Wicked Wyckerly (33 page)

She was about to shove open the door and intrude when Fitz agreed with them and consented to send her home. Back to Oxfordshire—over fifty miles away. Without him.

Standing there, devastated, she wondered if he really hadn’t wanted her siblings after all. Did she know him as well as she’d thought?

Setting aside the tray, tears streaming down her cheeks, she listened to her new husband casually dealing their futures like a deck of cards. How could she possibly believe that she or the children mattered to him when he blithely gave them up without argument? Perhaps the marriage was a sham, a gamble that only he understood. Did she mean so little to him that he could cast her off without even consulting her wishes?

She didn’t think taking a broom to Fitz or the entire roomful of arrogant men would help. What good was being a countess if she was still female? She’d made enough of a fool of herself already. Shaking with fury and grief, she stayed quiet until the final agreement was reached and Fitz began signing away his life. Their life.
He was sending her away.

She could have the children, but she couldn’t have him.

She’d fulfilled her wish of so many weeks ago. She could take the children and go home. She should be ecstatic. Instead, she was miserable.

Weeping too hard to hide it, she let herself out the French doors into the side yard and raced into the maze of overgrown yews, where she flung herself on the grass and cried and pounded her frustration into the earth. She’d tried so hard . . . and wanted too much.

How could she ever have believed that a sophisticated man like Fitz would want a
rhubarb
like her? Had it always been just the money—as it had been with her previous suitor? And now that Fitz couldn’t have it, he was sending her away? If so, he had gambled and lost this time. And she wept as much for his loss as hers.

The lawyers took hours to wrangle over details, writing and rewriting documents, until all were satisfied and the papers were signed and witnessed. The moment the men departed, Fitz sat down and wrote out a note to cover his debt to Quent plus interest. He shoved the paper across the desk. “I think I owe you my life and my daughter’s life. This hardly covers the sum of it.”

Quent dropped the ownership papers for the stud beside all the other documents and tucked the bank draft into his pocket. “I would never have loaned you the blunt had I doubted your willingness to repay me. Earlier, I questioned your choice in wives, but now that I’ve watched the countess feed the multitudes on almost nothing while preventing us from turning the place into a battlefield, I see that you’ve chosen a partner for life. She’s amazing.”

Fitz leaned back in his chair, still too stunned by his first act of nobility to think clearly. “She is amazing, isn’t she?” he said thoughtfully, preferring to think of his brave Abby than what he would have to tell her. “I’ve never had a woman come to my defense before.”

“You’ve never needed anyone to come to your defense,” Quentin pointed out, logically enough. “Most men know better than to venture within range of your fists. Besides, I think she was as angry with you as she was with Geoff.”

“Only because she didn’t want my pretty phiz ruined.” Fitz rubbed the sore spot on his jaw. “Or she thought I’d kill the bastard and didn’t want me to hang. She defended me, all right. And you know, it felt damned good.”

Quentin looked at him as if he were crazed. “Married life must eat at men’s brains.”

Fitz thought his friend might be correct, but the place where married life had most affected him seemed to be in his heart. “I never had a family to defend me or worry about me. I never knew my mother. Never had a sister. I’ve had only one use for women in the past. But I’m thinking they may be far more valuable than I realized.”

“If you had as many sisters as I do, you’d know how insane that sounds. But you’re newly wed and I’ll forgive you. What will you do now?”

“I think that will be up to her. All she ever wanted was the children.”

“You have a lot to learn about women,” Quent said with a snort. “I don’t want to be around when you tell her. Since you don’t need company eating you out of house and home, I’ll gather your guests and give you and your bride time to figure out what comes next.”

Fitz rose to his feet. “You’re welcome to stay, although I’ll admit, I have no idea how Abby is feeding us. I’m afraid to look in the larder.”

“Those rhubarb tarts she served at your banquet tasted like ambrosia. Any woman who can turn bitter stalks into sweet can turn pumpkins into carriages,” Quent acknowledged.

