Petteril's Wife, page 7
April and Lord Petteril rode down into the valley, halting their horses to marvel.
“Just imagine the carnage if it collapsed,” April said.
“It survived the earthquake, so I doubt there’s much that can harm it.”
April was dubious and glad not to be too close. As far as she could tell, they had not been followed, though there were a few fellow admirers of the aqueduct in sight, including a couple of British soldiers, presumably on leave. The sudden appearance of those ruffians outside the brothel bothered her, and she scanned both ridges of the valley for signs of anyone with a rifle.
She found she was glad when they rode up the other side of the valley and had a better view of the surrounding country. Following the map, they rode away from the viaduct toward the Cartaxo country house.
In fact, it was not easy to find. There seemed to be no road to speak of, and the first tracks they followed led to rather squalid little farms. At the second of those, Lord Petteril gave up on discretion. When a rather vacant woman emerged from her hovel, he asked, “Casa de Conde de Cartaxo?”
The woman didn’t speak, merely pointed behind her toward the woods and went back into the house, no doubt because a baby was crying.
“Actually, this is quite hopeful,” April said, urging her placid mount on. “The house must be ideal to hide someone—isolated and difficult to find.”
“I wouldn’t like to take a carriage through here.”
The woods gave April the shivers, not least because she and his lordship had once found a corpse in just such a place. And besides, anyone could be skulking behind all those trees. Still, at least they were shaded from the ferocious sun.
At last, they saw a glimmering of a building through the trees and pressed on with excitement. They emerged from the wood into what had once been a formal, walled garden. Much of the wall had fallen or been knocked down, creating breaches through which they led their horses. The house itself was at the end of a wildly overgrown path, with a front terrace and what might once have been a drive leading in the opposite direction.
“We should go that way when we leave,” April said. “We must have missed the road and come too far. Do you think there’s anyone here?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
The house was shuttered and blank, its impressive oak front doors resembling a castle’s. Lord Petteril used the huge, gargoyle-like knocker to thunderous effect, while April meandered toward the drive and peered through the trees lining what might once have been a gracious avenue.
Somewhere toward the foot was another, much smaller building, like a lodge house. And someone was definitely moving there, hanging laundry, she thought.
She hurried back to Petteril, telling him what she had seen. He was trying the door, which was definitely locked, if not bolted on the inside.
“I suppose we’d better go to the lodge then,” Petteril said. “Though I’m not sure that being English and nosey will be a good enough excuse to get us into the main house. But they might know something or give something away.”
“They might,” April agreed, eyeing the large front door and its massive keyhole with disfavour. “But we might as well have a look here first. A back door would be easier.”
He cast her a sardonic glance and resorted to thieves’ cant. “On the dub lay again, April?”
She didn’t dignify that with a response, merely handed the reins of her horse to Petteril, who tied them in the shade of a useful tree at the back of the house, while April extracted her lock picking tools from her reticule and set about unlocking the back door.
It took her an annoying amount of time, but it gave eventually—fortunately not bolted. Presumably, the people at the lodge kept an eye on the place and entered and left by this door.
“I suppose I shouldn’t congratulate you on such a dubious talent,” his lordship murmured, “but well done.”
She tried not to preen. They both paused at the entrance, listening intently.
“The place feels empty,” he said without expression, yet she still felt his disappointment.
“We only know that it’s quiet,” she argued. “It’s a big house.”
“It is.” Gently, he pulled her aside, obviously meaning to brush past her into the house, but she resisted.
“I’ll go in,” she said. “I can get into any locked rooms and I can hide more easily. You be my watchman and give me warning if anyone’s coming.”
“April, if Bertie’s in there, chances are, so is a guard or two.”
“Then I’ll come and tell you. I’m used to creeping about in dark kens.”
“Mind your cant,” he said mechanically, chewing a corner of his lip in indecision. Then unexpectedly he threw his head back and made a horrible noise alarmingly like a crow. “If you hear that, you get out. And if you’re not out in ten minutes, I’m coming in. Take no chances, April, I mean it.”
She nodded agreement, trying to look impatient when she was actually secretly touched by his care. Again. Reluctantly, he got out of her way, and she went inside.
The kitchen was large, clean but unused. The stove was stone cold and empty. Grimacing she went on her way, checking the servants’ quarters for signs of occupancy and finding only stripped beds in a small dormitory.
In the main house, most of the doors were open. She walked noiselessly on tiled floors through opulent halls that smelled musty although there were no obvious cobwebs until she approached the stairs. Her neck prickled, expecting a heavy hand on her shoulder, the sudden leap of attack. She took a deep breath and crept upward.
One bedchamber was made up, as if for any unexpected visitor, but again the room smelled musty and unused. It had not been aired for months if not years.
A creaking floorboard froze her to the spot. She waited, listening desperately over the thundering beat of her heart.
Nothing happened. She crept behind the door, peering through the narrow gap caused by the hinges, and then, even more warily around the door into the passage. Again, she waited for the attack as she left the room and then glanced into the next and the next. Although she longed to find Bertie Withan for his lordship’s sake, she found herself perversely glad the house betrayed no signs of life.
