tea and Judith passed out the nutty buns. James said, “Our grandmother adores these nutty buns. Oh dear, Corrie, you will have to gird your loins; she’s nasty, she will malign you, given no encouragement at all, but you know that, she’s gone at you often enough. But now that you’ll be one of the family-it doesn’t bear thinking about how she will treat you.”
Judith stopped chewing her bun. “Your grandmother will be unkind to Corrie? How very odd. Why ever for?”
Jason laughed. “You don’t know our grandmother, Judith. She dislikes every female who’s ever had the misfortune to swim into her pond, including our mother, including her own daughter, including Corrie, who is, I understand, an abomination or something of the sort.”
Corrie shuddered. James patted her hand, and said, his voice thoughtful and low, “I’ve been thinking that maybe we should live in a lovely house I own in Kent.”
“Where did you get a house in Kent?”
“It’s one of father’s lesser houses, one built by the first Viscount Hammersmith.”
She took a bite of her nutty bun and licked her lips. “Where is it?”
“Near the village of Lindley Dale, right on the Elsey River.”
She finished off her bun, licked her lips again, this time James watching her tongue, wanting suddenly to lick her. Her throat, her left elbow, her belly-he had to get hold of himself.
She said, “Does it have a name?”
“Yes. Primrose House. It’s not big and grand like Northcliffe Hall, but it would be ours, hopefully for a very long time since I don’t wish to see either my father or my mother depart this earth until the next century.”
Corrie simply couldn’t imagine living with this man. Living with him at Primrose House. Just the two of them. Goodness, she was used to living with Aunt Maybella and Uncle Simon.
Living with James? She thought of her last kiss and his tongue in her mouth, licked her lips again, met his eyes, and flushed to her hairline.
“I believe,” James said slowly, his eyes on her mouth, “that I want to know exactly what you’re thinking.”
At that moment, Willicombe ran into the room. “My lord, Master Jason, come quickly! Quickly!”
Corrie beat all of them out of the drawing room. She ran through the open front door, stopped short on the top step, and stared.
There was her soon-to-be father-in-law standing over an unconscious man wrapped in a huge black cloak, rubbing his fist, Remie standing near, his right foot planted on the back of another man, this one burly and unkempt, who was moaning and twitching.
Douglas looked up and grinned. He rubbed his fist again and said, “That was fun.”
James and Jason ran to their father and Remie, and stared down at the two men. James said, “Who are these men, sir? Do you know them?”
“Oh no,” Douglas said cheerfully. “Remie spotted them lurking across the square.”
“Aye,” said Remie. “His lordship decided we’d let them come to us, which they did, the bloody fools. Your father thinks we’ll have a nice chat when the bastards get their brains working again.” He kicked the man, who moaned again, shuddered, then didn’t move.
Douglas leaned down and hauled the man he’d flattened to his feet. He slapped his face, once, twice, shook him. “Come on, open your eyes and look me in the face.” He shook him again.
There was a sudden blur of movement. Without thought, Jason knocked Remie out of the way, kicked out with his foot and knocked the gun out of the man’s hand who’d just come around a bush, that gun aimed at the earl. He grabbed the man’s hair, lifted his head, and sent his fist into his jaw.
He looked up at his father. “He came very fast. That makes three of them now. James, are these three the same men who kidnapped you?”
James shook his head. “I’ve never seen these three before.”
The man Douglas still had about the neck said in a whine that made Corrie want to kick him, “We ain’t meant nothin’, milord, jess wanted to snag a couple of groats.”
Remie said as he dusted off his livery, “I think I would like to speak to these two, my lord, maybe open up their heads a little, see what falls out.”
“We’ll both do it, Remie.”
A boy’s voice said from behind Judith, “I seen ’em, milord, speaking to a cove, er, man, over on the other side of the square. A big man, wot was, er, were wearing a hat and a greatcoat.”
James turned to Freddie, whose English had improved within the past week, although he’d heard the boy muttering that “wot were wrong wi’ the way I speaks anyways,” when he’d been informed that he was going to be educated. It was Willicombe who taught Freddie two hours a day.
“Well done, Freddie. Let’s you and I go over to where you spotted this man and see if we can find any clues.”
“Lawks,” said Freddie, and patted his trousers, straightened his sleeve, presented James a proud pose in his beautiful new livery. “Let’s be off then, my lord. We’ll find somethin’, er, something.”
“Yes, hurry, both of you,” the earl said. “Now, I think these two fine specimens should spend some time in our stable, if you don’t think they’ll upset the horses.”
Remie and Jason bore the men off, and Douglas went in to write a note to Lord Gray, a gentleman he knew in Bow Street.
As for Corrie and Judith, they watched Jason and Remie haul the three men away. “This,” Judith said quietly, “isn’t what I planned to see when I came to visit.”
“No,” Corrie said. “Do you know, Judith, maybe you and I should spend some time with these fellows as well.”
“You mean if the gentlemen don’t glean any information from them?”
“Exactly.” And Corrie cracked her knuckles, something she hadn’t done since she was ten years old.
Judith laughed, shaded her eyes with her hand, and said, “I wonder if James and Freddie will find anything. Who is that boy, Corrie? Isn’t he a bit young to be employed by the earl?”
“Freddie is very special,” Corrie said. “Very special indeed. Did you hear how much better he speaks?”
“You’re teaching him to speak proper English?”
“Actually, it’s Willicombe,” Corrie said. “I daresay that the earl would do about anything for Freddie.” She smiled at Judith. “We can come back this afternoon, perhaps have our own little talk with those two villains.” And that was what Corrie told the earl just ten minutes later. “My lord, I think you should reconsider calling in Bow Street. Let me go question these men. I know I can convince them to talk to me.”
Judith nodded, eyes narrowed, nearly growling. “I should like to pry their mouths open as well, my lord.”
Douglas looked at the two young ladies, whom, he suspected, had as much guts as his wife, and said slowly, “Perhaps this note to Lord Gray can wait for a while. Yes, let us try to break them first.”
Willicombe, however, was dead set against this. Indeed, he stood in the entrance hall, six feet from the front door, so pale he looked dead.
He was breathing so fast, Corrie was afraid he would faint. She stepped up to him and slapped him hard.
“Ah, oh goodness, a hit in the chops by a young lady.” Willicombe said on a moan. “But since the aforementioned young lady rescued one of our boys, I suppose that-” He stopped, drew a deep steadying breath, and said, “Thank you, Miss Corrie. I think I shall have a nutty bun if there is one left.”
And he tottered off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“ HE RAN LIKE a young man,” James said to his father, Freddie nodding vigorously at his right elbow.
“A young man,” Douglas repeated. “Yet again he comes, this son of Georges Cadoudal.” He looked at his son. “Why, James? Why?”
“When we get him, we will find out. Everyone is looking for him, Father. It won’t be long now.” James pointed
