Passage to Love, page 12
“I will cope with everything, Nanny,” the Marquis promised her. “But first, as this kind young lady has been telling me, I must ask for the help of the Army.”
“I guessed that Miss Graham would warn you that they are bad men,” Nanny said.
“They planned to suffocate him in his bed,” Imilda told her, “and put his body in the lake so that people would think he had drowned by accident.”
Nanny gave another cry of horror.
‘They are wicked, real wicked! I don’t know what your father’d say to their bein’ here in your own home.”
“It is something that will never happen again, Nanny, I promise you,” the Marquis said. “It is my fault that all this has happened, because I have stayed away for too long.”
“Far, far too long,” Nanny answered. “And I’ve been prayin’ every night for you to come back home.”
“Your prayers are answered,” the Marquis said as he smiled, “and now I have to save not only myself but you and Miss Graham from being molested by such filth.”
He looked towards Imilda and enquired,
“Now, tell me what is best for to do.”
“The highwaymen have been riding your horses all day,” Imilda said, “but Apollo, my horse, which I brought with me, has been out for only an hour or so. No one will be surprised if very early in the morning I go to the stables and ride him before I exercise the other horses that belong to you.”
The Marquis was listening to her intently and she went on,
“What you have to do is to sleep for a little while and then slip out through the shrubbery and find your way, which should not be difficult for you, to the end of the paddock.”
She drew in her breath and added slowly,
“Be very careful that no one sees you, although it is unlikely there will be anyone about so early. When I join you, you will take Apollo and ride to the Barracks. After that it is up to you what happens.”
The Marquis looked at her and then he said quietly,
“I promise you, if it is humanly possible, I will not let you down.”
“That sounds to me a very sensible plan,” Nanny said. “Now, Master Vulcan, you have a little sleep on the sofa. I’ll make it comfortable for you and I’ll call you whatever time Miss Graham says you should be slippin’ out of the house.”
“I have found that there is a secret panel at the end of the passage, just before the kitchen door,” Imilda said. “I expect you remember it, my Lord.”
“I think so,” the Marquis answered, “but you had better come with me so that I don’t make a silly mistake.”
“I will,” Imilda answered, “but you must not come to the stables. Keep in the bushes and make your way to the far end of the paddock.”
“Now I am completely at home,” the Marquis said.
“I used to hide in the shrubbery, first from Nanny and then from my Tutor.”
“A real mischief, you were!” Nanny exclaimed. “Time after time I’ve gone callin’ and callin’ you and you are up a tree laughin’ at me.”
“I will not do it again,” the Marquis answered.
Nanny hurried across the room to find blankets and a pillow for the large sofa.
Imilda thought that perhaps she should offer him her bed.
Then she decided it might be rather embarrassing and he would be just as comfortable on the sofa.
Nanny insisted they all have a cup of tea and after that they all went to bed.
“You promise you will call us,” Imilda said a little nervously.
“I’ve never known my clock fail yet,” Nanny answered. “In any case looking after babies I’m used to wakin’ at any time it’s necessary.”
“And I learnt the same in the Army,” the Marquis said, “so I think, Miss Graham, you will be the only one who might oversleep.”
Imilda knew that he was teasing her and she replied,
“Just in case anything happens in the night or you hear anyone outside the door, which we will lock, please promise that you will go and hide under Nanny’s bed. They are not likely to look for you there.”
“You don’t think they’ll be searchin’ the whole house for you?” Nanny said in trembling voice.
“They will know he is somewhere and will be determined to find him,” Imilda answered. “Therefore we have to be clever enough to outwit them.”
Nanny picked up the cups that they had been drinking from and put them away in the sideboard.
Imilda knew she was thinking that if anyone came in and saw that there were three, they would be suspicious.
At the same time it was very difficult not to fear that anything might happen.
She was quite certain that the highwaymen would not give up their search easily and she could imagine Rigg’s frustration and anger when they kept reporting that there was no sign of the Marquis.
Nanny locked the door into the nursery and also the one into the bathroom and her small kitchen. Her bedroom door and Imilda’s opened only into the nursery itself.
“Now, rest while you’ve the chance,” she said to Imilda, “and that goes for you, Master Vulcan. You’ve driven down from London and had a shock at what is happenin’. It takes it out of you, whatever you may say.”
“I am doing exactly what I am told, Nanny, and thank you both for looking after me,” the Marquis said.
“You know what it means to me,” Nanny said with a break in her voice. “We wants you here, we needs you here and the truth is, we can’t do without you, Master Vulcan.”
“I realise that now,” the Marquis said, “and, if it is not too late, I will make amends.”
He spoke seriously and Imilda felt her heart leap.
The Marquis had come home and was staying home.
Now perhaps Melverley Park would look again as she wanted it to look.
