Regency High Society Vol 1: A Hasty Betrothal / A Scandalous Marriage / The Count's Charade / The Rake and the Rebel
Visiting gentry didn’t usually concern themselves too much in local problems and he was unsure of the wisdom of passing on rumours, but Harriet’s eyes were fixed upon him in such a steadfast way that he found the words tumbling from his lips before he could stop them.
Harriet’s eyes grew round with horror as his tale unfolded. It appeared that the lad Billy had gone missing two days previously but, because of his errant lifestyle, his mother had not begun to worry about his absence until late the previous night when she had expressed her concern to Ridgeway on his return from Westpark. He had, it seemed, chosen to regard the boy’s disappearance as a much more serious matter than the rest of the household would have expected and had immediately set several men on to searching Billy’s known haunts. Mr Ridgeway himself, Cooper told Harriet, had been out most of the night.
‘But has no one informed their lordships?’ she asked, walking quickly back towards the house.
‘Mr Ridgeway wouldn’t have them woken up, miss,’ panted Cooper, hurrying to keep up with her. ‘’Tisn’t usual for any of the family to be up this early—he’ll have left a message with Mr Rothman, I’ll be bound.’
Harriet hesitated, and then turned towards the stables where she found quite a flurry of activity. Apprehending a passing stableboy, she instructed him to saddle up her horse at once, while Cooper looked on in dismay.
‘But I can’t ride, miss,’ he stammered. ‘That’s why Davy—Rothman was picked. Shall I go and see if he’s back, miss?’
Harriet nodded. ‘Yes, do, Cooper—and tell him to follow me to the Dower House. I shall take the back lane—and tell March to give the same message to Lord Sandford when he wakes,’ she called over her shoulder as she mounted.
Wheeling Clipper in the direction of her proposed route, she headed for the short bridleway that led to the south of the Beldale estate, where the Dower House was situated. She had not gone far, however, when she was halted by one of the large group that was milling around the courtyard. A young groom, by the look of him, he signalled urgently to her to stop and she reined in beside him.
‘If you’re wanting Mr Ridgeway, miss,’ he volunteered, ‘he’s just gone up to Top Meadow along North Lane. You’ll soon catch up with him if you take a short cut through the copse—shall I tell Davy when I see him, miss?’
‘Oh! Yes, please, would you?’ Harriet swung Clipper in the opposite direction and, spurring her mount into a gallop, headed for the woods that led out to the north side of the estate.
Chapter Twelve
Urging Clipper swiftly through the woods, Harriet soon arrived at the dry-stone wall that bordered the estate. Clearing this without difficulty, she cantered up the lane that led, firstly, past the gated entrance to Westpark Manor, then past the old Butler property, Staines, and eventually towards the forked track that separated the crumbling cottages of Bottom Meadow from the newer dwellings in Top Meadow.
There was no sign of Ridgeway as yet, but she supposed that she could not be far behind him. She assumed he was making for the ruins—such buildings being a magnet for small boys. She hoped that Billy had not fallen and hurt himself, but this fate would be infinitely more preferable than her present thoughts concerning a more sinister explanation to the lad’s disappearance. Like Ridgeway, she had straight away connected his absence with the mysterious stranger at the lake and was afraid that either Billy or his friend had somehow discovered the man’s identity, which would have placed the two boys in serious danger, especially if this was the same man who was involved with her attack in the copse.
However, the track to Bottom Meadow was deserted and, although she could tell that there were stirrings of life in the new cottages further up the lane, she could see no indication of Ridgeway’s presence—nor any sign of his big, raw-boned grey. Momentarily undecided, she stared down at the derelict buildings, remembering that Meggy had warned Josh Potter to stay away from the dangerous ruins and, conscious of the fact that she had once again broken her promise never to leave the house without a groom, she reluctantly started to pull Clipper’s head up from the dew-sweet grass which the mare was presently enjoying.
Then she heard it. The faint sound of a cry of distress. Hesitating no longer, she dismounted and, throwing Clipper’s reins around an overhanging branch, she kilted up her habit skirt and sped down towards the ruins. Again came the cry—from the back of Potter’s cottage, she could swear. Gasping for breath, she rounded the end of the buildings and saw that the small cellar hatch at the rear of the cottage had been lifted from its mountings.
Kneeling at the portal, she called down into the gloom, ‘Billy? Billy—are you down there? Are you hurt?’
If there was any reply she did not hear it, for something very hard caught her a stunning blow on the back of her head and she felt herself tumbling down and down into the depths of unconsciousness.
Small hands were shaking her. She was dreaming about Billy Tatler. How strange! Her head hurt badly and one of her shoulders felt rather sore. She opened her eyes, but darkness still prevailed. She tried to sit up, but waves of concussion overcame her and she sank back on to her hard and lumpy mattress, insensible once more.
‘Miss! Oh, miss—do wake up—please don’t be dead, miss—oh, miss!’
The sobs cut through her clouded brain. Small hands were shaking her! Very gingerly Harriet reached out towards them. They were real enough! As was the pain in her head! The darkness was only too real.
‘Is it you, Billy?’ she ventured weakly, as her fingers were grasped tightly.
‘Oh, miss!’ came the child’s relieved cry. ‘I fort you was dead—I were that scared, miss! Will we get out, miss? Mister Ridgeway will find us, won’t he, miss?’
Harriet drew the boy towards her and put her arm across his thin shoulders. His whole body was shaking and, although she herself was experiencing the same terrors as he was, she knew that he was depending upon her for his salvation.
‘Everyone will be searching for us, Billy,’ she said, with as much calm as she could muster. ‘They have been searching for you all night—I found you first, it seems.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Was there someone here with you when I—fell—into the cellar?’
‘You din’t fall, miss—he whacked you one! I saw him behind you with a bit of wood! He pushed you in and fixed the trap-door back!’
Harriet tentatively put her hand up to the back of her head. There was a sticky, wet mess of hair around a considerable contusion. Grimacing at the pain, she supposed she had better fashion some sort of a bandage for herself. She wriggled uncomfortable as she felt the lumpen mass beneath her.
‘What are we sitting on?’ she asked her companion. ‘It doesn’t feel like coal or logs.’
‘It’s turnips, miss—put down last year, I should think. Maybe potatoes, too, somewhere.’
‘I’m going to stand up for a minute, Billy—stay where you are. I just want to wrap something around my head—it seems to be bleeding a bit.’
She slipped off her petticoat and, tearing it into strips, set about padding and binding her wound in the well-remembered procedure that she had learned from her mother. She wondered just how long she had been unconscious and whether Sandford would have recovered sufficiently to come in search of her. She was reasonably confident that it wouldn’t be long before somebody found them. Then she remembered, with a tremor of fear, that somebody already knew where they were and that he would be doing everything in his power to ensure that they were not found!
‘The man at the lake, Billy,’ she said, as she seated herself next to him once more. ‘Who is he—and how came you to be in the cellar?’
‘Well, miss—Billy was feeling much more cheerful now that he was no longer alone in the cold and