Page 28 of Gentlemen of Honor (Bennet Gang Duology #2)

Knocking After Midnight

Lydia couldn’t sleep. Her mind whirled from Matthew’s ailment, to Lord Franklin holding a knife at her throat, to Mama’s crying, to Miss Hargreaves’ spite, to her sisters’ secretiveness all day, to Thomas’s disappearance and her sending the letters her stepfather had left, and back again. Everything that had happened since the arrival of the Hargreaves roiled through her mind, confusing, maddening, and an undeniable antithesis to rest.

She started upright when a knock sounded on the front door. Had she been asleep? Had she dreamed the assertive rapping?

Whoever it was knocked again.

Lydia flung back the covers. Grabbing a dressing gown as she passed, she left her bedroom. She shrugged into the garment as she made her way to the top of the stairs. She spared a glance down the hall, but no other doors opened.

Fastening her dressing gown, Lydia hurried down the staircase, pausing halfway as two footmen reached the front door. One of them sighted her. He nudged the other, causing him to turn to her as well. The knock came again.

Would Mary not come down the hall to join her? Matthew’s room was across from Lydia’s, facing the drive rather than the garden, and Mary would be with him.

“Miss, should we open it?” one of the footmen asked, looking up the staircase at her.

Startled to have her opinion sought, Lydia drew back her shoulders. “Yes. See who is there. Is it not past midnight?”

“It is, miss,” the other answered as he reached for the door.

A group of men stood without. She took in the familiar faces of Cousin Robert and Nathan Hargreaves…what was he doing here? As well as Colonel Forster and Captain Carter. Then Thomas stepped through the doorway.

“Thomas,” Lydia cried, racing the rest of the way down the steps as the others entered behind him. She flung her arms around her brother. “You’re here. You aren’t dead.” Tears filled her eyes as she permitted those words, ones she had not even dared think, to spill forth. She squeezed Thomas as hard as she could.

“Yew’r smfering me,” Thomas mumbled loudly.

Lydia released him. “What?” she asked, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“I said, you were smothering me.”

With a laugh, Lydia hugged him again. Over his shoulder, she took in the cluster of men and once more released her brother. Aiming her gaze at Cousin Robert, she asked, “What happened?”

“I believe it would be best if we rouse Mrs. Oakwood?” Colonel Forster said.

Lydia nodded. “I will fetch her,” she said, but made no move to do so. What would Elizabeth do? She would not simply run off calling for their mother.

Turning to the footmen, Lydia continued, “Please, ah, that is, take their outerwear and put them in the drawing room. Light the fire and candles and whatnot, and you had best rouse Mrs. Hill.” Turning back to Thomas, she wrinkled her nose. He was filthy. He’d probably got dirt on her dressing gown. “Do you want someone to fix you a bath?”

He nodded. “Yes, but first I will go to the drawing room.”

“And please make arrangements for a bath for Tommy,” Lydia said to the footmen before turning back to her brother. “You had better get a chair from the dining room. You’ll ruin Mama’s upholstery.”

“It’s only upholstery, Lydia. This is important.”

She shrugged and turned back to the men gathered by the front door. “I will fetch our mother.” She made to turn away.

Thomas caught her arm. “Don’t wake anyone else up. There is no reason to disturb the whole house.”

“A good idea,” Cousin Robert said quickly.

Lydia frowned at their intensity, but shrugged. “I will only wake Mama.”

Thomas and Cousin Robert exchanged glances, appearing relieved.

Shaking her head at her relations’ odd behavior, Lydia went back upstairs. Behind her, she could hear Colonel Forster giving Captain Carter orders regarding the men patrolling outside their house but she didn’t pause to listen. As she reached the top, Matthew’s door to her left, she realized that she could still tell Mary what was happening without having lied a moment ago. After all, Mary must certainly be awake already, and just not willing to leave her vigil .

Forgoing the adjoining sitting room, Lydia opened her younger brother’s bedroom door.

Nanny Hill slumbered in the chair beside Matthew’s bed.

Lydia blinked, looking around. There was no sign of Mary at all.

Suspicion mounting, she went next to Mary’s room to find it empty. Already suspecting they wouldn’t be there, she then checked Elizabeth’s and Jane’s. Lydia pursed her lips. All three of her sisters were missing.

They…they’d done it, hadn’t they? They’d found Thomas and freed him, just as Elizabeth had said she would. Did that mean they would have Matthew’s cure as well?

Pride and joy welled through her, tempered by only a little hurt at not being included. Her sisters were amazing. Was there nothing they couldn’t do?