Too shattered to follow his friend out, Fitz wandered outside to stare at the land he’d foolishly dreamed of returning to productivity. With the stud papers in his pocket and all his hopes of family smashed with a few strokes of a pen, it occurred to him that he could always resort to Bibley’s plan—disappear into the night. At least this time, his daughter would have someone to love her. And Abby would have Lady Bell and Quent and a host of new friends to look after her.

He didn’t want to return to being a cockroach, living off others by taking their money through card games. He didn’t think Abby would pack up five children and run off to the Americas to start a new life with him. And he really didn’t want the earldom if he couldn’t have Abby.

He had some tough decisions to make.

Patting her eyes with cold water from the broken fountain, Abby brushed the grass off her gown, feeling like something ghoulish dragged from the grave. Weeping wouldn’t take care of their guests or the children, but she was in no condition to face anyone. She might yet take a broom to Fitz’s head should she see him.

So she shuffled through the asparagus garden, looking for any remnants that might produce a savory dish for the evening meal. She wished she had her squirrel to talk to. Perhaps she should return to the house and shout at Lady Belden, but how could she yell at someone who had helped her gain her heart’s desire? It was her own fault for not realizing that she desired love and marriage as well as the children. She was the one who had married for convenience, and then very inconveniently fallen in love with a man who did not love her.

She glanced up at a rustling in the hedge, fearing the children may have come in search of her. She’d promised to take them exploring today, and she’d left the overworked nanny alone with them for too long. The poor woman would need a nap by now.

A rock flew past her nose and smacked against the garden wall, jarring loose pebbles before tumbling under a dying rosebush. She emitted a small shriek before covering her mouth and glancing frantically around. For a moment, she thought she saw the blue cloth of Penny’s dress through a break in the hedge. She shouted after her but heard no reply.

The sound of a galloping horse in the distance convinced her she’d imagined Penny. The child had many bad habits, but stealing horses wasn’t one of them.

Suspecting she’d just been the victim of Fitz’s incompetent assailant, she searched under the bush to see what the madman had to say this time. The rock was large enough to easily find. She dragged it from the brambles and untied the cord holding a paper wrapped around it.

BE GEEVENG BEK MY STOD ER YELL BE SORRY. LIV PAPPERS ET FAHTON.

Stod?

The note was as foolish as the earlier one, but she ought to show it to Fitz anyway. She feared she wasn’t ready to face him yet. Her knees started quaking and her eyes filled with tears every time she thought about losing him. But she couldn’t hide in the garden forever. Taking a deep breath, she forced her feet to turn in the direction of the house.

Once Abby had entered through the front door, Cissy launched herself at her from the landing. “Where’s Penny?” she demanded. “I wanna go ’sploring!”

Catching her little sister, Abby glanced up at the nanny hovering at the railing above. An uneasy feeling crept over her. “Isn’t Penny with you?”

“The little rapscallion slipped away when my back was turned, m’lady,” the woman said. “Five of ’em at once is more’n I can rightfully handle.”

“I understand that. Do you happen to know where the rest of our guests are?”

“Packing, m’lady. I heard them order the coaches around. Mayhap the little one heard his lordship talking to the others and went after him.”

“Yes, I daresay so,” she said calmly, not wanting to frighten anyone. “Will you take the children walking in the garden? I’ll look for Penny.”

As the children ran down the hall toward the lawn, Abby removed the ragged bit of paper from her pocket and studied it with more trepidation than she had earlier. The part that said
ER YELL BE SORRY
suddenly made horrifying sense.

Then again, perhaps she was overwrought and making mountains out of molehills, as Fitz had more politely warned her time and again.

She didn’t know how she would handle these anxious spells without Fitz to reassure her. She didn’t
want
to deal with them alone any longer.

Anger rapidly filled all the hollows she’d wept clean earlier. She
wouldn’t
do this alone again. He’d
promised
.

With intent purpose, Abby set out in search of her scoundrel husband.

