Captive Surrender (28 page)

Prudence’s smile didn’t
match her eyes and she struggled to fight the urge to lay her head
on his shoulder. The crunch of the gravel on the driveway outside
made her jump and she raced toward the sitting room window to peer
through the gloom.

“
They are
back,” she shouted, and raced through the house so that she was in
the driveway by the time Rufus drew to a stop beside the front
door.

“
Where have
you been?” she demanded as soon as he drew to a stop. Whatever else
she was about to say remained locked in her throat at the sight of
the fear on Eloisa’s face as she opened the carriage door. Behind
her, still inside the conveyance, Georgiana, Maggie and Madeline
were clearly terrified about something.

Rufus jumped down and
looked worriedly at Stephen. “Robbie has gone missing.”

“
Oh, good
Lord,” Prudence whispered.

“
What?
When?”

“
Sometime
this afternoon,” Eloisa whispered and hiccupped a sob. Rufus moved
to her side and slid a comforting arm around her waist. His support
gave her the strength to recount the details. “He was beside me,
and then asked if he could say hello to someone he knew. I was only
vaguely aware of him asking but, before I could turn around and say
anything, he had vanished. It was the last I saw of him. We have
searched everywhere; asked around the shops and houses, and
everything, but there is no sign of him. It is just like he has
vanished.”

All the while Eloisa
talked, Stephen studied Rufus, who clearly had other things he
wanted to say but had chosen to keep to himself in deference to the
presence of the ladies. Stephen looked down at the horror on
Prudence’s face and cursed the latest turn of events. The fear was
back, and it fuelled his temper far more quickly than anything else
ever could.

“
Why don’t
you take everyone inside, Prudence, and get them warm? We will be
there in a moment.” He stood back to allow the ladies to move into
the house. Once the door was closed behind them, he turned to Harry
and Rufus.

Rufus sighed. “I hate to
tell you, but I saw that thug, Will, in town.”

“
Levant is
back?” Harry snapped in disgust. He wished to hell that Marcus had
not left as quickly as he had and considered the distance his
colleague could have covered since the moment he left. Even if he
did manage to head in the same direction, Marcus would be too far
away to get back in time to be of any use to help find Robbie. It
was down to Stephen, Harry and Marcus to find the boy and bring him
home.

“
He must
be.”

“
Why take
Robbie, though? I mean, the poor lad hasn’t done anything to
anyone,” Harry growled. As soon as he asked the question, he knew
that it would remain unanswered. Both he and Stephen knew that the
men they were dealing with would stop at nothing to get what they
wanted, and would have no compunction against involving women and
children in their dreadful schemes. People were mere pawns in their
machinations, not real beings with family and friends who loved
them.

“
Will has
been trying to make friends with Robbie for weeks. Levant wanted
the lad to work at Dinnington, and undoubtedly intends to use the
boy as a pawn in exchange for Cragdale,” Stephen sighed. He wished
now that he had taken the time to draw Will out and make him
‘disappear’ to Bodmin jail along with Humphrey, but it was too
late. Levant had already made his move. Now it was down to Stephen,
and his friends, to ensure that the ladies were protected while
they tried to find Robbie.

“
Do you think
it is a trap?”

“
What do you
mean?” Stephen froze, and turned a dark scowl on Rufus.

“
Do you think
that they want us to go and look for Robbie, so that we are away
from the house when Levant makes his next visit?” Rufus studied the
big man beside Stephen, and was relieved that the bloke was on
their side and not Levant’s. An extra pair of experienced hands in
this situation was going to give them an advantage over anything
Levant intended.

“
I am going
to go to Dinnington to look for Robbie. Can someone stay here and
protect the ladies and the house while I go?” He looked
questioningly from Rufus to Harry, and back again.

“
Do you think
he is there?”

“
If you
wanted to kidnap someone to use as leverage, and you had been using
Dinnington as your base, where would you stash him?” Stephen
growled. He gave Rufus an apologetic look for the briskness of his
reply and quirked his lips at the man’s accepting nod.

“
He is at
Dinnington, I just know it.” Harry muttered. “I will come with you,
Stephen, if Rufus doesn’t mind keeping watch here?”

“
I will
remain here if you want me to, that is not a problem. However, if
it is evident that Levant, and/or Will, has taken Robbie, it is
kidnap and will give me sufficient evidence to arrest Levant, and
all of his men.”

“
We don’t
know if it is kidnap yet,” Stephen sighed. He ran a frustrated hand
through his hair and tried to keep hold of his patience. His own
altercation with the young lad a couple of weeks ago sprang into
his mind. The boy then had said that he had been going to see his
new friend, Will. Had Will merely been on his way through the
village, and Robbie had chosen to follow his friend back to
Dinnington out of curiosity? It didn’t seem likely, especially
given what they knew about Levant and Taylor.

“
If I am not
back in an hour then come after me, but be careful. Levant’s men
are not just thugs, but they are ruthless thugs.” He turned to
Harry. “If you are ready, let’s go.”

“
I will make
sure that the ladies don’t do anything rash, like go out to look
for him,” Rufus sighed and headed toward the house.

He wondered how on earth
he was going to keep all of them inside where it was warm and safe
while their brother was out only God knew where. He sighed and
puffed his cheeks out. If he was honest, he would much rather have
gone with Stephen rather than sit inside and wait. He was
magistrate for the area, and it was his responsibility to ensure
that all crimes were investigated and the perpetrators arrested. It
didn’t sit well for him to remain indoors while trouble was
afoot.

He paused just inside the
doorway and lifted his brows in astonishment at the now empty
gardens behind him. How two such large men could simply vanish as
quickly and silently was beyond him. He realised there and then why
he had been sent inside. Without the necessary skills and training
he would never be able to keep up with them, and would undoubtedly
have been more of a burden than a help to them. With a shake of his
head he closed the door and slid the bolts home.

