The Viscount's Dangerous Liaison: Regency romantic mystery (Dangerous Deceptions Book 3) Read online

  Almost twenty four hours later Theo lay uncomfortably along the top of the high wall that ran along one side of the loke, or narrow alleyway, that formed the eastern boundary of the inn. From there he could see into one of the small side windows with a view of the bar where Harris the landlord stood putting tobacco into the lead boxes that stood on each table for the customers to fill their clay pipes.

  Perry was outside nearer the front, wedged comfortably enough beside the wood store with a clear view of about a third of the interior through an unshuttered window.

  As Theo tried to ease his stiff neck Flynn came in and went up to the bar. He was dressed like a traveller in the kind of decent but everyday clothes a tradesman of the middle sort might wear and he dropped a battered valise at his feet as he spoke to the landlord.

  The man drew a pint, then nodded towards a table almost opposite Theo’s window. Flynn strolled over, sat down with his back against the wall and made himself comfortable as the landlord called something back to what Theo assumed was the kitchen beyond.

  They had agreed that Flynn would take a room and order food which would give him an excuse to linger downstairs. His story, should anyone start a conversation, was that he had walked along from Blakeney because someone had recommended the Mermaid’s food and had said that the beds were well aired in comparison with most of what he’d find in the port.

  Pitkin was hidden behind a wind-blown hedge ten yards away, waiting for some more customers to come in. They had no idea what to expect, but Perry was a magistrate in case anyone needed arresting and Theo was more than ready to get into a fight with someone. Over what, in his present mood, he did not much care.

  Two men came in, farm labourers by the look of their gaiters and boots, followed a few minutes later by a trio of fishermen who wearily slumped at the table nearest the fire, only reviving when the landlord brought over a stoneware bottle and three small, thick glasses.

  On his way back to the bar he crossed with a maid coming out of the kitchen with a plate of what looked like stew. She put it down in front of Flynn, produced a heel of bread from one apron pocket and a knife and fork from the other and then leaned her hip against the table.

  Flynn could apparently flirt with the best of them because she lingered for a minute or two, giggling, before a jerk of the landlord’s head sent her back to the kitchen with a saucy look over her shoulder.

  Theo was beginning to wonder whether Pitkin had lost his nerve or fallen in a drainage ditch when the door opened and he walked in. Like Flynn, he was dressed in clothes a respectable clerk might choose for travelling and was carrying a valise that, from the way he was handling it, was heavy. He looked tired and a little wary as he walked up to the bar, glancing around him but not lingering on Flynn longer than on any of the other customers.

  The landlord turned from knocking the tap into a fresh barrel and Theo could read his lips.

  ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ He drew a tankard of ale and put it down in front of Pitkin who glanced around and then leaned forward. The landlord did the same.

  They had agreed that Pitkin would say he had been recommended by a sailor in Blakeney to try at the Mermaid for a ship that would take him across.

  Theo saw the jerk of Pitkin’s head seawards and guessed he had just asked the question. Harris scratched his ear, picked up a tankard and began to polish it, but he was looking at Pitkin who, from the movement of his head, was still talking.

  Then the landlord moved closer, said something and Pitkin nodded and moved to a table out of Theo’s sight. He could only hope Perry could still see him. The landlord went out into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later. The back door banged and a small figure scuttled down the loke to the coast road and vanished.

  Now what? Theo thought, shifting to try and get a particularly lumpy piece of flint away from his rib cage.

  Half an hour passed. Flynn got into conversation with one of the fishermen and was invited to join a rowdy game of shove ha’penny. Theo noticed that he managed to find a position where he could look across to Pitkin as he played. The valet was as protected as he could be, given that Flynn had a knife in his boot and a lethal throw with it. Theo’s eyelids began to droop

  A scuffling of feet startled him almost to the point of falling off his narrow perch. Theo saw what looked like the kitchen boy vanish into the shadows of the yard, then the back door slammed. The landlord left the bar, came back and went over to the part of the room Theo could not see, presumably to talk to Pitkin.

