running away to Gretna Green…’

  ‘I should hope not!’

  ‘You need not be so emphatic about that, Captain, it is not at all flattering.’

  ‘Oh, Molly, Molly, what am I to do with you?’

  ‘Take me to my mama, as you promised.’ She paused and smiled at Martha. ‘After we have rescued Mr Upjohn, naturally. We cannot let him languish in prison.’

  Duncan had no intention of allowing Frank to languish in prison, nor of confronting magistrates, but that did not mean he would not do all in his power to free his friend and before he reached Cromer. Sir John Partridge would do anything rather than have Frank reveal their true interest in his baggage, which was certainly not the gold; he would make sure Frank never came to trial. His friend would meet with an unlucky ‘accident’. Nor would Sir John rest until the damning papers Duncan carried in his saddlebag were once again in his possession.

  The last thing he needed was Molly Madcap at his heels the whole time. It was time something was done about her. ‘You are going back to Stacey Manor on the first available coach, which is what I should have insisted upon from the first,’ he said. ‘You are nothing but a liability.’

  ‘Oh, that is not fair!’ she cried. ‘It was not my fault you are suspected of being a highwayman. That would have happened whether I was with you or no. You have just made a mull of everything and now you are blaming me. I begin to think I do not like you at all.’

  In spite of the seriousness of the situation, he grinned. ‘Only begin not to like me? Why, you have been ringing a peal over me these last two days.’

  ‘I was bamming before, but now I am in earnest. You are not a hero, nor even a gentleman.’

  ‘Then, miss, I wonder at your wanting to be in my company.’

  ‘I did not know you were a rakeshame when I met you, did I?’

  ‘Please, Miss Martineau, this is no time to be quarrelling.’ Martha interrupted her. ‘Let the Captain go. You can stay here with me until he returns.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Duncan said.

  Molly, who did not want to return to Stacey Manor and her dull life there, realised that it would be the best solution. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I know we cannot go to London until you have rescued Mr Upjohn, so it seems to me the sooner you set off the better.’

  He did not stop to argue about going to London but turned on his heel and left the cottage. They went to the door and watched him galloping away. Molly, who had done nothing but quarrel with him, even when he ha
d been so kind to her and bought her a whole trunkful of fine clothes, felt suddenly bereft and miserable. Whatever he was and whatever he did, he had been her saviour and protector and if she never saw him again she would be sorry, very sorry indeed.

  ‘Take care!’ she called after him, but by that time he was out of earshot and did not hear her.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Now, Miss Martineau,’ Martha said, taking hold of Good Boy’s reins. ‘Bring your horse round to the back of the house, if you please, then we will go inside and I will have your version of the story. You can tell it to me while I prepare something to eat. It will while away the time until the Captain returns and, please God, with Frank.’

  They put the horses side by side in the makeshift stable, rubbed them down without speaking, after which Martha drew a bucket of water from the trough in the yard and gave them a drink. ‘There’s hay over there,’ she said, nodding towards a small stack. ‘I can see these poor beasts have been long on the road and deserve some petting.’

  Molly, doing as she was told, reflected that she had been long on the road herself and was in need of pampering, but it was evident she would not get it, not from Mrs Upjohn, nor the Captain, who had ridden off without a backward glance. And now she had to explain herself to this woman and she had no idea how much she ought to tell. She wished the Captain had rehearsed her in it, but no, off he had gone, assuming she would know what to say.

  Once the horses were settled she followed Martha into the kitchen of the tiny cottage where Martha bade her be seated. ‘I’ve little enough in the house to eat,’ she said. ‘But you are welcome to share what there is. What Frank wants to be doing, racketing round the countryside with the Captain just as if he was still in uniform, I do not know. And how come you to be with them?’

  ‘It was only meant to be a little adventure,’ Molly began, sitting on one of four chairs set round the table, and watching Martha moving about with saucepans and vegetables and a large fish which she set about boning and skinning. ‘I was so bored at Stacey Manor; there was nothing to do but go for walks and ride and read. I have read everything my godmother—that’s Lady Connaught, you know—had in the house several times over…’

  ‘Yes, yes, but how did you meet Captain Stacey and my husband? Frank never said anything about Stacey Manor, nor no Lady Connaught.’

  ‘I do not think Mr Upjohn was ever at Stacey Manor. Captain Stacey came to visit Lady Connaught alone. When he left, I followed him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Molly considered the question with her head on one side, smiling a little. ‘I was curious about him. And he was so set on riding off long before it was daylight and that seemed very mysterious to me. And though he bears the family name of Stacey he did not appear to be one of the haut monde.’

  ‘Is that all? Just curiosity?’

  ‘Yes. I followed him and he heard me and he said I had to go back to Stacey Manor, which I was not at all wishful to do. He slapped my horse and made it bolt into the trees and I fell off and bumped my head so he was obliged to put me on his horse and we rode to the inn and went to bed.’

  ‘To bed?’ Martha asked, shocked to the core.

  ‘Not together; of course not. It was at breakfast time there was a commotion about a robbery. Captain Stacey came in while everyone was discussing what to do about it. The constable questioned him, but I vouchsafed he had been with me all night.’

  ‘But everyone must have thought…’

  ‘I said I was his wife.’

  ‘He allowed that?’ Martha, in spite of wishing her guest would come to the point and tell her about Frank, was intrigued.

  ‘He could hardly deny it once I had said it.’

  ‘And where was Frank while this was going on?’

