The Autumn Bride

by Anne Gracie

“It’s such a comfort to know that chivalry isn’t dead, gentlemen.” Aunt Bea came forward, leaning on her stick. “Thank you, a thousand thanks, you wonderful, wonderful boys, for saving my dear nieces.” They preened at the praise. “But now I must insist—the gels need to rest after their frightful ordeal—”

  “Oh, but—” Jane showed a desire to remain the center of attention.

  “Your frrrrightful ordeal,” Aunt Bea repeated firmly. “We cannot hold these wonderful gentlemen up any longer; they’ve been much too kind as it is.” As she spoke she moved forward, making gentle shooing motions toward the open door.

  “Thank you,” Max growled, and they stepped hastily over the threshold.

  The moment the front door closed Max turned on Abby. “Were you involved in this fracas?”

  “No, I was inside.”

  Thank God. He took a deep breath. “Good.” He turned to Turner and Hatch. “And where the devil were you two when this happened?”

  “I . . . We didn’t know. . . .”

  “It wasn’t their fault,” Abby jumped in. “Jane and Damaris slipped out without telling anyone.”

  “It was just across the par—”

  Abby turned to her sister. “Don’t try to justify it, Jane—you know the rules, and now look what almost happened. And I’m not just talking about the . . . the abduction; you almost got Turner and Hatch sacked.”

  Jane hung her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Abby put her arm around her sister. “I know, but you must learn to think before you act.”

  Aunt Bea said, “Best get the gels upstairs. Discuss it when everyone is calmer.” She gave Max a pointed look, but Max was damned if he was going to wait. He’d caught a look exchanged between the sisters and his suspicions were raised.

  “Take them upstairs, by all means, but not you—I want to speak to you.” He took Abby by the arm, towed her into the small drawing room and closed the door.

  “You know who was behind this, don’t you?”

  “Of course I don’t.” But there was a troubled pucker between her brows that told him she knew more than she was saying.

  It fanned the flames of his already sorely tried temper. Dammit, it could have been Abby who was abducted. He wanted to shake her for her stubborn refusal to trust him with the truth, yet he’d just come from a meeting with his future wife and father-in-law, and he had no right to demand anything from Abby.

  The knowledge only lashed his temper more. He caught her by the elbows. “What were you girls up to before you came to live with my aunt?”

  “Up to? I resent your tone.” She tugged to make him release her, but he didn’t let go. She glared at him, but he could see she was trying to think of what to say.

  “Don’t lie to me, Abby. Something’s seriously amiss. You girls are in hiding from someone or something—don’t bother to deny it, Miss Chantry.” She bit her lip.

  He let her arm slide through his fingers until he was holding her by the hands, gripping them tightly. “Abby, it’s clear someone—someone dangerous from your past—is pursuing you. If you don’t tell me who it is—”

  “I don’t know!”

  “But you suspect.” He knew by her miserable expression that he was right.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why? It cannot be so dreadful—”

  The door opened and Jane and Damaris stood there. Obviously they’d been eavesdropping. “Leave Abby alone,” Jane said. “It’s not her fault. And you might as well know, because it’s going to come out anyway—we were in a brothel!”

  “A brothel?” Max looked at Abby and his face drained of color.

  Abby could not bear to see the expression in his eyes. She looked away.

  “Not Abby,” Jane said. “Damaris and me and Daisy. Abby got us out—”

  “Daisy got you out,” Abby corrected her.

  “—and we all got her sacked. And now Mort is after us,” Jane finished, and burst into tears. Damaris put her arms around her and led her, sobbing, from the room.

  Max turned on Abby. “You little fool, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I couldn’t; I couldn’t. How could I know how you’d . . .”

  There was a short silence. “You didn’t trust me.” His voice was flat, hard.

  She swallowed. “No.”

  Unreadable gray eyes bored into her. How could she explain that if it had been just her, if she’d been the one with the terrible secret, she might have told him, might have confessed. Might.

