Jack of Hearts (35 page)

“Oh, I planned to do soomthing, I can tell tha,” Gibson told her, his eyes beginning to glaze over.

Anne realized that she was dealing with someone who was so far gone in drink that he was almost as irrational as a madman. Her heart sank. There were all sorts of reasons why Gibson couldn’t get away with this—indeed, would harm his brother more than help him, but Tom Gibson had left rationality behind years ago. Yet she had to try to reach him.

“I was at the mill to investigate the fire, Mr. Gibson, to see if my cousin was right in sacking your brother.”

“Ned would never set a fire, but I would, and tha cousin should know that. Ned still believes in organizing and protesting.
But protesting gets tha nowt, I told him. Nowt but a jail sentence. My Sally lost a babby while I were in prison,” Gibson told her, his eyes filling with the easy tears of the drunkard. “And it were all Robert Heriot’s fault.”

“My father was a fair man, Mr. Gibson, and paid a good wage.”

Gibson pounded his fist so hard on the table that Anne thought it would shatter. “Tha father, Miss Heriot, were willing to put in t’new machines that displaced workers, but never to replace fold ones for safety reasons. ‘Twould interfere with his profits, and his profits kept tha nicely fed and dressed and eddicated, didn’t they? And able to buy thaself a husband in London, eh?”

Anne took a deep breath and said calmly, “I have been thinking a lot about the condition of the mills, Mr. Gibson. I wish to change things, if you would give me the chance.”

“Oh, aye, easy to say that now, lass, when tha wants out of here!”

“But they will catch you, and you will hang for kidnapping, Mr. Gibson,” Anne pleaded desperately. “How will that help you?”

“Tha will give Ned his job back and tha will settle money on me, enough so Sally and I can leave here—maybe go to America.”

“I see. What if I promised to do that anyway?”

Gibson laughed. “Does tha take me for a fool, lass? No, Ned gets his job and I my money before tha gets out of here.”

“How long do you intend to hold me, then?” Anne asked quietly, trying to keep fear out of her voice.

“A couple of days should do it, lass. Don’t worry—tha has bread and cheese and ale, a workingman’s diet, to keep tha going. I’ll leave the lantern; tha’ll have light till foil burns down.”

“Will you untie me, at least?” Anne pleaded, hating herself for begging, but how else would she manage?

“T’cellar is secure enough so I suppose I could do that,” agreed Gibson, looking around. It was a stone cellar, and the door looked relatively new, for it had been replaced a few years ago when they started using the place for their meetings.

Gibson looked longingly at the two bottles of ale, but shook his head and smiled. “I’ll leave tha both,” he told Anne, “for I will be at tavern all night drinking anyway.” He reached into his pocket and, drawing out an old knife, sawed away at the rope. When her hands were finally free, he picked up his knapsack and said, “I’ll be back soon, lass, with more food for tha.”

“Wait!” Anne cried, but he just climbed out of the cellar and closed the door behind him, leaving her in semidarkness. She could hear him securing a padlock, and her heart sank.

Dear God, she was completely at the mercy of a drunkard who hated her. Maybe he wasn’t planning to come back at all. Panicking, Anne scrambled up the steps and pushed at the door. It moved an inch or so, giving her another band of light, enough to see the strong chain that held it shut, but still she pushed and pounded on it, yelling for help until she realized how useless it was to waste her energy.

She climbed down and looked at the pitiful supply of food on the table. Gibson had left the lucifer, which surprised her. But then, why not? She could hardly burn her way out. The door was wood, it was true, but even if she succeeded in setting it on fire, she would die from the smoke before she got out. At least she could extinguish the lantern and save oil, knowing she could light it again. Though there was still light coming through the gap in the wall, she didn’t have the courage to do it. It was close to sundown, she reasoned. She would turn the lantern down when she went to sleep. Oh, God, how was she to sleep here?

Holding the lantern up, she surveyed her small prison. She hadn’t noticed before, but in one corner was a pile of wool sacks. She could lie on those and even pull some of them over her. But that would be later. Now she had to act as though this were somehow normal. She put the lantern on the table and picked up the tin pot distastefully. She would put that in the corner next to the door where some air might come through to take away the smell.

