The Legend of Nimway Hall_1940_Josie Page 14

  Todd hurried up the stairs and Gideon followed too quickly, took a wrong step in the gravel and twisted his knee hard enough to sting his nose. Damn it all! In his rush to leave Nimway Hall he’d forgotten his cane. But he carried on after Todd, more slowly, favoring his leg, limping slightly.

  “Bad luck, that leg, Gid,” Todd said as he held the door open. “Still, it’s not the end of the world. You’re a crack engineer, best in my experience. SOE’s got you right where they want you, safely behind enemy lines where you can do the most good.”

  Gideon flushed beneath his collar and hid his embarrassment behind a laugh as he entered. “You know me, Todd, I much prefer muddy ditches and bullets flying over my head than being stuck behind a desk, or, God-help me, training old men in the art of trade craft.”

  The last of his words stuck suddenly, firmly in his throat. Bunged up by long forgotten knowledge that Colonel Todd Nichols had never been on a battlefield, not out of choice, but because he wasn’t able to hold a gun properly. A childhood accident that had broken his arm and partially paralyzed the thumb and index finger of his right hand. And yet the man out ranked him. Out honored him, ten-fold.

  “You’ll be back in the hedgerows dodging bullets and catching Nazi spies with your bare hands in no time, Gid. For now, we’re both rowing the same boat, doing our duty behind the front lines. Come, show me what you’ve got there. I’m all agog!”

  Todd led him toward the rear of the large hut, to a windowless room across the back, flicked on the harsh overhead lamps, then rapped on the metal wall with a knuckle. “Welcome to my office and workshop. Hotter than Hades in the summer and I’m thinking I’ll be freezing my balls off come winter. Frankly, not much different from my quarters in the officers’ barracks. Where are you billeted?”

  “Posted to Nimway Hall about ten miles north, and quartered there. The estate is vast, the Hall is a bit smaller than High Starrow, but every inch as well-appointed.” Gideon laughed at himself as he set the box on the worktable. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve a suite of my own in the west wing and my headquarters is in the apparently legendary conservatory.”

  “Tough quarters. But then we all eat from the same rations, don’t we? Side by side, the high and the low. It’s a funny old war, makes for strange bedfellows.”

  “The exact words of my hostess.”

  “You’re bedfellows, are you? Good work, old man! She’s a looker then?”

  “Not bedfellows.” But more beautiful than Todd could possibly imagine. “Let’s just say that the woman presents a constant challenge. Speaking of beautiful, how is your wife? I haven’t seen Corrine since your wedding.”

  “Still in Oxford for the time being.” Todd poured hot water from a kettle into a teapot. “Our wee Clark is two now and we’ve another on the way, none of which kept my brave girl from jumping feet first into the Women’s Volunteer Service the moment the war began. I miss her madly. Would love to have my family living nearby, but there’s nothing more scarce in the English countryside these days than lodging.”

  “I can testify to that. But that’s not the reason I’m here.”

  “Yes, yes! Your mystery box.” Todd joined him at the table. “Some sort of map case? A stash of cigars, maybe? I do miss our college smokers, Gid. A half-dozen great young minds gathered round the fire of an evening, discussing science, philosophy—”

  “—and women, mostly, if I remember right. And there you were, Todd, at the same time, developing your inventor’s skill. I’ve followed your successes with immense pride and admiration. Which is the reason I came to you.”

  “With your box.” Todd leaned on his elbows and peered at the utility box as though it were a Christmas pudding. “Don’t keep me waiting! Open it!”

  “First, a bit of background. Uhm—” Gideon stared at the box, unable to decide where to begin. “I was posted to Nimway with a staff of four officers and five sappers. My orders are to site and build an OB and then recruit and train the Auxiliary Units who will man them—”

  “In case of a German invasion. I’ve done the same with a Base here in Yeovilton.”

  “Simple enough work. Proceeding on time. And then–“ no need yet to bring Josie into it “–this device appeared.”

  “Appeared from where?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It showed up twice, a week ago and then again last night.”

