Sally James (30 page)

He was more inebriated than Martin and understood no more than the one fact that his friend wanted something from this female who had so incautiously crossed their path. He had little doubt as to the nature of what was wanted, and was fully prepared to assist him.

Martin shook his head. 'No, I have a little nest already prepared for this ladybird. I said I was going to find her sometime, why not now? Is your curricle nearby?'

'I stabled it just round the corner.'

'Good, then go and get it while I keep her quiet,' Martin ordered, and dragged Kate, kicking and struggling though she was, into a narrow space between two of the buildings.

He managed to wind her cloak about her to prevent her from using her arms, and stuffed one corner of it into her mouth as a gag, then held her imprisoned for what seemed an hour to the furious and frightened girl before his crony reappeared. Together they bundled her into the curricle, and although it was a tight squeeze for the three of them, it made it easier for Martin to hold her while the other man drove.

They clattered over Pulteney Bridge, along Great Pulteney Street, and skirted Sydney Gardens to take the Warminster Road.

There were few people about so early in the day to pay any heed to them, and the fact that her mouth was covered by the cloak was not visible because of the way they were crammed into the curricle. It looked as though she and Martin were preoccupied in a tipsy embrace, and the erratic manner in which the driver wove across the road gave added force to that interpretation of the curricle's occupants.

Kate peered about her as well as she could above the mask of the cloak, determined to struggle if she saw the slightest hope of rescue, and if not to take note of the route they followed in case later she was able to escape. But Martin tightened his grip every time they passed another carriage or wagon, or met an early morning rider.

Only once, when a man on a black horse which he was having difficulty in controlling emerged suddenly from a side turning was Martin unprepared. Kate suddenly thrust his arm aside, spat out the cloak and shouted as loudly as she could.

'Please, help! Help me, these villains are abducting me!' she cried, but after a quick glance the man turned aside and seemed to be more interested in his fractious mount than the girl appealing for his aid.

Martin soon regained his grip on her, and Kate winced with pain as his fingers dug through the stuff of her cloak and bruised her arms. She forced herself not to cry out or show that he was hurting her, knowing it would give him immense satisfaction.

She sank into a kind of lethargy, aggravated by the storm of emotion she had passed through and her sleepless night. She ceased to take notice of the way they went, feeling it was pointless. Adam no longer wanted her, and she could never marry anyone else now she knew she loved him. She wondered how she had ever imagined she could. But since she had lost her one and only love what did it matter where she was, or how she was treated?

Soon they turned off the main road and with Martin issuing directions drove through a series of ever smaller and rougher surfaced lanes, some of them barely more than cart tracks. At last they entered a wood, taking a narrow track just wide enough to allow passage to the curricle, and emerged into a small clearing where a cottage, barely larger than a hut, was almost smothered with vast growths of ivy.

'Well, what do you think?' Martin asked, allowing the cloak to drop from her face. 'Do you approve?'

Kate took from her mouth the fibres of cloth which had clung to it when he had jammed the corner of the cloak in it as a gag and stared scornfully at him.

'You are mad,' she declared. 'Why have you brought me here?'

'I saw the way Malvern looked at you yesterday,' he said, 'and it gave me an idea. How much blunt do you think he’d drop to get you back - unharmed?'

'Ransom? He won't let you threaten him,' she said contemptuously.

'I think he will.'

Suddenly he plunged his hand into the neck of her gown, and Kate jerked away. But it wasn't her he wanted. He pulled out the locket she had worn constantly, beneath her gowns, for fear that someone else might see it and recognize the portraits, and suspect.

'Where did you get this?' he demanded.

'It was my grandfather's, he gave it to me,' she said.

Martin flicked it open and held it up to her face. 'Then how do you explain these?'

Kate tried to look startled. 'I didn't know it opened,' she said desperately. 'I couldn't find the secret.'

'That scoundrel who stole my mother's jewels must have given it to you,' he said. 'Or your precious Earl of Malvern. Perhaps he stole it when he killed Limmering. But it's a mere trinket compared with the ones he missed.'