37

Once she ascertained that Fitz had left the house, Abby’s search narrowed considerably. Unlike children, who might scramble anywhere, an adult would not stomp through the knee-high bramble patches surrounding the hastily mowed lawn. Civilized Fitz would take either the gravel path to the river or the brick one leading to the kitchen garden.

Since she had been in the kitchen garden and hadn’t seen him, she took the next logical course and traversed the gravel one.

Abby didn’t know whether to be frightened by the note in her pocket, worried Penny might climb to the roof, or furious with Fitz for giving her and the children up without even once consulting her. Not
once.
Maybe she’d simply pack her bag and walk away without consulting
him.
Let him feel the devastation she suffered. She had so many furies exploding through her mind that she couldn’t begin to put them to words. How could he sign away their future and any chance of happiness for the sake of a bunch of bullying—

Reaching the top of a hill, she spotted Fitz near the river below. In the unusually warm sunshine, he’d stripped off his frock coat and vest and folded them over a bush. He stood in billowing shirtsleeves and tight trousers, apparently contemplating the depths of the rushing waters.

The
Thames
. The river all London had feared he’d fallen into earlier. After shooting himself with one of his brother’s guns.

Without another thought, Abby lifted her skirts and ran screeching down the hill.

Fitz glanced up in surprise, but fury and fear propelled her. No more timidly waiting for others to act in her place. No matter what he’d promised to the lawyers, she would not live without him.

She launched herself full square against his chest, toppling him backward into the bush. Crying, she began beating his shoulders with her small fists. “Don’t you ever do that to me again! Ever!
Ever!
If I wanted to raise the children all on my own, I would have chosen some gouty old man who would pitch over dead in a year or two. But I wanted
you
, you insufferable, selfish, conceited”—she sought hysterically for just the right epithet—“smoking heap of dragon dung!”

Fitz’s shoulders shook with laughter as he grabbed his beautiful bride’s wrists before she beat him black-and-blue. Wherever his dire thoughts had taken him, Abby had dragged him back, and his soul exploded with joy.

“Dragon dung?” he inquired, drawing her arms behind her back and nuzzling her sweet-smelling neck. He licked her throat just below her ear and all the bluster drained out of her.

His courageous little general burst into tears and soaked his shirt. Shocked, he slid carefully out of the bush into a sitting position and cradled her in his lap, rocking her back and forth while she wept and ranted. There was a reason his banty hen didn’t speak when she was upset—she cackled incomprehensibly. He pressed kisses to her temple and gave her time to calm down.

If he’d come here to make a decision, she’d resolved it for him. He could no more let her go away without him than he could give up the moon and sky. There would be no running off to the Americas and starting a new life unless she went with him. Perhaps he could disguise himself as a farmhand and hide out in her gardener’s cottage again. Of course, once she learned what he’d done, Abby might pack his bags and heave him out.

Finally, he made out a word or two of her babbling, and he frowned. “Note? What note?”

“A stupid one,” she said, sniveling and rummaging in the pocket sewn inside her unfashionable skirt. “And Penny is missing. And I don’t want to have to do this all by myself again. I won’t let you send me home. I’ll camp in your attics.”

He couldn’t tamp down the relief swamping him. Somehow, she knew he’d signed away their happiness, and she wasn’t running back to the safety of her neat little cottage. For the children’s sake, he might have to persuade her otherwise, but for right now, her stubborn determination to stay with him soothed the sore places that self-doubt and the lawyers had ripped open.

Her defiance had stirred his lustful urges from the first moment she’d shaken a hoe at him. He would normally have no compunction about laying her down in the green grass and learning the joy of rural rutting, but the word
note
had fixed his attention.

“You heard about the solicitors?” he asked calmly, tugging her skirt free so she could dig deeper into her pocket. “Who told you?”

“I was coming to help you.” She finally produced the paper and shook it in his face. “I was just outside the door and heard it all. And if you’re considering for even one second throwing yourself in that river and leaving me with five children and a stupid tutor, I’ll shove you in myself.”

