Practice to Deceive Read online

  “Here we go, sir. Do you know what I think? We may not be burying the poor Major, after all.”

  Penelope flashed an irked glance at Killiam’s craggy features. “Here, let me plump the pillows and then you may lay him back.”

  “No such thing!” Quentin blinked a little as the brandy burned down his throat. “We must be away, ma’am.” He glanced at his brother. “Can we, Sir Knight?”

  Gordon took back the flask and stoppered it, a faint grin curving his stern mouth at the familiar nickname. “We’ll contrive, rabble. Though it may be a close-run thing.” He turned to Penelope, who had retreated to the washstand to remove Quentin’s blood from her hands. “You are a valiant woman, Miss Montgomery. I know of no adequate way to thank you.”

  She looked at him sharply. “I think you do, sir.”

  “Well, if he don’t, I do,” said Quentin. “Get my pestilential self as far from the lady as possible!”

  “We’d have been away at once, if ’twere possible,” Gordon explained. “We only managed to carry you thus far undetected because Delavale was raising hell’s own din outside. But to climb down the tree with all his bounty hunters milling about below would have been sheer folly.”

  “It was folly to come in here after me in the first place!” Despite that harsh judgement, Quentin’s expression spoke volumes, and he added earnestly, “I’m much obliged to you, brother.”

  “Pish!” His cheeks reddening, Gordon looked to Penelope. “Well, ma’am? I’ll get no sense from him. Can he travel?”

  Quentin sat straighter. “Have I not said it?”

  “You speak gibberish, as usual. You’re weak as a cat.”

  “Starved,” declared Quentin. “It grieves me to complain, Miss Montgomery, but your uncle sets a devilish poor table.”

  His green eyes twinkled at her, his indomitable courage causing a lump to come into her throat. She had been fashioning a square from the sheet she’d torn up for bandages, and she took it up and bent over him. “I cannot deny that, alas. And this arm must rest in a sling.” She began to arrange the cloth about his arm, moving very cautiously. Not until she leaned closer to tie the knot did she commit the serious blunder of meeting his eyes again. The smile in them made her head spin, and she paused, staring at him.

  He reached up to place his thin hand over her trembling fingers. “You always were a right one,” he said, in the deep voice that had brightened her dreams. “Penelope Anne … I owe you my life.”

  Little ripples of a strange electricity were making her skin shiver. Her breathing became hurried and shallow. Dreading lest he see, and know, she looked down and was further flustered to see his hand clasped on hers. She noticed in an absent way that he wore a heavy gold ring on that hand, a beautifully wrought representation of a dragon’s head, with two gleaming rubies forming the eyes. She freed her hand and finished the knot. “You owe me nothing, Major Chandler,” she said, marvelling that her voice could be so calm when her emotions were so riotous. “I struck a bargain with your brother. I have no doubt he intends to keep his given word.”

  Gordon bit his lip and avoided her eyes. “You have not answered my question,” he evaded. “How bad is his hurt?”

  They meant to leave her! Penelope fought down the urge to demand that their agreement be honoured. It had been a nightmarish day, and tears stung her eyes, but she would not cry—she would not! ‘Let them just try to leave me,’ she thought fiercely. ‘Let them just try!’ And she answered, “It is an ugly wound and much inflamed, but not infected, as I had feared at first. If he has rest and care when he reaches your hiding place, it should heal quickly.”

  “Hiding place? Egad, ma’am, we’ve no hiding place! We’ve to ride for our lives! Even do we escape your uncle and his people, Quentin is an escaped rebel with a large price on his head. Every hand will be against us. Every door closed. We have horses well hidden nearby, and if we can but reach them safely, our one hope is to come to Lac Brillant, which is something more than a hundred and fifteen miles from here.”

  Penelope’s heart sank. She had cherished vague hopes that their plans were better made than this. She thought, ‘They’ll carry a corpse to Lac Brillant.’

  Quentin had seen fear darken this valiant girl’s expressive eyes. “Stuff!” he said cheerily. “What a piece of work you make of it.” He swung his long legs over the side of the bed. “I’ve had a good rest and shall do very nicely. Have no fears that…” He stood, showing more confidence than he felt. And crumpled. The Corporal leapt to catch him and sit him back down again.

