[Previously: The Earl's dinner party has finally come and gone. The Avenger didn't make an appearance, but Cedric and Lavinia did get some quality time together. The next morning Lavinia has her breakfast in bed so she can sort through her feelings for Lucius, Cedric and the Masked Avenger. Cedric was also absent from the breakfast table having sent his apologies, saying he wasn't feeling well.]

Chapter Five

Upstairs in his bedroom, Cedric was not lying upon a sick bed, but rather was up and dressed, looking remarkably well and refreshed for someone who "had been sickly from childhood." His valet, teacher, fencing master and long-time friend, Jacques, was regarding him with affectionate irritation.

"Que tu es fou! Why do you not attend to me? Until what hour were you out last night?"

"You know as well as I, mon chéri ami, but you also know it was necessary for me to be abroad last night. Otherwise my uncle's guests would not have journeyed home unmolested, oui?"

Folding his master's clothes, Jacques gave a sniff to show his disapproval of this logic.

Because they were alone they spoke in French, and Cedric's command of that language was significantly improved over that which he chose to display before his uncle.

"I promised your mother," Jacques continued, "that I would take care of you, but--"

"But I make it difficult for you, don't I, old friend. I'm sorry to worry you so, but what I am able to do when I ride out as the Avenger is important to me, and to the people who live around Kentham. I was successful in putting another criminal into the hands of the law last night. It is worth the risk, and I know you think so, too ... in spite of your scolding."

"Risk! Sacré bleu! You risked too much by having the Avenger appear near here on the very evening that you return from the farms. Quelle absurdité! Your uncle, he is not stupid, mon chou, and if he discovers that it was you who took from him the family ring all those months ago ...!"

Cedric looked serious for a moment, but eventually he shook his head. "Non, I do not believe that there was danger in what I did last night. The Avenger has been seen all around the county lately, so I cannot see how anyone could make a connection. After all, the Avenger is everything that Cedric is not, so why should anyone suspect me?"

Jacques shrugged, accepting things as he found them, as Cedric had known he would. He couldn't resist the temptation to get in one last shot, however. "What you say is true: the Avenger and Cedric are very different, but ... the Avenger has been all around the county while Cedric was all around the county. And now that Cedric is at Kentham, the Avenger is back at Kentham. Tu ne peut pas faire sous son nez! Your uncle, he might notice and then what?"

Beneath the worry and the fussing, Cedric knew that the other man was proud of him, and would do everything he could to help him. "Soyez tranquille, mon vieux. I will be careful, I promise." Cedric stepped forward and put his arm across Jacques' shoulders to reassure his friend.

"I am a sad trial to you, I know, but I couldn't do this without you."

"Tu es," Jacques told him repressively, "un gredin. I don't know what I'm going to do with you!"

Cedric laughed. "I do not know why you have put up with me all these years, but I am glad that you did." He released Jacques and moved towards a panel in the wall just to the right of his bed. "I have some few hours before anyone will come to look for me. I'm going to the tunnel to check on the horses and clean my pistols. Do you come with me?"

"Oui, I will come. If I do not, you will only forget the time and ruin all."

Cedric grinned at the long-suffering tone in Jacques' voice, but didn't contradict him. In all probability, he was right.

Jacques took a moment to make sure the outer door was locked and the small sign announcing Cedric's "indisposition" was hanging from the door latch, before joining Cedric at the secret panel which opened into his bedroom. Everyone knew not to bother him when he was "ill," so they should be safe for a while.

This panel led to one of the passages that ran through certain older sections of the house and dated from a time when people had felt a need for secrecy and safe escapes. The old Earl had shown a couple of them to Cedric when he was fourteen, but made him promise not to go into them alone, or to tell anyone outside of the family of their existence. Jacques had helped Cedric explore them and, during one such exploration, they had found the tunnel.

Upon further inspection, they'd learned that the tunnel connected to a well-hidden cave in the woods, which opened about a half mile from the house. At the time Cedric had been deeply excited about his discovery because he'd known exactly what it was--a smuggler's cave! His boy's imagination had been fired, fuelled by the many tales he'd heard from the locals and the servants.

Kentham lay too far from the sea, Jacques had told him, for the cave to have ever gotten daily use. More than likely, he'd surmised, it had been a way station; a place for the smugglers to store their booty until such time as they could sell it.

Cedric had heard stories that the fifth Earl had actively supported the Gentlemen, but Cedric's own grandfather had disapproved of such goings on. He'd asked for, and received, stronger and more frequent patrols, and the smugglers had taken their business elsewhere. Some threats had been made against the Earl but such was the respect for him in the neighbourhood, that none could be found to carry them out.

By the time Cedric had come to live with him, local free-trading had been all but wiped out. As far as he and Jacques could tell, no one seemed to have remembered the existence of the cave, for it was evident that it had gone unused for a considerable time before the day that they had discovered it.

Shortly after the advent of Lucius, the eighth Earl, the countryside had begun to experience a rise in petty theft and highway robbery. Then horses, cattle and sheep began to disappear, and shopkeepers had been threatened. The robbers had grown bolder over time, and there had seemed little the overwhelmed local law officers could do, especially since they were not immune from attacks themselves. Bow Street Runners, special law officers from London, had been called in, but the two who were sent were not enough to stem the rising tide of lawlessness, and the robberies had continued.

When Cedric had discovered, through the grapevine, that these thieves and bullies seemed to be outsiders, he'd remembered the cave and doubted they would know of it. He knew, because his grandfather had told him, that he was the only living relative to whom he'd divulged the existence of the secret passages, so Cedric believed he had nothing to fear on that score. He had explored the tunnel anew, and found that the cave had not been used, except by animals, since his last visit a few years previously. Gradually, the idea had grown upon him that here was a way he could protect his home--the countryside and the people he loved--but it would have to be in secret, and The Masked Avenger, as the common folk had come to call him, had been born.

The past few months had been busy ones: running the estate, establishing a non-threatening persona for his uncle's benefit, creating his disguise out of clothes that had belonged to his grandfather, and purchasing first one and then a second sturdy horse with the last of his inheritance. He'd had to be careful ... very careful, because the further he'd proceeded with his endeavour, the more certain he'd become that there was someone guiding, or at least encouraging, this widespread criminal effort. Someone who, he'd felt certain, would stop at nothing to succeed.