The Virgin and the Unicorn Read online

  “If I had had the least notion— After what happened to me the other night, I should have stayed awake to watch over Berthier. And even if his lordship can recover the tapestry, who can take it back?”

  “The tapestry?” she asked, hoping to learn at last what had been stolen.

  Her question brought Slack back to attention. “I’ll stoke up the fire, if you will fill the kettle. We could all use a cup of tea, eh? In fact, I feel a glass of wine would not go amiss tonight, though I am an abstainer. Let us have a tipple of Cook’s sherry. She will not mind.”

  He went to the cupboard and brought out the bottle. Miranda declined, but Slack felt the need of a medicinal glass of spirits and swallowed the whole glassful in one gulp, before stoking up the fire. Cook had already filled the kettle before retiring, so Miranda made up a tray of teacups, milk, and sugar.

  The kitchen was as familiar to her as the kitchen at Wildwood. Many the cup of tea and gingerbread she had been served here by Cook when she was young. She attempted a few more questions while waiting for the water to boil, but Slack was on his guard and revealed nothing new.

  “You will read about it soon enough in the journals,” he said ominously. “Until then, it ain’t my place to speak.”

  They were just taking the tea tray and the basin of hot water upstairs when Pavel and Dr. Makepiece arrived. They went upstairs together in a column, Slack leading the way. Makepiece went immediately to the patient. He cut Berthier’s shirt open and examined the wound, muttering about severe loss of blood and a weak pulse. “It is not likely he will pull through,” he said dolefully, “but I shall do what I can.”

  Slack and Rotham gently lifted him onto Rotham’s bed and watched while Makepiece bathed away the blood and administered to the wound. Berthier lay pale and still as death throughout.

  Miranda poured tea and passed it around. Lord Hersham reached for Rotham’s bottle of brandy and added a tot to each cup. Diluted with the tea, Miranda found the brandy welcome on this occasion. It eased the tension that held her tight.

  Rotham and Slack had moved to a corner of the room where they spoke in low tones. Miranda moved a step closer to overhear what was being said.

  “Did he speak at all?” Rotham asked.

  “Not a word. I don’t know how long he had been lying there. Lord Pavel woke me at four-thirty. I went to take a look. There he lay on the floor. I should have kept him company.”

  “This is not your fault, Slack,” Rotham said. “I am to blame for everything. If Berthier dies, it is my damned foolishness that has killed him.”

  “And we will never know who took—” Slack looked over his shoulder to the empty trunk.

  Makepiece announced that he had done all he could do for the present. He would stay with his patient, if the others would be so kind as to leave him in peace and quiet.

  It was Hersham who said they would all go belowstairs. No one tried to send Miranda to bed when she tagged along behind with Pavel. She had discovered that if she said nothing, no one paid her any attention, except Rotham. His eyes turned to her from time to time. They wore a sad, questioning look.

  In the Blue Saloon the lamps were lit; the gentlemen had a glass of brandy, and Miranda had sherry.

  “The important thing now is to try to recover the tapestry,” Hersham said to Rotham. “Is it possible it is still in the house? Boxer was given orders to make sure all doors and windows were locked. How could anyone have gotten in?”

  Slack was eager to atone for what he considered his lapse. “I’ll take a run around and check,” he said.

  Rotham said, “The front door was locked when I arrived.”

  Slack took a lamp and left to make the tour. Hersham and Rotham moved to the far side of the room, where they stood in earnest conversation until Slack returned to announce that all doors and windows were secure. Of course, he had not checked the occupied rooms.

  “It is possible the thing is still here,” Hersham said, brightening. “We shall keep a lookout to see it does not leave and conduct a thorough search tomorrow, beginning with the attics. Anything that leaves this house will be examined.”

  “He might have lowered it out a window,” Rotham suggested. “I shall get a lantern and have a look around outside. It might even be lying on the ground. We don’t know how long ago he got away with it.”

  “It is worth a look. Go ahead,” Hersham said.

  “Me too,” Pavel added.

  Miranda did not relish the idea of being left alone with Hersham, so she went abovestairs and got dressed. When she returned below, Rotham was just coming in.

