The Kidnapped Bride (Redcakes Book 4) (10 page)

Judah nodded. “Exactly. Is there a telephone somewhere? I can reach Magdalene at Redcake’s and make sure I’m not missing any crucial facts that would damage our story.”

“My brother used one at our bank. Just a couple of streets over,” Dougal said.

“Can you take me there, while Hatbrook helps Beth get ready to leave?”

Dougal nodded. He was still in the man’s employ and, really, was lucky he hadn’t been shot. Instead, he’d been given another commission. He couldn’t ask for a better outcome, unless Beth had wanted him for more than one night.

H
is Saturday mood reverted to gloom. Dougal woke in his own flat for the first time in a week, recalling how quickly his fortunes had reversed in the past day, if only in his mind. He’d taken Lord Judah to the bank’s telephone. The man had reached his wife, and she had agreed to the Mark Cross plan. No one thought Cross would ever return to England due to personal irregularities, so giving him a dead wife and a young child wouldn’t trouble anyone. So Hester became Hester Cross, and Beth, rightly so, became her rescuer. She had departed for London with her brothers on the afternoon train because the horseless carriage that had conveyed them to Edinburgh was too small for additional passengers.

They had a great deal of visiting to arrange, and Dougal was forced to listen to all the plans being laid. First, the Shields had to find suitable clothes for Beth and the baby, then they needed to take them to meet Mark and Lady Judah’s older brother, George. The baby would need to be accepted by Lady Amelia March, their aunt, who had once been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, and Lord Gerrick, their uncle. Once those two had agreed to the fiction, Hester’s future would be secured, at least unless Mark Cross ever reappeared.

Dougal left them at the train station in the evening, Lord Judah scheming for ways of getting word to Mark Cross without having to put anything into writing. He thought he could reach Cross through Hatbrook’s brother-in-law’s Indian trading network.

For his part, Dougal was glad they hadn’t hired him to go to India. Following the slave ship was quite enough penance for his misdeed with Beth.

He felt restless, ready to track down Detective Tippett to find out what he knew about
The Lady Shore
. The interrogation would probably be more effective if he came bearing gifts, so he decided to pick up a box of baked goods as an offering to the man.

A decent bakery operated out of the lower floor of his building, but he decided to go into Leith. Even better, he decided to go to the bakery from which the cart and horse had been stolen, then returned. A small way to pay for the temporary theft.

An hour later, he’d made his way to the bakery. The cart was not in front, as it had been early the morning they’d escaped the slavers, but the owner had probably secured it more thoughtfully now. It was rather a mean shop, really, but they did have enough Selkirk Bannock to make Tippett smile. In fact, Dougal’s stomach gurgled happily at the idea of eating one himself. He knocked on the counter to get a clerk’s attention, as he was alone in the front of the store. The scent of the bannocks was almost overwhelmingly good. He couldn’t wait to eat one.

A woman dressed in gray came out of the back room. “May I help ye?”

Staring at the bannocks, he said, “Yes. Give me a dozen of those, and a loaf of that bread on the rack.”

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced up at her, something dancing in the back of his brain. The woman had her back turned to him as she reached for the bread. Something about the way she moved caught another glimmer of his memory.

When she turned around, he took a long look at her face, and comprehension dawned. At the same time, her eyes widened.

“You’re the woman who ran!”

“You,” she exclaimed. She reached over the counter to grip his arm.

“I am pleased to see ye are safe,” he said.

“What of the women you had with ye?” she demanded.

“The first one died, I’m afraid. She had been shot in her abdomen.”

“But the other lived?”

“Yes. She had some head pain, and a fever, but she’s done very well. I reunited her with her family yesterday.”

“That is good news,” she breathed. “How did ye find me?”

“Pure luck,” he admitted. “I suspected ye knew the area, but I didn’t get that close of a look at you.”

She nodded. “I just wanted to go home.”

“I understand. Did they kidnap you right from here?”

“No. I went to visit my grandmother after the shop closed that afternoon. They threw a bag over my head in the wynd outside where she lives and knocked me out. But other women had been there longer and were weaker.”

“Yes, like the one who died,” he agreed. “She wasn’t well even before being shot.”