Besides she loved it.
Then, as the Marquis kissed Nanny goodnight, she went to her own bedroom.
Chapter Seven
The Marquis vanished into the bushes and Imilda walked on into the stable-yard.
She could hear the eight horses moving in their stalls and went into the next stable.
Apollo was delighted to see her as always.
It was only just dawn, but there was enough light for her to find a man’s saddle to put on Apollo.
Then she led him into the yard and rode on into the paddock.
She was not surprised that there was no one about and old Abbot, who was slightly deaf, was not likely to hear her. If he did, he would just think that she had risen early.
What she had been afraid of was that the highwaymen were still up and searching for the Marquis.
But, as they came out of the panel and quietly unbolted the back door, Imilda had heard a sound of snoring coming from the servants’ hall.
This meant that at least some of the highwaymen were sleeping there.
She was, however, certain that Mrs. Gibbons would have arranged for Rigg and herself to be in comfortable beds upstairs.
Whatever was happening, the situation was still very dangerous.
As she rode towards the end of the paddock, she was worrying about the Marquis.
When she reached the end of the field, she looked anxiously for him.
Then, as she drew Apollo to a standstill, he came out from the bushes.
“Was it all right?” he asked her.
“No one saw me leave,” she answered.
She dismounted as she spoke and patted Apollo on his neck.
Then the Marquis took hold of the reins.
“You will be very careful,” Imilda said, “and remember that each – one of them – has a loaded – pistol.”
The Marquis smiled and replied,
“You take care of yourself and stay upstairs with Nanny until it is all over.”
She thought that he was being too casual about it and, looking up at him, she said again,
“Please – be – very careful.”
There was no answer.
But suddenly he bent forward and his lips were on hers.
It was such a surprise that Imilda stiffened.
Then, as the Marquis’s kiss became more possessive, she felt something like a streak of lightning run through her.
Before she could move or even breathe, he had sprung onto Apollo’s back and was now riding away.
He did not look round and she watched him until he was out of sight amongst the trees.
Then she put her hand up to her lips as if she could not believe that it had happened.
It was the first time she had ever been kissed and it was everything that she had believed a kiss should be.
Yet she had received it from the Marquis, the man who she was running away from!
It was a few moments later before she realised that she was standing in full view in the paddock. If anyone saw her, they might be suspicious.
She moved quickly until she was under the trees and then started to walk slowly back to the house.
It was a warm morning and since she did not expect to see anyone except the Marquis, she was just wearing her riding skirt, a thin muslin blouse and no hat.
If on her return any of the highwaymen did see her, she could say she was going to the Herb Garden where they knew that she worked.
But all she could really think of at the moment was the Marquis and how he had kissed her.
Then she told herself scornfully that she was behaving like all the other women who ran after him because he was so handsome.
He had kissed her because he was grateful that she had brought him Apollo.
And if she tried to read anything more into the gesture, she could be very foolish.
Of course he had kissed dozens of women because they attracted him.
The reason he had kissed her was simply that he was grateful to her for saving him.
‘Be sensible,’ Imilda told herself, ‘and forget it. It is something that he will never think of again.’
When she reached the house, she hesitated.
Should she go in the front door or the way that she had left through the back door?
Because it was still very early, she thought it wiser to use the back door and no one saw her open it or slip in through the panel.
When she reached the nursery, Nanny had a cup of tea waiting for her.
“He got away?” she asked as Imilda came in.
“No one saw us,” Imilda answered.
Nanny gave a deep sigh of relief,
“Now we will just have to hope,” she said, “that he gets the soldiers here quick enough to catch them before they set off again robbin’ decent folk who cannot protect themselves.”
Imilda drank the tea that Nanny had prepared for her.
She then went to her room and lay down on the bed.
She knew every minute that passed was going to seem like an hour before the Marquis came back with the soldiers.
She had no idea how they could round up all the highwaymen. But she was very sure that after his success in the War, he would work out a plan that would cause as little bloodshed as possible.
Then she wondered if, having cleared the intruders out of his house, he would return to London.
Some reason that she did not comprehend had brought him here.
What she wanted to know was if there was anything that would persuade him to stay.
She must have fallen asleep.
She had slept very little during the night, waking up several times just to make sure that it was not yet the dawn when Nanny was going to call them.
Now Nanny came into the bedroom to say,
“I thinks things is happenin’.”
Imilda jumped up off the bed.
“What do you mean? What have you heard?” she asked anxiously.
“It sounded like someone screamin’,” Nanny answered. “Oh! God help my baby if he’s in trouble!”
Imilda made the same wish beneath her breath.
Then she opened the nursery door and went out onto the landing to listen.
For a long moment there seemed to be only silence and so she thought that Nanny must have been mistaken.
