Read Online Bonfire Night by Deanna Raybourn - Free Book Online Page B

muffled by the towel.
    I explained to Brisbane what I had read on the plaque. “The family name was Padgett. They were the owners of Thorncross. The last of them died out only this past year. An elderly lady. I imagine the house has stood empty since then, hasn’t it, Mrs. Smith?”
    She nodded.
    “Now, what about my maid?”
    Mrs. Smith raised her shoulders in a sigh. “She’s my niece, my lady. I told her to lock herself in my room and not to come out. I knew you would never look for her there. I couldn’t let you leave, so when Mr. Brisbane said he was bound for London, I had to think quick. I said she was gone because I knew it would keep the pair of you here, at least for tonight.”
    “How is it that your niece is my lady’s maid? I engaged her in London. How does she fit into your scheme?”
    “My gentleman friend wanted to put a servant in your household, someone to keep an eye upon you when the house staff were not about. He bribed your former maid to leave your service and tell him all your little likes so he could make you as comfortable as possible here,” she told me.
    I shuddered. “That’s revolting. I’m glad the girl is all right, but tell her she is out of my employ as of this instant, and I shall not be giving her a reference. It is disgraceful that your friend planned this joke to such an extreme degree. It defies all rational behaviour.”
    “Does it?” Brisbane put in softly.
    I looked at him, and I knew his expression well. It meant the picture, still hidden from me, was coming together quite clearly in his head.
    “Brisbane?”
    He explained, half to himself, as he worked it out. “It is revolting because it intrudes upon every particle of decency to pay people to spy upon us. But that was not the point. It was not the purpose of this exercise to keep us entertained or engaged in a silly mystery in a haunted village. The point was to keep us away from London, wasn’t it, Mrs. Smith?”
    She said nothing, but the defeated sag of her shoulders was eloquent.
    Brisbane went on. “We had to be kept away from London through Bonfire Night,” he said slowly.
    “Who is the villain capable of such a convoluted, ridiculous, theatrical—” I broke off in horror. “Oh, no.”
    “Yes,” Brisbane said coldly. “My father.”
    “But why Bonfire Night? What is so special about this night?” I persisted.
    Brisbane hesitated only the barest second before he had it. “Fireworks,” he said suddenly. “To hide an explosion.”
    He grabbed my hand and pushed me towards the door. “Hurry up—we’ve got to catch the next train to London. My father is going to blow something up.”

Chapter Six
    We did not depart quite as quickly as Brisbane wished. First, we had to find Portia and Plum and apprise them of what we had learnt. We left the children in the care of Plum and the nannies while Portia remonstrated with the staff with such vituperation even the watermen were moved to tears. I would have liked to have heard the rest, but I made Plum promise to take note of what she said as Brisbane and I hurtled through preparations to catch the London train.
    Properly abashed, the blacksmith harnessed up his phantom coach for a nobler purpose. His black horses, the swiftest in the valley, were whipped up to a frenzy to deliver us to the station in Greater Wibberley on time, and we understood it was a gesture of apology on the part of the blacksmith. He refused payment for the journey, muttering it was the least of what he owed, and Brisbane and I threw ourselves onto the train, landing upon the steps just as it pulled away from the station.
    The ride to London was interminable. There were delays upon the line, and each minute that ticked past only heightened our impatience. Rather than fret at the time wasted, we applied ourselves to discovering Black Jack’s plan as far as we could with such limited information.
    “What on earth can he mean to destroy?” I asked for the tenth time as we waited for