“From what the women whispered, some had been there, tied up with nothing but occasional sips of water, for up tae four days,” she confided, nervous fingers dancing along the wooden counter.

“No one heard them?”

“They were gagged. But we were given water just before they started taking women out to the ships. I didn’t drink because the water they’d given me before had laudanum in it and I hate the stuff. I think that’s why they left me for last.”

“The two women I rescued must have been unconscious and missed the drink.”

“Aye.” Her somber expression brightened. “Ye did a lot o’ good that night.”

“I saved only two women out of how many?”

“No,” she exclaimed. “Ye saved all of us, you and those constables. When you shot the leader of the slavers, the rest of the men were in a right confused mess. The constables battled it out with the ship’s captain and the hands started throwing the women overboard. I think most o’ them survived. Every customer who came into the shop the next day had a tale to tell, it seemed.”

“Where have I been the last three days, to have missed all this?” he muttered. But the truth was, he’d been in Morningside, and then with Beth. He’d only been home late last night. He hadn’t seen a newspaper or spoken to anyone but his brother.

“You’re a hero,” she said. “The women went home because of what ye did.”

Fortune had smiled down on most of the unfortunate women that night. He was grateful Tippett had lent him those constables. “I’m very glad to hear that. I’ll have to stop in at the police station and shake the hands of those constables who came with me. We went in the opposite direction without a thought of what was happening behind us.”

“I went home too,” she admitted. “Only heard about it all the next day.”

They smiled at each other, two survivors of one grim night.

“Ye take those bannocks as my gift to you.” She pushed the box to him.

“I will, only because I was taking them tae a police detective anyway, the one who lent me those constables.”

“Tell them thank you from Mary Hutton,” she said.

“I will. No more going into wynds after dark,” he cautioned as a customer entered the shop.

“I’ll fire a cannon at that ship myself if I ever see it dock here again,” she promised.

“I believe ye would. You have spirit, Mary Hutton.” He smiled at her and left the shop.

On one hand, he was out of a job. On the other, he had an excuse to go after Beth, to share the news. A letter wouldn’t do. He wanted to tell her what had happened himself, and see how she was faring with her family. If he’d proposed to her, instead of telling her brothers he would marry her, would things have gone differently? She had chosen to be intimate with him. Maybe all hope was not dead. But first, he had a detective to visit and thanks to give.

 

Beth bent over Hester’s little bed. She had insisted that the baby stay in her room rather than in the nursery for now, unless she slept there herself, which did not please the nanny who ruled the children’s wing. Needless to say, Beth had gotten her way. Hester had not slept well the first night, but now looked like an angel as she napped, her short blond curls fluffed around her face and her small red mouth pouted into a bow.

Beth knew she should sleep too, because Hester might be up most of the night again, or be unwilling to sleep unless she was rocked in the chair by the window. But she had all but forgotten how to sleep since Freddie had gone.

She had badgered her brothers for news of him on the train south. Michael had said the charges might be dropped in exchange for some information Freddie had. She couldn’t imagine him betraying Lord and Lady Mews but doubted he’d have secret information about anyone else. Freddie wouldn’t lie, though, and the truth about the salacious couple could be revealed by any of their intimates. Was it so bad that he’d share private information to free himself?

She wouldn’t do it in his place. If she had become a criminal, she’d feel she deserved time behind bars. But what if the lord or his wife were criminals too? She’d had far too many hours to mull over these questions while she rocked Hester, but she had no information. Her brothers absolutely forbade her to go to Newgate Prison herself, assuming she’d even want to go, saying Freddie was likely to be home soon enough. Michael had muttered that he’d find a way to send the lad to India, if not Australia, and get him out of their hair for good. Judah had retorted that George Cross was a far bigger problem than Freddie ever had been. Their raised voices had made Hester cry and Beth had needed to tell them to be quiet after that, but of course she knew George Cross was a drunkard unfit to raise his own children. Freddie didn’t drink at all.

She stood and paced the room, familiarizing herself with each of the watercolor scenes on the walls. Seascapes, sentimental London scenes. Her mother had given her a new painting every year for her birthday. She had treasured each one, telling herself stories about the people in them. Now, she would have to buy her own paintings. Something of Edinburgh, perhaps, and one day she could tell Hester stories about the Alexander brothers and Mrs. Shaw.