  Inwardly dismayed, Gordon met his brother’s appalled gaze and said with a rather strained grin, “Oh, you’ll do, all right! I wonder, rabble, that you do not pop down the oak and toddle home alone! I fancy Killiam and I would have our work cut out to come up with you.”

  “Here’s a fine bumble broth,” Quentin muttered unsteadily. “I’d not thought, you know, that I was so … so blasted pulled.”

  The Corporal said with considerable indignation, “And why should you not be pulled, I’d like to know? From the look of you, you’ve not eaten in a month, to say nought of the loss of blood and misery you’ve endured.”

  “Never fret so, old fellow,” said Gordon kindly. “I’m a fool for ever thinking you could get to the horses. No matter. We’ll simply bring them closer. We’ll have you away, yet! Found you, didn’t we?”

  Quentin passed a weary hand across his eyes. “I cannot seem to think. Gordie … how did you find me?”

  Gordon’s eyes flickered to Penelope. “A message reached us.”

  “I see. And—and is it known then, that I fought for Charlie?” Anxiety sharpened his voice. “If ’tis, Lac Brillant will be watched and you and my father in jeopardy!”

  “Easy, easy! We are not watched. Still, we must go carefully.”

  Penelope, who had been thinking desperately, said in her quiet way, “I think it were better, sir, that we do not go at all.”

  Three heads turned to her in alarm. Suspicion flaring in his eyes, Gordon demanded, “Ma’am? Are you saying—”

  “I am saying that you have no choice,” she interposed. “All I could think of at first was to get Quentin out of their reach. I see now that it will not do for him to undertake such a long and hazardous ride.”

  “Be dead inside a week,” the Corporal said with a heavy sigh.

  “Quite so,” said Penelope, for the first time appreciating this man’s apparently habitual gloom. “And thus, gentlemen, it would seem the safest place for Major Chandler is—here. At Highview.”

  Starting up, his eyes dilating with horror, Quentin exclaimed, “No! Dammitall, you do not know what you invite, Penny! No!”

  Gordon said thoughtfully, “He’d be found in one day.”

  “If they were searching,” Penelope agreed. “But this is surely the last place they would look. Especially, sir, were you and Corporal Killiam to ride out, leaving a trail for them to follow.”

  “No, I tell you!” repeated Quentin fretfully.

  The Corporal chuckled. “’Twould be a rare trick to serve your gentle uncle, miss. To hide the Major right under his nose, while he scours the countryside for him. Ar, but I’d give something to see his lordship’s face does he ever find out!”

  Frantic, Quentin demanded, “Have you lost your wits entirely? Think of what will happen to Miss Montgomery if I am found here! Gordon! For the love of God! I am sworn to deliver part of a message they’d stop at nothing—”

  Gordon blanched. “The cypher?” he gasped. Quentin nodded grimly. Gordon turned a stunned gaze to Penelope. “They’d stop at nothing, all right,” he muttered. “I might’ve known you’d be one of the couriers! God!”

  Penelope could not tear her eyes from Quentin. He was wounded, half-starved, exhausted, and too weakened to order his own fate, yet fighting against the one course of action that might save his life, because it must also endanger her. He was gripping his injured arm painfully, and she touched those clutching fingers very g
ently. “You should be resting, dear sir, rather than worrying so.” She glanced up. Gordon was staring at her with an incredulity that brought a dark blush burning into her cheeks. Her chin went up. “There are a dozen places we can hide him,” she asserted defiantly. “Places where the servants very seldom go; rooms that have been closed since my papa’s death.”

  Wonderingly, he said, “But—Quentin’s hurts will need to be tended. How could you—”

  “I’ll be here to help, sir.” The Corporal clapped a hand over Quentin’s parting lips and added with glum pessimism, “And we’d best not jaw here too long, for from what I’ve seen of your lot, miss, only let one whisper leak out and we’ll all die—hid-jusly slow!”

  Penelope nodded, chilled by the possibly prophetic words. “True. No one must know. We shall have to take the greatest care that not a soul—”

  The door burst open. Daffy ran in, took one look at Quentin in his bloody rags, and let out a shrill scream of terror.

