‘Thank you. How did you discover who I was?’
‘Last night at the Manor, a sewing basket was knocked over and I helped pick it up. The work inside matched what you were doing when I came back, although I was told it belonged to Laura, a niece who is away tending an elderly relative in Bath. When I saw your embroidery it seemed to me improbable that two such fine pieces of work with an identical pattern were by different hands.’ He sat down behind the desk and looked at her. ‘You had best tell me your full name.’
‘Laura Darke.’
‘Well, Miss Darke – ’
‘Call me Laura, please.’
‘Very well.’ He grinned, a sudden flash of white teeth. ‘This is hardly a normal social situation after all. I am Theo.’
I know.
‘Do you trust Will Thwaite, the curate? Only it occurs to me that another conspirator might help, if only to discuss plans with.’
‘Why yes, I like him very well. But would it be fair to involve him?’
‘I had it in mind to offer him one of the livings at my disposal – there is at least one free. I was going to wait before mentioning it so I could make certain I was not mistaken in his character, but if you vouch for him, then I am very inclined to trust him. If he runs foul of the Reverend Finch over this, then he will not be out of a position. Besides, Perry might be happier if he knows you have the chaperonage of a clergyman, as it were.’
‘Why would Perry – ’
She broke off as the door was flung wide to reveal Mrs Bishop. ‘Oh, my lord! Such awful news – Mr Thwaite has been taken up for dead in the churchyard!’
Chapter Six
‘Dead? Are you certain? Which churchyard?’ Theo was on his feet and Laura found she was too.
‘They say he was alive when they found him but he is not expected to live, there was so much blood. It was Fellingham church, so they have taken him to his lodgings at the churchwarden’s house. Doctor Sinclair has been sent for, but it sounds terrible bad, my lord. Blood everywhere.’
‘Blood is no guarantee of a fatal wound and head wounds always bleed badly. It might look worse than it is. But I have no confidence in the churchwarden or his wife to look after a badly injured man, not judging by how thin Thwaite is on her cooking. Mrs Bishop, tell my groom to harness up my travelling coach and put blankets and a pillow in it. Laura, if you can prepare a room – ’
‘Laura?’
‘Yes, Mrs Bishop, he knows.’ Laura pushed the cook in front of her towards the kitchen when she stopped to gape at them. ‘I will do that immediately, one of the ground floor rooms will be best. We’ll light a fire – hurry, Theo.’
Laura set the maids to make up a bed in a small chamber off the hallway, filled the warming pan with coals from the kitchen range and ran it between the sheets, then told Terence to light the fire in the room while Mrs Bishop began to make beef tea. She could only pray they were not making preparations in vain and that that such a good man would survive.
‘How did he know?’ Mrs Bishop demanded when they finally sat at the kitchen table and began to check over the contents of the medical cabinet.
Laura did not have to ask who he was. ‘He saw my embroidery at the Manor and then here last night and realised it was the same design. I told him everything and he was very… understanding.’ And I had obviously misunderstood the warmth I thought I had seen in his eyes. He is just as friendly and distant as he was when he believed I was the housekeeper. And that will teach me to dream about an unobtainable man. I’m no longer a giddy girl just out of the schoolroom who has read too many romances.
‘Fine young man that,’ Mrs Bishop observed, peering at the faded label on a dark brown bottle. ‘Nice manners and a pleasant way with him. Good-looking, too.’
‘Yes,’ Laura agreed. She thought she managed to sound quite dispassionate. ‘I am sure his betrothed thinks so too. This bascilicum powder looks fresh and there is a supply of willow bark for a pain-killing tea.’
‘You’ll be safe until Master Perry is home, then.’ Mrs Bishop was not to be diverted. ‘He doesn’t seem to want to rush back to his young lady.’
‘Oh yes. Quite. I am not at all worried.’
‘No, I didn’t think you were.’
Laura shot her a suspicious glance, but Mrs Bishop was back at the range stirring the simmering beef stock without the slightest suspicion of a smile on her lips. ‘Listen – is that the front door?’
The front door – and the sound of voices, of urgent orders and some brisk, responses from the footmen. ‘They must have brought him, which means he is alive, thank goodness.’ Laura ran out to the hall in time to see Terence manoeuvring the end of a makeshift stretcher through the chamber door.
‘How is he?’ she asked as she entered on his heels to pull down the bedcoverings so the men could lift the unconscious curate, clad in a thin nightshirt, on to the mattress.
‘He’ll live, I think.’ Theo straightened as she pulled the blankets up and ran one hand over the bandages to make sure nothing had slipped. ‘He was hit over the head with a heavy object and then stabbed in the back when he was on the ground, poor devil. The head wound bled badly as they always do, but the doctor thinks the knife hit his shoulder blade, which deflected it from his heart. We’ve to keep him warm and get liquids down him once he regains consciousness.’