But they didn’t feel like they belonged in the sentimental past yet. Especially Dougal Alexander. The intimacies they had shared that long night fired her body any time they came to mind. And they often came to mind. All the long days she would sit in this room, caring for Hester, that man and those memories would refuse to fade. Someday, she’d probably sit in this same room and tell Hester’s grandchildren the tale.

To think he’d told her brothers he would marry her, the daughter of a marquess, when his father didn’t even have a peerage title. To do her a favor, no less. She had to laugh at herself. How was it these old aristocratic notions always crept into her brain, when she was a ruined woman who’d spent the last year as a maid-of-all-work? No decent man would have her, but she wasn’t about to marry some penniless private inquiry agent just because he felt sorry for her. Especially taking the risks he had. He’d probably leave her a widow in a year.

Had he felt sorry for her? She left Hester’s bed and paced the room, silent in her slippers. The night before, he’d had heat in his eyes. Could he have proposed out of lust? She liked the idea that she’d pleased him in bed. He’d certainly pleased her, but she had thought that night was her last one of freedom before she went into service. She hadn’t been thinking of a future, of making him responsible for her.

Couldn’t she take care of herself and Hester? She sighed, glancing around the luxurious room. Not in this fashion. The adjoining room was still full of the gowns and fripperies from her Season. What she would have done only a week ago to have the money spent on all that French nonsense. But she cherished the memories of the time spent with her mother choosing it all. Now, she had no mother, no father. After a year away, her brothers felt like strangers. She had yet to see her sisters-in-law, but she wasn’t close to either one. Judah seemed desperate to make a connection with her. Michael was more reserved, the disciplinarian, the planner. He’d stared off into the distance while Judah had tried to make small talk, acquainting her with his work at the bakery, doings among family, social news. She’d tried to listen, but none of it mattered. There would be no social occasions for her. She’d have a better future in Edinburgh, if truth be told, where no one knew about the runaway Lady Elizabeth Shield. No one in fashionable Edinburgh society had seen her in her maid days.

Had she made a mistake in refusing Dougal so rudely? As she paced, the walls seemed to close in on her, the watercolors full of tiny, mocking people. What were her choices? An object of pity in her family, a shut-in, or the wife of a working man?

A man who had saved her life. A man who’d made love to her like she was a goddess. A man who had offered to marry her, despite knowing she was no better than she ought to be. Her stomach clutched, knowing the answer even before her mind did.

She’d made a terrible mistake. But there was no way to fix it now.

 

Dougal arrived in London on Monday night. The next morning he went to Newgate, using the connections he’d made on his previous visit to get in to see Manfred Cross. The lad was as feisty as ever, though he’d lost weight in the past week and a half.

“Lady Elizabeth is returned to her family,” Dougal said as the turnkey locked him in Cross’s cell.

“She won’t like that.” Cross tilted the stool he’d acquired so that he leaned against the inner wall, one leg of the stool perched off the floor.

“It’s done,” he said. “I wanted to tell ye that I’d offered for her, but she refused me in front of her brothers.”

“Why would you do that?”

He’d asked himself that question repeatedly on the train, and one thought had often come to mind, along with more tender, more sensual thoughts. “I like her.”

Cross grinned. “I like her too. But she’s as stubborn as they come. You can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Ye must know her better than anyone,” Dougal said, stepping forward. “I need your advice.”

He shrugged. “You need to make her want you.”

“She wanted me in her bed,” Dougal said softly, “but not in her life.”

Cross’s gaze sharpened. “She’s a ripe one, but I told you before, I never had her.”

“I know that,” Dougal said, and the two men stared at one another.

“Make a grand gesture,” he suggested.

“I thought I did that, telling her brothers I’d marry her.”

“You made a grand gesture to her brothers, not to her.” Cross shook his head. “Best to say whatever you have to say privately. Allow her some dignity. She sees herself as her own highest authority, even if she is a girl. Her mother was the same way, they say. Got herself into loads of trouble, just like Beth.”