  ‘I saw Mr Upjohn when he passed through the dining room but he was not questioned and he did not speak to us. I did not meet him until much later in the day after Captain Stacey had hired the curricle. He was waiting for us at an inn near Norwich, a long way from the scene of the robbery. It was then we discussed how I could be got to London without a scandal…’

  ‘London?’

  ‘Yes. I wished to join my mama, and Captain Stacey thought of you and the plan was contrived that we should all travel to London together…’

  The fish had been put in the pot and Martha began peeling potatoes. ‘But that does not explain why Frank was suspected of being a highway robber. Are you sure you have left nothing out?’

  Molly hesitated and decided not to voice her conviction that the two men had had a hand in the hold-up; it would only upset her hostess and if Captain Stacey brought Frank safely back nothing need be said at all, but what he wanted to tell her himself. ‘No, except the description the witness gave of one of the robbers said he had a scar beneath his eye—but Captain Stacey said many men have scars. After all, there has been a war and men were wounded.’

  ‘That is true. Frank took a sabre thrust saving the life of the Captain at the battle of Ciudad Rodrigo. But that was some time before they were both taken prisoner.’

  ‘They were taken prisoner? Oh, do tell me about that. I know so little and I am sure it must have been very exciting. Sometimes I wish I were a man and could go to war and ride about the countryside having adventures.’

  Martha, who had labelled Molly as a hoyden at best and a strumpet at worst, began to revise her opinion. The girl was a simpleton. No, not even that; she was a grown-up child, which, she supposed, was the most dangerous of all. The Captain had obviously been captivated and she didn’t think Frank had been so unaffected as he had pretended when he had inveigled her into going with him in the curricle. And what a farrago that had been!

  ‘War is not an adventure,’ she said. ‘It brings out the worst in men as well as the best. It is bestiality and dirt and hunger and forced marches and danger of being blown to bits or cut to ribbons. And for what? Simply so that a man may say he has done his duty and not let his companions down. And I know, for I have been there…’

  ‘To war?’ Molly queried in surprise.

  ‘Yes. I went with them. Two years I spent in Portugal and Spain, following in their wake, cooking and cleaning and looking after my man until he was taken prisoner along with the Captain.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry. It must have been hard for you.’

  ‘It was better than being left behind in England with no means of support.’

  ‘But when he was captured? What did you do? You did not go to prison with him, did you?’

  ‘No, I waited. There was nothing else I could do. There was no way I could come home to England. As far as the army was concerned, I did not exist. It was hard. I had to find work to put food into my mouth…’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Cooking and cleaning for the single men. There were other ways but I did not stoop to those.’

  ‘What other ways?’

  ‘If you do not know, it is not my place to enlighten you, miss. I wish you would not ask me.’

  Molly, who was used to being fobbed off when she asked questions, did not insist on being told. ‘But you managed and the men escaped? Oh, do tell me they escaped.’

  ‘Yes. Frank went back to his regiment but the Captain was put on special duties. I did not see him again until today.’

  ‘You did not know the Captain and Mr Upjohn had met again?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Frank told me they had met by chance in Norwich. He had gone there looking for work, but he had been unlucky and was just making up his mind to return home when he chanced to run into Captain Stacey. The Captain offered him a job but it was not the kind of work where he could take me because they would be moving about the countryside a great deal. And yesterday he came back and told me the Captain had a job for me too and we could be together again. I should have known it was all too good to be true.’

  ‘But it is true. They are going to escort me to London to my mama, only the Captain said it was not at all proper for me to travel without a lady companion and h
e thought of you. When they come back, we shall still go. We shall be safe once we are out of Norfolk.’

  ‘Safe?’ Martha looked up in alarm. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Safe from all these robberies,’ Molly said hastily. ‘There have been so many, no traveller can be anything but anxious.’

  Martha appeared satisfied with that explanation, much to Molly’s relief, and they sat down to dine together. Molly regaled her new friend with the story of their shopping expedition and all the things the Captain had bought for her, which had sadly been left behind at The Bell, and Martha told her more about life as a camp follower in Spain and Portugal which had Molly’s blue eyes round as saucers.

  ‘And I thought riding in the dark was an adventure,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Why, that is nothing at all compared to what you have done.’

  ‘You should be thankful that you have never had to endure it,’ Martha said testily. ‘You have never been hungry, never heard big guns and been afraid for your life, never eaten dog…’

  ‘Dog?’ Molly repeated, thinking of her mother’s pet pug. ‘Oh, no, I refuse to believe that.’ She looked with distaste at her plate of food, though she had seen Martha put the fish in the pot.

  ‘It is true. When I came home, I swore I would never let my husband go to war again. We would live in quiet seclusion until the end of our days. But Frank could not settle and when Captain Stacey offered him a chance to travel…’ She shrugged. ‘How could I hold him? He is a man, after all, and a soldier.’

  ‘I think it was wrong of the Captain to tempt him. I shall speak to him about it.’

  Martha smiled wearily; the girl spoke so confidently, as if she had some influence over the Captain, but she was sure that was not so. She could not imagine Captain Stacey under the cat’s paw. ‘I wish you would not. Knowing both men, I know it would do no good and might very well have the opposite effect. Frank will come to it in his own time.’

  ‘How long do you think it will be before they are back?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I am sure it won’t be tonight. I will make a bed up for you in the parlour. I think you will be comfortable there. Let us pray they come back safe and sound tomorrow.’