  IV

  The Corporal was the first to recover. With a muffled oath he leapt at Daffy and swept her up with one strong arm, his free hand clamping over her mouth.

  Gordon ran for the partly open door, but flattened himself against the wall behind it. “Somebody’s coming!” he whispered.

  “Then—dammit—render me up!” gasped Quentin feebly.

  “Be still!” Desperate, Penelope sprang to push him down on the bed and whip the eiderdown untidily over him.

  Still holding Daffy, who had ceased to struggle, the Corporal bore her to the dim corner beyond the wardrobe.

  Penelope made a dart for the door as a lackey ran up. “Oh!” she cried in a distracted fashion, “thank goodness you are come! There is a mouse under my bed, I think. Please come and—”

  “For Lord’s sake,” the man muttered, barely under his breath. “We are all to go with his lordship, miss. I dare not delay. You should be glad ’tis no more than a mouse in your room.”

  “Well!” said Penelope, her knees knocking but her voice indignant.

  The lackey hurried off, his impatience very obvious. Penelope closed the door, leaning weakly against it. Gordon, one fist still clenched for action, sagged back against the wall. “Whew!”

  The Corporal asked dolefully, “What are we to do now? Scrag this baggage, sir?”

  “Heavens, no!” Penelope touched her abigail’s arm, and Daffy’s eyes, huge with fright, rolled to her. “Daffy, dear girl, will you give me your solemn vow not to scream if the gentleman lets you go?”

  Daffy nodded. The Corporal released her gingerly. At once she rounded on him and boxed his ear. “Very free you are with your hands, sir!” she said, her fear apparently evaporating the instant she was freed. “Scrag me, will you?”

  Gordon, who had crossed to uncover his brother, muttered a distressed, “He’s gone off again, poor fellow.”

  Slanting a worried glance at Quentin, Penelope said, “Daffy—I’m so sorry you have seen, for I’d no thought you should be involved, but—please say you will not betray us.”

  “Of course I won’t, Miss Penny. And mighty shocked I am that ye’d need to ask such a question. If you’re involved, then I am likewise. Only tell me how I may help the poor gentleman. A Jacobite, is he?”

  Lips tight, Gordon exchanged a troubled look with the Corporal.

  “Another female party to our secret,” muttered Killiam, fingering his abused ear resentfully. “Maybe we’d best take the Major with us, after all.”

  “In the Lord Mayor’s coach, with a troop of cavalry riding escort,” said Daffy, throwing a look of scorn his way. “Aye. Ye might as well, for he’d be just as dead at the finish.” She crossed to the bed and touched the unconscious man’s cheek. “So hot as any fire he do be. I’ll not be surprised does the poor soul wake up out of his senses altogether.”

  Penelope went over to feel Quentin’s brow. His head tossed as she touched him and Daffy was right; the skin burned with fever. She turned to meet Gordon’s eyes. “That settles the matter, then. He cannot be moved in such a state.”

  Torn by indecision, he argued, “And what if we leave him here and he starts to rave in delirium?”

  “We will gag him,” she said calmly. “And we waste time, sir. One of the first places my uncle will search is Nurse’s cottage. If your horses are stabled there—”

  “They are not, never fear. We found a small depression under the riverbank, not too far from the bridge.”

  “Badger’s Hall?” Her astonished gaze fixed on his face, Penelope barely breathed the words. “I’ve not so much as thought of it these three years. My brother and I used to play there. How on earth did you—”

  “Of course I shall find it,” muttered Quentin, looking up at them with unseeing, fretful eyes. “D’ye take me for a gudgeon? Won’t take me no more time … no more than…” Sighing, he closed his eyes again and the words trailed into an unintelligible muddle.

  The four gathered around the bed looked at one another sombrely, the quiet broken only by occasional gusts of wind that crept through the cracks to dance with the candle flames, and sent rain driving at the windowpanes.

  * * *

  Penelope closed the bedroom door without a sound. “You were not seen?” she asked, her eyes flashing anxiously from one face to the other.

  “Lawks, no, miss,” answered Daffy. “The gentleman shinned down the tree so easy as winking, and is safely clear of the house. Did the poor Major waken again, Miss Penny?”

  “No. Nor stirred when I pulled off his boots, poor soul. He is covered with cuts and bruises. He will rest much easier when we have his clothes off and bathe him.”

