Vintage Love by Clarissa Ross Page B

Dr. O’Meara he is a very emotional person. I don’t think you should hold his occasional rash judgments against him.”
    The thin man smiled bleakly. “He is Irish. That explains a good deal.”
    “He seems unable to believe that Napoleon is alive.”
    “Because he has been thinking of him as dead and writing of him in that manner,” Felix Black said. “He has brainwashed himself.”
    “No doubt.”
    “The things that happen to us are often beyond our wildest imaginings,” he pointed out. “When you were kidnapped by Parson Midland, it was beyond anything you could have conceived.”
    Betsy said, “Without a doubt.”
    “So it is in every phase of life. O’Meara has told himself that Napoleon is dead. He is sure of it. So he will not accept my story. He calls it fantastic! But much of life is filled with fantastic twists.”
    She said, “I have come to learn that. And he did not change my mind. I’m still eager to be part of this adventure.”
    “Good girl,” the master spy said. “That is another thing I have learned: to be a shrewd judge of character. I counted on you from our first meeting.”
    The next morning Mrs. Higgins and her young ladies came again. There was another round of fittings and fussing, but happily it did not last as long this time. Also Mrs. Higgins brought her a number of underthings as well as a selection of nightgowns.
    “Best from my stock, my dear,” the stout woman said. “The dresses will be ready in a day or two. I may be able to deliver the first one tomorrow.”
    Betsy was pleased with this promise and the way the various outfits were shaping up. At ten o’clock she joined Kingston and Eric Walters in the study as Felix Black lectured them on the first section of their journey. They were taking a stage to Dover, crossing to Calais, and from there taking a coastal vessel to Marseilles. He told them the length of time it would take them and what they should bring with them.
    When it was over, George Frederick Kingston took her out to the drawing room and told her, “I have some information for you.”
    Eagerly she begged him, “Please tell me!”
    “First the parson is dead. Toby tore his throat open before Hannah finished the dog by stabbing it with a carving knife.”
    “I thought she would do something like that,” Betsy said. “I must admit I shall be troubled by all this for a long while.”
    “She found the lad in a drunken state and threw him out into the street. A cobbler in the next building took him in.”
    “And?”
    “Hannah has vanished. She locked the place up as soon as she made burial arrangements for the parson. No one knows where she went.”
    “And what about the boy, Gimpy?”
    The actor looked sad. “I’m afraid it’s the streets for the poor boy. The cobbler who kept him overnight can do no more than that. He has too many mouths of his own to feed.”
    She said, “If he’s left to the streets, he will soon die. He is not well.”
    “That is plain to see,” Kingston said.
    “What can I do for the poor lad?” she wondered.
    The actor said, “Would you resent a suggestion on my part?”
    “Of course not,” she said.
    “I have a cousin who is a watchmaker,” Kingston said. “He has a busy shop, and he’s always on the lookout for smart lads anxious to learn the trade. Not only that but he and his wife give the apprentices room and board in their own lodgings over the shop.”
    She said, “It sounds ideal. Gimpy is too frail for any heavy work.”
    “That is what I was thinking,” the actor said. “This is an occupation where he would be able to remain seated for long hours and only use his eyes and hands.”
    “Do you think you could persuade your cousin to take the boy on?”
    “I could, miss,” the actor said. “But he expects a fee of ten pounds for the apprenticing. He returns it later when the lad has proven himself and is able to turn in a proper day’s work at the trade.”
    “That sounds fair enough,” she said.