  The valet came into sight, walked up to the bar and handed over some money and Flynn finished his game amidst laughter and the exchange of a handful of coppers. He picked up his bag and went up the stairs as Pitkin, with a nod to the landlord, went to the front door.

  Theo swung down from the wall, biting back a curse as his numb right leg buckled under him, then he was limping down the loke to the front where Perry was already waiting in the shadows. Flynn would be climbing out of a window, no doubt.

  ‘He’s walking back towards Blakeney,’ Perry whispered.

  ‘Then we follow in a moment. See if anyone tracks him from the inn first.’

  They waited, but no-one came out of the Mermaid so they set off after Pitkin, just keeping him in sight, treading on the tussocky grass at the side of the road which was silent, but hard going.

  ‘If they set a trap it will be soon, I guess,’ Perry murmured. ‘Just around the next bend, I’d wager. There are some boat sheds there.’

  Pitkin vanished around the corner, Theo lengthened his stride, then stopped dead so that Perry cannoned into him as a barn owl swept across their path.

  ‘Bloody hell, That scared the wits out of me,’ he muttered as they sorted themselves out.

  At which point someone hit him with a cudgel.

  It would have taken him on the head if Perry hadn’t given a croak of alarm so that Theo twisted away at the last moment and it landed on his right shoulder, the same one Laura had hit with the bottle of port. He reeled back clutching at his numbed arm, then went left-handed for the knife in his boot. Jared, the supreme sword master, had taught him to fight and hadn’t stopped the lessons with the elegant art of the rapier. He had taught Theo to fight dirty and now he went in low, stabbing for his opponent’s thighs.

  Perry was using his stick against another cudgel and Theo heard the slim Malacca snap as his friend raised it above his head to block a downward blow. They were fighting by starlight and he was beginning to think they had come out inadequately armed when Perry jabbed at the face of the man wielding the cudgel. He stepped back to avoid the splintered end of the cane and stumbled just as the man facing Theo gave a gasp and collapsed at his feet.

  Flynn stepped onto the road, a pistol held steady on the other assailant. ‘Who got him?’

  ‘I did.’ Pitkin emerged from the shadows, panting a trifle. ‘I just hope I didn’t brain him with that flint. I heard the fight and ran back, didn’t stop to take good aim.’ He shrugged. ‘Village cricket, I was always the bowler.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Theo bent and pulled the mask off the unconscious figure at his feet. Perry, after a moment’s fumbling, struck a light and Flynn, efficient as always, produced a candle from his pocket. ‘Hells’ teeth. Hogget.’

  ‘Damn you.’ The figure sprawled on its back on the verge sat up, its voice unmistakeably feminine.

  ‘Mrs Hogget?’ Why am I not surprised, Theo thought.

  ‘You know very well I am not if you have been talking to Laura Darke.’ She shook off Perry’s attempt to help her and got to her feet. ‘If you have killed James there will be the devil to pay.’ She glared at Pitkin. ‘Are they with you?’

  ‘They most certainly are,’ Pitkin said. ‘Oh, thank God, he’s alive.’

  Hogget gave a groan and sat up.

  ‘Can you walk or shall I go for the carriage?’ Perry got him to his feet and he stood, swaying slightly. ‘The Grange is nearer than your house.’

  ‘I can walk.’


  Charlotte Hogget took his arm and with Pitkin and Perry leading the way and Theo and Flynn bringing up the rear they trudged in silence up to the Grange.

  Terence opened the door holding a stout stick and they were met in the hall by Jared making no attempt to hide the drawn rapier in his hand.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Theo said as they crowded in through the front door. ‘They appear to be on our side.’

  ‘Then why do you all look as though you’ve been in a fight?’ Laura demanded, running down the stairs.

  ‘Because we have. Terence, we need warm water, a bandage and whatever salves Mrs Bishop has for broken heads.’

  ‘Mr Hogget – and Charlotte?’ Laura stared at the other woman’s male attire, then threw open the drawing room door. ‘Come in where there is good light.’

  It took half an hour before Hogget was bandaged, Charlotte’s bruises were dabbed with arnica and they were settled around the fire, drinks in hand.

  ‘You are not a British agent,’ Hogget said, staring hard at Pitkin.

