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Bernard saw the lights in the Hall being extinguished. They certainly retired early here in the country. When Lamb Hall became his, the lights would blaze until dawn, he vowed.
He was about to emerge from the shrubbery when he heard a heavy step crunch on gravel. A man with an oil lamp was coming from the stables. He watched him go to the back of the house toward the servants’ wing. It was the same man who had been cleaning the carriage yesterday.
Suddenly a brilliant idea came to him, and his mouth curved into a self-satisfied smile. He made his way to the carriage house adjacent to the stables and slipped quietly inside. Bernard saw with satisfaction that there were no windows through which he could be observed and quickly lit a lamp. There was a toolbox on a shelf, from which he selected a mallet. He went to the rear of the carriage and hammered the lockpin from the hub of the tall carriage wheel and slipped it into his pocket.
How simple an act. He need do nothing more. The carriage would have to travel a few miles before the nut would loosen and fall, then the large wooden wheel would fly off, likely overturning the vehicle. The beauty of it was, there was no possible way they could connect him with a carriage accident.
His business in Stoke was completed for the present and Bernard could hear the siren call of London. To be precise, the voice of Angela Brown from the stage of the Olympic Theater.
* * *
Anthony Lamb had been withdrawn since he learned of his father’s death two weeks past. He felt guilty that he had not been in Ceylon to take some of the business responsibilities from his father’s shoulders or to console his mother in her loss. Anthony was frustrated that soon he would be seventeen and had never set foot out of England.
He was a little bitter that his parents had never sent for him to come to Ceylon and decided that, as soon as he came of age in just over a year, he would make the voyage. He wouldn’t say anything to Antonia, but when this Adam Savage fellow arrived, he’d pick his brains and learn all he could about the Indies. Once he began to make plans for the future, he felt decidedly better.
Antonia was happy to see her brother had taken pains with his toilet this morning. He wore dove-gray riding breeches and a jacket of blue superfine. She saw that he was wearing a new tiewig and doubted he would go to so much trouble for his usual morning ride.
“I thought I’d ride over and speak to the tenants this morning. They will have heard about father by this time, and I think I should reassure them that I won’t be making any changes now that they are my tenant farmers.”
Antonia nodded and hid a smile. They had two farms on their land and both tenant farmers had pretty daughters, hence the new tiewig. “There’s a wonderful breeze today, I’ll probably go sailing.”
He grinned at her and she was relieved that he looked like his old self.
“I don’t suppose I could talk you into staying in the Medway?”
“No fear! What’s the point in living on the coast if you don’t sail in the sea? You are not hinting that I’m not as fine a sailor as you, are you Tony?”
“Oh, Lord, now you’ll take my words as a challenge! Just be careful? You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
As Antonia was changing her clothes for sailing, she glanced out of her bedchamber window to see Anthony take off as if he were riding in a race. Wasn’t it just like him to urge her to caution, then risk his own neck riding hell for leather! He was a superb horseman and she watched with pleasure as he soared over the hedge that took him from the park into the meadow. He made the jump cleanly, but then something happened and rider and horse separated company. She saw that the horse was behaving like a wild thing and that Tony had not gotten up from his fall.
Antonia ran down the stairs and called to Roz, who was in the breakfast room. “Tony’s come a cropper. Get Mr. Burke!” She picked up her skirts, ran out through the garden, across the small park, and climbed through the hedge into the field.
Her twin lay still and pale as death upon the grass. Her heart was in her throat. He couldn’t be dead!Deaths come in three,a voice whispered in her ear. “No! No!” she cried aloud to dispel her fear.
Suddenly Antonia could not breathe and a loud drumming in her ears threatened to deafen her. She glanced up and saw the sturdy figure of Mr. Burke cutting through the hedge. As he bent down to her brother, Anthony suddenly sat up, rubbed his head, and grinned foolishly. “Stab me, I must look a damned fool to fetch everyone running.”
Antonia realized the drumming in her ears was her own heartbeat. “Tony, you great fool—I feared you were dead!”
Mr. Burke helped him to his feet and, embarrassed, Anthony brushed himself off and refused to be aided back to the Hall.
“Go with Mr. Burke. I’ll get your horse,” Antonia ordered in her most bullying tone.
Mr. Burke was more diplomatic. “Come back to the Hall and reassure your grandmother that you only took a harmless tumble.”
By now the mare had quieted and stood trembling. As Antonia reached for her bridle she saw that her face was bloodied. “Venus … hush, darling. Let me see what’s wrong.”
The horse had been cut about the face by something on the halter. Antonia slipped it off and ran her fingers over the jagged studs. She saw that the bit had cut clean through the strap and it was lucky Venus hadn’t choked on it. She smoothed her hand along the horse’s neck and murmured soothing words to her.
When Antonia began to walk back to the stables the mare followed her. By the time they arrived, the saddle had slipped to one side and was hanging off.
“Bradshaw,” she said to their carriage driver, “I had no idea the harness was in such bad shape. Don’t use this again, and check all the other tack too. We’ll have to buy new.”
Antonia went to the stable supply cupboard and took down a cake of carbolic soap and a bottle of linament. She washed the cuts and dabbed on the oil of wintergreen linament while Bradshaw held the mare’s mane. Venus whickered and rolled her eyes, but displayed none of the wildness that had been brought on by sharp pain stabbing into her cheeks.
By the time Antonia went into the Hall, Anthony had changed his clothes and she heard him downplay the fall to Roz. “The belly strap broke and the saddle slipped just as I took the hedge.”
Antonia spoke up. “The tack you were using is worn out. We’ll have to buy new. Poor Venus came off a lot worse than Tony.”
