Martha Schroeder (13 page)

“Right you are, Sergeant, I forgot. Let’s see about the windows.”

They rose and made their way to the wall, where the lighter gray of the windows gleamed. Gideon raised himself to his full six feet and stretched his hand.

“Here we are.” His fingers barely grazed the lower end of the frame. “Damn. I think we will have to drag the bed over here so I can stand on it and get a good look. Can you help?”

“Of course I can!” Amelia was insulted. “I have never yet cried craven, have I?”

It took some minutes to push the bed across the floor to the wall. But when Gideon finally stood on it, he could reach the window.

“Damn! They’ve boarded it over on the outside.” He tugged at the frame, but it was solid. “We could break the glass, but broken glass would be dangerous in the dark and we still would have no tool to pry the boards off.”

He sat down on the cot, and Amelia joined him. For a moment they thought in silence. Then Gideon snapped his fingers and turned to Amelia with a grin.

“Of course! It is an iron bed, is it not?”

“Yes.” Amelia looked at him doubtfully.

“And thus these long bars that form the rectangle from which the bed frame is woven are made of iron.”

He looked at her as if he expected an intelligent answer, but all Amelia could think of to say was “Yes.”

“So if we took the bed apart, we would have several long pieces of iron, pieces that could be used to—’

“Pry the wooden shutters off the windows!” Amelia finished triumphantly. “Gideon, you are a genius!”

“Not really a
genius”
he said with mock humility. “Just very, very intelligent.” He gave her another of those joyous grins, his teeth gleaming white in the gloom.

Amelia found herself grinning back, as if she were simply sharing another adventure with her best friend. “Well, Captain Intelligent, sir, we had better see if we can take this contraption apart in the dark before Mr. Blakeley returns.”

She rolled back the sleeves of Gideon’s coat while he stripped the cot of its mattress and turned it on its side. “The legs are bolted in. I don’t see how we can take them off without tools. But the bottom webbing is simply tied on. And”—he shook the long side of the bed and bent close to it—”I think this side is in two parts and may come apart if we pull it. Shall we try?”

“Of course. Wait until I takeoff my stockings so that my feet will not slip.” It was the work of a moment to remove the stockings. She looked over at Gideon as he stood opposite her at the foot
of the bedstead. He flashed an appreciative grin at her. He might not admit it in well-lit parlors or crowded ballrooms, but here alone in the dark and in peril, Gideon revealed his feelings for her and Amelia rejoiced. With a deep breath she braced her back against the wall, set her feet as well as she could on the smooth floor, and prepared to pull with all her strength.

“Now,” Gideon ordered, and Amelia pulled.

She felt herself being slowly dragged away from the wall by the force of his muscles. Just as she was about to begin to slide, she heard Gideon grunt and the bed went slack in her hands.

“We did it, angel, we did it!” In his excitement she was sure he did not realize what he had called her.

She was wrong. He knew perfectly well, he just could not prevent the name from coming out of his mouth. Somehow in the dark and danger, his carefully controlled feelings for Amy had burst their bounds, like half-tamed horses, and he couldn’t round them up and put them back in their stable. He was not even sure he wanted to.

Angel.
He had called her that in his thoughts ever since the day he had first seen her, leaning over him as he lay half unconscious with cold and hunger. Her blond curls had been a sunlit halo about her face, but it was the compassion in those deep blue eyes that had made him think of a heavenly being. But only occasionally had he slipped and allowed himself to give voice to that name.

These past few hours—with their frantic combination of danger, passion, and laughter—had stripped him of his drawing room manners and turned his head into a volatile mixture of love, courage, and recklessness. He shook his head as if to clear it.

To business. He waved the long iron slat with me bedstead still attached in triumph. “With this we should be able to pry those shutters off once we break the window,” he said.

Ordering Amy to stand out of the way and put her shoes back on, he broke the window with one sharp blow and then began to pry open the wooden shutters. The length of the slat gave him purchase, and his own muscles supplied the rest of the strength he needed. With a creak and a loud groan, the first slat of the shutter splintered and gave way, letting in a thin stream of light. With the added leverage the opening gave him, Gideon made short work of two more of the shutters.

