Amanda Scott (29 page)

“Both of them are going?” Margaret had just realized this fact from his conversation, and stared at him. She had assumed that there were two men because one would be riding back with her. Kingsted heard the note of dismay and smiled at her.

“Is this the intrepid Miss Caldecourt speaking? Surely, ma’am, you are not afraid to ride back to the manor with only Abberley’s old coachman for protection. You need not fret, you know.”

“I know,” she replied. And truly, she did. She told herself she was merely suffering from foolish fancies, for nothing would happen to her between Royston and the manor. Nothing had ever happened before. Still, she had the oddest premonition fifteen minutes later as she watched the post chaise roll out of the innyard, preceded by Kingsted on his handsome mare and followed by two mounted footmen, that she was being basely deserted.

Abberley’s horses had been watered and rested, so the barouche was ready to depart. As John Coachman climbed onto his seat, Margaret settled back against the squabs and relaxed. It occurred to her while the barouche rolled along Ermine Street in Royston that she ought to have made herself a list of errands to accomplish since she had to be in town. Since she had not done so, she amused herself by watching the people on the flagway until they were on the open road again.

As John Coachman stirred his charges to a neat, high-stepping trot, Margaret was conscious of a slight prickling sensation at the tips of her thumbs. She rubbed them together briefly, folded her hands in her lap, and concentrated on relaxing. Annoyed with her odd fancies, she leaned back and closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe evenly and deeply. The trip back to the manor road was no longer than fifteen minutes, after all. Nothing could happen in so short a span of time. Certainly not in broad daylight.

But less than ten minutes later the coach lurched and one of the horses—or perhaps more than one—let out a frightened scream. Margaret opened her eyes to discover no less than four masked men thrusting their way through the hedges that lined the road. Two had already grabbed the leaders’ harness and were forcing them to a halt.

“Footpads!” she exclaimed. “Oh, John Coachman, pray do nothing foolish. Once they see we have nothing for them to take, perhaps they will leave us be.”

“Aye, mistress,” muttered the old man under his breath. He had all he could do to keep his horses from leaping out of their traces, so it would have been unlikely in any event for him to have attempted anything heroic.

Frightened, Margaret watched the men approaching, wishing she had a pistol by her. There was a holster fitted into the offside door, but there was no weapon in it. An oversight? she wondered. Or did Abberley refuse to trust women with weapons? Whatever the reason, she was helpless against so many. Never had she even heard of footpads traveling in so large a gang. She drew a deep breath, determined to appear calm.

“I have no jewelry or money,” she said to the first man, a large fellow with a brown woolen scarf wrapped around his neck and over his head in such a way as to hide all his features but his eyes.

He said nothing but pulled open the door and, without letting down the steps, leapt in beside her. Margaret stifled a scream, then wished she had not, since on the public road the chances were excellent that another vehicle might be just around the bend with someone who could come to her assistance. By the time she had thought better of her bravery, however, the footpad had revealed that he held a large, snowy-white handkerchief and a burlap sack of the sort that barley was carried in to Ware. Quickly, before she had a chance to do more than flail her arms about and aim a fruitless kick at the man’s moleskin-clad shins, he had stuffed the handkerchief into her mouth and bundled the sack over her head. He then tied the sack around her waist and looped a rope around her wrists, tying them uncomfortably behind her back. She struggled more, managing to dislodge the handkerchief gag, but she was too frightened now to scream. Moreover, her struggles had released a cloud of dust within the sack, bringing on a fit of sneezing. Once she had control of herself again, her captor had only to rest a burly hand upon her shoulder to make her stop wriggling. He did not sit beside her but across from her, and although she had seen no weapons, the coach began to move, so she decided the men must have threatened the coachman to make him do what they wanted.

Not a word had been spoken by any of the men, and no one else attempted to climb into the barouche. Nonetheless, Margaret felt more vulnerable than she could remember ever having felt before. The men had her at their mercy.