  ‘I am Lord Northam’s valet.’

  ‘And I am Viscount Ravenlaw and you, I presume, are working for the Home Office,’ Jared said.

  ‘You are acquainted with the Duke of Calderbrook?’

  ‘He is a close friend. He went to the Home Office asking about gold Napoléons. They told us that the gold is connected with whatever has been going on here, but they did not name you. Any of you.’

  Charlotte snorted. ‘They don’t trust anyone and as a result half the time we don’t get the information we need.’

  ‘You are both agents?’ Perry asked.

  Charlotte’s look was scornful. ‘You think women are not capable of intelligence work?’

  ‘So you two are not, er…’

  ‘No.’ She smiled at Laura. ‘We get on very well as colleagues. As anything else – ’ She rolled her eyes.

  ‘So what exactly happened this evening?’ Jared asked. ‘I rather think we had better start by explaining exactly who we are and what we have been doing.’

  It took half an hour, even with Jared’s concise summary. The Hoggets – Theo could not help thinking of them still as a couple – listened intently.

  ‘Right. Well, the first thing to say is that Jerry Harris, the landlord of the Mermaid, is working with us,’ Hogget said. ‘That’s not to say that he’s nothing to do with smuggling and I’d be obliged if the local magistrate would turn a blind eye to that.’

  When Perry nodded Charlotte picked up the explanation. ‘His elder brother Bill used to be the landlord but he was killed in ’08 and Jerry inherited. He’d just been discharged from the Navy – you wouldn’t realise it unless he’s tired or has to move fast, but his right leg was broken badly and he wears a brace on it.’

  ‘He hadn’t been here long when he began to get suspicious about Bill’s death,’ Hogget continued, taking over as though he and his partner were used to reporting this way. ‘At first it was thought to be an accident, that he’d fallen from the ladder down to the cellar and hit his head on the stone floor. But as the locals began to trust Jerry they started to talk. Someone had been threatening Bill and he’d started carrying a cudgel and a knife all the time. But he wouldn’t say what it was.’

  ‘He asked me about it,’ Will said. ‘I had conducted the funeral and I had seen the body. Jerry Harris wanted to know if I noticed anything strange about it.

  ‘I told him I’d thought it odd that he was lying where he was. The back of his head took the force of the blow and he was lying on his back, but I couldn’t work out how he had fallen from the ladder and landed just there and I told Harris that to warn him to check how safe the ladder was.’

  ‘Jerry seems to be stolid but he’s an intelligent man and he began to pick up whispers about men passing through Blakeney, asking unusual questions about destinations,’ Hogget said. ‘Men who were not heard of again. He’s a loyal Britisher, is Jerry, a real Navy stalwart and if someone was working with the French, giving them information, then he wasn’t going to stand for it on his territory. He started to probe and thinks that it all started in about ’05, the year my father died.’

  ‘And Reverend Gilpin,’ Laura added.

  ‘Yes. Anyway, he wrote to his old captain and he, trusting Jerry’s nose for trouble – he’d been a rock-solid coxswain – got in touch with the Admiralty and they talked to the Home Office and we were sent,’ Charlotte said. ‘James had been involved with intelligence work before his wife became so ill – ciphers and so forth – and, of course, he’s a local man. Jerry was letting us know whenever he came across someone asking about a passage across the Channel. He was giving them the names of men he knew had been going across – but we’ve no way of telling which are honest and which aren’t.’

  ‘So when it happens he sends for you, you follow the man and hope to protect him and, at the same time, identify who is attacking them,’ Flynn said. ‘You’ve concluded, as we did, that the murders are happening on land?’

  ‘Yes. And we suspect that a certain number of men are getting through because, we think, they do not appear to be carrying gold and because whoever is behind this wants to foster a legitimate network of boatmen who will do the crossing – otherwise there is no-one for agents to be recommended to. So far everyone we’ve followed has got away safely.’

  ‘How many men are we talking about?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Not many, a dozen, fifteen, a year perhaps by this route that we know of. We just haven’t been lucky yet in identifying anyone who was then attacked and we could be missing men who were asking in other taverns, of course. But with even a handful of men the sums involved can be considerable and the gold is life-blood to agents in place in France or groups planning insurrection.’

