What a Lady Demands

by Ashlyn Macnamara

  Only, in the end, Lind had lost.

  Except now he had a second chance. He simply had to reach out and take it. But to do so meant letting go of the old grudge. It meant letting go of the past. All he had to do was uncurl his fingers and release it into the ether. Then he could claim Cecelia, and she would do her level best to make him happy.

  And she could, he realized. She might make him happier than Lydia ever had.

  A knock sounded on the door to his study. He looked up to find Boff hovering on the threshold. Smiling in his oily, triumphant way.

  Damn it.

  “It is done, my lord.” His man of affairs proffered a wad of papers. Battencliffe’s debts. “I’ve acquired all the remaining debts for you.”

  Done. The word plummeted to his gut like a rock sinking in water. Or brandy, in his case. Apparently, rocks and brandy made for a poor mixture if the churning in his stomach was any indication.

  Hang it, he ought to rejoice. He ought to pour Boff a glass and toast the occasion. He ought to call for champagne. But all he could think of, all he could see was Cecelia, begging him to let go. The choice was upon him—revenge or Cecelia. The alcohol ought to have fogged his brain by now, but somehow everything came into sharp focus.

  He took the vowels from his man of affairs and stuffed them into his topcoat.

  “My lord?” Head cocked, Boff eyed Lind.

  “What is it?” Lind snapped.

  “Forgive me, my lord. After all the time you’ve put into this, all the resources…I rather expected more of an enthusiastic response now that victory is at hand.”

  He thrust his glass of brandy away, and, leaning his weight against the desk, pushed himself to his feet. “Some victories come at too great a cost. I’ve yet to decide whether this is one of them.”

  Boff’s already pale cheeks turned the color of sun-bleached parchment, and he backed up a pace. “Your pardon. I believe…I may have overstepped myself.”

  Lind planted his palms and leaned over his desk. The brandy in his belly seemed to turn into a nest of snakes. “Explain.”

  Boff made a raspy sound at the back of his throat. “I already took the liberty of hiring a Bow Street runner. Battencliffe will be arrested the moment they lay hands on him.”

  “In London,” Lind verified.

  “Yes.”

  “That won’t do us a lick of good.”

  Boff tilted his head. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, my lord.”

  “Battencliffe’s here. He paid me a visit earlier.” Lind drummed his fingers on his desk. “He saw you in London, by the way, which means you were careless, but we’ll ignore that for now. He came to ask me to call off the hounds. We can catch him before he goes back to Town.”

  “How do you propose to do that? He could be miles away by now.”

  Lind was in no condition for a search of his property, let alone the closest village. “No, I don’t think so. When I saw him, he looked like he’d been sleeping in his clothes. He hasn’t got funds for a carriage or inns. He’ll be traveling by the cheapest means possible.”

  “The mail coach.”

  Lind nodded. “Exactly. And there isn’t another mail coach for a day or two yet. He’s still in the area.” He’d already sent the stable boys out on another search for Eversham, but he still had staff to spare. “Order the footmen to search the grounds. Meanwhile, you can comb the nearby villages for news. Perhaps he’s convinced a farmwife to let him sleep in the barn. For that matter, tell the servants to check the empty tenant cottages.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “And I want a report by tonight.”

  Lind waited until Boff had bowed himself out, before taking a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping his brow. Soon, yes, soon he would finish with this entire affair.

  He picked up his walking stick and crossed the room. Damn it all, he couldn’t stay cooped up in the manor. He wasn’t made for inaction. Moving as fast as his injured leg would allow, he headed for the back of the house. He’d get a horse saddled and check out the tenant dwellings himself. And pray Battencliffe would listen rather than return the uppercut to the jaw Lind had dealt him earlier.

  If only Lind could work out what to do with Battencliffe when he caught him. The vowels seemed to weigh down his topcoat, more like an anchor than something so insubstantial as a wad of paper.