So, now she had a water closet, a bedroom, and a dining area, she told herself, trying to look at her situation humorously. It was chilly and damp, but at least she wasn’t exposed to the elements. Nights were cold in Yorkshire, even in early summer. She carefully sat down on one of the chairs and, although it swayed a little under her weight, it held. She couldn’t believe it, but she was actually hungry, and the bread and cheese looked better to her than any of the fancy suppers she had had in London. She decided to eat while there was still some natural light and broke off a piece of cheese and placed it on the tin plate. The bread was dry, and she was thirstier than she had ever been in her life. She supposed it was a combination of shock and fear and the climb up the scree. She opened a bottle of ale and tried sipping it slowly, but it was impossible. She gulped almost all of it down, till she realized that she had better save some. There was only the one other bottle, and who knew when Gibson would be back.

The ale gave her warmth and a little courage. After rewrapping the bread and cheese and corking the bottle, she sat there, watching the lantern flame. She had never realized how beautiful such a simple thing could be. She held her hand close to it for warmth and then looked at her wrists for the first time. They were rubbed raw and bloody and could quite easily become infected, she realized, with no way to wash them. She hated to do it, but the only way to disinfect them was with the dregs of the ale from the first bottle. She poured carefully, gasping aloud at the pain, and then she tore a few strips off her petticoat and tied them awkwardly around her wrists. There was one swallow left in the bottle and she finished it off.

All right, next her “bed” needed attention before the light was completely gone. There were six or seven sacks, the sort that were used for transporting wool. She lifted one to her nose and sniffed it gingerly. Surprisingly, other than smelling a bit musty, it was clean and held the rich smell of raw wool, which Anne had always loved. She spread three of the sacks out on the dirt floor, then tied the rest together at their corners, creating a sort of blanket. She stepped back and surveyed the place again. She was quite proud of herself, she decided. She would survive until Gibson came back or the soldiers found her.

Her ale-produced euphoria lasted only a short while, however, and when the last light died away and she realized it was time to extinguish the lantern and crawl under her makeshift covers, it took all her courage to do so.

She could feel the damp floor through the burlap and, pulling her blanket over her, she lay there shivering.

“Tha will not get hysterical, Anne Heriot,” she told herself out loud. “This will only be until tomorrow. Patrick will alert the troops. They will find you, maybe even early tomorrow.” Then she thought of Patrick, hanging unconscious over the tree limb. What if he were dead? What then? But Gibson had promised to release her, and he’d have to come back, if only to get her to write out his demands.

Oh, God, why hadn’t she listened to Jack? Why hadn’t she waited a day or so, so that he would have been with her? Why hadn’t she married him before coming home?

“Now don’t be foolish, lass,” she told herself. “Now that tha knows it were Tom Gibson, not Joseph, marrying Jack Belden wouldn’t have made a bloody bit of difference!” Except that Jack would have insisted on escorting her to the mill. Gibson would never have risked a kidnapping with two men there to protect her.

How long would it take Jack to get to Yorkshire? And what would he think when he knew she was missing? Would he care? “Tha’rt being foolish again, lass. Of course he would care.” But would he care because he needed her money or because he needed
her!

She needed him. It was a sudden but sure revelation. Why had it taken her so long to see? She had been attracted to him the first moment she saw him, but she had fought that attraction, knowing it was pulling her away from safety, away from her world of debits and credits, where things could be made to add up, into a world where calculation was useless. Even when Jack had shown himself to be in sympathy with her, she had pushed him away, adding up, in her mental ledger, the advantages of marrying safely, of marrying someone she felt some easy affection for, not that maelstrom of distrust and desire that Jack Belden precipitated.

She had
had
to push Jack away, because somewhere, deep down, she wanted him close to her, inside of her, knowing her body and mind almost better than she did herself. How could she have allowed herself to admit that, given the circumstances of her marriage? She had always been in charge of her life, but with Jack Belden, the independent Anne Heriot was threatened.

But she wanted him, she finally admitted to herself. She needed him. And she suspected she was halfway to loving him. That was almost as frightening as being a prisoner in this cellar.