  “There was no sign of it,” he said wearily. “Slack and Pavel are taking a look to see if anyone is lurking about.”

  Hersham gave him a look, half of pity, half of anger. “You had best get a few hours’ rest, Rotham, and I shall do the same. We cannot do much more tonight. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  “I rested in the carriage en route from London, but I shall have a wash and some breakfast,” Rotham said. Then he added, “I am sorry for all the trouble I have caused, Papa.”

  “Let it be a lesson to you,” Hersham said, and left.

  Chapter Twelve

  When he came in, Slack was given two more jobs: first, to rouse Boxer and ask him to awaken the servants, and second, to dart to Hythe with a message for Macpherson, the smuggler. Slack was to inquire whether anyone had been in touch with him regarding taking a large parcel to France. If so, Mac was to hold the consignment and notify Rotham at once. If he had not been asked, he was to make discreet inquiries among his men on the same matter. Rotham offered a reward of one hundred guineas for the return of the parcel.

  It was earlier than the servants usually arose, but they were generally well treated at Ashmead and never objected to making an extra effort in times of crisis. Rotham, Pavel, and Miranda remained in the Blue Saloon, each wrapped up in his or her own thoughts. Rotham looked distraught, but Pavel, being innocent of wrongdoing, was ripe for more excitement.

  “The first order of business—after breakfast I mean—is to make a complete search of the house,” he said. “From attics to cellar, not a stone will be left unturned. You can leave that to me and Miranda, Rotham. I wager you have more important things to do.”

  “What else remains for me to do?” Rotham said, staring into the cold grate. “I have done a pretty good job of destroying myself and Papa—to say nothing of Berthier.”

  And if Bonaparte succeeded in winning, what hay he would make of this business. It was one thing for England to tweak France’s nose by running off with a national symbol, but the palm would go to Boney if he recovered it before any use had been made of it. He would put it on public exhibition in Paris, as he had done to inspire his army and the people in 1803 when he was planning his invasion of England. Now it would have an added luster. William the Conqueror had won England for the French. The parallel to be drawn was that England was not invincible; Bonaparte could do the same.

  Rotham had stolen the tapestry to prevent its being used in this way. Castlereagh, although he felt obliged to condemn the action, had been secretly thrilled. “By God, Rotham, you are the limit. Boney will not have it to rouse the fever of patriotism in his men this time around. He will look nohow when he finds we have got it. It is as big a coup as if the Frenchies had stolen the Domesday Book. Mind you, when Louis is back on the throne, we must return it in a private, secret way. Guard it with your life.”

  Castlereagh had said, “When Louis is back on the throne,” but of course, he realized as well as anyone that this was still a moot point. Now to have to face the foreign minister and admit the tapestry had been stolen . . . He would look not only a fool, but an incompetent besides. Bonaparte was advancing toward Paris. Any day now he would be sending off to the cathedral for the tapestry. What would he do when he discovered it was missing? No rumors of the theft had begun circulating yet.

  “So Miranda and I will conduct the search, then?” Pavel asked.

 
; “Yes, thank you, Pavel.” Rousing from his reverie, he turned to Miranda and added with a rueful smile, “And you, Miranda. I take it you know what you are looking for?”

  His voice had lost its buzzing arrogance. He looked sad and unutterably weary, with purple smudges beneath his eyes. Miranda felt an urge to comfort him, but with Pavel present, all she could do was smile consolingly.

  Pavel replied, “Oh, certainly, the old linen embroidery.”

  “That’s right. I forgot you managed a peek the night Miranda saw the Blue Lady and fainted so convincingly.”

  Rotham assumed they had not recognized the importance of “the old linen embroidery” and was in no hurry to reveal what it was.

  Miranda said, “You recall the comtesse and Laurent are leaving for Brighton today, Rotham. Will you search their trunks?”

  “Yes, and their rooms. Do it while they are at breakfast. Best have a look around the modiste’s room as well. And for God’s sake, be careful. Whoever is responsible for this did not hesitate to stab Berthier. Don’t let Miranda enter any of their rooms alone, Pavel. Best arm yourself with a pistol.”

