The Convenient Bride (22 page)

“Oh my Lord, what’s happened?” May asked, opening the door to their sitting room wide so that Lucy could enter. Donald came out from his bedroom, having also heard her.

“A tenant just came with a letter he was told to deliver to me. It’s a ransom demand for Charles and Max.”

Donald took the letter from her and quickly read the contents.

“Nice hand, clearly
educated but not someone I’m familiar with.”

“Nor I.” Lucy agreed.

May took the letter and looked as well but by the shake of her head, it was clear that she didn’t know the author either.

“Do you have thirty thousand pounds?” Donald asked.

“Yes, but it will take me some time to liquidate enough assets.”

“We’ll help,” May told her.

“Of course,” Donald agreed. “The real question is, what do we do now?”

“What can I do?” she sounded exasperated. “The letter says that another one will follow with instructions for what to do with the money
. I'm stuck here until I get that letter!”

“Then what can we do?” May asked, taking hold of Lucy’s shoulders.

Lucy slowly realised that while she had to remain here, Lucy and Donald didn’t. She began to nod as a plan formed.

“Can you go to London?” she asked. “I will give you a letter for my
lawyer and banker. My estate is in trust but my lawyer is trustee and he’s a good man, he will free up the funds for me. My banker was originally my father’s, he knows me well and what my assets are. He might agree to give you a loan against my London house until I sell it. Hell, he can secure it against my estate for all I care, just as long as he helps. I still don’t know if that will be enough though.”

“Whatever happens, we will get that money together for you,” Donald assured her.

“Thank you.” She smiled gratefully at him. “I think you should also go and see a Mr Pennington of Pennington Investigations. He has been looking into Max’s former mistress for us. She has tried to cause trouble in the past and I would bet good money that she is behind this, somehow.”

“Do you know what they discovered?” Donald asked.

Lucy shook her head. “Max has been getting regular letters but I didn’t want to hear about her; I told him only to tell me if there was something relevant. I left what is or isn’t ‘relevant’ to Max’s discretion.”

“Make a start on those letters,” Donald told her. “We’ll leave tonight.”

“What will I tell Eleanor?” Lucy asked.

“Tell her that…” Donald trailed off as he tried to think.

“It may be tempting fate,” May chimed in, “but we could tell her that your brother is seriously ill,” she suggested to her husband. “Mother won’t be too worried about a man she has only met once, and it’s more than plausible that we would make haste for such an event.”

“Good thinking.” Donald nodded and turned to Lucy. “And tell Eleanor that you received word from Max and that he and Charles have gone to London on the promise of a very lucrative deal.”

Lucy nodded, having been unable to come up with a better excuse herself.

“We’ll need to take the letter you received and if we discover anything from your investigator, we’ll send a messenger immediately.”

“Make sure that they know to come to the servants’ entrance; we don’t want Eleanor to catch on or that will just be one more person to worry about.” Lucy stepped forward and took their hands. “Thank you for this Donald, May. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

The tears, which had been threatening to overwhelm her since the note arrived finally overflowed and May squeezed her hand harder, then pulled her into a tight embrace.

“He will be fine, I promise. They want money, Lucy, so it doesn’t make sense for them to harm them or they might not get their ransom.”

“You’re right of course,”
Lucy said as she pulled away, wiping at her tears. “Now, I’ll go and write those letters.”

May nodded and as soon as Lucy had left, they made haste to pack what they would need for the trip.

***

Lucy wasn’t sure how she got through dinner with Eleanor without breaking down and admitting that there was something dreadfully wrong, but somehow she managed to convince Max’s mother that he and Charles were fine and had journeyed to London at the last minute.

Eleanor fretted that they didn’t have any clothes with them, and how would they shave and dress for dinner?

Lucy reminded her that they had a house in London and that there would surely be clothes and razors and other necessities left behind that they could use.

May and Donald did have an opportunity to pack before they left, but Eleanor worried that Donald’s brother would be seriously ill and that one of them might catch the disease. Lucy assured her that if it was contagious, the doctor wouldn’t allow them to see him.

That argument only served to remind her of how her own family had died and her fear
increased that Maxwell might be harmed, or worse. She had lost too many people that she loved already; she wasn’t sure if she could bear to lose one more.

For some unknown reason,
Eleanor never thought to even question that her daughter and son-in-law had rushed off, at the same time and to the same city, that her husband and son had supposedly been called to.

After an evening of
alternately calming Eleanor’s fears and making inconsequential small talk, none of which Lucy could even recall now, she excused herself to go to bed early. She changed into her nightgown then put a robe on and headed through to Max’s bedroom. She knew that he had received perhaps half a dozen letters from Pennington Investigations, and she was intent on finding those letters and learning as much as she could about Madam Marie Poisson.

Thankfully she knew how Max organised his correspondence and with the sheaf of letters in hand, she returned to her own room to read through them.

Max awoke to a thumping headache and pain in every limb. He tried to bring his hand to his forehead but it was restrained behind him. He pulled and realised that his wrists were actually bound together.

“Oh, thank heavens!”

“Father?” Max tried to open his eyes but the light hurt and he quickly closed them again.

“I’m here, Maxwell. You had me very worried for a time there.”

“Where are we?” Max asked. He was sitting upright, although hunched over until he woke up. He tried to move his legs and realised that they were also bound at the ankles.