  But it was Jane’s secret, Jane’s reputation that would be forever destroyed, and it was Abby’s duty to protect her sister. “It was not my secret to share.”

  There was a long silence. “Does my aunt know?”

  “Yes, I told her everything before—”

  “Before what?”

  Abby raised her head and met his gaze. This part, at least, she was not ashamed of. “Before I accepted her invitation for us all to come and live with her.”

  Black brows snapped together. “She knew that three of you came from a brothel? And yet she claimed you as nieces and tried to foist you on the ton?”

  “Yes,” she flashed, her temper rising again. “And why not? Jane escaped from that place untouched, and I don’t know about Damaris, but I do know that she hadn’t been there much longer than Jane, and that she was brought in under cover of darkness, tied up and struggling—a victim as surely as Jane. Why should her life be forever ruined because of that?”

  Max gave her a long, assessing look. “How did you get them out?”

  “Daisy got them out.”

  “Daisy was a victim too?” That was stretching it. He’d bet the cheeky little cockney knew her way around all the rookeries.

  “She was . . . she was taken there as a child. But no, she was a maidservant in the brothel, which made her able to come and go as the others weren’t.”

  “A brothel maid, and you claimed her as sister?” He was incredulous.

  “She is my sister!” Abby declared passionately. “Without her, Jane would be lost to me forever, and for that, yes, Daisy is my sister and will always be so. And so is Damaris! I will never deny them.”

  He couldn’t fault her loyalty. Max ran his fingers through his hair. “Dammit, you women have a mighty flexible notion of kinship—you with your ‘sisters’ and my aunt claiming you as ‘nieces.’”

  “And do men not call some friends ‘brothers’?” she retorted. “Brothers in arms, for instance?”

  He considered that. “Yes, and brothers in adversity. I have several myself. Though in my case I claim them only in a metaphorical sense—you should appreciate that, with your literary bent.”

  She said nothing.

  He rumpled his hair again. “I need a drink.” He went to the sideboard and poured two glasses, one in a large fat glass and the other smaller. He handed the smaller one to her. “Madeira—I didn’t think you’d like brandy.”

  “Thank you.” She took it and sipped gingerly. It appeared to meet with her approval, for a moment later she took another sip.

  “How did you meet my aunt?”

  She sighed. “I might as well admit it; you know everything else.” She drank the rest of the wine and set the glass aside. “I climbed in through her bedroom window.”

  “You what?” It was the last thing he’d expected. Aunt Bea’s bedroom was a good forty feet from the ground. What if she’d fallen? And why—?

  “I was hoping to steal something.”

  “What?”

  She shrugged wearily. “Anything.”

  “Why?” What would drive her to such an extreme?

  “We needed the money. Jane was very sick and we had no money to pay a doctor.”

  There was a short silence. Of course. Risking herself to take care of others. He might have known. “What did you steal?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was nothing to steal.”

  “And Jane got better anyway?
”

  “Yes.” She looked at him. “Thanks to Damaris and Daisy. They helped me to care for her day and night.”

  Max got the point. The four girls had been through a lot together, and nothing could break the bond they’d forged.

  Much like himself and Flynn and Ash.

  He sipped his brandy thoughtfully. Her story still didn’t quite make sense to him. “Are you telling me that my aunt, waking to find a burglar in her bedchamber, then invited you to come and live with her and bring your friends?” She’d always been eccentric, but this was mad. She must have been sicker than he’d realized.

  “No, of course not. That first night we just talked. I . . . I liked her. And later—when Jane’s fever had broken—I found myself worrying about Lady Beatrice, so I called on her. Her butler refused to admit me, so I gave him a note to give to her. And that night I went back—”

  “You went back—again? At night? Through the window?” Good God. Risking her neck because she was worried about an old woman she’d met once?

  “Yes, and it was as I’d suspected—she hadn’t received any note or been informed of any callers, so I had to go back to ask her whom I could contact who would help her.”

  “She brought me soup.” His aunt stood in the doorway.

  “Soup?”

