The Tudor Signet by Carola Dunn Page A

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    Bending to put on the stockings proved impossible. Without their woolly thickness she managed to slip her feet into her boots. Shirt, dressing-gown, jacket, coat went on over the nightgown. Fortunately the coat was on the large side for her as it had been chosen to disguise her sex. She buttoned it down the front, turned up the collar, put the ring in the pocket, where she found her gloves.
    Ragamuffin gave a soft, hopeful bark.
    “Sshh! I’m coming.”
    He went to the door, and she cast a last glance around the room. The white cashmere shawl was neatly draped over the back of a chair. Mariette tied it in country-woman style over her head. She’d send it back before anyone could imagine she had stolen it, or the nightgown and dressing-gown.
    She opened the door and they set off. Ragamuffin’s toenails clicked on the polished boards of the passageway, but no one stirred. A side-door was easily unbarred.
    They slipped out into the moonlit night.
    * * * *
    “My lord!”
    “Padgett? What is it?” Malcolm sat up, instantly alert.
    “I beg pardon for waking your lordship at this hour, but I was sure you’d want to know. Miss Bertrand’s dog’s turned up in the stables in a fine frenzy. Her ladyship’s head groom had the good sense to send a housemaid up to miss’s chamber, and she’s not there, my lord.”
    “The devil she’s not!” Malcolm flung back the covers, swung his feet to the floor, and ripped off his nightshirt. “Not there, and the dog not with her?”
    “Precisely, my lord.” Padgett was already pulling a shirt over Malcolm’s head. “The maid woke Miss Pennick, her ladyship’s abigail, and not being wishful to rouse her ladyship she came to me. A shrewd woman, my lord, and good-hearted with it. Riding breeches, I assume, my lord?”
    “Yes.” Malcolm grabbed the proffered buckskins. “Is Miss Bertrand’s gelding gone?”
    “I believe not, my lord. I ventured to send a message to the stables to saddle a mount for your lordship.”
    “Good man.” He waved away a neckcloth, to the valet’s unspoken distress, and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “Boots.”
    “Here, my lord.”
    Five minutes after being woken, Malcolm arrived in the stable yard at a run. Half a dozen grooms and stable-boys stood around Jessup, who held the bridles of Malcolm’s roan mare, Incognita, and a stolid Welsh cob. Ragamuffin stopped whining and scratching at the closed gate to the yard, discharged an ear-shattering salvo of barks, and dashed up to Malcolm.
    “Open the gate,” he ordered the nearest boy, swinging up onto Incognita’s back.
    “C’n I come, m’lord?” Jessup begged, foot in the stirrup.
    “Yes.” He was very much afraid once again he’d need help to lift the little fool. Anxiety gnawed at him.
    “Will I send out searchers, m’lord?” asked the head groom.
    “Not yet. I hope the dog will lead us aright. But you’d better warn all the menservants they may be needed.”
    The cob at her heels, Incognita cantered through the gateway. Away from the lanterns, the first light of dawn was breaking. In one direction, the carriage drive led round the house to the front. Ragamuffin turned the opposite way, a shadow in the ground mist, dashing ahead along a stony ride which quickly began to rise.
    “I’m that sorry, m’lord.” Jessup’s face was screwed up in anguished remorse. “‘Bout shooting miss, I mean.”
    “You haven’t told anyone?” Malcolm said sharply.
    “Nay, m’lord,” he protested, “you knows I c’n keep a still tongue in me head.”
    “True, or you’d not be working for me.”
    “‘Sides, I’d be dicked in the nob to admit I shot a young lady, let alone one as is well liked hereabouts.”
    “She is?”
    “There’s plenty here has relatives over to Bell-Tor Manor and they all says old Mr. Barwith’s folks is right fond o’ miss. Allus does her bit for them that’s in trouble, and not above a friendly word for anybody. She’s more of a