Page 47 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Loughrigg Tarn

D ora sealed her letter which she’d addressed to Susan at their office in London.

It was frustrating how long it would take to get a reply, from postbag to mail coach to London to a messenger and finally to the recipient four days later, but the step had to be taken if Moss didn’t have the answers.

If Knotte had been in town when Leyburn was attacked, it still gave him time to get to the Lakes for the ball at Rydal Hall.

She paused over that thought. Had he attended the ball?

No one had mentioned him. The maids had talked about the fair curly-haired fellow who diddled with a married woman in the summer house, but that had sounded most like Langhorne.

They’d called him ‘the ram’, which might be a pun on his surname– ‘long horn’– and they’d giggled about him rutting with the guest with her bent over the marble bench.

Now Dora thought more on the subject, it was unlikely Luke Knotte had suitable clothes to attend a society ball.

He could well have left the area to avoid the embarrassment.

She wished now she’d had more time to question Barton on the movements of his friends.

As if the thought of the missing man summoned messengers, there came an urgent banging on the kitchen door. In a departure from country customs, she’d bolted the entrance to add a level of security while the men were away.

‘Who is it?’ called Ruby, going to open it. ‘Is that the delivery from the inn?’

‘Wait!’ Dora jumped up from the desk but didn’t reach the kitchen in time to stop her friend.

As Ruby opened the door, Hartley and Derwent rushed into the room.

‘Manners, boys!’ grumbled Ruby, brushing off the dirt she imagined they left on her skirts. It was true that they looked like they could do with a bath in the tarn.

‘Miss Fitz-Pennington, we saw him!’ said Hartley, eyes wide with excitement.

‘Saw who?’ asked Ruby. ‘With that level excitement, I hope it is at least Walter Scott, or Princess Charlotte.’

Dora gestured them to sit at the kitchen table and fetched a plate of biscuits from the pantry. ‘Take a breath and tell me all about it.’ She added two cups and a jug of water. Ruby helped herself to two biscuits, leaving only one apiece for the boys.

‘What?’ she said when she noticed their hostile looks. ‘I’m eating for two.’

‘There’s more in the pantry,’ said Dora, moving quickly to make peace between Ruby and the boys. ‘Tell me what you know.’

Hartley swallowed his oatcake. ‘We’ve been watching, like you said.’

‘Oh, that’s not…’ She had assumed they would understand to stay out of trouble what with the warnings about what had been going on. ‘Boys, I really think it’s too dangerous?—’

Hartley waved an impatient hand. ‘We were careful, Miss Fitz-Pennington.’

‘We were trackers. Like Iroquois Indians,’ said Derwent.

‘Those two officers are boring,’ said Hartley, aping a yawn.

‘They’ve been standing outside the cottage at Town End like they’re guarding the Crown Jewels,’ agreed Derwent. ‘Taking it in turns. But they never saw us.’

Perhaps she needn’t wait for word from Grasmere when she had her own carrier pigeons bringing the news to her? ‘And what of Mr Wright?’

‘Mrs Ashburner thinks he’s sinking, like a ship.’

‘She means she thinks he’s dying,’ said Hartley bluntly.

‘Yes, I understood that.’ Dora pushed that aside– there was nothing she could do to save the poor man. If Jacob was unable to help him, she certainly couldn’t. ‘Go on.’

‘That Mr Moss is a slippery fellow. He caught us watching and boxed my ear,’ said Hartley, rubbing the offended spot.

‘We did tell you he was an ally.’

‘Some ally,’ grumbled Hartley. ‘Allies don’t go boxing ears. Anyway, we said we were going to watch Mr Langhorne if he was there, but Mr Moss told us it wasn’t decent. Mr Langhorne had an assig-something?—’

‘Assignation,’ supplied Dora.

‘With Sally from the Rush Bearing.’

‘Ooo, finally some gossip!’ said Ruby, perking up. ‘What’s she like?’

‘Not as pretty as you, miss,’ said Derwent.

‘Is she well-endowed?’ Ruby made a gesture for full breasts. ‘Men like that.’

‘Ruby!’ snapped Dora. ‘Not appropriate.’

‘Lord, you are a bore sometimes, Dora.’

‘Go do something more interesting somewhere else then.’ She turned back to the boys. Ruby didn’t leave the table. ‘So you didn’t follow Mr Langhorne. That leaves…?’