For the second time that
week, Stephen stood just inside of the sheltered protection of the
trees and studied Dinnington. Unlike last time the called, the
house was clearly occupied because two of the downstairs rooms were
lit. Although it was too dim to see who was inside, it was enough
to warn them that Levant, and quite possibly Taylor as well, were
in residence.

“
How do you
want to do this?”

“
I think that
we need to go to the stable block and see if we can find Will,”
Stephen sighed. “He is the biggest threat because he has tried to
befriend Robbie, and is by far the most ruthless thug of them
all.”

They searched all of the
outbuildings, but couldn’t find any sign of any of Levant’s thugs.
Stephen frowned at the empty rooms that had once housed Will and
his cohorts. If he hadn’t seen them only a few days ago, he would
have thought that he had imagined them. When the buildings had been
searched, they met at end of the stable block. Given the
seriousness of the situation, they knew better than to talk, and
used hand signals to communicate that they needed to search the
main house.

By the time they
approached the door to Dinnington’s kitchens, they knew that
something was most definitely wrong. There hadn’t been all that
many staff in attendance as it was, but for the few that were there
appeared to have vanished completely. They were either in the house
and on guard, or had been relieved of their duties. Whether they
were dead or alive remained yet to be seen, but it was of little
consequence in light of Robbie disappearance. It was highly
unlikely that the young lad had been moved somewhere else,
especially if the boy had been used as bait to draw Stephen out, or
even Prudence, for that matter.

They crept through the
empty halls of the house and up the servant’s stairs. A thorough
sweep of the upper floors confirmed them to be as empty as the
accommodation in the stable block. They knew better than to split
up and head in different directions. With the house as big as it
was, if either of them found themselves outnumbered, they would
need the support of a colleague to fight alongside them.

Harry looked as concerned
as Stephen was. Instead of taking the main flight of stairs down to
the entrance hall, they moved back down the servant’s stairs and
began to search each room as they made their way to the main living
quarters at the front of the house.

The Library, the lady’s
parlour, the dining room and ball room were all empty. They walked
slowly down the hallway, and noticed a thin sliver of light that
shimmered through the small gap at the bottom of the door. They
could either kick the door down and surprise the room’s occupants,
or try to find another way in. Before either of them could act,
Harry gave Stephen a nudge and nodded toward a partially open
doorway further along the corridor.

Stephen slowly crept
toward the doorway and drew his gun. Harry scurried past him and
stood on the opposite side of the doorway and peered around the
door. He signalled that the room was empty and waited for Stephen
to enter before he checked the corridor behind them and
followed.

At first, they couldn’t
see anything untoward. It was only when Stephen ventured deeper
into the gloomy depths that his attention was drawn to the bloodied
mass that lay in front of the fireplace. Stephen remained where he
was, gun drawn; silent and watchful, while Harry sidled closer to
the body. Both hands were laid out on the rug on either side of the
man’s head, and it was clear from the growing pool of blood on the
room that the man was either dead, or mortally wounded.

Rather than bend down and
leave himself vulnerable to attack, Harry nudged the body with his
boot hard enough to roll the body over. Levant flopped onto his
back and stared blankly up at the ceiling.

Unperturbed by the sight
of the hole in the middle of Levant’s head, Stephen turned and
slowly walked around the room as he studied the furniture. There
were no signs of a struggle; no broken or dislodged furniture;
nothing untoward to indicate that Levant had known what was going
to happen. There was no trail of blood on the floor either, which
indicated that the man lay where he had fallen.

The finger of suspicion
now fell on Taylor, whose presence was almost as non-existent as
the man’s voice. Was that because he was French? Had he talked
quietly in an attempt to disguise the accent in his
voice?

Satisfied that there was
nobody lying in wait to attack, the men sidled out of the room and
crept toward the second lit room. This was undoubtedly the room
that was going to be occupied, but would it be by someone who was
alive, or dead? Stephen sent a silent prayer heavenward that it
wouldn’t be Robbie’s body he would find next, and slowly eased the
door open.

The rustle of movement
from inside the room was quiet but hurried. Luckily, the door was
silent as it swung inward and revealed Taylor, who was beside the
desk, rifling through a bundle of papers.

To Stephen’s immense
relief, there, before the fire, sat Robbie. He was terrified and,
from the look of the tear tracks on his dirt streaked face, had
been crying, although looked to be relatively unharmed. Stephen
immediately moved in the boy’s direction only for a voice from the
far corner of the darkened room to shatter the silence. To his
consternation, it wasn’t Taylor who spoke, it was Will, and he had
a heavy French accent that Stephen knew was the man’s natural
voice.

“
You took
your time to join us,” the man drawled as he studied them
dispassionately from head to foot.

“
Rousseau,”
Harry sighed. He had only ever seen the man once, but remembered
the ruthlessness in the cold grey eyes.

Stephen kept his face
impassive and mentally cursed his luck. He had been working
alongside one of England’s most wanted men and hadn’t known it;
mainly because he had been too busy investigating Levant and
Taylor. He hadn’t thought to give the disreputable thug a second
glance. He remained quiet, but gave Robbie a reassuring wink.
Despite his fear, the boy offered him a tumultuous smile that was
gone as quickly as it had arrived.

Beside him, Harry frowned
at a clearly frantic Taylor, who desperately flicked through the
piles of papers on the desk. “If you are looking for the property
deeds, we have them,” he drawled.

Dread filled Taylor’s
face, and stared in terror at Rousseau, who merely twirled his gun
around and around in his fingers and stared back.