  He would simply have to take his chances, so he continued out to the stable yard. Several grooms were riding in, grim-faced, their mounts’ heads drooping.

  “Have you found anything?” Lind asked Regan.

  “No, my lord.”

  “Have Judas saddled for me, immediately. I plan on joining the search.”

  “On my way, sir.”

  Lind scanned the assembly of unshaven faces. Circles ringed their eyes. They’d already been hard at work. “Find yourselves a bit of refreshment and take a rest. With luck, the remainder of the staff will find what we’re looking for without your help.”

  Presently, Regan led Judas out of the stable, saddled and ready to go. At the mounting block, Lind heaved himself into the saddle and set out across his land, retracing the familiar route he took when he made his rounds with Boff.

  Soon Jeremy would be a strong enough rider to accompany them on his own pony, provided the boy could keep his seat. Lind had suspected he just might, since the day Cecelia insisted they do the rounds together. Not a cripple. The phrase echoed through his mind. At least, not such a cripple he couldn’t fulfill his eventual duties any less than Lind. With practice, he might grow up to be only slightly hampered at times. He might never perform a smooth waltz at a ball, but neither would Lind. And Jeremy could learn to manage the estate.

  It had taken Cecelia to show him that, to make him believe. To prove to him his guilt after the accident was perhaps not quite so grounded in reality. That much had been all in his mind, the same as the extent of Jeremy’s affliction.

  Now to track down Battencliffe and find a way to ensure Cecelia stayed with him. Both. He wanted both. He spurred Judas into a canter. A chilly breeze slapped him in the face and cleared away the last cobwebs left by the brandy.

  Before long, the Powells’ cottage appeared beyond the hedgerow. Unlike the last time, the place seemed deserted. Powell was no doubt in his smithy, but where was the passel of children who normally chased the chickens about the yard?

  He rode up to the door and tapped it with the end of his crop. After a moment or two, a red-faced Mrs. Powell poked her head out. “My lord. Is anything amiss? It’s not yer day to come round.”

  “No, I realize that. I was just curious if you’d noticed any strangers hanging about the property.”

  “Only th’ one I saw t’ other day, as I’ve told ever’one else come through here.”

  “The other day?” He waved that response away. “Yes, yes, you told me yesterday.”

  “Weren’t sure ye remembered, beggin’ yer pardon. Did ye find him? Seemed like a no-account, if ye want my opinion.” She nodded for good measure. “That’s just what I said to myself, too. Polly, I says, if ever a man looked like he was up to mischief, that man has the look about him.”

  “We didn’t find him, no.” Lind reined in his growing impatience. “I’m speaking of more recently and a different man.” Could Battencliffe have been hanging about his lands for that long? Or had she seen Eversham? “Remind me again. What did he look like?”

  “Like someone who wanted to pass himself off for better than he ought ter be. Nice enough clothes, but rumpled, like he didn’t have any others, and like he’d been sleeping in the stables.”

  “You wouldn’t have seen him since, would you?” Her answer might well mean the difference between Battencliffe and Eversham.

  “Matter o’ fact, I have. Just this morning, as it happens. And he weren’t alone this time.”

  “Where? And who was he with?” Good God, if he’d laid so much as a finger on Cecelia…But that was a ridiculous notion. Cecelia was still up at the manor wi
th Jeremy. She’d been there all morning, since Battencliffe’s visit.

  But you haven’t seen her for yourself. Damned annoying voice in the back of his mind. It had been his constant companion since his army days. Unfortunately, as irritating as it was, it was also right more often than not.

  Damn, damn, and damn.

  “I couldn’t rightly tell. I only saw them at a distance. Him and another.”

  “Was the other a man or a woman? Please, it could be important.” And his sense of urgency was growing with every vague answer she dealt him.

  “No, it were another man. I saw them over yonder.” She swept her arm off to the left. Nothing that way. Nothing beyond two abandoned cottages that stood separate from the rest. “They looked as if they was headed up the path toward the manor, though. Yer pardon, I didn’t stand and watch ’em. I’ve got all I can do for keeping an eye on my own.”