He snatched the paper from her waving fingers and kissed her fiercely before attempting to read it. When he’d halted her ranting and melted her spine until she fell against him, he glared down at her. “I am not a coward,” he warned her sternly. “Don’t accuse me of being one.”

She threw her arms around his neck and burrowed her teary face into his shirt. “You have to
talk
to me,” she wailed. “I can’t think things through if people keep telling me what I must do without letting me think about it first!”

“Fine, then, you think. I’ll read the note. And then we’ll decide what to do.” He glanced at the words.
Be geeveng bek my stod er yell be sorry. Liv pappers et fahton.
What the devil?

Yell be sorry
caused an uneasy shudder down his spine. “If he can call that crumbling pile of rock a fountain, it’s clearly past time to meet him there and get to the bottom of this.” He narrowed his eyes. “Did you say Penny has gone missing?”

“I’m afraid she’s gone to the roof and it will take me forever to find the stairs and you weren’t around to help me!” She wrinkled her nose a little more thoughtfully than earlier. “But I thought I saw her in the garden before the stone hit. And then I heard a horse, and surely he couldn’t hurt a child. . . .”

She was babbling again. Fitz sat very still. Surely the cad wouldn’t . . .

He couldn’t take that chance. Very carefully, he set Abby aside, climbed to his feet, and held out his hand to help her up. “Let us go back to the house. If she hasn’t shown up yet, we can start a search.”

She grasped his bare hand trustingly, studying him with those big celestial blue eyes of hers. “What are you not telling me this time?”

“I can explain on the way.”

She had to run two paces for each of his, but she kept up. “
Talk.
What are you thinking?”

“It’s all about respect,” he muttered, hauling her over a rock on a particularly steep slope of the hill. “I’ll respect your intelligence if you’ll respect mine.”

“Fine, then, if I’m returning to Chalkwick with the children, where are you going?”

“I’m going after an idiot first, and then I’m going wherever my family is. Is that all right with you?” he asked belligerently.

“Certainly,” she retorted in the same tone. “As soon as you tell me what this stone throwing is all about.”

“As soon as I know myself.”

The nanny and the children were still playing in the garden when they strode up. Penny was nowhere in sight. Abby glanced at the older woman, who shook her head worriedly. “Take the children back to the nursery, will you, please?” she asked as calmly as she could.

She ignored childish protests and followed Fitz as he cursed and dragged her on to the back entrance to the estate office. They found their male guests lounging about, sipping from flasks and studying the array of guns on the wall. They glanced up in surprise at their arrival.

Fitz produced the note. “Does anyone know anything about this?”

“
Be giving back my stud?
I thought it was your stud?” Lord Quentin asked in surprise, scanning the crude missive. “What the devil does this mean?”

Montague swiped the paper from his hand and passed it on to Atherton without a word. Instead, he reached for one of the guns on the wall.

“Fitz won that stud fair and square at cards,” Nick protested. “It’s his, no question about it. I was there. It was one of his better performances.”

“We were at the races in Cheltenham when he won it. If this came from the stud’s former owner, he must have a loose screw to go after Fitz over a damned animal,” Montague added.

“The man I won it from isn’t the ruffian who has been chasing me about town,” Fitz protested. “The nodcock with the Tattersall’s posters is a half-pint.”

Montague looked up abruptly. “I met Mick, the stud’s trainer, at the race. He’s jockey-sized.”

“If Mick’s the culprit, he’ll be even shorter when I’m done with him,” Fitz warned, shoving away from his desk.

“What do you mean to do?” Abby asked warily, watching the men remove weapons from the wall.

“Someone sending notes by way of slings and arrows is dangerous,” Lord Quentin explained curtly, breaking open a rifle to check for ammunition.

“Maybe you could keep the stud and give him this useless palace instead,” Geoff suggested, but he was already rummaging through drawers looking for cartridges.

“Slings? Then why are you loading guns?” Abby turned to Fitz, trying to understand what was happening here. And she thought
she
had difficulty communicating!

He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t risk him harming Penny if he has her. We’ll search the grounds. I think you need to ask the ladies to help you search the house.”