'Adam doesn't need to steal trinkets,' she said

'How do you know? He may have debts, gambling debts, or to pay off his ladybirds, which he can't raise the ready for. Not all the jewels have been found. He probably sold the others.'

'You're more fuddled than you look,' Kate said, frowning. 'If Adam stole them as you suggest, why would Darcy have had them?'

Martin looked bemused. 'They were in cahoots,' he muttered.

'Is it likely?' Then several isolated facts suddenly fell into place. 'You stole them,' she whispered. 'You used them to pay your gambling debts. That's how Darcy came to have them. He was out all night before we left London, and I saw you watching us as we left. You followed us. You must have left your curricle where you stayed the night and ridden to Huntingdon. You found Darcy in the stables, and killed him. But you didn't have time to search for the jewels. So you came to get them the next morning. You were exhausted.' And you slipped the locket into Adam's pocket, and he didn't even know it was there, and James took it out, and Adam thought it was grandfather's, she went on silently.

'A tarradiddle,' Martin scoffed. 'It was pure chance I was on the same road. 'Harry, will you go and pay my shot and bring the rest of my baggage here? My horse too. And how about joining us for a few days while I tame the little lady? We need something to do while we're waiting for Malvern to find the ready. You can help me if you've a mind to.'

Harry laughed, an evil sound. 'That sounds a good offer. Shall I send him a note?'

'Not yet. Let him sweat for a while. Then he'll be so relieved to hear she's alive he'll pay without any argument.'

'I hope I can find the place again, but I'm sure with that treat in store the scent will be strong enough to bring me. Don't work too hard until I come back!'

He turned the curricle and with a wave was gone. Kate breathed a little easier and began to revive, her brain working once more and beginning to devise plans for escape. With an hour or so before the other returned, and only Martin to deal with, he as sleepless as she was herself but also partly drunk, she might contrive to do it.

He seemed to read her mind. 'Don't raise your hopes, I don't mean to let you go this time. Now, into the cottage.'

There was no point in useless struggling. She had to dull his suspicions and hope to take him off his guard, so Kate shrugged and without further argument went across to the door which hung on one hinge.

Inside the cottage there was just one room, with a fireplace at one side, a wall bed on the opposite one, a warped table and a couple of stools.

'Then what do you intend? To immure yourself in this pigsty for the rest of your life?' she asked scornfully as she looked about her, nose wrinkled against the staleness of the air and other fouler smells.

'I intend to get some money,' Martin said slowly, as if repeating an easy lesson to a dull child.

'Adam won't give in to blackmail,' she declared. 'He doesn't care for me,' she forced herself to say, but the words were knives stabbing her unbearably.

'He cares for his own reputation. I intend to keep you here, my dear, and if he doesn't cough up I'll enjoy you instead. Harry too,' he promised, leering at her.

Kate considered him. She didn't think he would carry out his threats yet, so she had some time to plan.

'I mean to rest,' she said, and walked calmly over to the wall bed, swept off the rags that lay there with one contemptuous gesture, and climbed on to sit with her back to the wall, her hands clasped round her knees, and her head resting on them.

Chapter Twenty-five

For a few moments Martin, indecisive, looked at Kate as if he intended to continue the argument. Then he shrugged, walked across to a cupboard in the corner of the room, and took from it a bottle of wine and a glass. He poured a generous measure and after draining the glass refilled it and carried both the bottle and glass across to the table. Sitting on one of the stools he regarded Kate morosely, sipping the wine, but not attempting to speak.

Kate, forcing herself to breathe calmly and steadily, had positioned her head so that although ostensibly dozing she could watch his movements through her lowered eyelashes.

She began to plan, holding tightly to her thoughts and firmly banishing the inclination to panic, to shout at him and make a dash for freedom. He was not yet so far inebriated that he could not catch and overpower her. But if he continued to imbibe wine at the present rate, when he was already a little tipsy from his overnight revels, he might either fall asleep or become so fuddled she could evade him.