  “By Jove!” Pavel said weakly. This was something like! He darted off to the Armaments Room at once for a pistol.

  “What I cannot understand is why Berthier opened the door,” Rotham said to Miranda, for this point kept nagging at him. “He knew the danger. He is experienced in this sort of work. He has done a few jobs for Castlereagh in the past, which is why I asked for his help at this time.”

  She was disappointed. She had hoped for some more personal sort of talk. “The key to your room is missing from your papa’s ring, you recall. Berthier had his pistol out, which suggests he was prepared for trouble. Whoever it was must have forced the door open and stabbed him before he could shoot.”

  “Yes, that could be it. Berthier would hesitate to shoot a lady, though it was not necessarily a lady. Someone might have listened at the door. Hearing nothing, he would assume Berthier and Slack were sleeping and take his chance. It was risky, but then the reward would have been great. He would be a hero in France.”

  “You thought it was a lady who hit you in the Green Room the other night. And tonight when you came in, you thought I was Louise, I think? You said, ‘So it is you, after all,’ in a disillusioned way.”

  “We cannot overlook the comtesse, certainly. She might hope to smuggle the tapestry out in one of her trunks going to Brighton. Mademoiselle Chêne might be involved as well.”

  “I shall search Louise’s trunks thoroughly.”

  “And her room, to insure she does not remove her clothing and put the tapestry in after you have searched.” He looked at Miranda’s eager face and knew he could not put her at risk.

  “Never mind. I shall risk Louise’s—and Laurent’s—wrath and have their trunks searched as they leave the house. In that way, you need not worry about them. It is too dangerous. I shall have their carriages searched as well, and set my groom to keep an eye on the stable.”

  “You do not want me to search their rooms, then?”

  “No, but you can check the attics and spare rooms along with Pavel. I feel sure the tapestry has already left the house via a window. I know I would get it safely away as soon as possible, if I were doing it.”

  “How did you steal it in France? It was taken from a cathedral, I think you mentioned?”

  “It was not even guarded. It was just hanging there for anyone to see, or take. I waited until nightfall, broke into the church, and walked off with it. Imagine, an heirloom like that being so poorly watched.”

  “I was imagining your breaking into a church. You really are the limit, Rotham,” she said, shaking her head.

  Pavel returned, carrying a charged pistol. “All set. Come along, Miranda. Let us grab a bite before we begin. Are you coming to breakfast, Rotham?”

  Rotham wanted to explain, to apologize for having robbed a church, but what excuse had he to offer? That he had been foxed hardly improved the situation.

  “I must wash up first and look in on Berthier,” he said.

  The others went off to the breakfast room. Rotham was reluctant to enter his bedchamber as it held the results of his wretched folly. He would turn the room over to Berthier for the nonce and remove to the Green Room. Makepiece announced no change in Berthier’s condition. At least he was not worse.

  After washing and putting on a clean shirt, Rotham went outdoors to make a complete circuit of the house in daylight, hoping to see some signs of disturbance beneath one of the windows. There had been no rain recently, however, and thus no moist earth to hold a footprint. He went to the stable and examined Louise’s carriage carefully. It held nothing it should not. As an afterthought, he checked out his own family’s carriages as well, again without finding the tapestry.

  “If anyone brings a large parcel to the stable, notify me at once,” he said to his groom. “I particularly want to see the Valdors’ trunks before they leave. Notify me if they are sent to the stable.”

  Laurent did not possess a carriage. Louise owned a carriage and team, but hired a driver. When she was visiting the Hershams, she dispensed with him as an economy measure and used one of Hersham’s grooms, so there would be no one to tell the Valdors their trunks had been searched.

  Of course, it was entirely possible the Valdors were innocent. Laurent was a nobleman after all, and this scheme did not strike Rotham as a female one. Besides, he did not see how they had discovered he had the tapestry. Was it possible Berthier had unwittingly let something slip and someone from outside had gotten in? Perhaps before the doors were locked for the night. Ashmead was a huge house. It would be possible for someone to hide in a corridor or vacant room for a few hours.