“What do you want with me?” she asked, trying to ignore the brush of burlap against her cheek and trying to remain calm. When there was no reply, she tried another approach. “I truly have no money or valuables by me, and there is no one who thinks me worth much by way of a ransom, so I cannot think what you might hope to gain by this outrage. Won’t you please tell me where you are taking me?” There was still no answer, and though she tried several more times to induce the man to speak, he did not, so she finally gave up the attempt.

Before long, the rough, lurching motion of the carriage told her they had left the main road for one of the tracks that led off it from time to time, and a change in lighting—which was all she could see through the burlap—told her they had entered some woods, which meant, no doubt, that no one would see her and think it odd to see a lady wrapped in burlap driving along the road beside—no, across from—a ruffian who clearly had no business to be riding in a carriage at all. She felt stifled in the burlap and nearly panicked, thinking she would suffocate, before she realized she could breathe quite easily if she remained calm. But it was more and more difficult as the time passed to remain calm. Her imagination began to suggest things the men might do to her, the very least of which was to slit her throat and leave her body in a ditch somewhere.

Maintaining her balance was oddly difficult on the rough track. She had not realized how much one depended upon one’s vision and one’s hands. The motion of the carriage swayed her from side to side, and it required effort to remain upright. After a time, however, as she grew more accustomed to the motion, maintaining an upright position became easier.

Where was Abberley when she needed him? So much for love and devotion, she thought bitterly. If he truly loved her, he’d be here, rescuing her. In books, the hero always rescued the heroine in the nick of time. So here was his chance to prove he loved her. And where was he? Some stupid matter of business occupied him elsewhere. And to think that she had been the one to tell him he ought to attend to his business and not leave others to attend to it for him. Why could she not have kept a still tongue in her head?

Try as she might, she could not keep the sardonic train of thought going for long. When tears of frustration and, if one had to admit it, fear welled into her eyes, she bit her lip angrily. She might never see Abberley again. There were four men nearby who would do as they pleased with her, and whether they left her alive or dead afterward didn’t much matter, since they would most certainly leave her unfit for a decent marriage. Why had she been so stubborn? Why had she not admitted to herself before now that she loved him, too, that she had merely been afraid to commit herself to that love, for fear she would somehow lose him as she had lost everyone else? At least she would have had a few days of knowing she was loved and of loving openly in return.

Not that he really loved her, she reminded herself. She had suspected as much, even as he was declaring his love and proposing that she marry him. And now she could be sure of it, for he would never had given up so easily if he had really loved her. He had merely kissed her—well, she amended mentally, perhaps
merely
was not the word to describe that kiss. Still and all, after the kiss he had gone away, and since then he had given no sign of being a man suffering the pangs of unrequited love. He had behaved perfectly normally, as though nothing remarkable had occurred.

So it was perhaps as well that she had not confessed her love for him. Once safely married to her, he might well have waited until she had produced his heir for him before returning to his raking, but without love to bind him to her, he would certainly have reverted to his old ways before long. And she would still have loved him, for her nature was tenacious rather than fickle, and his desertion would have been exactly the sort of loss one might anticipate, exactly the sort of blow one had come to expect from Fate.

So deeply sunk in thought was she that she did not realize the carriage had left the rough terrain for smoother ground. Nor did she immediately notice when it rolled to a stop. Only when weight shifted as the man opposite her moved to get out, did she stiffen in fear. Determined not to give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream her terror, she caught her lower lip firmly between her teeth and bit down upon it hard enough so that she might concentrate upon the pain and not give in to her fears. When she felt the man reach for her, she leaned hard back into the squabs, but it was no use. He lifted her as though she had weighed no more than a rag doll. As she squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to hold back the tears, she thought she heard a murmur of voices, but so low did they speak that she could not be certain she had even heard them. Even as her captor’s foot touched solid ground, other hands reached for her, and though she struggled again, she was as helpless against the second man’s strength as she had been against the first’s and soon found herself slung indignantly over his broad shoulder.

