Caleb stood in the doorway and watched the sky darken.
ALISTAIR, too, was studying the sky, as the horizon began swallowing the sun.
Mirabel watched him. At a respectful distance, her search party waited. She had told them to rejoin her here at sunset. At the time, she’d assumed they would have found Papa long before now. At present, she saw no choice but to give up for the day and let everyone go home. They were all tired and hungry. The others would be able to eat and sleep. She would try to do so, for her father’s sake. She would try to wake tomorrow refreshed and hopeful.
Alistair turned to her. “The sky has cleared considerably,” he said. “The moon will be up in a few hours. It isn’t quite full, but it will give some light. I suggest we use the interval to eat and rest. An hour’s nap will do a world of good. I asked Mrs. Entwhistle to prepare provisions. Someone should be here soon with baskets of food. Those who choose to return to their homes may at least do so on a full stomach.”
“You mean to continue?” Mirabel said. “To search through the night?”
“Yes, since we shall have some moonlight,” he said.
Then she remembered: his friend had searched for him at night. Had Gordmor not done so, Alistair would not be here at this moment, so sure and confident. While she listened to him, her own flagging spirits lifted.
He was so certain, it was impossible to doubt.
He rode over to the group of men and told them the nighttime strategy. They would divide into two groups. One group would remain. The others would return home, get a good night’s rest, and rejoin them as the sun came up. At that time—if Mr. Oldridge had not yet been found—those who’d searched through the night would return home and get their rest.
The provisions arrived as he finished his short speech. He rejoined Mirabel. The men made quick work of their food, then divided themselves into two groups.
Mirabel watched from where she sat with him, upon a large, flattish rock. “They are so orderly,” she said, watching the mysteriously chosen half depart. “Like soldiers. I could not believe it when you left it to them.”
“Why are you surprised?” he said. “You know I am irresistibly charming.”
“I think it is something greater and deeper than charm,” she said. “I think you are a born leader.”
He withdrew a sandwich from the heavy basket, cut it in half, and gave half to her. “Yes, that, too.” His voice dropped to the lowest rumble as he added, “I led you astray with very little difficulty.”
“I beg to differ,” she said. “It was I who led you astray. Pray do not forget who made the first move. Pray recollect who was first to disrobe. On more than one occasion.” She bit into the half sandwich.
“That was all part of my diabolical plan,” he said.
“I can almost believe that,” she said. “You are a gifted planner. I hadn’t considered whether we’d have moonlight or not. I didn’t think of ordering provisions. I didn’t think of dividing up our search party.”
“I had plenty of time to work out a strategy on the way here,” he said. “I hadn’t an army of attendants to deal with. I did not have to work out how to coddle the vanity of both Captain Hughes and Sir Roger—two men accustomed to ordering others about—and try to guess which assignment would best please them. Furthermore, as much as I like Mr. Oldridge, he is not my father. I have not your attachment and cannot feel as deeply as you do. It is easier for me to view the situation with a degree of objectivity impossible for you. Do stop criticizing yourself and eat your sandwich.”
Mirabel ate, though she didn’t want to. Later, when he put down blankets for her, she rested, though she couldn’t sleep. She closed her eyes and listened to his voice as he talked quietly to some of the men. She could not hear what he said, but the sound of his deep voice comforted her.
She must have fallen asleep, because the next she knew, he was rumbling her name. She opened her eyes and saw first the moon, not quite full, but bright, then him.
His expression was very grave.
She came full awake then, and was up and upon her feet in an instant. “What’s wrong?” she said. “What’s happened?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “What do you know of a man named Caleb Finch?”
Nineteen
CALEB Finch considered himself a peaceable man, who never raised a hand against his fellows. He’d much rather outwit his fellows or trade favors.
At the moment, though, he had a powerful urge to dash Mr. Oldridge’s skull against a rock.
He’d been rattling on for the last hour about some tree that grew in some cannibal country in Africa or China or one of them godless places, and didn’t seem like he was anywhere near the end of it.
Caleb couldn’t put an end to it, because Jackson was there. He’d come back minutes before the inky blue sky blotted out the last streaks of sunset.
“Kœmpfer said, ‘Sed hœc arbor ex Daphneo sanguine non est,’ ” Mr. Oldridge said. “It is most definitely not of the Laurus genus, but Dryobalanops, as Gœrtner declared. However, Mr. Colebrook proposes to name it Dryobalanops camphora, rather than D. aromatica. The trouble is, he is not a botanist, and his description is not altogether satisfactory. Furthermore, the specimens he received did not survive the cold weather, and he had only the seeds upon which to base his conclusions.”
Caleb turned his scowl upon Jackson. “I been listening to that the livelong day. You going to give him some medicine or let him turn us both into drooling bedlamites, like him?”
Jackson poured a glass of wine and added a stingy dose of laudanum to it. He set it down on the table in front of the prisoner. “Best drink it down, sir,” Jackson said. “We’re going to be traveling, and it’ll make you more comfortable.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Oldridge. “We shall be dining soon, I trust?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve ordered a hamper for the carriage.”
“A hamper.” Caleb rolled his eyes. “And gold plates for him to eat off of, I suppose.”
Mr. Oldridge raised the glass and mumbled something about old friends and sons-in-law, and drank it down.
When the glass was empty, Jackson turned a narrow look on Caleb. “Don’t be making those martyr faces at me,” the agent said in a low voice. “You’ve caused enough trouble, with not waiting for orders, and rushing everything. I said you were too hasty, didn’t I? Do you know they’re already looking for him?”
“She started out for London straight after the meeting, you told me,” Caleb said. “They couldn’t’ve got word to her so quick. Not to mention that no one there’d sneeze without she said so.”
It was almost a hundred fifty miles to London, a fifteenhour journey at least—and that was mail coach style: pushing the horses, and quick changes en route, and hardly a stop to drink or eat or empty your bladder. A private carriage bearing ladies—and them with a train of servants and baggage—would need days.
By the time the household took alarm, Miss Hussy would be in Town. Caleb had worked it all out beforehand.
“Mr. Oldridge is like clockwork, I’m told,” Jackson said. “When he missed his dinner, the butler took fright and straightaway sent for the mistress.”
The messenger caught up with her before dawn at the inn where she stopped for the night, Jackson went on. Meanwhile, the whole neighborhood started searching for Mr. Oldridge at daybreak.
“If you’d waited, the way master wanted, until she reached London, we’d have time,” Jackson said. “But you didn’t wait, and now we’ve barely half a day’s start of them. Thanks to you, half of Derbyshire knows he’s gone. We’ll have to set out right away and travel this fiendish mountain in the dead of night—and pray they’re too cautious to try the same. And if we end up in pieces at the bottom of a ravine, we’ll have you to thank for it.”
Caleb pretended to look chastened. The truth was, Longledge Hill didn’t frighten him, even though this was the steepest and rockiest part of it. He’d grown up in the Peak and wasn’t afraid of its hills and dales, summer or winter, day or night. There’d be an accident, all right, he thought. But he wasn’t the one who’d end up in pieces.
MIRABEL told Alistair about her experience with Caleb Finch as they slowly made their way to the far end of Longledge Hill, toward Lord Gordmor’s coal mines.
Their destination was the result of conjecture, which in turn was based largely on rumors—one article the dry limestone hills produced in abundance. One of the women who’d helped carry provisions from Oldridge Hall said she’d seen a tall scarecrowlike fellow, who looked like Caleb Finch, skulking near her neighbor’s milk shed early Wednesday morning.