  “My thanks.” He took the hint well enough. “I won’t take any more of your time.”

  Toward the manor. That implied Battencliffe, but he’d arrived alone. If he’d somehow teamed up with Eversham, that little worm had been nowhere in sight. And were they still on the grounds? Mrs. Powell hadn’t seen them come back, but then she hadn’t been watching for them, either.

  And now what should he do? Turn the hunt closer to home or see if any clues lay behind at the abandoned cottage? If Battencliffe was at the house, though, his servants were already aware of the search. That left the abandoned cottages. He’d ordered them checked yesterday to no avail. They may have been checked today, as well—but not by him.

  He rode on, past fields and into the trees. The empty cottages stood forlorn and forgotten, with not even a curl of smoke to indicate anyone might be squatting there. And perhaps they weren’t, but he had to make certain.

  Wincing at the stiffness in his leg, he dismounted, and tied the reins around a low-hanging branch. Then he shuffled to the door. It swung open at the slightest pressure. Hmm. Had someone been here recently? His servants, certainly, but who else?

  To judge by the smell, no. The air inside was heavy with humidity and the scent of mildew. A thick layer of dust covered the floor and the few pieces of rough-hewn furniture the previous tenant had left behind. Not even footsteps marred the layer of dirt on the floor.

  Empty, then, blast it, just as reported. An inspection of the second cottage proved to be in the same condition. Now he had to figure out how to get back on Judas with no mounting block and no one to give him a leg up. A ramshackle barn stood across from the house, and it crossed his mind that he really ought to put Boff to the task of overseeing repairs to these buildings. If the barn wasn’t inhabited, he might at least find something useful to boost himself into the saddle.

  He limped his way into the barn. The dirt floor was scattered with stray bits of old straw, but a ladder led up to the hayloft. An ideal hiding spot if it could be made comfortable, but the utter silence about the place told him it was deserted even before he climbed the ladder to check. But he also couldn’t chance it. Rung by painful rung, he dragged his injured leg upward, until he could see into the upper level.

  Hay spread over the planked floor—more than one ought to find in an unused building. Enough to form a bed of sorts. The shadows made it difficult to see, but once his eyes had adjusted, he could just make out an indentation in that pile of hay, easy enough to miss if one were only making a cursory inspection. It looked very much as if someone had bedded down here recently. If his leg were hale and whole, he would have climbed the rest of the way to test the makeshift bed for traces of body heat, but he’d take it on faith that Eversham had made himself a lair in here.

  Even if he was nowhere in evidence now. For clearly no one was about the place. And where could he have gone with Battencliffe? Lind cast about in his memory for a recollection of his old friend’s habits, back before Lydia had come between them—or rather, they had vied for Lydia’s affections.

  Battencliffe had been fond of a pint or two from a public house, certainly, but with little funds left to him, would he have trudged all the way to a nearby village to find some? Would Eversham have bought him a mug of ale or two while they planned…

  But what? What did the two of them have in common that they’d potentially team up? Battencliffe lacked funds, and Eversham was after the ring he’d given Cecelia, which implied Eversham as well had fallen on hard times. Did he think the recovery of a ring would provide enough blunt to cover all their needs?

  Good God, Cecelia. He hadn’t seen her since this morning when she’d left him in the sitting room to decide their future. He’d assumed she’d spent the morning with Jeremy at his lessons, but she’d been awfully vexed when she’d stormed out.

  He wracked his brains. Had she stomped up to the nursery? He thought so, and if she’d come back down with the boy in tow, he couldn’t recall seeing her. But then, he’d retreated to his study and his brandy bottle relatively quickly.

  And if she’d taken the boy out on one of their constitutionals in order to walk off her temper? He’d have seen them when he rode out, though, wouldn’t he? The servants deploying to search for Battencliffe would have attracted her attention surely. Damn it. Damn, damn, damn.