“Put me down!” she ordered him angrily.

No answer.

“Put me down. I can walk, damn you!”

Still no answer. He was walking quickly, in long strides, and the movement made it extremely difficult for her to talk. Also the burlap was pressing the linen handkerchief harder against her face, over her mouth and nose, so breathing was more difficult. After some moments, she began to fear that she would lose consciousness, so she made herself breathe slowly and deeply once more, knowing she would stand no chance at all if she did not retain her faculties.

He seemed to be climbing steps now, she decided, and the temperature was cooler than it had been. It was also darker, so although she had not noticed the sound of a door opening, she decided they must be indoors. She had not the slightest notion of their location, having lost all track of time and distance as a result of the blindfold. After some moments he stopped. There was the sound of a dull thud before he took two or three more steps and set her on her feet. When she swayed dizzily, a hand came to her elbow to steady her, but still the man said nothing.

“Where am I?” Margaret demanded. “Who are you?”

There was still no answer, but when she heard the sound of a heavy door closing, she realized his hand was no longer at her elbow. There was the distinctly recognizable sound of a key turning in a lock, and she cried out, “Don’t leave me like this!” before she realized he had not gone. The feeling she experienced then was scarcely one of relief, however.

She felt his hands again, this time at the knots of the cord around her wrists. A moment later, her hands were free, the rope was unwound from around her waist, and the burlap bag was pulled off over her head. The white handkerchief fell unheeded to the floor as she stared up, her mouth agape with angry astonishment, into Abberley’s laughing eyes.

There was a brief silence. Then, thoroughly outraged, she launched herself at him, forgetting propriety altogether as she let her temper rule both tongue and fists. “Damn you!” she cried, beating her hands against his chest as hard as she could. “How could you do such a thing to me? Have you any notion how frightened I was? Who were those dreadful men? By heaven, sir, I don’t know what you mean by this outrage, but I shall never speak to you again. Never!”

T
HOUGH THE LAUGHTER FADED
from his eyes, the earl made no effort to defend himself other than to fold his arms across his broad chest. He simply stood there, facing her, his legs braced against her furious onslaught. Undaunted, Margaret continued to berate him with angry words while pounding at him with her fists, but at last, frustrated by his silence and by the fact that she could not so much as budge him, she stopped and flung away from him, her breath coming in gasping sobs after the expenditure of so much energy.

“Have you quite finished?” he asked quietly.

Promptly deciding to give him a taste of his own medicine, she said nothing at all, focusing her attention on the need to restore her breathing to normal.

“I do hope you have finished,” he said conversationally, “for I have learned a good deal these past weeks, you know, about how best to deal with recalcitrant persons—not just from Aunt Celeste, but also from you—so if you do not wish me to empty a basin of cold water over your head or to lock you up in this room until you have decided to behave yourself, you will do well to sit down in that chair and listen to what I have to say to you.”

Margaret had not even noticed the chair, but she did now. Indeed, she noticed the entire room, and she did not require an echo of Abberley’s words to assist her in recognizing the north tower room at Abberley Hall. The stone floor was bare, and the only items of furniture were the straight wooden chair, its padded seat covered in dark leather outlined by brass-headed nails, and a simple wooden deal table.

She felt reluctant now to turn and face him, but despite the conversational tone, there had been a note of implacability in his voice that put her forcibly in mind of several occasions in the past when she had been very glad he had been speaking to someone other than herself, and she did not dare to defy him. Slowly she turned, focusing her gaze upon the second button of his tan-colored waistcoat.

“Sit down, Marget,” he said gently.

She glanced at the chair, even took a step toward it. But then she remembered there was only the one chair and looked back at him, more directly. If you please, sir, I would rather stand,” she told him. “I find the very thought of sitting there whilst you tower over me, reading me whatever scold you mean to read, quite daunting.”