It was the attic she feared the most. Old tales and legends combined with her own experience of rookeries with vicious traps and equally vicious humans behind them. But she forced herself to go up there, too. Part of it was a storeroom, like at Haybury Court, Lord Petteril’s main seat. Through another door, which needed the services of her trusty lockpicks, she found another servants’ dormitory, also bare and unused.
Deflated, she paused in the doorway, wondering if there was anywhere she had missed, when the call of a crow had her jumping out of her skin.
She bolted, half falling down the dark servants’ stairs for speed, ignoring the clattering of her footsteps and the thud of things she bumped into in the passage past the kitchens. Only there did she adjust her speed and stealth, creeping to the back door.
Lord Petteril stood outside, holding the reins of both horses, who were nudging each other in competition for a bucket of water.
“Who’s coming?” April panted, annoyed by this nonchalance.
“No one. Your time was up.”
April growled at the back of her throat and snatched at the reins of her horse. “No sign that anyone’s been there for months. Years probably. Someone cleans the downstairs rooms and one bedchamber, but it’s never been aired.”
“We had to check,” Petteril said ruefully. “And there is still the lodge.”
Accordingly, they walked down the driveway. A glowering man emerged from the cottage and Lord Petteril, with his most amiable and vague smile, informed him in a mixture of mime and spoken English peppered with the odd word of Portuguese that they had come upon the house from the woods, and no one appeared to be home.
The glowering man’s suspicions appeared to be only slightly calmed, and his wife came out to inspect them, too. April, peering through the front door, saw that the cottage appeared to be one large room in a single floor with only one tiny window. If they were hiding anyone in there, he was standing very co-operatively behind the door.
“Barking up the wrong tree,” Lord Petteril said when he had boosted her into the saddle and they began their return journey.
“We still have the warehouse Eliana wrote down,” April reminded him.
“And hopefully Jeffery will come up with a few more.”
Returning to Lisbon in the full heat of the sun, April began to appreciate the local custom of the afternoon sesta, when many shops closed and work stopped until the marginally cooler evenings.
Back at the hotel, they found Dado dozing in the shade at the corner. Petteril paid him to return the horses to their livery stable, and they went inside. Again, his lordship was presented with a sealed packet which he didn’t open until they were in the privacy of their own room.
He scanned it quickly. “From Jeffery. Almeida seems to have many business interests. Made a fortune with shipping. He has several warehouses on the docks too.” He glanced up at her frowning. “I can go alone, if you’re tired. I doubt there’s any need for both of us. Odd to see a lady there in fact.”
“Then they might lower their guards in astonishment. I’ll just change first though.”
“Me too,” Petteril said, beating a hasty retreat to his dressing room.
The luke-warm water in the washing jug was at least refreshing, though April wished she could go out in her shift. Reluctantly, she pulled the blue gown back on, contorting herself to fasten her own hooks before Petteril emerged again, perhaps wearing a clean shirt and necktie but otherwise looking exactly the same.
“To the docks, Mrs. Whittey?”
“To the docks,” she agreed. “Um...we might be quicker with Dado to guide us.”
“I was just thinking that.”
“Then you trust him again?”
“Not necessarily, but we’re giving him no time to summon any bravos. If they’re waiting for us, the finger will point directly to Jeffery.”
Dado was delighted to act as guide and took them first to the address given by Eliana. Although the docks themselves were still bustling, the warehouses behind seemed to be largely deserted. So Petteril stood on Dado’s proffered back to peer in the window, wobbling precariously before he jumped down.
“Totally empty,” he said, from which April gathered there was nowhere to hide or be hidden either.
Dado shrugged, rubbing his shoulders. “Most trade only with the army now. Less silks and spices. Many people lose money.”
Petteril’s gaze flew to his. “Good point,” he said slowly.
“Why?” April murmured as they marched off to the first on Jeffery’s list.
“I don’t know,” his lordship said. “A germ of an idea that won’t quite form.”
It was an exhausting couple of hours, tramping long, flat distances, occasionally facing sullen watchmen, sometimes climbing on each other to see in barred windows while the third person kept watch.
“Almost like the old days,” April murmured.
His lordship glanced at her askance and bumped his knee against a crate abandoned outside a warehouse door. Since they were en route to Almeida’s last known place of business, and had little hope left, April wasn’t terribly interested. This warehouse was not on their list.
“Ouch.” Petteril bent to rub his knee. The lid of the crate must have been loose, for it had shifted. Petteril reached inside and half pulled up a dumpy bottle which he hastily dropped again when someone shouted from the warehouse door. “So sorry,” Petteril said in amiable English. “I tripped over it. Have I damaged anything?”
There followed a torrent of angry Portuguese which Dado translated diplomatically as “No you have not.”
The warehouseman slammed and locked the door and picked up the crate before walking off with it to a cart already piled with various other crates and bundles.
“I don’t suppose this belongs to Senhor de Almeida?” Petteril murmured, consulting his list with the aid of the quizzing glass back around his neck.
