The Captain's Return

“What is it? Tell me at once, lunkhead, or I’ll have your guts for garters!”

Weem grinned cheekily, arms akimbo over the rough serge coat he had donned by way of disguise, together with a slouch hat now crushed in one hand.

“Lunkhead, is it? And me an intelligence agent of the highest order!”

Captain Colton started threateningly across the room, and his batman threw up a hand in surrender.

“Keep yer hair on, guv’nor. I mean to tell you it all, yer know that.”

“Then cut line! I’m in no mood for your funning.”

From the window opposite, the Captain’s brother broke in. “Have patience, Hal. After all, you’ve waited three years and more. A couple of minutes can’t make much difference.”

It made a deal of difference to Hal. And it had been by no wish of his that the intervening years had furnished no news of Annabel Howes. Ever since that appalling night, when their last hideous quarrel had culminated in his losing all claim to call himself a gentleman, the Captain had spared no pains to try to make all right. Despite being recalled to Spain, and leaving with his regiment the very next morning.

Annabel had resisted his every attempt to contact her. His letters had been returned unopened. Twice he had spent his hard-earned leave of absence in fruitless searching. Twice he had been turned away by old Benjamin Howes—first in London, and again at the family estates. No surprise there. Howes had been against him almost from the start, causing Annabel to break off their engagement.

Then had come this windfall, an estate bequeathed to him by his godfather. It was a modest place, but with a decent enough income derived from rents to encourage Captain Colton to sell out. He and his brother had driven across to look it over, travelling in the old-fashioned phaeton he had left at the family home during his long absence. It was, he averred, in good enough condition for general use.

“I’m not wasting my blunt on a new one yet a while.”

But horses were another matter. He had brought his own and Weem’s mounts back from the Peninsula, but a pair had to be purchased to go between the shafts of the phaeton. He had chosen to try their paces on this journey, rather than make it in his brother’s flashy new curricle.

Weem had followed his master on horseback from the Colton estates some fifty miles distant. His batman had known full well how important was this news to him!

“Well, Weem?”

The batman glinted up at him engagingly. “It ain’t so bad as you think, guv’nor. The lady was married, but seemingly she’s a widow.”

A huge weight rolled off Hal’s chest. He gave Weem a light buffet. “Rascal! I ought to darken your daylights!”

“Then you wouldn’t nowise hear the rest of it, guv’nor.”

Edward Colton strolled over to his brother’s side. In bearing, no two men could be more dissimilar. His frock-coat of mulberry was cut rather for comfort than for elegance. His boots were serviceable, his cravat neat, and he was as countrified as the Captain was military.

“What is the rest of it, Weem? You’re being damned mysterious!”

The Captain turned his head, and the June sun, slanting in from the window, glinted off his bright curling locks. “It’s his stock in trade, Ned. The fellow’s a sly trickster and should have been locked up years ago. I don’t know why I bear with him.”

“’Acos I gets results, that’s why, guv’nor. Does yer want to hear what I’ve got to say, or not?”

He neatly dodged a large avenging hand, and slid out of reach, cackling. But upon the Captain’s promising signal vengeance presently, he desisted and gave forth his tale.

Hal listened with growing dismay as he heard that Annabel was living in a quiet style, in a rural backwater somewhere in Northamptonshire. The village, Steep Ride, was apparently tiny, and the cottage Annabel was inhabiting was one of only three houses of any size in the immediate neighbourhood.

“She lives in a cottage? What the devil was this fellow she married—a pauper?”

“It’s by way of being on the large side for a cottage, guv’nor, judging by those o’ the labouring men roundabouts. But the lady’s place goes by the name of End Cottage.”

“Cottage!” reiterated Hal disgustedly. “In the back of beyond, too!”

“No such thing, guv’nor,” protested the batman. “Plenty o’ what you might call society round about. Only this here Steep Ride is the smallest o’ the villages. Though there’s the big house, in an estate owned by a nob by the name o’ Tenison. And o’ course in the middle there’s this Abbey what everyone talks of where that there markiss were murdered.”

“Murdered?” A sudden, if irrational, fear for Annabel caught at Hal’s chest.

“Happened only a week or two back. Not that no one round there is cryin’ over him. A bad ’un he were, they say, be he never so much a markiss.”

“Lord, is he talking of Sywell?” cut in Mr Colton.

“What do you mean, Ned?”

“What’s the name you said, Weem? Steep something?”

“Steep Ride, sir.”

“Then it must be the same. Steepwood Abbey was Sywell’s seat. Lord, Hal, it’s the most appalling scandal! The whole town was talking of it. Not that it’s anything new. The fellow has been notorious for years.”

Captain Colton frowned deeply. “I’ve never heard of him.”

His brother waved this aside. “You’ve been more or less out of the country for the last seven years. I’m telling you, there’s been the devil’s own work in Steepwood. First Sywell’s wife ran away. That was a few months back. Disappeared without trace, and had half the tabbies rumouring that he’d killed her. Then it was found there was gold missing. And now the fellow’s been slashed to pieces in his own bedchamber!”

Hal breathed somewhat heavily. “And this is where Annabel is living! What in Hades was the fellow about to bring her to such a hole?”

“What fellow?”

“This fellow she married. Lett, or whatever his name is.” The Captain paused, arrested by a sudden thought. “Wait a minute. Why does that name ring a bell?”

“Does it?”

“There’s something about it.” He pondered it in his mind. Had he heard it before? Was it possible he had known Annabel’s husband? “Who was Lett, Weem? Did you find out anything about him?”

“Seemingly he was of our cut, guv’nor.”

“You mean he was a soldier?”

“Aye. Nor he ain’t chose Steep Ride for his missus.”

Edward Colton leaned back against the wall, where clung remnants of a brocaded paper, faded and peeling. “What in the world is he talking about, Hal? And if Lett was an army man, you might well have met him.”

Hal shook his head, intent upon his batman. “What do you mean, he didn’t choose Steep Ride?”

Weem shrugged. “Seemingly the lady and the babe come there after he was killed.”

“Babe?”

A sudden dread premonition seized Captain Colton. He reached out an unsteady hand to grasp at his brother’s shoulder, but his blue-grey eyes were fixed on his batman.

Weem was looking smug. “Ah. Wondered as how you’d take that bit of it, guv’nor. Nor you won’t like it when I tells you that this here babe has a noddle o’ red hair.”