Page 89 of The Pursuit of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

Nunsworth didn’t look up. “It’s all lies—every last word,” he spat. “I deny everything!”

Quigley was unimpressed. He moved on, drawing out all that Smiggs, Kit, and Sylvia had to report.

Nunsworth’s only contribution was to loudly and frequently proclaim his innocence, insisting that he knew nothing of the events the others described.

Several times, Sergeant Jenkins was moved to cuff Nunsworth over the head to silence him.

Kit, Sylvia, Smiggs, and the boys told all to the point of them tying up Nunsworth.

Quigley nodded sagely, then asked, “Does anyone have anything more to add?”

To everyone’s surprise, Gibson called, “Aye—I have.”

They all turned to where the watchman still sat on the bench along the wall.

“Seems to me that having a local’s word on it won’t hurt. That blackguard”—Gibson nodded at Nunsworth—“knocked me out when he arrived, right enough, but like I said, I’ve a hard head. I came to m’senses—enough to hear and see—as he finished tying Miss Buckleberry to the railings. I couldn’t lift me head to save meself, mind, but I heard and saw everything that followed, and it was exactly like these people have told you.” Gibson’s gaze rested heavily on Nunsworth, who made no attempt to meet it. “If it hadn’t been for Miss Buckleberry getting one hand free, enough to avoid Nunsworth’s first blow, and if the gentleman hadn’t arrived and flung himself in front of her… Well, Nunsworth would have had his way and left nothing but tragedy behind.”

That, Kit felt, was an excellent summation and final word.

Quigley seemed to think so, too. He nodded to the watchman. “Thank you, Jake.”

Then Quigley looked down on Nunsworth—at the top of his head as Nunsworth was still belligerently staring at the floor. “Hillary Nunsworth, currently of Bristol, I’m binding you over to the next assizes where, without a shadow of a doubt, you will be judged guilty of kidnapping and attempted murder.” Quigley paused, then gestured to Sergeant Jenkins to haul up his prisoner. “Take him to the cells. We can keep him there until the judges arrive—the assizes is only a few weeks away.”

The sergeant bent and cut the rope tying Nunsworth’s feet.

Quigley waved the others to precede him back into the open air. Gibson waited until the sergeant passed, dragging his uncooperative prisoner along by main force. Then Gibson doused the lanterns, pulled the door closed, and joined the small crowd outside.

Reverend Buckleberry had arranged for Jack and Ned to squeeze into Kit’s curricle; he turned as Gibson came up. “Come along, Jake—I’ll drive you home. Your wife will be glad to see you.”

Gibson grinned. He directed a bow at Sylvia, Kit, and the others, then addressed the reverend. “Aye, I’m thinking to make the most of the lump on me head. Just as well if you come along and vouch for how I got it.”

With smiles and chuckles, everyone dispersed. While Jack and Ollie squeezed onto the box seat with Smiggs, Sylvia shooed Ned into the curricle. Then Kit helped her up and, reins in hand, followed.

He was about to give his horses the office when, through the encroaching darkness, they heard Quigley, who was standing studying Nunsworth as the sergeant lashed his prisoner to the rear of the magistrate’s gig, say, “It occurs to me, Nunsworth, that while I may regret not sending you for transportation all those years ago, you now have cause to regret that even more. While the punishment for thieving is a sojourn in the colonies, the punishment for kidnapping and attempted murder is the noose. You might want to dwell on that while sitting in your cell.”

Kit flicked the reins and turned his horses. There was just enough light left to see the way. At a neat clip, he drove back to the vicarage.

He’d barely drawn rein before the porch when Mrs. Henley appeared and declared that Smiggs and the boys were going nowhere without filling their bellies with the supper she and the cook had prepared.

Having descended from the curricle, Smiggs and the boys looked at Kit.

He refrained from rolling his eyes and nodded. “We wouldn’t want any of you fainting with hunger on the drive home.”

That earned him four grins and another of Mrs. Henley’s approving nods before she spread her arms like a mother hen and chivvied Smiggs and the boys into the house ahead of her.

With a resigned sigh, Kit descended and handed the reins to the groom who’d come running. “Walk ’em. They won’t be that long.”

He handed Sylvia down.

Smiling, she linked her arm with his and led him inside.

His prediction of how long it would take the boys and Smiggs to sate their appetites proved accurate. Less than half an hour later, having entrusted Smiggs with a message for Mrs. Macintyre that Sylvia was safe and well and would return on the morrow, Kit and Sylvia stood on the front porch and waved the foursome away. Unsurprisingly, the boys were grinning, and even the normally dour Smiggs was smiling.

The curricle passed the reverend’s gig on the drive.

Sylvia and Kit waited for her father to join them, then together, they went inside. She’d expected that having Kit in her childhood home, under her father’s roof, would feel a touch awkward. Instead, he and her father seemed to get on famously. They settled comfortably in her father’s study. On learning that Kit’s new business was building ocean-going yachts, her father revealed a hitherto unknown-to-her passion for sailing.

“Oh, yes. Quite a feature of my youth,” he assured her, then proceeded to engage Kit in a discussion of the various novel features he and Wayland intended incorporating into Cavanaugh yachts.