Page 63 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
His eye had stopped blurring by the time the jarvey let him off at Curzon Street, and he had no trouble negotiating the steps to his front door. He knew that Emma would be waiting for him as soon as he opened the door, and she was. He wanted to grab her and whirl her about, but the look on her face brought him back quickly to his own state.
“Where have you been?” she asked, and she helped him from his coat, ignoring Lasker, who hovered nearby. “I have been beside myself.”
He knew she was telling the truth. Her own eyes were puffy from crying, and it touched him to the bone that she cared so much. He let her help him to the book room, where she pushed him down on the sofa and told Lasker to bring a cold cloth for his eye, scolding all the while.
“I am certain your doctors tell you not to strain your eye, my lord,” she said as she took off his shoes and made him swing his legs onto the sofa. She covered him with a light blanket and gently put the cloth to his eye when Lasker returned. The darkness was soothing, and he almost allowed himself to sleep. The lists. He sat up, even as she tried to push him down again.
“Emma, don’t be a carbuncle,” he protested. “Hand me my overcoat. I have something for you.”
She did as he asked. He kept the cloth to his eye as he groped in the inside lining. He held up the sheaf of papers to her. “I was starting home when it occurred to me that I should check some ships’ offices at the docks. Emma, we were looking at this problem from the wrong end!” He handed her the papers and lay back down again.
“My lord, these are three rosters!” she said, her voice filled with wonder.
He grinned at her. “There they were, languishing on yet another dusty shelf. Mr. Capper didn’t stop to consider that sometimes the prisoners were transported in vessels contracted by the Royal Navy and other times, by commercial carriers arranged by the Colonial Office. I can only conclude that 1804 was a year for the merchants, and not the navy.” He paused then and took the cloth off his eye. “Much better, Emma.” He rose up on his elbow. “I do have some bad news. TheLady Penthynwent down in a gale with all hands.”
She considered that information, sitting beside him on the sofa.
“I intend to believe they were not on that ship,” she said quietly. She looked at the papers in her hands. “Thank you, my lord.”
“You’re ever so welcome, Emma,” he said. “You peruse them, and then I must see the lists are returned. I have promised half my kingdom and my firstborn son as ransom for those rosters.”
She smiled and looked at the lists. “That leaves theHerculesand theMinervaunaccounted for now. No trace of them?”
“None,” he agreed, “but they’re out there somewhere. They have to belong to someone.”
Emma nodded, then looked up as Lasker came into the room.
“Yes?” she asked. “Lord Ragsdale should not be disturbed, if you can help it, Lasker.” She rested her hand on his shoulder, and his cup ran over with the pleasure of it all. “He’s had such a day.”
“Then I hate to add to the misery,” came a vaguely familiar voice. “Lord Ragsdale, may I trouble you to take your miserable cousin off my hands before he causes the complete downfall of Oxford University?”
Chapter 18
He sat up quickly,despite Emma’s protests, and slowly took the compress off his good eye, hoping that when he did so, his sight would have returned to normal, and it would not be Robert Claridge smiling down at him.
But it was Robert, and there was his old warden from Brasenose, even more grim-lipped than usual, standing beside him. As he stared at his cousin, Robert’s grin widened, as though he had never been so happy to see anyone.
“Merciful heaven,” said Lord Ragsdale. He had long believed the apocrypha that the warden never even left the quadrangle of Brasenose, much less ventured to London.And here he is, glaring at me, he thought.Oh, the wonder of it all.He sank back down on the sofa again and put the compress over both eyes. “I think I am hallucinating, Emma. Please wake me in an hour or two when both of these gentlemen have disappeared.”
It seemed a reasonable request, but in another moment, the warden was leaning over the back of the sofa and staring down at him. “Lord Ragsdale, remove that cloth at once and listen to me!” he uttered in crisp tones when Lord Ragsdale continued to cower behind his compress.
Lord Ragsdale did as he was told. Not for nothing had he suffered through two interminable years at Oxford withthis warden. He would be compliant; he would grovel if, indeed, groveling were needed. And that appeared to be the case. There was nothing remotely pleasant in the gaze that the warden fixed upon him. He deftly tossed the compress into a wastebasket, stood up, and would have promptly sat down again if Emma hadn’t been there to support him. He opened his mouth to apologize, but he had not reckoned on his little secretary.
“Sir, I wish you would leave,” she said, addressing the warden in tones as stringent as his own. “Lord Ragsdale has had a rather trying day, and he does not need this kind of donnybrook.”
Ihave had a trying day?he asked himself, as his estimation of Emma rose another level.My dear, you must be full to bursting with anxieties, and you are worried about me?He looked at the warden, determined not to whine or grovel, after all.If Emma doesn’t, I won’t, he decided.I’d like to think I have learned something in these few months.
“Please be seated, sir,” he said, indicating a chair. He sat down again. “Tell me what my wretched cousin has been up to. I am eager to know whether we should flog him, place him in irons, hurl him into the ranks, or let some mythical bird or other peck out his liver while we chain him to a rock.”
To his gratification, the warden blinked and sat down. “Well, I do not know as it is all that serious. . .,” he began, almost put off by Lord Ragsdale’s plain speaking. Then the ill-used look came into his eyes again, and he leaned forward. “Your cousin has perpetrated the most fiendish deed ever to sully the golden stones of our fair university on the Isis.” He sat back in triumph, daring Lord Ragsdale to respond.
“Oh, surely not,” he replied easily, with a glance at his cousin. “Robert is not intelligent enough to bring down a ... let me see now ... six-hundred-year-old institution. I seem to remember a multitude of pranks, especially one involving a number of naked men and a traveling circus. Please be more specific, Warden.”
“Was that you, sir?” Robert interrupted, his eyes wide. “That is still talked about in hushed tones.”
“Oh, really?” Lord Ragsdale asked, pleased with himself and kindly overlooking the choking sounds coming from Emma as she went to the window and stood there with her back to the men.
“It was cards, Lord Ragsdale, cards!” said the warden, indignantly playing his own trump. “Exactly as you warned him.”
