Ridgeway laughed and his mother’s pensive frown vanished immediately.
‘The young scamps are always up to something, Robert,’ said his cousin. ‘Stealing apples, I suppose? You’d think we didn’t feed them…’ He stopped as Sandford shook his head.
‘Fact is, Charles,’ he said brusquely, ‘two days ago one of them pulled Miss Cordell into the lake and swam off!’
His aunt gasped and put her hand to her throat while Ridgeway started in disbelief.
‘You can’t mean it, man! Let’s have the whole, if you please!’
Sandford related Harriet’s tale briefly, then went on to describe how he and Tiptree had scoured the lake area for the culprit, without success. He had then extended his search into the village where every boy of relevant age had been questioned thoroughly.
‘I admit I was at point non plus,’ he confessed wryly, ‘until Tip brought me word that old Mrs Jennings remembered having seen one of your young imps scrambling through our hedge with his clothes soaking wet. She supposed he had been messing about in the lake and thought no more about it. I’m sorry, Aunt Eugenie,’ he finished awkwardly, ‘but I’m afraid I’ll have to follow it up.’
His aunt looked helplessly towards her son, who nodded briskly at Sandford.
‘Right, man,’ he said. ‘Let’s get at it.’
Turning to his mother as they left the room, he said, ‘Don’t worry, Ma. I’ll sort it out. It’ll be one of Sukey Tatler’s young ‘uns—you mark my words.’
He led Sandford down the back stairs to the kitchens where a group of Lady Eugenie’s reclaimed streetwalkers were to be found chattering merrily as they went about their work. They immediately fell silent at the sight of the two intruders to their domain.
Ridgeway sought out the young woman he had named and beckoned her to the doorway. ‘Come outside, Sukey, his lordship wants a word with you.’
Eyes full of foreboding, the young woman complied, while the rest of the group stood looking at one another in consternation. Grateful to have been rescued from the awful poverty and degradation of their former existence, they still lived with the constant fear of being rejected and returned to their old haunts. They idolised their benefactress with unalloyed reverence for her part in their salvation, but were generally resigned to the fact that life had a habit of delivering the most crushing blows when one least suspected them.
Ridgeway ushered the scullery-maid out into the yard.
‘Do you know where Billy is?’ he asked her gently. ‘His lordship needs to speak to him.’ Sukey shook her head.
‘Don’t never know where ‘e is, guv,’ she said tremulously. ‘But ‘e’ll be ‘ome for supper, that’s fer sure. What’s ‘e done this time, guv?’
‘Something very serious, I’m afraid, Sukey,’ said Ridgeway.
The woman’s face was filled with fear.
‘You ain’t gonna send us back, guv?’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll skelp ‘is ‘ide, I swear to God!’
‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ Sandford intervened. ‘I have a feeling that he isn’t entirely to blame. Do you know who his friends are?’
Getting no further help from the boy’s mother, they sent her back to the kitchen where she was at once surrounded by her peers demanding to know whether they were all about to lose their places.
‘I’ll send one of the men to look for him,’ offered Ridgeway. ‘If he comes back and hears you were after him, he’ll make himself scarce. We need to find out why he did it. Someone must have put him up to it—it makes no sense.’
Sandford agreed with his cousin and reluctantly left the matter in his hands for the time being, but insisted on being notified as soon as the boy was found. He asked Ridgeway to give his regards to Lady Eugenie and took his leave.
Riding back across the fields to Beldale he attempted, for the umpteenth time, to analyse his own turbulent emotions in what he hoped was an objective manner. It had now reached the point where he found himself increasingly reluctant to venture into any of the rooms in his own home for fear of encountering Harriet’s stony expression! He was beginning to find it almost impossible to deal with her continued indifference towards him. He had pretended not to notice, of course, and had done his best to stay out of her way while trying to clear up the matter of the missing boy. He was furious with himself for having, apparently, given her the impression that he thought she had been lying, for no such consideration had entered his mind. He had simply been utterly taken aback that such a thing could happen on Beldale lands and had, subsequently, left no stone unturned in his efforts to find the culprit. His constant spur had been the thought of restoring that winsome smile to Harriet’s face, but he was still no nearer to any solution and the prospect of another long and wretched evening loomed before him.
He entered the hallway just as the countess was ushering Harriet into the estate office and, as he made for the stairs, he breathed a sigh of relief that at least he would not be called upon to suffer that cool, disdainful gaze in the immediate future.
‘Harriet has visitors, my dear,’ said his mother, over her shoulder. ‘Are you going up to your father? I will join you when I have finished here.’
Sandford frowned as he climbed the stairs, curious as to the identity of Harriet’s visitors and wondering why they should be ensconced in the office, which was normally reserved for estate matters. His throat tightened as he considered the prospect of her leaving Beldale sooner than anticipated.
Harriet was also in some apprehension as to who her visitors could possibly be but the initial look of puzzlement was wiped from her face in a flash as she beheld the stocky figure before her and, rushing forward in delight, she threw herself at him crying, ‘Ozzy! Oh, Ozzy!—how on earth did you find me?’
Ex-Sergeant Jeremiah Osborne, late of the 67th Cavalry and her father’s one-time batman, took her hands in his and shook his head at her behaviour.
‘Now then, Miss Harry, a little more conduct, if you please! What would my Martha say—let alone your mama? Did they teach you to be a hoyden, I wonder?’
He grinned as he spoke and her eyes sparkled in return as she took the seat that Lady Caroline had motioned her into. Standing proudly erect in military manner, the old soldier looked to Harriet exactly as he had done on that day, two years previously when, hard upon her family’s disembarkation, he and his wife had decided to part company with them to start a new life of their own.
Harriet turned from Osborne to the countess, who had been smiling at the interchange.
‘I don’t understand, ma’am,’ she said carefully. ‘I thought you said a messenger from my mama … ?’
Lady Caroline patted her hand and waved Osborne to a chair as she herself sat down at the desk.
‘Perhaps we should allow Mr Osborne to relate his own tale, my dear,’ she said gently and, nodding to Osborne, ‘Please be so good as to begin.’
‘Well, my lady, as I was telling you earlier—’ Osborne leaned forward, clasping his hands together between his knees ‘—after we left the family at Dover, Martha—my wife—and I went on to Hampshire, where we’d heard of a little inn we might fancy—you know we’d been keen to try it, Miss Harry…?’
He wagged his bushy head at her and she nodded, hardly able to contain her impatience as he continued with his tale. The inn, it seemed, had been a success and Ozzy and Martha were in a fair way to being quite prosperous and had lately decided to take a much-deserved break, having promised themselves a visit to their old master and mistress as soon as they could manage it.
‘We wanted to give you a surprise, you see, but—it was us that got the surprise—or, shock, more like. We only got as far as the Partridge—the