  Battencliffe may not have any reason to wish harm on Cecelia, but that Eversham bastard had been oddly persistent about the ring. And the things Cecelia had hinted about the man…A shiver passed down his spine. He recalled that particular sensation from his days in the army—every time he marched into enemy fire. Despite the protests of his injured leg, he clambered down the ladder and back to his waiting horse.

  Heart pounding like a cannon, he led Judas into the barn and to an old abandoned box stall. After the ladder, his leg protested every movement, but he gritted his teeth against the pain and stiffness and somehow hoisted himself to a sitting position on the low wall. From there, he scrambled into the saddle.

  Thank God. If he’d had to walk back under his own power, it wouldn’t matter if he ran into Eversham or not. He’d be in no condition to subdue the man and toss him out. As he should have done days ago.

  He spurred Judas back in the direction of the manor. There was no sign of life in the empty fields about him. Damn it all, where was the bastard? Just ahead, the path divided. The left-hand branch joined the main road up to the manor, but the right…That one led into the stand of oaks and eventually past the pond. The day he’d caught Eversham skulking in the hedgerow, he’d been down that way.

  What was more, the trees offered a sort of protection if one wanted to hide his activities. And Lind’s people avoided the path, because of his own silly dictates. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking the right-hand fork.

  At the entrance to the woods, he reined Judas back. He’d let the path become overgrown on purpose to discourage anyone exploring that part of the grounds. To discourage himself, if he were honest, from revisiting the site where he’d ultimately lost Lydia. He ducked his head beneath low-hanging branches, and gave Judas his head to pick his own way through the tangle.

  The eerie silence that had reigned in the abandoned buildings seemed to have followed him beneath the trees. Not even the occasional birdsong broke the quiet. Only the steady plod of Judas’s hooves on dry, dead leaves, and his own breathing met his ears. Up ahead, the trees thinned. He was close to the pond. From memory, he knew it lay in the middle of a clearing with marshy ground about halfway around it. On the manor side spread a convenient lawn that offered access for swimmers.

  And, finally, a sound. Low and quick and angry, but yes, he heard male voices.

  “Did you hear that?” one asked suddenly, and Lind pulled Judas to a halt.

  “We’re about to get caught if I don’t miss my guess. What do you think of your brilliant scheme now?” Damn, that was Battencliffe, which meant the other must be Eversham.

  “Shut up and let me think. We have Lind’s bride and the boy. Certainly he’ll cough up something for both of them.”

  Chapter
Twenty-Four

  Above the tight banding covering his mouth, Jeremy’s eyes blazed with a mixture of emotions. Cecelia read fear there, yes, but the distress entwined with a certain excitement. This was an adventure of a sort for him, even if he’d already been held once at knifepoint.

  Now they merely awaited their fate. Ropes cut deeply into Cecelia’s wrists, and her hands had reached a state of heavy numbness. Her own gag choked her as she lay on a swath of spongy grass. Humidity crept through her clothes into her skin, uncomfortable and clammy. Stagnant water and algae—undercut with the smell of her own terror—hung thick in the air.

  This was no adventure to her, for she knew the sorts of risks Eversham would take to get what he wanted. And Battencliffe…Her old acquaintance with her brother’s school friend made no difference. If he was willing to stand aside while his own son was threatened, bound, and gagged, no entreaty she might make would change anything.

  The pair of them stood a few yards away discussing something in low voices. Every so often, one would cast a worried glance toward the encroaching trees. Somebody must be on the verge of discovering the miscreants. Please, God, let it be one of the servants. Let it be Lind. Somehow, someway. But even if Lind had realized she was missing, how would he know to find her here? And would he come to the place where Lydia had met her fate?

  Cecelia twisted her wrists, but the movement only sharpened the teeth of her bonds. She could not cry out, so she closed her eyes and prayed, willed, hoped that Lind was out there. Searching. Wanting to find his wife and Jeremy.