  “Showed up? Where was it between times?”

  “Good question.”

  “You keep using the term ‘it’, Gid. Don’t you know what it is?”

  “It’s a power device, I think.”

  “What sort of power device?”

  “That’s what I hope you can tell me. It’s a light source of some sort, nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Glows the color of the moon, pulses on its own with no sign of an accumulator or power storage. Whatever it is, I believe it has vast military possibilities as a weapon of war.”

  “Good God, Gideon!” Todd laughed, then sobered. “You’re serious. How does it work?”

  “No idea. But if it’s as powerful as I think it is, I’m certain it was stolen from a secret military research lab. Ours or theirs, I’m not certain which.”

  “Damn you say!”

  “And if anyone can tell me what it is, where it came from, and how to return it to the right place, it’s you.”

  “You’ve caught me, Gid.” Todd moved in beside him. “Let’s see this marvel of modern warfare.”

  “Don’t let its outward design throw you. For whatever reason, to disguise its purpose or perhaps to provide insulation, the inventor chose to house the light inside a—” he was going to sound as mad as a March hare “—a solid gold eagle’s talon.”

  “He what?” Todd laughed.

  “See for yourself.” Gideon carefully lifted the toggle latch, then the lid, and let it fall back against its hinges.

  Gone. Bloody hell! Nothing left but the scarf he’d wrapped it in, lying neatly folded at the bottom.

  “Is it under this?” Todd lifted the scarf out of the box, leaving them both staring into a completely empty, army-green utility box.

  “Hell and damnation.”

  Todd cast him a wry smile. “Did you run off and forget to bring your infernal device?”

  Remember, I’ve warned you, Gideon.

  He’d damn well left Nimway Hall with it. And unless he’d been waylaid by Nazi spies and administered a memory erasing drug, he’d had the box in his sight the entire journey, from his own floor safe into Todd’s office.

  You do as you please. And so will the orb.

  “Apologies, Todd. Seems I’ve been bamboozled.” Or enchanted. Or gone stark raving round the bend.

  “You, Gideon? You were always the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came exposing plots and conspiracies, designing stratagems and infernal devices. No one can get past you.”

  No one but Josie Stirling. “Except that I did drive all the way here with an empty box and an implausible story to tell you about an invisible apparatus that I thought might save the world.”

  Todd nodded, clapped Gideon on the shoulder. “If you say this thing exists, this power device, then I believe you. And I trust that you’ll track down the culprit and straighten out the matter when you return to your lady at Nimway Hall.”

  “She’s not my lady.” Could never be, for more reasons than he dared count.

  “So you say, my friend. But I say we ought to head over to the officers’ dining hall and catch up over a plate of eggs and toast. I’ll bring along a pot of brambleberry jam made by the ladies of my Corrine’s WI and we can make short work of it.”

  “Why not, Todd? I’m starving.” Chagrined. Staggered. And he damn well wasn’t looking forward to returning to the Hall, to confronting Josie about...about what, exactly? After all, she’d warned him that the device—the orb—would do exactly as it pleased. And it did. What the devil would he say to her? What could he, after accusing her of being a traitor? Good God, what a bloody pile he’
d made of it. But at least he’d kept her name out of the matter.

  He spent a surprisingly pleasant hour with his old friend, relaxing for the first time in years, laughing over their shared past and care-free college days, old friends, catching up with the present and even imagining what they each might contribute to ending the war sooner rather than later.

  “Point of fact, Gideon,” Todd said through the open window of the Austin, “We could use a man with an artful mind and engineering skills like yours here at Yeovilton. You know yourself that there’s more to the SOE than foreign agents and digging holes for the bulldog’s secret army to hide in. Think on it. Seriously.”

  Gideon did just that, thought about many things on his way back to Nimway Hall. Dismissed the notion of spending his days in a research lab when he was determined to return to combat as soon as he was able.

  Thought about the nature of the peculiar device that had entranced him with its illusions and sent him on a fool’s errand.

