Lord Cavendish Returns (4 page)

With a
sigh he cast a dark look at the inn door and quickly tucked the
man’s business away before hefting him into a sitting
position.

“
Jesus, you have got to give me a hand.” Sebastian gasped and
threw Edward a dark look. “For God’s sake get down here.” Sebastian
was as no lightweight. He was taller than average with a solid
build, broad shoulders and strong muscles, but even he was no match
for the heavy frame of the unconscious man.

Dominic
shook his head and moved to help Sebastian lift Harper onto the
back of the cart. As soon as the unconscious man was covered with a
blanket, both Dominic and Sebastian took a moment to catch their
breaths.

“
Come on, let’s go,” Dominic murmured quietly when they had
turned out onto the main road. He didn’t need to look around to
know that Sebastian and Edward were right behind him. They all knew
that Harper had not been hit hard enough to be unconscious for
long. At some point throughout the next few hours they were going
to have a very angry, very ruthless man on their hands, and it was
safer for all of them if he was out of the city when he realised
what they had done to him.

Harper
awoke with a start. The heavy pounding in his head immediately made
him feel nauseous and he took a breath to quell the bile that rose
in his throat. He was so very hot and struggled not to squirm
against the suffocating warmth. A dark frown settled over his brow
as he realised that there was something heavy over his face. He
immediately began to claw at it and gasped a deep lungful of crisp,
clean air when he was finally free of the woollen weight. He
scowled when he saw the clouds in the brilliant blue sky high
above. What the hell was going on?

The only
sound he could hear was the steady clip-clop of hooves accompanied
by the low rumble of the carriage wheels as they rolled over the
cart track. He lay perfectly still for a moment and watched the sky
roll past.

He
wondered if his predicament had anything to do with the French
spies the Star Elite had been working on, but then immediately
dismissed the notion as ridiculous. The spies, and their
associates, were all either behind bars or dead.

One hand
immediately patted his hip and he closed his eyes on a curse when
he realised that his gun had been taken from him. He turned his
head to study the cart and his surroundings and couldn’t prevent
the low moan that escaped him when he felt a large sore spot on the
back of his head. Bile immediately rose in his throat again and,
for one moment, he thought he was going to be sick but he manfully
swallowed and gritted his teeth. He didn’t have time for any of
that; not right now. There was far too much at stake.

“
Jesus,” he whispered and was about to sit up when movement to
his left drew his attention. He studied the outrider who trotted
along beside him, but was fairly certain that he had never seen the
man before. From the look of the rider’s expensive clothing, he was
someone who had wealth and status and was confident with his place
in the world. The wicked looking, highly polished pistol on the
man’s hip warned Harper that the outrider was also a man on a
mission of some kind. He carefully turned his head to the opposite
side and studied another outrider who looked very similar to his
counterpart. Were they related in some way? If so, what the hell
did they want with him? Whatever they wanted, one thing was for
certain; he wasn’t going to get any answers lying on his back
pretending to be dead.

Harper
snarled at the effort it took just for him to sit up. He ignored
the swirling of the world around him and glared balefully at the
man who rode to his left as he touched the wet, sticky patch on the
back of his head.

“
You are awake.” The outrider called to the man who was
driving the cart and it mercifully rumbled to a stop.

The
narrow country lane they were in could have been anywhere. Harper
wondered just how long he had been unconscious because there wasn’t
a soul to be seen for miles around. There wasn’t even a church
spire in the distance to indicate that there was a town within
walking distance. Right now, he was well and truly
stuck.

“
Where the hell am I? Who the hell are you lot?” He glared at
each man in turn and made a mental note of the fact that none of
them made any attempt to dismount from their horses. They were
waiting for him to run.

“
I am Edward Cavendish,” the outrider to the left of him
replied. He nodded to the man who remained seated on the bench at
the front of the cart. “Your driver is Dominic Cavendish, and the
man on the other side is Sebastian Cavendish.”

“
The Cavendish brothers,” Harper grumbled in disgust. “I have
heard of you. You are friends with Sir Hugo, my boss.”

“
That’s right. We have a long acquaintance with
him.”

“
Has he arranged this?”

Dominic
sighed and turned to straddle the hard bench that had already
turned his bottom numb. “No, I have arranged this,” he declared
flatly. “Well, we all have.” He nodded toward Edward and
Sebastian.

“
Well, I bloody well suggest that you take me back to London,
because the last time I checked kidnapping is still illegal in this
country.”

“
We want to talk to you and, well, you do have a reputation
for being more than a little uncommunicative,” Sebastian drawled
with a sigh.

“
I talk just like everyone else,” Harper replied
defensively.

“
We had considered writing to you to ask you to meet with us
but you don’t reply to your correspondence, do you?” Edward
countered.

“
Why the hell should I? I don’t know you and I have better
things to do than run around after anyone,” Harper
snorted.

He was
fairly sure that these men were the kind who would send a note and
expect someone to turn up at the time they decreed, on time and at
the location they demanded. Although they were talking to him in a
friendly enough manner, their confidence in the situation was
emphasised by the calm, almost casual air in which they sat talking
to him. For some reason, he had the strangest feeling that they had
done this kind of thing before and were confident in that there
would be no repercussions that they couldn’t handle in some way or
another.

Although
he didn’t know the Cavendish brothers personally, he had heard Sir
Hugo mention them on more than one occasion. They were renowned
within the War Office for being war heroes with a sterling
reputation for fairness and decency. Harper snorted and wondered
what the hell went wrong because, as far as he was concerned, there
was nothing fair or decent about knocking someone out as they were
going about their own business, and kidnapping them.