  ‘So who is it? And how are we going to find them?’ Perry asked, passing the decanter round.

  ‘That’s a good question.’ Hogget shifted in the high-backed chair and winced as his bandaged head brushed against the cushions. ‘I think I’d like to start with a look at those church papers your amiable Rector was so keen to get his hands on.’

  ‘We’ve looked at them,’ Perry protested. ‘All we found was the old Rector’s smuggling accounts.’

  ‘How good are you at recognising codes and cyphers, Lord Manners?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Because James is an expert.’

  ‘Right.’ Perry got up and tugged the bell pull. ‘You had best spend the night, don’t you think?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Laura spread honey on her breakfast toast and considered her feelings. There was definitely pleasure at the presence of the Hoggets, as she had to think of them. They were allies in the effort to solve the mystery and, in Charlotte, she thought she had found a friend.

  Then there was the ache of loving Theo, always there, always waiting in ambush to smudge black misery across the moment. Was it better or worse to know that he felt the same way about her? Possibly worse, she concluded. If it had been hopelessly one-sided then she would have had to live with it. But now she knew if only he had not made that proposal just before coming to Norfolk they could have been blissfully happy together.

  No-one dies of love, she told herself. Shakespeare had said so. Was it Love’s Labour’s Lost or As You Like It? ‘Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’m sorry, did you say something?’ Charlotte looked up from a pile of notes from Will’s box. She had them stacked beside her plate and was eating eggs with her fork in one hand while she flicked over the sheets with the other.

  ‘Just muttering Shakespeare to myself,’ Laura said, finding a smile from somewhere.

  What Aunt Swinburn would say if she could see the breakfast parlour that morning she shuddered to think. James Hogget and Charlotte were scanning piles of dirty old papers, shedding dust, dead spiders and flakes of paper on the damask cloth. Charlotte was still in men’s clothes – I must ask her where she gets them so beautifully tailored to fit her
– and Hogget had a rakish bandage around his head and the beginnings of a black eye. Flynn had dragged Pitkin to the table with him.

  One runaway heiress, one woman in men’s clothes who is an intelligence agent, two valets – one of whom was recently dressed as a woman – two viscounts, one baron, a second intelligence agent and an out of work curate. It is going to be hard to return to normality after this. Although what normality might be for her now, she had no idea.

  ‘Those are just notes for the registers,’ Will said when he sat down with a plate of bacon and mushrooms and saw what the Hoggets were checking.

  ‘So far they are,’ Hogget agreed. ‘The paper is stained and the ink faded with age. If there is anything covert here then it is very old – thirty or more years, I’d say, which tallies with the dates of the events listed. Matthew, infant son of John Fulgate, thatcher, and Maria his wife buried twenty third of March 1785,’ he read and flipped the page over.

  Theo pushed his empty plate away, poured some more coffee and looked around the table. ‘Now we know that we can eliminate the Hoggets from our enquiries – ’

  ‘Good of you,’ Charlotte said without looking up.

  ‘You must admit, you did seem suspicious. Anyway, who does that leave? It has to be someone who is more or less permanently hereabouts, which rules out the various ships’ captains. According to you, Harris vouches for most of the other inn and beer house keepers and the shopkeepers and merchants. It doesn’t mean it isn’t someone working for them, of course. But the most likely suspects are the Swinburns, the Rector and the Jenners.’

  ‘Don’t forget Mrs Gilpin.’ Jared speared another rasher of bacon. ‘In horrid novels the least likely person is often the villain in disguise.’

  ‘I refuse to believe it of her,’ Will protested, looking distressed.

  ‘He is teasing,’ Flynn said. ‘So, let’s consider them. The Rector. He is ambitious we believe, but ambition needs money. He has been the incumbent here since 1805 and visited often before then. His wife is older than he is and seems a very firm and demanding lady – who incidentally, may, or may not, be sleeping with her groom. She may also be putting pressure on the Rector to succeed and he is taking a short cut.’