by Mary Nichols
He sank on to the bed and put his head in his hands. After seeing and talking to Myers, he had been so sure she would be here, waiting for him. ‘I could not take her myself,’ he had said, sweeping his arm to encompass the huge room, which was piled up with boxes, chests and bags and servants scurrying to and fro loading them on to a wagon. ‘As you see, I am about to leave. But I sent two reliable servants with her, with instructions to see that she is safely delivered to Belfont House. No doubt she will be waiting there for you.’
But she wasn’t. Where had she gone? What was the silly chit up to now? He really could not endure much more of her antics; it was playing havoc with his nerves. Harriet came into the room and he looked up at her, stricken. ‘She did not come back. She only pretended to agree to it to placate Lord Myers.’ He got up and ran his hands through his hair. It needed the attention of his valet, but he did not have time for that. ‘I had better go to the coach stop and see if she even arrived back in London.’
He went on foot; it was quicker than sending to the mews for his horse or a carriage, and it was all he could do not to break into an undignified run. At the White Horse—which according to Myers had been the destination of the coach he had put Sophie on—he discovered, on giving their descriptions, that the three people had completed the journey. At least that meant Sophie was back in London. He turned to go, stepping out of the way of an incoming coach as it clattered into the yard to disgorge its passengers. One of them was Captain Richard Summers.
‘How did you know I would be coming off this coach?’ he asked, catching the valise flung down to him from the boot by one of the inn’s servants, and falling into step beside James.
‘I didn’t, but I am certainly glad to see you. I need help.’
‘At your service, just as soon as I’ve been home, changed my linen and had something to eat. I’ve been on a wild-goose chase. That fellow we have in custody gave me the name of one of his accomplices, told me where to find him, but the bird had flown.’
‘They seem to be one step ahead of us all the time, but I don’t think my problems have anything to do with that. At least, I sincerely hope not. It is a personal matter…’
‘Fire away while we walk, then.’
By the time they reached the captain’s quarters at Kensington Barracks, James had told him everything.
‘I heard you had left the Smoke for Dersingham,’ Richard said. ‘Word was you’d taken the knocker off the door. Thought it a mite queer when we hadn’t finished our business. Not like you to go off half-cock…’
It occurred to him then that Sophie might have thought that was what had happened. She would think he had washed his hands of her, thought so little of her he could not even be concerned for her welfare, could not even bother to leave a message for her. ‘I’ve been combing the countryside for her. That’s why I need your help. I have to find her…’
‘Are you sure she’s not involved with Cariotti?’
‘Of course I am. If you are suggesting—’
Richard held up his hand. ‘Hold your horses. No need to fly into the boughs. It was only an idea. Of course, if he still believes she knows his secret, wouldn’t he want her where he could keep an eye on her?’
‘You mean he might have abducted her?’
‘It is a possibility.’
‘Then let us go and find out.’ He set off at such speed that Richard, hampered by his hand luggage, could hardly keep up with him.
‘Hang on, old man, let me get rid of this and then we’ll take a cab.’
James slowed down. They left Richard’s valise in the hall of his lodgings and hailed a cab, but when they arrived at Cariotti’s lodgings, the housekeeper told them that the Count had moved out. ‘Found more spacious lodgings, he said, seeing he has a wife to accommodate now,’ she said, with a sniff.
‘Wife!’ James yelled.
‘There’s no need to shout, sir,’ she protested. ‘That’s what he said, but I don’t reckon they were married, not yet anyway, ’cos I heard him send for witnesses to the ceremony.’
‘Where did they go?’
She shrugged. ‘They didn’t tell me.’
James forced himself to stay calm, but he was raging. She couldn’t marry that snake, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She did not even like him. Or so she said, but there was a little niggle in his brain that would not go away. It was the echo of the Count’s words only three days before:…she chose to come to England ahead of me and needed a home. What better than to apply to her cousin, the Duke? It would give her—and me—an entry into English society… We both have scores to settle.
‘May I look round his room? He might have left a clue to his direction.’
‘Go and look if you like, but I can tell you he left nothing behind.’
James bounded up the stairs, followed by Richard.
The room was tidy, just as Sophie’s had been tidy. There were no clothes, no personal possessions. Richard went over to the desk, expecting it to be locked, but it slid open easily. ‘Nothing here,’ he said. ‘Completely empty, except for this.’ He turned towards James, holding up a fan, a fan James recognised, a fan that had been lost and now was found. Left for him to find, he knew. He could just imagine them laughing as they put it there, knowing he would look for her.
‘Come on,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve seen enough.’
They returned to the cab in silence, brushing past Mrs Davies who stood in the hall. Richard threw her a guinea when it became obvious that James was oblivious to her, oblivious to everything except his own anger and misery.
