The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(59)
“Argall?” Rigby fisted his hands, seething with rage. “Are you saying that Argall has pretended to be into his cups while he drank Dobby Benellack under the table at the Roost?”
“Aye.” Walsingham suspected more men were involved, but it wouldn’t do any good to press the matter. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“That would explain how the man beat me at cards,” Rigby said, his voice full of icy contempt. “Where is he now?”
“Aboard the Fury.” Rigby started to walk out the study door, but Walsingham stopped him. “Before you go out half-cocked, Argall confessed, and the magistrate will deal with him.”
“The magistrate,” William protested, “is in league with the Thorpes and always has been.”
God’s hounds! Cold fury gripped him. As a revenue man, he should have suspected as much.
Walsingham motioned to William. “Go now. Intercept him. If Argall or the magistrate warn Carnage, all that we’ve done will have been for naught.”
“Aye.” William rolled his shoulders and, giving Walsingham a nod, shoved his way to the study door.
“Let’s be off, then.” Max slanted a nod Walsingham’s way and then mustered the rest of his brothers to follow.
“Make haste,” Walsingham added, anxiety rifling through him.
Pickering thumped his copy of Fordyce’s Sermons upon his desk. “God’s speed, my lords!” he bellowed as he followed them through the door, then chased them to the coach house.
“My husband means well,” Mrs. Pickering said, catching up to him in the corridor as he exited the study.
“Indeed.” Walsingham glanced down at the woman’s hooded eyes, recalling his own mother and the heartbreak she must have been suffering thinking he was dead. “Is anything amiss?”
“Come.” She gave his arm a tug, forcing him to follow her out of the vicarage, where horses and riders sped west, galloping down the drive. She paid the dust in their wake no heed as she led him toward the coach house. “You must hurry.”
He tried to read her face. “Where is Miss Thorpe? I was under the impression she was with you.”
“Gone,” she said, her brows drawing together.
His heart skipped a beat. “Gone? Gone where?”
“She’s as stubborn as they come, Captain.” The perceptive woman’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Had the vicar told her who he was? “When she gets an idea in her head, no one can stop her, least of all me.”
“What’s happened?”
“While you and Lady Pendrim’s sons contemplated saving the world, Oriana discovered Nicholas was gone.”
A wave of nausea hit him. “What do you mean the boy is gone? He was supposed to wait for Miss Thorpe in the coach house.”
“Nicholas would never leave without—”
“Did he not tell anyone where he was going?”
“No. Oriana found his hat lying on the ground in the coach house. Nicholas would never leave it behind. He spent his first shilling on that hat.” Mrs. Pickering inhaled deeply before continuing. “When I think about the heartbreak finding Nicholas’s hat caused her . . .”
His muscles tensed, and he ground his teeth. “What did she do?” And yet, somehow as he searched the interior of the coach house and his gaze landed on an empty stall, he knew.
Walsingham immediately walked to his horse, took up the reins, and mounted.
Mrs. Pickering grabbed his saddle, preventing him from leaving. “I knew you were the man for her, the first moment I saw you. Your sudden appearance, the meeting with my husband and the Seatons, it all made perfect sense . . . You are the Black Regent, aren’t you?”
His chest tightened, and pride, the bane of his existence, reared its ugly head. “What gave you that idea?”
She merely gave him a knowing smile. He prayed he could rely on her to keep his secret.
“Does Miss Thorpe know?” he asked.
She frowned. “No.”
“Good.” Hair prickled on the back of his scalp. “You cannot—”
“Nay. Do not tar me with the same brush as a gossip.” She released her hold on the saddle, giving her head a shake. “Like my husband, I’m sworn to confidence. You can count on my discretion.” She stepped back away from his horse. “Ride to her straightaway before it’s too late.”
Shaking off his unease, he tried to calm the woman’s fears. “You have my word. No harm will come to her.”
Mrs. Pickering gave him a sorrowful nod. “I shall hold you to that promise, Captain.”
She looked small and helpless standing below him. He tipped his hat, clenched his jaw, and neck-reined his mount, turning the snorting creature away from the church. He kicked his horse into a gallop, the hoofbeats keeping time with his thudding heart.
Seventeen
A ten-foot-tall granite MONUMENT was COMMEMORATED today in the name of CAPTAIN W and his illustrious crew aboard the illustrious WINDRAKER. Carved with the BOARD OF EXCISE crest and listing the names of all forty CREWMEMBERS who lost their lives, the marker looks over the EXE RIVER, and will be seen by MARINERS who visit these SHORES. Lady O reports the SPECTACLE was WITNESSED by Lord and Lady W, Lord and Lady B, Lord and Lady U, and Lady O.