Then she heard a shot followed by another!
There were several more shots which seemed to echo and re-echo up the stairs.
She was terrified and she could only pray fervently that the Marquis had not in any way underestimated the highwaymen’s determination to fight like cornered rats.
She was not to learn until later that his plan of capturing them had been brilliant.
He too had thought when they slipped out by the back door that some of the highwaymen were sleeping in the servants’ hall.
When at the Barracks they knew who he was, the Officer in charge responded at once to his request for help.
The soldiers the Marquis had brought with him left their horses and the brake that had carried a number of them to the wood at the back of the house.
They then approached through the shrubs and trees.
They moved silently, as they had been taught as part of their Military training, until they reached the house.
The Marquis led them to the back door and then showed them the three windows of the servants’ hall.
As it was so warm, they were all open at the bottom as he had anticipated.
The soldiers crept up until they were beneath the windows.
Others led by the Marquis entered the servants’ hall through the larder and by the door in the passage.
At the word of command, the soldiers then pointed their guns at the five occupants of the room and ordered them to surrender.
They had no chance of doing anything else.
Although two men then reached for their pistols, they realised that it was just impossible to use them.
The Marquis knew that this left three highwaymen unaccounted for.
He led six men who he thought looked more intelligent than the rest of them up the stairs to the first floor.
He guessed that Mrs. Gibbons and Rigg, the man Imilda had described to him, would be together.
They and the other two more articulate highwaymen would be sleeping in the best rooms at the further end of the long corridor which connected with his.
He was not mistaken.
Rigg had been awakened perhaps by the sound of voices from downstairs or perhaps by an instinct of danger.
At the first creak of the door opening, Rigg snatched up his pistol.
As it opened wider still, he fired.
His bullet missed the Marquis, but grazed the soldier behind him.
The soldier immediately fired back and Rigg toppled backwards onto the bed.
Mrs. Gibbons then screamed and, picking up his fallen pistol, fired indiscriminately at the soldiers entering the room.
A soldier, who did not realise that he was firing at a woman, fired back and she too fell to the floor.
By this time Bill and the other highwaymen in the servants’ hall had joined in the fray.
One soldier was slightly wounded and Bill received a shot in his arm.
A bullet from his pistol grazed the Marquis’s left hand, drawing a little blood.
It was only seconds before the soldiers overpowered the two men and disarmed them.
Then, leaving a Captain and six soldiers to remove Rigg’s dead body and cope with Mrs. Gibbons, who was wounded, the Marquis ran upstairs.
He found Nanny and Imilda on the second floor.
They had not dared to come down and, when the Marquis appeared, Nanny gave a cry of relief.
“You’re safe, Master Vulcan, you’re safe!” she almost shouted and tears were running down her cheeks.
It was Imilda who saw the blood on his hand and exclaimed,
“You are wounded! What has happened?”
“Only a scratch,” the Marquis said. “The highwaymen are all captured, although one is dead and the housekeeper is wounded.”
“I’m not goin’ to say I’m sorry,” Nanny affirmed.
She was putting a bowl on the table as she spoke and a kettle was on the fire.
Imilda helped the Marquis out of his coat as Nanny insisted and his wound was cleaned and bandaged.
“Is Apollo all right?” Imilda asked.
“He took me to the Barracks in record time,” the Marquis answered, “and I left him loose in the paddock where I knew he would be quite safe while there was such a turmoil going on in the house.”
Imilda gave a sigh of relief.
“Now your horses are safe too,” she remarked.
“So are you and Nanny,” the Marquis replied.
Nanny had finished bandaging his hand and he said,
“I must go downstairs and see what is happenin’, but I wanted first to make quite sure that neither of you was in trouble.”
He looked at Imilda as he spoke.
She felt annoyed with herself because she blushed.
It was so impossible not to think of how he had kissed her goodbye before riding off on Apollo.
“I will let you know what is happening very soon,” the Marquis said.
He went downstairs.
Nanny took the bowl of the blood-stained water from his wound into the bathroom.
“It might have been worse,” she said, but Imilda had already gone.
She felt that she must see what was happening.
So she went down to the first floor and stood on the landing above the hall.
The front door was open and outside she could see that the brake had been brought up from where it had been hidden.
The seven highwaymen with their hands securely tied behind their backs had been put into it together with Rigg’s dead body.
The mounted soldiers had retrieved their horses from where they had left them and they were waiting until the Marquis had finished his conversation with their Captain.
He was obviously thanking the Officer for what had been a very quick and well-planned operation with only one minor casualty apart from his own grazed hand.
The soldier, who had been shot in the arm, was also in the brake with his arm in a sling.
Imilda thought that it was a wise decision to get him back to the Barracks rather than try to treat him in the house.
