The Captain's Mysterious Lady. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ to be raised to repel raiders, but laughed at his fancies when he saw the bridge down and the great oak doors wide open. He trotted under the arch into a cobbled yard and dismounted at a door on the far side.

      He was admitted by an elderly retainer who disappeared to acquaint the ladies of his arrival and take in the letter of introduction James had been given. He returned in less than two minutes and conducted James to a large drawing room where two ladies rose as he entered. He removed his tricorne hat, tucked it under his left arm and swept them a bow. ‘Ladies, your obedient.’

      ‘Captain, you are very welcome,’ the elder said. She was in her forties, he supposed, tall and angular. The other was shorter and rounder, but both were dressed alike in wide brocade open gowns with embroidered stomachers and silk underslips. They wore white wigs, topped with white linen caps tied beneath their chins. ‘I am Miss Hardwick and this is my sister Miss Matilda Hardwick. We are Lady Charron’s sisters. Please be seated.’

      ‘Glad we are to see you,’ Miss Matilda said, as they seated themselves side by side on a sofa. ‘You will take tea?’

      ‘Thank you.’ He sat on a chair facing them as tea was ordered. While they waited for it, he used the opportunity to look about him. The plasterwork was very fine and so were the wall tapestries, though they were very faded and must have been hanging there for generations. Some of the furniture was age-blackened oak, but there were also more modern sofas and chairs. There were some good pictures on the walls, a fine clock on the mantel, together with a few good-quality ornaments. A harpsichord stood in a corner by the window. Of Mrs Macdonald, there was no sign.

      ‘Have you any news?’ Matilda asked eagerly. ‘Has Mr Macdonald been found?’

      ‘He had not been located when I left the capital,’ James said. ‘The word is out to look for him, but I have come to make your acquaintance and endeavour to discover how much Mrs Macdonald remembers.’

      ‘Absolutely nothing at all,’ Matilda answered. ‘We have tried everything.’

      A servant brought in a tray containing a tea kettle, a teapot and some dishes with saucers, which he put on a table. Harriet took a key from the chatelaine at her waist and unlocked the tea caddy. James watched her for a minute in silence, as she carefully measured the tea leaves into the pot and added the boiling water. They were, he concluded, careful housekeepers, though whether from choice or necessity it was hard to tell.

      ‘Tell us about yourself,’ commanded Harriet, handing him a dish of tea.

      He smiled. He was evidently not going to be taken on face value. ‘My name, as you will have learned from Lord Trentham’s letter, is Captain James Drymore. I am the second son of the Earl of Colbridge. I am twenty-seven years of age and have spent most of my adult life as an officer on board several vessels of his Majesty’s navy. Two years ago I sold out and returned to civilian life.’

      ‘Are you married?’ Matilda asked.

      ‘I am a widower.’

      ‘I am sorry for it,’ Matilda said. ‘But no doubt a handsome man like yourself will soon marry again.’

      ‘Tilly!’ her sister admonished. ‘You must not put the Captain to the blush like that.’

      Matilda coloured and apologised.

      ‘Think nothing of it, Miss Matilda,’ he said with a polite smile—marrying again was the last thing on his mind. ‘It is natural for you to wish to know all about me if I am to be of service to you.’

      ‘Oh, I do hope you can be. Amy will be back directly and you will be able to judge her for yourself.’

      ‘Unless I am greatly mistaken, I have already met the young lady,’ he said. ‘I was on the coach with her when it overturned.’

      ‘You were?’ Matilda put down her tea in order to sit forward and pay more attention. ‘Then you must know all about it. What happened? Did you speak to Amy? Did she speak to you? Who was the man who died? My sister saw his body when they laid it out at the inn before burial and she is sure it was not Duncan Macdonald.’

      ‘Ah, that was the first question I meant to ask you,’ he said.

      ‘We have no idea who he could have been,’ Harriet said. ‘Or what he was doing with Amy.’

      He told them about the journey, the highwaymen and the accident, but left out the fact that their niece was afraid of her escort and that he was known to the highpads. He saw no reason to distress them unnecessarily. ‘Will you tell me about Mrs Macdonald and her husband?’ he asked when this recital was finished. ‘It is necessary to know as much as possible, you understand.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Matilda put in. ‘We raised Amy. She is like a daughter to us. She met her husband, Duncan Macdonald, during a visit to her mother in London just over five years ago. We were shocked when she said she was going to marry him. We knew so little about him, except that he was a close friend of her father. She does not even remember that.’

      ‘He is an artist,’ Harriet said. ‘Or so he says, though we have seen nothing of his work.’

      ‘But you did meet him?’

      ‘Yes, the first time soon after they married and again about two years ago when they came to stay for a while. I am afraid I did not take to him. He was a little too charming to be sincere and he had Amy like that.’ She turned her thumb to the floor as she spoke. ‘But perhaps I do him a disservice. You must draw your own conclusions.’

      ‘How can he?’ Matilda said. ‘The man has disappeared.’

      He smiled at the lady’s undeniable logic, and then turned as the door opened and Amy herself came into the room. She stopped uncertainly when she saw him scrambling to his feet. He bowed. ‘Mrs Macdonald.’

      ‘This is Captain Drymore,’ Harriet told her. ‘Do you remember him?’

      Amy looked hard at the man who stood facing her. It was the one she had seen that afternoon at the King’s Arms, but underlying that was the feeling she had experienced then, that she had met him before. How could you forget someone as big and handsome as he was, a man with a commanding presence and clear green eyes that looked into hers in a way that made her catch her breath? ‘I saw him arriving at the King’s Arms this afternoon…’

      ‘Before that,’ Matilda said.

      ‘No.’ She turned to James. ‘Should I remember you?’

      He smiled. ‘I would have been flattered if you had. We were both aboard the coach that overturned.’

      Her sunny smile lit her face. ‘Then you must be my mysterious saviour.’

      ‘I did no more than any gentleman would have done.’

      She sat down beside him, so close her skirts brushed his knee, and turned to face him. ‘Tell me what happened. Every little detail.’

      Acutely aware of her proximity and the scent of lilacs that surrounded her, he repeated what he had told her aunts, no more, no less.

      ‘And did I tell you anything of why I was making the journey?’

      ‘No, madam.’

      ‘There СКАЧАТЬ