  “Because my servants were starving me. And that’s when I invited Abby and the other gels to come and live with me. Best decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

  “You knew where they’d come from?” Max was fairly sure of the answer, but he had to ask.

  “Of course. Abby told me about the brothel, in case I wanted to change my mind and rescind the invitation. She’s honest and good to the core, Max, and if you can’t see that—”

  He cut her off with a gesture. He didn’t need anyone to tell him what she was. He stood abruptly. “I need to think.”

  * * *

  Lady Beatrice called for tea. They drank it in silence. It was comforting, but Abby could have done with another glass of Madeira.

  Her thoughts were in turmoil. He’d been shocked by her story, the brothel, the burglary most of all, and that she’d compounded it with lies—lies of omission, but still lies.

  He’d lost all respect for her now. It felt . . . it felt like a kind of grief.

  Featherby knocked and entered, looking worried. “Yes, what is it, Featherby?” Lady Beatrice asked.

  “I thought you’d want to know, m’lady. Lord Davenham has just spent the last twenty minutes questioning Daisy and now he’s taken her away in his carriage.”

  “Daisy? Why? Where’s he taking her?”

  “He didn’t say, but”—Featherby shot Abby a meaningful look—“from something I, ahem, happened to overhear, I think he’s taking her to a magistrate.”

  Abby jumped to her feet. “A magistrate? But why? Daisy’s done nothing wrong.”

  But nobody had any answer.

  “Sit down and drink your tea,” Lady Beatrice told her. “Worrying never did anyone any good. My nephew’s got a good head on his shoulders and a good heart—you’ll just have to trust him to do the right thing.”

  But she didn’t look particularly sanguine, Abby noticed. Oh, what was he doing with Daisy? Where had he taken her? And why?

  Daisy, who’d always disapproved of the deception. Daisy, whose biggest fear was the threat of prison, or transportation to the other side of the world.

  Part of Abby wanted to flee now, while they could, to get Jane and Damaris away, but that was just cowardice, she knew. She couldn’t leave Daisy to her fate.

  Lord Davenham wouldn’t harm them, not really, she told herself. He might banish them from his house—and who could blame him?—but it wasn’t that that Abby dreaded; it was seeing again the look in his eyes when he saw she didn’t trust him.

  And now here she was, not trusting him again.

  Magistrate. She could think of only one reason to see a magistrate: to report a crime.

  But Daisy hadn’t done anything wrong. No more than the rest of them. Abby was the one who’d broken into his aunt’s house—twice. The false name had been her idea too—the others had just followed along. And she was the eldest. She should be the one being taken to the magistrate, not Daisy.

  “Abby, can we talk to you?” Jane and Damaris stood in the doorway.

  “Yes, what is it?” She was still cross with them for slipping out and causing all the fuss in the first place, but she could never hold on to her temper for long, and they looked young and unhappy and troubled. “Come in,” she said in a softer voice, and patted the chaise longue beside her.

  “It’s about the abductors,” Jane said. “We’ve been thinking.”

  “We don’t think it was Mort,” Damaris said.

  Abby blinked. “What? Of course it was.”

  Damaris shook her head. “If it was Mort, why only take Jane? Why not me too?”

  Abby put down her cup. “How do you know they weren’t after you as well?”

  “One man knocked me to the ground while the other one grabbed Jane. The two of them were halfway to the carriage with her by the time I was on my feet again,” Damaris said. “So obviously they didn’t want me. But why?”

  The three girls looked at one another.

  It was certainly a conundrum, Abby thought. Perhaps they didn’t recognize Damaris in her newly refurbished bonnet. But then, Jane was wearing a bonnet too. Perhaps they wanted Jane particularly because she was still a virgin. Or perhaps it was simply because Jane was beautiful, and Damaris was simply very pretty. Who knew how these evil people thought?

  All Abby could think of to say was, “It’s a mystery.”

  And all she could think of was, Where was Daisy? And how was she faring?

  * * *

  Daisy returned in the early evening. She came alone; there was no sign of Lord Davenham. The minute she arrived, they fell on her, hugging her in relief and pelting her with questions.