“Penny? Your daughter?” Lord Quentin snapped his rifle closed. “She’s missing?”

“We don’t know,” Abby whispered, feeling the blood leave her face. She hadn’t really believed the note meant Penny would come to harm until she saw all these dangerous men with guns in their hands. “Maybe she’s turned up by now.”

Without another word from the men, she raced from the room to check.

She ran to the kitchen first. The servants paused in their work to stare at her disheveled state. “Has anyone found Penny yet?” she demanded. When they all stood there dumbly, she pointed at the butler. “Bibley, go help Fitz. The rest of you, come with me.”

“Cook, check the cellars,” she ordered as they passed that door in the passageway. “Fanny, check the rooms in this wing. Remember she is small and may have fallen asleep under furniture or behind draperies.”

She led scullery maids and serving girls and everyone else they’d hired through the house, pointing out halls and passages and sending them scurrying. If Penny was simply hiding, surely someone would find her.

She sent the last of her army up to the third floor to search the schoolroom and attics, then summoned all her courage to face the party of London ladies. She had been so furious earlier that she’d feared she would say something very rude to Lady Belden. She still might. But right now, she needed all the help she could get, and that included facing a roomful of London aristocrats.

They were all in a sitting room adjacent to Lady Bell’s assigned bedchamber, looking elegant, sipping tea while desultorily directing their maids in the packing of trunks. Lady Sally nearly dropped the teapot when Abby burst through the door, no doubt looking like a grass-stained bumpkin. She no longer cared that she lacked panache and she no longer feared their sophistication. A child’s life was more important than her self-consciousness.

“Fitz’s daughter has disappeared, and he’s received another threatening note. The gentlemen are loading guns. I’ve sent Bibley to help them. I have servants scouring the house in search of Penny, but I fear something dreadful may have happened. I need to send Applebee, our steward, to organize a search of the tenant farms. Do any of you have acquaintances in the other big houses hereabouts? I fear I’ve not had time to meet the neighbors.” She was running out of breath as she tried to tick off commands one by one without forgetting anything.

Lady Margaret put down her cup. “I’ll run out to the stable. The men there will know how to find your steward.”

Lady Sally offered to help search the attic. Lady Belden directed the Hoyts’ maid to search all their bedrooms and sent her own to inquire about neighbors who might assist in the search.

“May I leave you in charge of the house, my lady?” Abby asked, finally finding her respectful voice in her urgent desire to return to Fitz.

“I have my riding clothes with me,” Lady Belden replied. “We’ll leave Sally here to direct the search party indoors. I can ride to the neighbors, if necessary, and serve as messenger between parties. You go to Fitz. He must be frantic.” The dark-haired marchioness looked determined.

Abby opened her mouth to say,
Yes, my lady
, then shut it again. Lady Belden was talking to her as an equal, and for the first time, she almost felt like one. She nodded, and fled back downstairs to check on the men.

Fitz hadn’t gone hunting since he was a lad in knee breeches. There wasn’t any blunt to be had in killing vermin. While the others prepared guns and bagged ammunition, Fitz turned to the servant Abby had sent their way.

“Bibley, where are the best hiding places?”

“There’s no end to empty cottages, my lord,” Bibley said, keeping his stiff upper lip. “There’s none to tend them, and they’re not fit for living in.”

His Penny could be killed by a rotting roof falling on her head.

If the bastard harmed one hair on his daughter’s head, he was going to kill him. Fitz grabbed one of the guns from his cousin and sighted along the barrel.

And immediately remembered the sprawling lodge with the stable for his father’s hunters and dogs. The dogs and horses were long gone, but the lodge was solid stone.

“Bibley, draw a map of all the cottages. Gentlemen, I recommend you each choose one. Shoot your weapon if you find anything.” Fitz took the ammunition Geoff handed him and stalked out with the papers for the valuable stud, his last remaining asset, in his pocket.

Losing an empty title and bankrupt estate palled beside the possibility of losing Penny’s love and laughter.