Excited by this partial victory, he used the iron bed slat to feel around the ground outside the window. Suddenly he felt the end of his pole being grasped and held. He jerked on it to free it, but whoever had the other end held on.

“Master Gideon,” a familiar voice said. “Is Lady Amelia there with you?”

“Sidley?” Gideon responded. “Is that you?”

Hugh Sidley, the longtime bailiff of the Abbey and a friend to both Amelia and Gideon, stuck his face in at the newly freed window.

“Aye, ‘tis me, Master Gideon. We’ve been that worried about the two of ye. Give me half a tick, and we’ll have you free of those devils!”

At that moment Gideon heard the rattle of keys from just outside the door to the pantry. Damn! That cockroach Blakeley was going to discover them before he had a chance to work out any plan at all with Sidley.

“Shove those slats back in place, and then get away from the window, Sidley. If they catch you, they may do you harm. You and the others just keep watch to see where we are. Blakeley will probably move us if he sees what we’ve done, but if not, he may let us remain. We will work out a plan of escape later.”

“Aye, Master Gideon.” And Sidley was gone.

Gideon grabbed Amelia’s hand, and together they stood facing the door, waiting for what would come.

Chapter Ten

In London, Jane spent an anxious day trying to keep busy while awaiting some news of Eustace. A number of her former students and their male relatives fanned out across the city as others, now employed in households of the ton, listened for news of the Duke of Doncaster’s movements.

Unfortunately, Eustace had few friends and went nowhere that day. There was nothing to report to Sir Richard. Which, Jane thought angrily, was just as well because she had heard nothing from him all day.

Jane was happy to have classes to teach and household duties to see to during the interminable afternoon. At last, as she was sitting down for a cup of tea, Molly came into the parlor, her small face alive with excitement. “Miss Jane, ma’am, Tim’s ’ere and he seen something. Come on, Tim, tell ’er what you told me!” She pulled a tall, scrawny youth with the same bright black eyes as his sister into the room.

“Tell ’er,” Molly said again, pushing him forward.

Tim twisted his cap in an agony of self-consciousness. He bobbed his head at Jane.

“Yes, Tim, tell me,” Jane said with a kind smile that reduced the young man to even more tongue-tied bashfulness. “I need to have your information in order to help Miss Amelia.”

At that, Tim managed to speak. “’E left. The duke. ’E took a curricle, and ’e left the ’ouse in a pelter.”

“When?”

“Pr’aps an hour ago. I came quick as I  could, but I ’ad to walk. Left in a tearing ’urry. Sprung the ’orses, ’e did. ’Ad a bag wit’ ’im, but didn’t take no groom.”

“Did you see anything else, Tim? Did anyone bid him good-bye?”

“Yes’m. The old lady, she came out and ’ung onto him. She were tryin’ to stop him, looked like. Might’ve been cryin’.”

Jane thought for a few moments. She glanced at the clock over the mantel and frowned. There was no help for it. She could not do the job by herself. She would have to seek Sir Richard. For a moment she contemplated sending Tim, but soon realized that the boy would have no idea where to go or how to gain entrance to any of the many haunts where Sir Richard might be found.

She smiled at her two allies. “You’ve both done very well, and I am proud of you. Molly, why don’t you take Tim to the pantry and see if you can find some of the gingersnaps we made this morning? You both deserve a treat for a job well done.” Jane picked up the tea tray and handed it to the little girl. “And you may take this out as well.”

With visible reluctance, Molly and Tim left the room. Once the door was shut behind them, Jane hurriedly left instructions with one of her student assistants and set out to find her quarry. She decided to try the Horse Guards first. By the time she had been leered at by at least a dozen half-pay officers and told to go elsewhere by another dozen busy officials who did not have time to keep track of Colonel Sinclair, she had wasted almost an hour.

Realizing that by now he would probably be at home preparing to go out for the evening, she decided to seek him at his lodgings. Of course, she knew he would regard her doing so as scandalous, but if she was lucky, no one would see her. Besides, she had a feeling that he would hear a great deal about the Amazon who had been searching army headquarters for him.