Cousin Robert obviously knew they weren’t in their rooms, and Thomas did as well. To be certain he would, since they’d saved him. Even as dense as he was, he couldn’t fail to recognize his own sisters when they stood before him, even if they’d worn their Boney Bandit masks.

Abandoning her obviously fruitless search for her sisters, and hoping they could get back to their rooms unseen with so many people about, Lydia went to her mother’s room.

The fire in Mrs. Oakwood’s sitting room was banked, giving off only a faint glow. Lydia crept across, furnishings that were so familiar in the light of day looming large and eerie in the dead of night. She cracked open the door to her mother’s room. Inside was pitch black.

“Mama?” she called quietly. “Mama?”

Rustling sounded, then Mrs. Oakwood’s voice, thin and reedy with sleep and the misery weighing on her, called, “Hill? Hill, is that you?”

“It’s Lydia, Mama. I have good news.”

“G-good news? In the middle of the night?” More rustling came from the room, her mother sitting up in bed.

“Thomas is home. He’s been rescued.”

Silence met that.

“Mama?”

“Thomas is home?” Something akin to awe filled Mrs. Oakwood’s voice. “My Thomas has come back to me?”

Lydia frowned. Her mother was not truly awake, she realized. “Your son, Thomas Oakwood. He has been found, Mama.”

“Thomas?” her mother reiterated, her voice brighter, sharpening to something more like her usual tone. “Thomas is home? Do not just stand there, girl, light a candle. Help me find my dressing gown.”

“Yes, Mama.” Lydia scurried to the sitting room fireplace and the spill vase there. She lit two candles and carried them into her mother’s room to find Mrs. Oakwood sitting on the edge of the bed.

“There you are.” Excitement filled her mother’s voice. “My dressing gown.” She pointed to her wardrobe.

Lydia set down the candles and retrieved the garment. “There are gentlemen with him,” she warned as her mother stood. “Colonel Forster, and Cousin Robert, and Nathan Hargreaves.”

“A Hargreaves?” Mrs. Oakwood said the name like a curse. “What is a Hargreaves doing here?”

“I don’t know. I sent them to the drawing room and came to get you.” Lydia held up the dressing gown. “Will this do?”

“Certainly.” Mrs. Oakwood turned, letting Lydia help her into the garment. “I am not spending half the night dressing when my Thomas is waiting. I doubt any of the three will be too scandalized by a matron in her dressing gown, especially not some depraved Hargreaves.”

Lydia didn’t think Nathan was depraved. Her cheeks heated. He’d seen her in her dressing gown. Admittedly, so had Cousin Robert and Colonel Forster, but that somehow did not seem as terrible as Nathan seeing her this way. “Perhaps I should go change,” she murmured.

“Nonsense. Help me with these buttons.”

With quick fingers, she helped her mother, then Mrs. Oakwood crossed to snatch two shawls from her wardrobe. She thrust one at Lydia. “Wrap this about you as well. We are both presentable enough for such circumstances, and it is not as if you are one of your older sisters, out and seeking a husband. You are still a child, my dear, and be happy for it.”

Lydia was not happy for it, except that her mother wasn’t sending her away. Still, even though her thick dressing gown and her mother’s large shawl covered more of her than any of her gowns did, Lydia was very conscious of her state of undress as they hurried down to the drawing room.

The gentlemen rose when they entered, all bowing except for Thomas, who raced forward into their mother’s arms. She squeezed him to her with a loud sob, and didn’t let go. Cousin Robert, Nathan, and Colonel Forster began exchanging embarrassed looks. Thomas started mumbling.

“What are you saying?” Mama cried, not releasing him.

“He is saying that you are smothering him, Mama,” Lydia supplied helpfully.

“Oh.” She released him, but caught up one of his hands. She reached the other out to Lydia.

Surprised, Lydia took her mother’s hand.

Mrs. Oakwood drew them with her to her favorite sofa, sitting with Lydia on one side and Thomas on the other. Nor did she release them, clutching their hands tight. “Now, tell me what happened. Where has Thomas been?”

Sitting opposite them, Colonel Forster gestured to Thomas. “I believe the story starts with your son.”

Mrs. Oakwood turned to him.

Thomas flushed. “I did a foolish thing, and I am sorry. I did not mean to upset everyone.”

“What did you do?” Mrs. Oakwood asked.

Drawing in a deep breath, Thomas said, “Lord Franklin kept sending me letters saying that he would give me the cure for Matthew if I would come speak with him alone. He said we must come to an agreement without anyone interfering.” Thomas grimaced. “So I went, and he had a whole bunch of men waiting, and they tied me to a chair in an empty room and kept me there.”