“
What the hell do you want with me?” He threw each man a dark
look and watched them exchange wary glances.

“
We have something to tell you and we need you to listen
before you form judgement or make any kind of denial,” Edward
replied and studied the rolling hills that surrounded them for a
moment while he considered where to suggest they go.

“
We have another day to ride to get to the family’s ancestral
home in Leicestershire,” Sebastian announced.

“
I am not going to Leicestershire,” Harper snapped angrily. He
didn’t bother to wait for them to say anything else. Instead, he
moved awkwardly to his feet and jumped down from the cart. When
nobody made any attempt to stop him, he began to walk down the lane
in the opposite direction to where they were headed. He had barely
gone a few feet when Sebastian thundered past and turned his horse
sideways in the lane, effectively blocking the road. With no gun,
Harper could hardly kick the horse out of the way and had little
choice but to stand still.

He put
his hands on his hips and turned to face the men who waited
patiently behind him. “I could have you arrested for kidnap; you
know that, don’t you?”

“
We do, but I think that you will want to reconsider when we
tell you something about you that you don’t know.” Edward frowned
and thought his statement over carefully.

“
What?”

“
Get in,” Dominic ordered. “There is a tavern further down the
road. It isn’t much but it is warm, dry and I don’t know about you
but I need a brandy and a pie. I am starving and fed up of these
two.” He nodded to his brothers. “Let’s eat and then we may as well
tell you.”

“
Tell me what?” Harper thundered.

“
Get in,” all three men chorused at once.

Harper
rolled his eyes and shook his head but clambered onto the back of
the wagon with a sigh of relief. Now that he was off his feet, he
would rather have his teeth pulled out than admit that it was nice
to be out of the city where it was peaceful and the air was crisp
and clear. The sun bathed them in a warm glow, the birds chirped
merrily in the trees and hedgerow as they passed and it soothed his
bad temper to the point that he felt faintly normal, and strangely
regretful, when they pulled into the neatly tended yard of a small
country tavern minutes later.

Still,
he wasn’t about to be appeased too easily. He jumped down from the
cart before it drew to a stop and stomped inside without a backward
look. Luckily, he had some money in his pocket still and wasted no
time in heading to the bar. He ignored the horrified gasp that came
from the bird-like barmaid, and watched her take several steps away
from him with cool disinterest.

“
What are you staring at?” He growled with a fierce scowl. The
last thing he wanted or needed right now was to have to deal with
the delicate sensibilities of females. He needed ale. Rather than
wait for the woman to reply, he turned to the inn keeper and
dropped a couple of coins on the bar. “An ale, if you please?” he
asked firmly and waited patiently while the slightly wary inn
keeper hurried to serve him.

“
You are scaring the locals,” Edward announced dryly as he
glanced around the tap room at the assorted regulars who all looked
terrified.

“
I don’t care,” Harper grumbled and placed his tankard far too
carefully back onto the bar. He nodded to the inn keeper to draw
him another one but made no attempt to offer his kidnappers a brew.
They had bloody well brought him here, they were lucky that they
weren’t out cold in the inn yard. He itched to land each one of
them a solid punch in payment for his sore head, but he needed food
more. His stomach rumbled loudly in full agreement but he ignored
it. Instead he listened with only half an ear while the eldest
Cavendish, Dominic, arranged for a private room and as much food as
the inn keeper could provide.

“
Come on, let’s go and get something to eat.”

Harper
sighed and briefly contemplated telling him where to put it, but
his stomach rumbled again. He followed Edward and the inn keeper
across the tap room toward the private parlour and, once inside,
sat at the table and watched Dominic pour the wine. Nobody spoke
while they tucked into the vast array of food on offer, but it was
a thoughtful silence rather than an uncomfortable one.

Harper
popped the last of his pie into his mouth, sighed and sat back in
his chair to savour his wine and wait for the others to finish. He
felt only marginally more malleable now that his thirst was
quenched and his stomach full, but he had to admit that his
curiosity was piqued. When Dominic put his fork back onto his
place, Harper leaned forward in his seat, braced both elbows on the
table and looked at each man in turn.

“
I think that you had better tell me what you want with me and
be quick about it. I have family that I want to go and see before I
go back to London,” Harper declared flatly. He glanced around the
room with a frown. “Where the hell are we?”

“
Shepperton Newton,” Dominic sighed. “It is about fifty miles
south of Leicestershire.”

Harper
mentally calculated the distance to Yorkshire. Now that he was
half-way there, or nearly half-way there, he may as well complete
the journey and pay a long awaited visit to see his family. He
carefully tucked that thought aside and watched the men seated
around the table study each other as though they were deciding
which one of them would speak.

Tension
hovered over everyone. It appeared so suddenly that Harper’s gut
instinct warned him that he wouldn’t like what they were going to
say. He sat perfectly still and waited.

“
What do you know about your family?”

“
They are my business,” Harper replied defensively. He had no
intention of discussing the personal details of his family with
these strangers no matter who the hell they had as
friends.

“
I take it that you are from Yorkshire?”

“
Yes, Hambley Wood near Skipton, why?”

“
Are your brothers still there?”

“
Look, what is this? I don’t know you and, as far as I know,
you have no business enquiring about my family. You had better get
to the point before I leave.” The hardness in his voice warned them
all that if they didn’t cut to the heart of the matter, he was
going to stalk out of the door and there would be one hell of a
fight if they tried to make him stay.