“No,” said Dado. “The late Conde de Cartaxo. So I suppose it is the condessa’s now.”
“Is it, by God?” Petteril said and promptly veered around the corner of the building. There was one small window at the back, relatively low down, so he bent and spread his joined hands for April to step up and peer in.
“Mostly empty,” she reported. “Apart from a few crates like that one. And shelves of what looks like medical supplies—bottles of medicines, sheets and bandages and knives and such. And nowhere to hide.”
Petteril sighed and lowered his hands again to let her step down. “Damn. Very well. Last one, and then back to the hotel.”
The last one seemed to have been an office building, completely shut up and empty.
They trudged wearily back to the hotel and Petteril paid Dado for his time.
SINCE DUSK WAS BEGINNING to fall, Lord Petteril sent for some food, then sat on the balcony, legs stretched out while he thought.
He thought a lot, did Lord Petteril. When she had first met him, this had fascinated April, who had never had much leisure to think of anything but the next few hours survival—food, safety, who and where to avoid. Her dreams had always been brief and fantastical, like earning enough from her thieving partner to get out of St. Giles and find a real job and a room of her own where she could lock the door at night.
In England, with Lord Petteril, she had all those things. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe her luck. Even though his lordship was the one person she never wanted to lock out.
On the other hand, this adventure to Portugal, begun so light-heartedly on her part at least, was growing dangerous. They had run out of options. She knew Petteril would pay the ransom. He could easily be killed during that payment, and even if he was not, Bertie Withan would die, and Petteril would always blame himself. That old cow, his aunt, the Dowager Lady Petteril, would blame him too.
Stepping over his lordship’s legs, she sat on the stool beside him and gazed out at the pleasantly foreign scene below them. The town was awake again, now that the sun was down. Dusk was short here, and there was danger and tragedy to come. But if April had learned anything in her life it was to live in the moment. And these moments were peaceful and companionable, and she wouldn’t have had them any other way.
Petteril drew in his legs and she knew he was about to stand up.
“You’re going to pay,” she blurted.
“Yes.”
She met his gaze. “You know if they have him, they’ll kill him to stop him identifying them.”
His lips quirked. “Yes. But I have a plan.”
THE CHURCH OF SANTA Cruz was within the walls of the old castle town built in medieval times by the Moors.
“There used to be a mosque there,” his lordship told her as they walked up the hill past the cathedral known as the Se, and on toward the castle. It was after eleven at night, but outside lanterns and torches still lit the way. “When they drove the Moors out, the Portuguese built a church there instead, though I think it was largely rebuilt again after the earthquake. The Moors that were left were all confined to nearby Mouraria.”
Although part of her mind found this interesting, most of it was occupied with possible threats. Her throat was dry, and within her dark cloak, her hand was barely an inch from the little dagger she had hung from her belt. He had refused to take Dado or Everett or anyone from the Envoy’s office, so it was up to her to protect him.
The fact that he made no fuss about her accompanying him told her that he believed the danger was minimal. He was wrong. He didn’t know these kinds of people as she did, men—and women—who’d slit your throat for a pocket handkerchief, let alone a bag of gold. People who might already have been to gaol and had no intention of ever going back. To them, life was cheap, especially someone else’s.
So Petteril talked desultorily, and April watched like a hawk, observing everyone who passed, everyone above and below. He was quieter as they entered the village-like area of Santa Cruz.
As agreed, April fell behind, trying to look like a solitary, grieving widow. A coffee house was still open. Covertly, April regarded the few men sitting there and recognized none of them.
The church dominated the square, although it was not nearly as large as the Se, or the church they had seen at Belem. By the watch Lord Petteril had hung around her neck, the time was almost midnight.
She walked up to the church and pushed open the door. The light within surprised her, much of it coming from a mass of candles lit before the altar at the front.
She paused, searching the pews and the dark corners for signs of life, while pretending to admire the gilded alcoves and side chapels. There were many doors. Above one, as the helpful hotel maid had informed her, was a small, carved wooden balcony—a pulpit? Certainly, an important part of their plan.
As far as she could tell, there was no one around to see, but she walked up the central isle, bowed and crossed herself as Petteril had taught her, then sat in the front pew and bowed her head over her clasped hands. She slipped down onto her knees.
A few moments later, the church door creaked open again behind her. Every hair stood up on the back of her neck, but she did not turn at once to see if it was Petteril. Instead she forced herself to wait a few seconds. No footsteps approached up the aisle. She rose, put a coin in the box and lit a candle. She wasn’t quite sure of the significance, but she did it anyway. Her hands didn’t even shake.
Then she stepped back, crossed herself once more and walked back down the aisle. In the back pew sat a figure she did not look at. It had better be you.
She left the church to find the “village” just as it had been. She walked away around the street to the side. No one followed her. With luck, no watchers would be interested in her, but in Petteril with his bag of money under the seat.
Seeing no one else about, she opened the gate back into the little church yard and walked around the building until she found the side door to the vestry. This was locked as expected, so she got to work with her lock picks, which had proved their worth already that day.