“To be honest, I’m not sure.”

“What happened?”
Max began blinking, trying to get used to the light.

“You don’t remember?”

“Not much.”

“We were attacked by highwaymen and now it appears we have been kidnapped.”

Finally Max could look around and realised that were in what looked like a disused tack room, their hands bound behind them to the wooden saddle horse that was affixed to the floor in the middle of the room. They were side by side, about four feet apart.

“How long was I unconscious?”

“I can’t be certain but around sixteen or seventeen hours.”

“It’s morning?”

“Yes. I didn’t sleep much so I could be wrong, but I’d guess it is about eight o’clock.”

Max looked to the window and realised from the angle of the light and shadows
, that the sun was still fairly low against the horizon, meaning that his father probably wasn’t far off in his estimation.

“What about you, did they hurt you?”

“I tried to fight them which aggravated my chest a little. I assume they got tired of my coughing though, because one of them found some laudanum, which has helped.”

Max grinned.

“That pleases you?” Charles asked.

“If they’re worried about noise, that means we can’t be very far away from other dwellings, which means we won’t have far to go to raise the alarm.”

“Or my cough irritated them, as I said.”

“
Don’t get defeatist on me now, Father, there is a way out of this.”

“Defeatist? I’ve had to watch you lying completely still for hours on end, unable to touch you and check on you
myself, wondering the whole time if you would ever move again! I think I am entitled to be a little defeatist!”

“Please, don’t yell,” Max said, screwing up his eyes against the throb
that his father’s words caused in his head. “I’m sorry.” Unlike Max, his father had been awake and essentially alone for the past sixteen hours, so it was little wonder that he was more pessimistic.

“Me too
, Max.” Max could hear the catch in his father’s voice but he didn’t open his eyes, knowing that his father didn’t like to be overly emotional.

After a few minutes to let the pounding in his head quieten to a dull throbbing, Max began asking questions.

“How many of them are there?”

“Three took us but there
was a fourth man; well bred, from the aristocracy if I'm not mistaken. The others take their orders from him.”

Max had a good idea who that might be. “Has he said anything about why he kidnapped us?”

“We’re being held to ransom, apparently but that was all he would say.”

“You said there
was
a fourth man?”

“I can’t be sure but I t
hink he might have stayed there; I haven’t seen him since we arrived here.”

“Have they fed or watered you?”

“Both, and they took me to an outside bathroom last evening.”

“How many?”

“All three, and they all have pistols.”

Max began to nod thoughtfully, until he realised it hurt and stopped.

“Do they cover their faces?”

“The ruffians do, the gentleman doesn’t.”

“Then he either plans to kill us, or escape in some fashion.”

His father gasped and then began coughing. As the hacking coughs continued, Max became worried that his father might suffocate
, unable to get enough breath.

“What can I do?” M
ax asked, feeling completely helpless.

Charles was unable to answer until he finally managed to pause for a moment
, then he took a few gasping breaths, coughed a few more times and then sat panting.

“Nothing you… ca
n do, Son. The laudanum is wearing off… that’s all.”

A few moments later they heard footsteps and the door crashed open.

“Ya both up! Boss lady will be pleased,” said the man. He was wearing shabby clothes that had been darned many times, a folder kerchief over his nose and lower face and was of a strong, muscular build; probably a manual worker. Max saw that he had a bottle and spoon with him.

“Boss lady?” Max asked.

“Yeah, she’ll be along to see ya soon.” He knelt down by Charles and carefully poured some of the liquid onto the spoon. “Sorry I din’ bring it sooner, thought it best to let you rest.”

Charles nodded his understanding. “You’re very kind.”

The man shrugged his shoulders, seemingly uncomfortable with the praise. He carefully levelled the spoon to Charles’ lips and tipped the liquid in, catching a stray drop with the spoon, then wiping his chin clean with a rather ragged handkerchief.

“There, you’ll do.” He got to his feet. “Now, I suppose you’ll both be needing a piss, you especially,” he nodded to Max.

Max nodded, unsure how to respond to such a vulgar statement.

“I’ll get t
he others but no funny business,” he told them and left. Perhaps five minutes later he returned with two friends who were similarly dressed, though one had ginger hair and one was quite small, possibly only a youth. “Now one of us is going to stay here and hold a gun on your dad,” he told Max. “If anything happens to us, if they hear any sounds of a struggle or if we aren’t back quickly, your dad gets it, all right?”

Max nodded his understanding.
If it were just him and the ruffians, he might try to take them, even while unarmed but with one holding a gun on his father, there was no way he would risk trying to escape, not even if the perfect opportunity presented itself.

Since he didn’t know their names, he thought of the captors as Big,
Youth and Ginger.

Big and
Youth untied him while Ginger kept his gun, a duelling pistol, aimed at Charles. Max did everything he was told but looked around as he was taken outside, trying his best to discreetly see what was around them. The house that the stables were associated with was a fairly large farmhouse, perhaps consisting of four or five bedrooms. The grounds were well tended, although the stables were clearly empty and judging from the early signs of rot setting in on the stable doors, they had clearly been neglected for some time.

What kind of person lived in a house this big but didn’t require horses?

He looked over the tree line and saw what he thought was smoke in the distance. Was that evidence of another house? If they could get there, would they be friend or foe? He thought it likely that Giles and Marie were staying in this farmhouse, but possibly not.