‘Mr Knotte,’ said Hartley. Dora’s heart picked up its pace. ‘That’s what we came to say. He’s acting funny. He took Mr Barton’s boat out on the lake and we followed him along the shore. And guess where he went?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Windermere was miles long.

‘Chapel Holm!’

‘Chapel Holm?’

‘It’s near Birthwaite.’

She remembered Jacob telling her that a holm was an islet or peninsula. ‘Can you walk to it?’

‘No. You need a boat.’

‘And you need money to hire a boat, if you can’t steal one,’ said Derwent, looking hopefully at her.

Thankfully they were penniless– or they would’ve gone after him themselves. She shuddered at the risks they had taken so innocently thinking to help her.

‘What’s on Chapel Holm?’

Hartley shrugged. ‘Not much. There are the ruins of an old chapel to Our Lady. We think he went there. Nowhere else to go.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘No, we watched for ages– but then he left and took the boat out further into the lake. We lost sight of him, so we turned about and came to fetch you.’

‘Visiting an island isn’t a sign of anything nefarious,’ she said aloud, more to herself than her visitors.

‘Maybe not farious, but we think it is very suspicious,’ said Hartley.

‘Why?’ asked Ruby.

‘He carried in a bundle and didn’t come back with it.’ Hartley grinned. ‘We think he was leaving something behind he didn’t want anyone to find. If we’re quick, we can discover what it is before he goes back for it.’

* * *

Dora was facing a dilemma. She had given her word she wouldn’t go out, but it seemed that if she was going to take advantage of what the boys had discovered, that needed to be done at once.

Ruby followed her into her bedroom and watched her change into her breeches. ‘You’re leaving me again, aren’t you?’

‘Ruby, I’m going to need you to give my apologies to Jacob.

’ Dora put a skirt over the top to hide the trousers.

As a last-minute thought, she went to the needlework box and drew out a steel knitting needle and slipped it down beside the central wooden support in her stays.

One never knew. ‘Explain what happened and why I had to go. I’ll be careful and I’m in the company of the boys.

No one is likely to try anything with two witnesses at hand.

With any luck, I might even be back before Jacob returns. ’

‘What about me?’

‘Eat biscuits. Make some more soup. Don’t let anyone in that you don’t know.’

Ruby went to the mirror and brushed a stray curl behind her ear. Her eyes met Dora’s in the reflection. ‘You will take care, won’t you? This isn’t fun anymore. People are getting hurt.’

Dora went to her friend and gave her a gentle hug. ‘Look after yourself and the child you’re carrying.’

‘I’m scared, Dora.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘I thought the viscount might come back for me. He said he was considering it, that he could find a place for the child when she grew on one of his estates, that wasn’t a problem, but he’s vanished. What if you vanish too?’

Dora doubted Jacob’s brother would keep his word, not when it was simpler to ride away and forget the complication that was Ruby. ‘Jacob and I have agreed we will make sure you are comfortably situated so don’t get anxious about the future.’

‘It’ll be just my luck that you both get killed by this mad person and I’ll be alone again.’ She pulled a wry expression. ‘Sorry.’

Dora chuckled. That was the Ruby she knew and loved in her own maddening way. ‘I’ll be careful and promise that no crazed person will take me down. Not today.’

Ruby accompanied her to the door where the boys were anxiously waiting. ‘The problem is that no one plans to allow that to happen to them. It just does, particularly when they’re like you and run straight into danger.’

‘It’s the only way I know how to live.’

* * *

Dora was having second thoughts by the time they reached Waterhead and the boatyard.

‘Perhaps you two had better stay behind,’ she said as the boat owner readied the little skiff for her.

‘No, miss, we’re coming,’ said Derwent. ‘You don’t know the way. There’s lots of islands.’

‘It will be quicker with us,’ said Hartley.

Her thoughts went back to the cottage and the duelling pistols Jacob travelled with. Should she have brought one of those with her? Too late to go back now.

‘If we see another boat already there, we sail past, agreed?’

The boys nodded, though she wasn’t sure their easy acquiescence could be trusted.

They were burning with curiosity– and so was she.

What did Knotte have on the island? The other skate?

A copy of Wordsworth’s poem? He would’ve had time to make his own transcript– that might be why he returned the original notebooks.

They had to know. It could be the break they had been waiting for.