  Corporal Killiam looked shocked. “Cannot do that, miss! Any minute your kinfolk might find us, so we’ve to run for it, and the Major can’t go flitting about the countryside in a nightshirt. He must stay clad.”

  “We shall find him clothes tomorrow, but first, we must decide on a secure hiding place.” Penelope said slowly, “I’ve thought and thought, and the only place that seems logical—”

  “Is the attic, eh, miss?” Daffy nodded. “It’s not once in a month of Sundays does anyone go there.”

  “True. And only think how it would be remarked did you and I suddenly begin to make repeated trips up those stairs. Someone would be sure to put two and two together.”

  Daffy’s face fell.

  The Corporal said, “You must have a fine basement in this big house, ma’am. Only show me the way, and I’ll get the Major down there and stay with him. No need for you two ladies to be popping up and down.”

  “We have a very large basement,” Penelope confirmed. “And it presents the same problems as the attic. Even if you undertook all Major Chandler’s nursing, you must have supplies, Corporal. If Daffy or I tried to bring them to you…”

  Killiam sighed. Daffy said, “Oh, miss! It is a fix! Whatever are we to do?”

  Her chin lifting in anticipation of the inevitable outcry, Penelope said coolly, “Major Chandler must stay where he is.”

  “Lawks!” squeaked Daffy, her eyes enormous and scandalized.

  “Cor, luvvus!” the Corporal gasped, scarcely less shocked. “In—in your bed, miss?”

  Well aware that her cheeks were flaming, Penelope said a rather flustered, “No, of course not. But—only think, no one comes in here, and—”

  “What about when the maids clean, or change the linens?”

  “Since my dear papa’s death, I am required to keep my own room clean.” He looked incredulous, and Penelope added, “It sounds very bad, I know, but it is true. Daffy and I do everything.”

  “Cor.… But what about when your lady aunt drops in to have a bit of a chat?”

  Penelope smiled bitterly. “I wish I may see it! I don’t believe she has once set foot in this room since I—”

  Even as she spoke a shrill voice arose in the hall. “I shall want it in ten minutes, Simmonds, and be sure it is warm—not boiling. I am going to talk with Miss Penelope for a little while.”r />
  Her face white as chalk, Penelope gasped, “Good heavens! Corporal—my dressing room. Quickly! Daffy—tidy the bed.”

  Killiam sprang to toss Quentin over his shoulder. Daffy straightened the rumpled bedclothes. Penelope flew to her dressing table and began to take down her hair, her heart thundering. The Corporal had no chance to do more than partially close the dressing room door before Lady Sybil swept imperiously into the bedchamber.

  “What—not abed yet?” she scolded. “I vow you are slow as treacle, girl! I fancied to find you asleep.”

  “How fortunate I was not, ma’am,” said Penelope, “else you must have wakened me.”

  “Do not be impertinent. Dismiss your woman, I wish to talk to you.”

  Sybil seated herself in the one rickety armchair. Glancing nervously at Daffy, Penelope saw her face—frozen. She followed her gaze and her heart turned over. One of Quentin’s boots was fully visible beside the bed. Standing, her knees like rubber, she said, “That will be all, Daffy. Please heat some water and bring it up. I must wash.” Her eyes met the abigail’s petrified stare meaningfully as she wandered closer to her aunt, trying to block that lady’s view.

  “Wash?” echoed my lady, incredulous. “Do you put water on your face at night? What folly! Have you no creams?”

  Numbly, Daffy gathered together the sheeting that Penelope had torn for Quentin’s bandages, and contrived to drop her collection over the tell-tale boot. “Clumsy me,” she muttered, stooping to gather up the evidence.

  Turning to her frowningly, Sybil said, “Stay! What is that you have?”

  Penelope’s breath froze in her throat.

  Daffy gave a little squawk. “Wh-what, ma’am?” she asked in a thin, piping voice.

  Much shocked, my lady exclaimed, “Did you remove that sheet from your mistress’s bed? Good heavens! The thing is in rags! Really, Penelope, one might suppose you to have time for a little simple mending! Oh, go on, girl, do!”

  Daffy tottered out.

  Penelope wielded her hairbrush with a shaking hand.