  “Where have you been?”

  “What happened?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Gawd, have I died and come back from the dead or sommat?” she exclaimed. “Course I’m all right; why shouldn’t I be?”

  “But didn’t Lord Davenham take you to a magistrate?”

  “Yeah.” Daisy grinned. “Where’s the old lady? She’ll want to hear this.”

  They hurried to the small sitting room, where Lady Beatrice was destroying a game of patience. “Well, about time! Come in, come in, my dear Daisy, and tell us where you’ve been all this time.”

  They all crowded into the sitting room, even Featherby and William. A maid or two hovered in the doorway, but Featherby sent them away and shut the door firmly. Daisy pulled up an overstuffed stool and plopped down on it. She looked at all the waiting faces and grinned. “I could get used to this.”

  “Tell us everything,” Lady Beatrice commanded.

  “Well, after he’d been talking to you all, his lordship found me and asked me a heap of questions about the brothel.” She shrugged. “I didn’t see no harm in telling him, since Jane already spilled the beans. I hope that was right, Abby.”

  Abby nodded. “Go on.”

  “So then he said I had to tell it all to a friend of his.”

  “Who?” Jane asked curiously.

  Daisy shrugged. “I never caught his name—some fat old toff in a big house. He give me a cup of tea and some cake and then I told him everything I’d told Lord D. And blow me down if he didn’t turn out to be a magistrate! I just about died when his lordship told me.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “So then the two of them went off into another room and talked, and then they took me to another old bloke’s place—he was a magistrate too—and he gave me more tea and cake and asked me all the same questions again and a few more. I can tell you, I was getting right sick of it.” She glanced at Featherby. “And them little cakes don’t fill you up at all. I couldn’t half murder a pie or something.”

  Feath
erby looked at William, who heaved a sigh and left. “Go on, Miss Daisy,” Featherby said.

  “Well, there was a lot of talking in corners and more blokes coming and going and more bloody questions—sorry, Lady B—and then Lord D put me in a carriage.”

  “Is that all?” said Lady Beatrice, disappointed.

  “No, it’s not,” Abby said. She could tell by the brimming excitement Daisy was trying so hard to hide. “Something’s going to happen, isn’t it?”

  “It’s happened,” Daisy said with the broadest grin yet. William came back with a pie, and they waited impatiently while Daisy took several giant mouthfuls. “Ah, that’s better. They raided Mort’s place this afternoon.” She ate another mouthful. “I told them he paid blokes at Bow Street to warn him, so they used other people—I dunno who.” Another mouthful. “But Mort’s locked up right and tight in prison—his lordship let me watch from his carriage when they took him away. He looked blood—right miserable too.” She laughed.

  The girls all cheered and hugged one another. Lady Beatrice called for champagne. Daisy munched on her pie.

  “Lord Davenham organized this? Today?” Abby couldn’t believe it.

  Daisy nodded vigorously. “You shoulda been there, Abby. Some of the old codgers wanted to hem and haw and consider the implications and form committees and investigate, but he wouldn’t let them. He rousted them along, miss, like you wouldn’t believe. Asked ’em what if their niece or granddaughter had been kidnapped on the way to school and was locked up in that house naked and waiting to be auctioned off to a roomful of randy old men—that got ’em going.” She chuckled. “And then I said, all innocent-like, that if they waited until the evening, they’d be able to catch a whole lot of proper toffs in the house, and that really made ’em move. Don’t reckon they wanted their friends embarrassed.”

  “Magnificent!” Lady Beatrice declared, raising her glass. “To the heroine of the hour, and my nephew.” They all toasted Daisy. And the absent Lord Davenham.

  Abby was breathless just thinking about it. Mort arrested and the brothel closed, and any girls imprisoned there would be free. All because Lord Davenham had known the right people to tell.

  All her letters written in vain, and now in one afternoon the brothel was closed and the vile Mort in prison awaiting trial and punishment. It was a lesson in how the world worked.