  But he thought longest and hardest about what he was going to say to Josie. And how to apologize without sounding as though he could ever possibly imagine she was anything but a woman to be admired for her intelligence, her strength of character and her devotion to the same cause that had driven him to be a soldier.

  Josie had watched Gideon speed down the drive in the Austin until it was out of sight, then spent what would have been a thoroughly ordinary day, doing the same work as every other day since the war began.

  The only difference was that today she found herself listening for his return, no matter where she was on the estate, or what she was doing. While walking the field furrows with the Land Girls, sitting in on the children’s reading lesson in the schoolhouse, helping Isaac grind a set of disk harrow blades, even while eating lunch in the kitchen with the household staff.

  Not that she was keeping track, but by mid-afternoon, Gideon had been gone nearly six hours. He’d only gone to the air station in Yeovilton, barely ten miles distant. What could he have been doing all this time?

  He was a proud and accomplished man, quite determined in his love of country to deliver the orb to the ‘proper authorities.’ Hopefully he hadn’t taken a plane to London without first opening the box. How embarrassing he’d be to discover the orb missing, in front of his superiors. At least, she assumed that it hadn’t traveled with him. The annoying thing was probably in the Hall somewhere, waiting to pounce on them the next time they were together in the same room. Which she hoped would be sometime today.

  She was just walking back up the escarpment from the cider mill at mid-afternoon when she heard the children calling her name then saw them running toward her from the lake.

  “Miss Josie! Look what we found!” Streaming out behind Molly was a large white cloud of fabric and strings. The boys flanked her, their legs wheeling as fast as hers.

  “What have you got there?” She knew the answer even as she caught them in her arms before they could plummet down the slope and the billow of silk enfolded them all.

  “A parachute!” They all shouted at once from inside their cocoon. Excited little faces and wide smiles, busy, berry-stained hands batting at the silk.

  “I see it’s a parachute,” she said from inside the tent that had settled over them. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Can we keep it?” Lucas asked, making a hood of the silk.

  “Let’s make a fort with it!” Robbie shouted and jumped as he always did when the least bit excited.

  “Let’s first find out where it came from,” Josie said, making a grab for the fluid fabric and the strings and plucking it off the children, finally gathering the bundle against her chest and pulling the silk off her own head. Her hair crackled and snapped with static electricity, wrapping her head in a web of curling strands that clung to her face.

  “Helloooo, Mr. Colonel, sir!” the children bellowed as they gathered around her.

  Oh, damn. Josie swept the hair out of her eyes and found Gideon standing not ten feet away, watching, his eyes bright with humor and some other emotion she couldn’t name.

  “Good afternoon, Colonel Fletcher,” she said as she dropped the parachute on the ground in front of her and raked her fingers through her hair, attempting to tame it while the man stood silently watching. “We didn’t hear you come up.”

  “Look what we found, Mr. Colonel!” Geordie said, gathering the bundle of silk that was nearly bigger than he and stumbling toward the man.

  “A parachute,” Gideon said, a worried frown gathering on his brow as he knelt and caught the boy before he could fall. “Where’d you get this, Geordie?”

  The children converged on Gideon with their stories: “Up there! Molly found it! It was caught in a tree!”

  Gideon took up a fistful of the silk, looked closely then raised his eyes to Josie, as he asked the girl, “Which tree was that, Molly?”

  “Up by the fort!” The girl looked pleased with herself beyond containment.

  “Windmill Hill,” Josie said to Gideon, suddenly concerned by his serious study of the lines and the sturdy metal hardware.

  “One set of suspension lines ending in a payload ring,” he said. “Rigged for equipment, not personnel. If I’m not mistaken—” he stood, closed the distance to Josie and whispered softly against her ear “—a gift from our foes across the Channel.”

  “German?” she whispered back, “What’s a German parachute doing on Nimway property?”

  “Indeed.” He turned to the children, standing close enough to Josie for her to feel his heat, to notice the muscle working in his jaw. “Did you find anything else near the ‘chute, Molly?”

  “We didn’t look. I pulled it off the tree branch and then the boys took off running down here with it. I followed and then we brought it to Miss Josie.”