  Who was the woman who had been lurking in the Green Room? He did not think it was Louise.

  She wore a musky scent. He had not noticed it in the Green Room. It might have been Madame Lafleur—she had attended the rout. And she was friendly with both the Valdors and Berthier.

  While he performed his tasks, Miranda and Pavel conducted a thorough search of the attics. The dust had been disturbed in the first room, where the comtesse’s and Laurent’s trunks had been removed. Three rectangles of dustless wood showed where they had recently rested. The two larger trunks belonged to Louise, the slightly smaller one to Laurent, who, alas, did not possess an abundance of finery.

  A fine layer of dust covered the rest of the floor. It was clear at a glance that no one had been moving about the attics unless he had traveled on wings. Miranda pointed this out, but Pavel was not fooled by mere common sense.

  “He might have taken a flying leap, landing on that pile of awnings from last year’s fête champêtre,” he pointed out. A striped awning was indeed within range of, perhaps, a particularly agile gazelle. “From there it is a mere hop to that table with the broken leg. That would take him to the second room. Come along. I wager we will find the embroidery in the next room in one of the trunks.”

  “He would have broken his neck if he landed on that wobbly table,” Miranda said.

  “Perhaps he brought a bowl of dust up with him to scatter behind him when he was finished, thinking to fool us. Dashed sneak.”

  This, while patently absurd, was within the realm of possibility, and Miranda allowed herself to be talked into examining not less than four trunks. The contents provided a walk back through the pages of the eighteenth century. There were ladies’ sacques and gowns with hoops and panniers in a variety of rich colors and materials. There were quilted petticoats and stomachers made stiff with pasteboard. There were caps, tuckers, and neckerchiefs.

  Other trunks held gentlemen’s clothing. Moths flew out as Pavel lifted a gaudy red coat with a fitted waist and flared skirt. It had large cuffs, turned back and held with buttons. Another trunk held wigs, some of such an enormous size that Pavel said they would require a neck the size of a stovepipe to hold up the weight. After an hour they still had not found any faded linen embroidery.

  Th
e search was not a complete waste, however. Pavel found a dandy set of carved wooden soldiers from the days of Queen Anne and a small diamond cravat pin that had been discarded along with a cravat. Whoever had once owned it had obviously been dead for decades. “Finders, keepers,” he said, pocketing the diamond.

  When they returned to the bedroom floor, Mademoiselle Chêne was just leaving. She was allowed to go without having her wicker basket and bandbox searched as they were obviously too small to hold an embroidery that had filled a whole trunk.

  As Miranda had been told not to search the Valdors’ rooms, she and Pavel began searching the guest rooms. It was a tedious job. Clothespresses had to be ransacked, mattresses lifted, every tapestry—and there was scarcely a guest room without one—checked to see if another “tapestry” was hanging behind it. Beds had to be peered under, and any chest found had to be opened and searched.

  It was while they were in the Primrose Room that Louise came to see what was going forth. She found them emptying a blanket chest.

  “What on earth is going on, Pavel?” she demanded. “I have heard you racketing about in the attic above my room loud enough to wake up the corpses. Now you are searching all the bedchambers. Is it that you have lost something?”

  “Ah, Louise,” he said, smiling guiltily. “Wake up the corpses—you mean wake up the dead. Nothing of the sort, heh, heh. Just looking for treasure. You will never guess what we found in the attic. A diamond cravat pin.” He showed her the pin as proof of their innocence.

  “How it brings back memories. My Pierre had one like it,” she said, and went into one of her remembering trances. “What a charming ring it would make,” she said, recovering. “A lady’s ring,” she added, gazing at her hand to make her meaning clear.

  “An excellent notion, but I believe I shall wear it in my cravat instead,” Pavel replied.

  Miranda thought the comtesse looked more annoyed at losing out on the diamond than concerned at their search. “You give me the migraine,” she said, touching her index fingers to her two temples. “Try to be less noisome, s’il vous plait.” Then she gave her shoulders a Gallic shrug and left, muttering to herself. “Mon Dieu, ces enfants!”