Love was so often described in terms of light and fire, but Anne realized it could also be thought of as a darkness, a place where there were no known landmarks. A place where one could so easily lose one’s way, a place where black and white pages dissolved together. In darkness, things didn’t add up. In darkness, one was blind and yet could see more than one had before.

She could see Jack Belden, could hear his voice and feel his hand gently touch her cheek.
Please God, Tha will help me out of this
, she prayed, and if Tha does, I will let myself learn what it is to love.

Jack settled his affairs as quickly as he could and left London only two days after Anne. His ride was easier than at Christmas, of course, although the further north he rode, the more rain he encountered. Once again, he loved it, the freedom to move, the sense of having a mission. The dark mood that had fallen on him when Anne left lifted after half a day in the saddle.

He made good time, changing horses often, and reached Heriot Hall the day after Anne’s disappearance. It was lunchtime, and he expected he would find Anne and Sarah still at the dining table. Instead he was ushered into the drawing room by a grim-faced Peters, where he found Sarah sitting with Patrick Gillen.

Sarah jumped up when she saw him. “Oh, Lord Aldborough, I am so glad you are here. I thought we had no hope of seeing you until tomorrow at the earliest!”

“I settled my affairs as quickly as I could, Miss Wheeler. I didn’t want to leave Anne alone too long. Although I knew she was in good hands with you, Patrick.”

Patrick lifted his head and Jack saw it was bandaged. “What happened, Patrick? And where is Anne?” he asked sharply.

“God help me, but I acted like a raw recruit and walked right into an ambush.”

Patrick started to get up, but Sarah ordered him down. “The doctor said you should still be in bed, Patrick.”

“I can’t stay there, not knowing where Miss Heriot is.”

Jack felt as close to fainting as he ever had in his life. He took a seat next to Patrick. “What do you mean, Sergeant?”

“Patrick drove Anne to the mill yesterday,” Sarah explained. “On the way home, they encountered a fallen tree across the road.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten down,” said Patrick with a groan. “Although there wouldn’t have been any way to get away from there without movin’ the damn branches.”

“There wasn’t anything else you could have done, Patrick,” Sarah reassured him.

“So you were hit from behind?”

“I never even heard him comin’. And when I came to, I was draped over the branches like a sack of potatoes and the carriage was empty.”

“Was there any sign of violence?” Jack was surprised he could ask the necessary questions so calmly.

“It looked like she had fallen to her knees in the ditch and then climbed out. There were muddy prints leading up the hill, but I couldn’t follow, sor. I was still too dizzy.”

“I don’t know how he even managed to drive himself home, Lord Aldborough,” Sarah exclaimed. “He has a concussion from the blow.”

“I knew I had to get back to alert the troops, Sarah. Enough time was lost as it was.”

“Who do you think is behind this, Sergeant Gillen?”

“When we got to the mill, Joseph Trantor was just leavin’. He would have had plenty of time to get there and block the road…” Patrick’s voice trailed off. “He was angry at Miss Heriot’s visit and blamin’ the fire on Ned Gibson, but I didn’t see any signs of a horse and carriage, although I wasn’t in any condition to do a full search,” Patrick admitted.

“Could it have been Ned Gibson, then?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ it could, though he never struck me as a violent man. But he’s been on the run from the troopers for over a week now. He could have been skulkin’ around town and seen us drive by. Maybe he thought he could kidnap Miss Heriot to get the troopers called off.”

“But we have heard nothing, my lord,” Sarah told Jack, having a hard time keeping her voice steady. Her hands were shaking, and Patrick reached across very naturally and clasped them in his. “There, there, Sarah,” he said comfortingly.

Any other time, Jack would have been amused by the fact that a small romance had obviously been blooming and he’d never noticed, but he was too worried about Anne to dwell on it.

“I don’t like the waitin’, sor.”

Jack was quiet for a minute. “I think the first thing to do is pay a visit to Trantor.”

“I’ll go with ye, sor.”

“You can’t, Patrick,” protested Sarah.

“Miss Wheeler is right. And I need you here to wait for any communication that may come. Tell me how to get to the mill, and point me to the stables. I’ll need a fresh horse.”