  “That was probably for the best, Molly,” Gideon said, as he tucked the bundled parachute under the skirt of a sapling yew tree. “Can you lead us back to where you found it?”

  “Oh, yes!” The children started running up the escarpment.

  “Stay with us, please!” Gideon shouted after them. “We don’t want to get separated.” To Josie he said, “That ‘chute had a payload of some kind.”

  “Pre-invasion supplies, do you think? Radios and maps, contact names, pound coins.”

  He cast her a look of approval—or suspicion, she couldn’t tell which—as they caught up with the children on the hillside. “A pre-invasion drop. Yes, I do think that, Josie. Hopefully nothing more worrisome than that.”

  Dear God. Explosives. Booby traps.

  “Then we can’t allow the children to reach the site before we do.” Suddenly terrified, she ran ahead and caught them back as they entered the wood. “Come, children, we’ll pretend we’re scouting for enemy agents. Behind me, please, single-file, like soldiers. That’s it. Quiet now.”

  She glanced back at Gideon as he fell into line behind them. He tipped her a smiling salute with a finger to his forehead and her heart swelled like a foolish girl’s at her first dance.

  Something was definitely wrong with him. Or right with him. He was so...not angry, when she was certain he would have been raging when he returned. After all, he couldn’t have gotten very far down the road with the orb. Must have been livid to discover it was gone. Just as she had warned.

  But why was he so calm, so amicable? So broad shouldered and handsome, so...bloody attractive as he scooped little Geordie off the trail when the boy stumbled, then set him back on his feet with a quiet word that made the boy giggle and catch up with Lucas.

  Good thing she knew Balesboro Wood blindfolded or she’d have been stumbling up the trail and running into trees for all the attention she was paying to anything but the man bringing up the rear of their little squad.

  “There it is! “ Robbie shouted, would have run ahead, if Josie hadn’t caught him around the waist.

  “Wait, Robbie!” Josie stopped the rest of the group as they neared the ruined foundations of the old windmill. “
Is this the place, Molly?”

  “The parachute was hanging on that tree,” Molly said, pointing to a single birch standing free on the margins of a small clearing. “On a branch I had to break so I could get it down.”

  “All right. Everyone stay here with me.” She met Gideon’s gaze and nodded. “Colonel Fletcher is going to go see if he can find anything else.”

  The children clung to Josie as they all watched Gideon search the area in such a methodical way that she knew he’d done it many times before. Perhaps he wasn’t just a Royal Engineer. Of course he must have had some training and experience in the Royal Marines.

  “All clear,” he said finally, standing over something in the thick understory, just a few yards from the base of the tree. “Come see what I found.”

  The children dove into the thicket with him.

  “It’s a suitcase, Miss Josie!” Molly said with a squeal, “a metal suitcase!”

  Gideon caught Josie’s attention as she ducked through the bank of ferns, nodded at the object. “Just as we assumed,” he said quietly, “a pre-invasion kit. I’ll send a team of sappers to pick it up here and see that it gets to my contacts in London.”

  “It feels just like an invasion in itself, Gideon,” she said, tears welling in her eyes as she dropped to her knees and opened the lid to the carefully packed and secured contents. A radio transmitter, a very old Baedeker map of Somerset, English pound coins, a notebook and pencil—everything an invader might need for comfort when he arrived. “Sobering, really. And makes me angry. That our enemy could be so certain of their victory over our fair land that they send their luggage ahead.”

  “Can we keep the parachute, Miss Josie?” Lucas asked. “We can play paratroopers and jump out of the trees!”

  Gideon laughed. “We’ll find out first if the Army wants it, Lucas–“

  ”—but there’ll be no jumping out of trees,” Josie said, “ever.”

  “However, Miss Josie and I are quite proud of all of you for leading us to this very important piece of equipment.”

  “Important, how, sir?” Geordie asked.

  “Can you all keep a secret?” he asked. They nodded, whispering already as they surrounded him as though he were Father Christmas. “Good then, listen up and I will muster you into my secret force of loyal cadets.”