It was a cheering thought. Her own sleepless night was forgotten and she was taut, thinking clearly, and ready for action whenever the opportunity came. Besides, the bare boards of the wall bed were so uncomfortable that there was no danger of her falling asleep even if she could forget her perilous situation.

How long had she before Harry returned? The best judgement she could make of the time taken by the journey was half an hour. Although the twists and turns of the lanes had seemed endless, and she had been both so terrified and angry during the drive that she had not taken much heed of it, she did not think they were very far from Bath. It would take Harry half an hour to return there, even longer if, as she hoped, he lost his way. Then he had to pack Martin's belongings, settle his bill, and return. An hour and a half at least, hopefully more.

The problem of what she could do if she did escape from Martin's clutches she deferred. Somewhere there would be a farm or a cottage where she might ask for help, and hire a horse or some sort of conveyance to return to Bath.

It was cold in the cottage. The dampness emanated almost tangibly from its stone walls, and since from the look of it no one had lived there for many years, nor lit a fire on the wide hearth, this increased the discomfort. Kate did her best to conceal her shivers by making a tent of her cloak around her, and gradually the air trapped inside became warmer.

Martin obviously began to feel the cold soon, for he first rubbed his hands together, then massaged his arms, and finally stood up and began to pace around the small room. Even that was insufficient and eventually, with a sigh of exasperation, he went to the crumbling log box beside the hearth to see whether it held any wood.

There was kindling and a couple of larger logs. When Kate, who had been accustomed to laying and lighting their own fires at home, saw what a mull he was making of it she almost revealed she was still awake and offered to do it for him, thinking the sooner the cottage was warmed the better.

Then she chuckled silently. It was inevitable that birds would have nested in such a long-neglected chimney, and even if the fire were lit the smoke would not be able to escape. If she remained apparently asleep he would be less on his guard. If he did not light the fire she would have lost nothing although she would still be cold, but if the smoke did spread through the room she might, in the confusion, be able to slip out unnoticed.

Martin had piled the kindling on the hearth, and produced a tinder box from the cupboard, where he had obviously laid in supplies for a siege. He made some sparks and the kindling, bone dry from years of lying in the box, flared brightly. Soon he was able to put one of the logs on top and he stood there, warming his hands, while unnoticed by him the smoke curled round, found its way up the walls, and gradually began to spread across the upper part of the room between the beams and the thatch.

Some of it went up the chimney carrying sparks with it, and then what Kate had been waiting for happened. A bundle of smouldering straw and twigs, remnants of innumerable nests, fell with a hiss down the chimney. It burst into a blazing, spluttering mass which spilled out into the room in a scatter of charred and flaming pieces of straw and sticks.

'Damnation!' Martin swore, and looked round anxiously. There was an ancient besom propped in one corner, and he grabbed hold of it and feverishly began to sweep up the widely dispersed, flickering mess.

The besom was too ancient. Its twigs had dried out uselessly years ago, and with an angry fizz it too burst into flame.

Startled, Martin swung round and twigs from the broom, well alight, were tossed across the room. Some fell onto the ancient rags Kate had swept from the bed and they began to smoulder. While Martin, distraught, began trying to stamp these out in a frenzy of activity, cursing fluently all the while, Kate was watching another twig which, cast high as Martin had scattered them, had lodged on top of one of the cross roof timbers. The thatch began to smoke, and she willed it to catch fire.

She had given up the pretence of sleeping during all this noise and confusion. It would have been patently false, and Martin was too preoccupied to notice what she was doing.

She waited, suppressing her impatience until the best time to move. Quietly, taking great care not to attract his attention by her movements, she began freeing her legs from the constraining skirts of her gown and cloak. She gathered up the loose folds over one arm, and poised herself ready to jump down from the bed and run at top speed from the cottage when Martin was least likely either to notice her or be able to follow.

The moment came when the thatch, with a roar, caught fire. As Martin swung round to look at it, aghast, part of it fell down. Fortunately this was on the far side of the room from the door, and while he stepped instinctively towards it, waving the now useless stave of the besom distractedly towards the heap of flaming thatch, Kate slid off the bed and raced for the door.