Gideon had once mentioned the colonel’s address, and Jane obtained a hackney and gave him the location with what she thought was great aplomb. Any possible damage to her reputation did not greatly concern her, but what Sir Richard himself might say to her invasion was another matter. She was rather dreading that.

As it happened, he surprised her. He was at home and alone  when she arrived. His manservant announced her with raised eyebrows and a frosty glare, which made her dread his master’s reaction.

But it was very different.

“Miss Forrester, what have you heard? Has Eustace left for the Abbey or have Falconer and Lady Amelia returned?” He strode over to her and took her cloak, then led her to the armchair by the fire and seated her, taking the chair opposite hers.

Jane was thrown off balance. She had expected a fight and instead had met with chivalry and complete unconcern for the conventions. Exasperated, she lashed out.

“I have been chasing you all over London for this past hour and more,” she complained. “Meanwhile, Eustace is probably almost to the Abbey. Why weren’t you where you were supposed to be?”

Although his eyebrows had arched when she began her speech, by the time she finished, his habitual sardonic smile was in place. “And where was that, Miss Forrester?”

“The Horse Guards, of course.”

“Of course. You sought me there?” His lips twitched, but though Jane looked at him suspiciously, he did not smile.

“Yes. I got word that Eustace had left London, and I sought you to see if we could go after them. I do not have a carriage, but I am sure that you do and—”

“I will go.” He rose and bowed over her hand. “I will bring them back. Unless Gideon has managed to rescue Amelia, and they are already on their way home.”

He smiled encouragingly, but Jane did not return it. She rose to face him and frowned. “You will never learn, will you? If any rescuing has been done, I am sure Amelia participated in it fully. And if you think you are going to leave me here while you have all the fun, you may think again.”

She held up a hand to forestall the discussion she knew was coming. “Do not bother to argue with me. Amelia will need the support of a female friend, if anything—untoward—has happened.”

She saw refusal writ large on Sir Richard’s face, but she knew she had tenacity equal to his. She felt her eyebrows draw together and her mouth turn down. It was the look she wore when someone tried to gainsay her. She regretted that she had to use it with Sir Richard. For a while she had sensed that he liked her and did not regard her unconventional life and outspoken opinions as a bar to friendship. Jane had never had a male friend, and she regretted that the promise of this one was being cut short by her insistence on having her own way.

But she had to help Amelia. Jane had seen women who had been raped and beaten. She could not bear the thought of Amelia in that horrible situation left to the care of servants and men.

Sir Richard surprised her again. “You are right. She might be—hurt. Gideon will do everything in his power, but she ought to have a woman with her. If we drive around to your house, can you be ready to go in half an hour?”

Jane smiled at him with relief and something warmer that he must have seen, because he smiled back at her. “I will pack a small case, pick up my basket of remedies, and then I am ready.”

“Admirable woman,” he said. “I myself am ready. My saddlebags are always packed. We have only to stop at the stables and get my curricle, and we can be off.” Some wayward imp made him add, “It is an open carriage, so no harm should come to your reputation even though we will be traveling alone together and at night.”

As he expected, Jane’s eyes flashed. “As if I cared for Society’s strictures on my conduct!” She turned away in what in a lesser woman would have been a huff. “We could travel all night in a closed carriage for all the difference it would make to me.” She did not linger to see the appreciative grin that greeted her outburst.

They were on their way out of town in less than half an hour. The night was cold, but Sir Richard had wrapped her in a fur cloak and tucked a thick carriage robe around her before they left. For the first hour Jane hardly felt the December weather.

They spoke little at first. There seemed to be nothing to say. Speed was of the essence, and Sir Richard’s every thought had to be for his team and the condition of the road. Jane allowed herself the luxury of simply sitting. The night was quiet, the stars overhead were brilliant, and the man at her side was skillful and single-minded. Sir Richard’s face had the look of frowning concentration that she knew her own often wore.

After the first miles, Sir Richard turned to her, a smile of apology in his eyes. “I am sorry to have been so uncivil, Miss Forrester, but my team was fresh and I am not familiar with this road.”