Deciding not to backtrack on her decision but press forward, she paid the boat keeper and promised to return the skiff in a few hours.

‘Good day for it,’ said the keeper. ‘Lots of visitors out today.’ He threw Derwent the end of the rope that he’d untied. ‘Take care if you land in any of the woods. I heard a couple of shots earlier, though it’s a few days early for the grouse season.’

‘We’re planning to tour the islands,’ said Dora, thinking it as well to leave word of their intentions.

‘Boys, look after the lady as she’s giving you a treat,’ said the man, eyeing the two Coleridge boys with distrust.

‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Hartley.

Derwent saluted.

‘Get on with you!’ The boatman dismissed them with a gruff laugh.

The boys proved to be more reliable sailors than Barton, handling the small sail and the rudder with ease. Dora had little to do but admire their skills.

‘Who taught you to sail?’ she asked as they skipped along towards the cluster of islands four miles south of the head of the lake.

‘Uncle Robert,’ said Hartley. ‘We learned on Derwent Water.’

‘Not your father?’

Hartley chuckled but then sobered quickly. He looked over at her a little sadly. ‘Father isn’t a practical fellow.’

‘He’d likely drown,’ agreed Derwent.

‘Uncle William and Aunty Dorothy are also good sailors and taught us a lot.’ Hartley shifted the rudder a fraction. ‘Uncle John taught them, but he went down with his ship when I was little.’

Dora remembered that there had been a seafaring brother of the poet, now honoured with a headstone in Grasmere churchyard next to Catherine. ‘Did you hear anything about Mr Knotte’s father?’

‘He drowned too, didn’t he, but not that long ago?’ said Hartley, confirming Knotte’s story. ‘We got a lecture at school about the danger of swimming too soon after a meal. You remember him, don’t you, Derwent, the shepherd at Loughrigg?’

‘I liked Mr Knotte.’

‘You knew him?’ asked Dora.

‘Everyone knows everyone else in the valley. He let me play with his lambs. We were all sad when he died.’

‘Do you remember if his son was home at the time?’ asked Dora.

Hartley shrugged. ‘Sorry, miss. No one ever said he was but that doesn’t mean much, does it?’

It didn’t– and he was right. All she had learned was that no one suspected foul play at the time because the boys would likely remember that.

The islands approached. These were tree-covered hillocks strung like a green-gemmed necklace across the narrowest part of the lake.

‘Which is Chapel Holm?’ she asked.

‘The first one. It’s not very exciting, not like Longholme. That one’s got a temple on it,’ said Derwent.

‘It’s not a temple, silly. It’s the Curwens’ house,’ said Hartley with all the superiority his extra years allowed.

‘But it’s got a dome!’

‘But the point is, boys,’ said Dora, playing peacemaker again, ‘that the island we are interested in has no inhabitants? We’re not going to get turned off by an angry landowner?’

‘No!’ Hartley scoffed. ‘It’s so small, it’s hardly worth bothering with.’

‘And yet someone built a chapel on it?’

‘Ages ago.’

‘All ruined now,’ agreed Derwent as their destination neared and she could see only thick woods and no buildings.

‘If I had an island, I’d choose Longholme. Derwent, get going.’ With this brisk order, the younger boy grabbed a rope and jumped over the side.

‘What!’ protested Dora, seeing her youngest charge go under– and bob up again.

‘It’s not got a dock. You have to tie up to a tree,’ explained Hartley. ‘This is the easiest way. Derwent can pull us in.’

Accepting she was in the hands of the local experts, she piped down. There were no other boats in sight, but she didn’t know how long they had to search. If she made a fuss, she’d only slow them down.

Hartley lowered the sail while Derwent made fast the boat. The smooth place on the overhanging bough suggested this wasn’t the first time it had been put to such use. Hartley looked at Dora, then looked at the gap between boat and shore, and bit his lip.

‘Miss, do you need a hand? I don’t think I can carry you.’

With a sigh, Dora got up, wriggled out of her skirt to reveal the breeches underneath, and clambered up onto the branch. Finding her balance, she stood up on it and walked to the shore. The boys gaped at her in admiration.

‘Oh, good-o!’ cried Derwent.

‘You’re nothing like our mother,’ said Hartley. ‘I mean that as a compliment.’

Pleased to have delighted the boys, she brushed off her hands. ‘Lead me to the chapel, Mr Coleridge. Let’s find out what’s been hidden.’