The hand holding Lydia’s squeezed tighter. “I see,” their mother said. “You hoped to save your brother.”

“I did, but it was foolish to trust Lord Franklin, and to do what the note said and not tell anyone where I was going.”

“Especially when I asked you what was in those notes,” Lydia snapped, angry that her brother could be so...so…

“You knew about them?” Mrs. Oakwood turned narrowed eyes on her.

Lydia shrank back. “Only that they were delivered by a man in Hargreaves’ livery and that Thomas burned them and wouldn’t say what was in them.” She grimaced. When she said it all, it sounded like a great deal of things that she’d known.

“You should have told me,” her mother said firmly.

Rather than point out how distraught her mother had been, how much she hadn’t wanted to add more burdens, Lydia dropped her gaze to their clasped hands. “Yes, Mama.”

“What happened next?” Mrs. Oakwood said crisply.

“I was there for days, and they almost never gave me food.” Thomas rubbed at his stomach, grimacing. “Then, tonight, the Boney Bandits burst in, and they fought all those men, and they freed me. They were setting a trap for Lord Franklin, to demand the antidote, when he arrived and Nathan, who’d followed him, pulled out a pistol and demanded that I be freed. He didn’t know I was already free and hiding in the woods with the bandits. ”

Warmth washed through Lydia. Nathan had decided to do what was right. He’d tried to save Thomas.

“You?” Mrs. Oakwood demanded, glaring down her nose at Nathan.

“I-I could not stand by while my brother and sister murdered your sons,” Nathan said softly, looking down at his hands. “But I am afraid I could not secure the antidote for what Franklin gave to Master Matthew. I searched his rooms, but I believe he destroyed it.”

Mrs. Oakwood gasped, her grip on Lydia’s hand spasming.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” Lydia said quickly. “Colonel Fitzwilliam has gone to get more. He will be back soon.”

That earned several surprised looks.

“Then he was never going to give me the cure,” Thomas said angrily.

“But he might have given it to me, had I not been so stubborn.” Addressing Colonel Forster, Mrs. Oakwood continued, “Miss Hargreaves offered to have Thomas released and Matthew cured if I signed away my sons’ rights to their grandfather’s title.”

“Did you sign?” Cousin Robert asked, sounding worried.

Mrs. Oakwood shook her head, her face pinched, the dark rings under her eyes in stark contrast to her pallor. “I did not trust that she told the truth.”

“We sent her away,” Lydia said, still proud of her role in doing so.

“Yes, well, after Nathan arrived, Colonel Forster and his men arrived,” Thomas said, picking back up his story. “The bandits left then.”

“Slunk away into the night,” Colonel Forster muttered.

“I do not understand.” Mrs. Oakwood looked from face to face. “If you knew where Thomas was, why did you not go sooner, Colonel?”

“I did not know. Not until Mr. Collins woke me.”

“The bandits came to Longbourn,” Cousin Robert said quickly. “They roused the household, then threw a knife with a note wrapped around it into the door. It told me to summon Colonel Forster and his men and make all haste to the farm where Thomas was being held.”

“We apprehended eight incapacitated ruffians,” Colonel Forster added. “All bound and nearly all unconscious when we arrived, as well as Lord Franklin, left in a similar state. I am afraid he has also received a severe injury to his right hand.”

Nathan’s head jerked up, his eyes wide. “He was threatening to kill me. One of the bandits shot the pistol right out of his hand.”

Colonel Forster cleared his throat. “Yes, well, we will see what Lord Franklin has to say for himself once he is awake and has been seen to by Mr. Jones. ”

To Lydia, the colonel seemed nervous. Was he afraid of Lord Franklin?

“I do not care what excuses that man gives,” Mrs. Oakwood declared. “He should be hanged for what he has done to my boys. Him and his sister.”

Clearing his throat again, Colonel Forster looked anywhere but at Lydia’s mother.

Before his lack of reply could become too noticeable, light footsteps in the hall made them all turn, and Jane and Mary rushed in, fully dressed. Lydia was finally freed of her mother’s grip and her older sisters hugged Thomas. Then, the story began again, until Thomas complained that he was very hungry. Mrs. Oakwood rang for food, and ordered that a bath be readied for Thomas, only to be told that Lydia had already ordered one, which earned her a grateful smile from her mother. The mood was only soured when Mary asked after the antidote, filling everyone with fresh worry.

At least, for the others, that seemed to be the only worry. For Lydia, there was a second. The absence of one of her older sisters. Kitty was always a heavy sleeper, and likely had yet to be roused by the commotion in the house, but where was Elizabeth? Jane and Mary seemed cheerful enough, but Lydia would not be content until she knew.