‘James…’ Out on the pavement, Richard put a hand on his friend’s arm, but it was shrugged off.
‘Leave me. Take the cab. I’ll walk.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘For a walk. I need to clear my head.’
He walked for hours; when he returned home in the grey light of dawn, he had no recollection of where he had been. He had stopped in some ale house somewhere and slaked his raging thirst, but that was all. The paving stones, the streets, the muddy walk alongside the river, the Palace of Westminster, London Bridge, the Tower, all passed in a blur. His vision was clouded by anger and then tears. He had not cried since he was in leading strings, not even when he had lost good comrades in battle, not even when his mother had died. He had been brought up to face adversity and sorrow with stoicism, but how could he be stoic in the face of this treachery? They had made a fool of him, those two, and he wanted his revenge. The need for it burned inside him until he felt as if he were on fire. But that was on the surface; deep down in the very core of him, he was hurting.
He went into the breakfast parlour where one of the maids was setting the table. ‘Mercy me, you startled me, your Grace,’ she said, bending her knee. ‘I’ll have your breakfast in here in a tick.’
‘There’s no hurry,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
She gave another bob and went off to tell Janet to tell her mistress the master had just come in, looking in a fearful state. And then she went back to the kitchen to tell Cook to look lively, for his Grace was waiting for his breakfast.
But when, half an hour later, she took the dishes of ham and eggs and pork chops to the breakfast parlour, it was to find his Grace sitting in the chair at the head of the table, with his head on his folded arms. She put the dishes on the sideboard and crept out again.
‘James!’ He felt someone take his shoulder and shake it. ‘James, bestir yourself. You cannot sleep down here.’
He looked up, bleary-eyed, to see his sister standing over him in an undress robe of flowing blue-green silk. ‘They tricked us, Harri, they tricked us,’ he said.
‘Who did? And where have you been? Did you find Sophie?’
‘She’s gone with that muckworm, Cariotti. They left a calling card.’ He drew from his pocket the mangled remains of the fan. He had been turning it over and over in his hand as he walked and ruined it. ‘It was left behind at his lodgings.
A message to me, a message of triumph.’
‘Fustian! I do not believe it. He’s playing games with you.’
‘You think so? Why would she go to him a second time? Why deny she had ever seen him the first time? It was all a plot to gull me. Dersinghams and Langfords! Will it never end?’
‘Go to bed, James. You need rest. You cannot think clearly while you are so tired.’
‘I am thinking clearly. I am thinking clearly for the first time for weeks…’
‘No, you are not.’ She pulled on his arm until he was on his feet. ‘James, please go to your room and lie down. When you have rested, we will talk about it because I refuse to believe Sophie could be so cruel and you won’t believe it either when you think about it coolly.’
It was easier to comply than argue. He was dead on his feet. He went up to his room, waved Talbot away and flung himself on his bed fully dressed. He was asleep in seconds.
He woke several hours later, feeling marginally better, rang for Talbot, who clucked disapprovingly as the state of his garments, washed and allowed himself to be shaved and clad respectably in biscuit pantaloons, yellow waistcoat and a brown superfine frock coat with a velvet collar. Feeling more civilised, he pulled on his Hessians and went downstairs to find his sister.
‘Better?’ she queried, putting down the book she had been reading.
‘There’s a little man using a hammer inside my head,’ he said. ‘But, yes, I am feeling more the thing.’
‘Then sit down and tell me everything that happened from the time you left here until you came back this morning looking like a scarecrow.’
He told her, trying not to let his fury bubble up again. ‘What a fool I feel,’ he added when he had finished.
‘Yes, you are,’ she said. ‘Is that the strength of your love? Is it love at all if it can fluctuate so wildly? If you truly loved Sophie, you would never believe ill of her. You would know deep down that she could never deceive you in that fashion.’ She paused. ‘Think back, James, think of the times when you were together and not brangling. Remember the things she said to you, especially about that mountebank, Cariotti. Remember how she grovelled in the mud, looking for that fan. She was distraught at losing it, was ill for days afterwards. Was that all play acting?’
He did not answer, still too distraught to agree she was right, but he was beginning to wonder…
‘Had it not occurred to you that someone else might have picked up that fan, someone who saw a use for it?’
‘Cariotti was not at the Myers’s ball.’
‘No, but someone else was, someone who would hate to see you happily married.’
‘Alfred!’ He slapped his forehead with his open palm, which did little to help his headache. ‘Sophie told Myers that she thought they were in league.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘I’m off to see what that muckworm of a cousin has to say for himself.’ He grabbed a sugar plum from the dish at her side, stuffed it in his mouth and hurried from the room. ‘If either of them have harmed a hair of her head…’ His last words were lost as he left the room and disappeared down the hall, shouting for Collins to go and tell Sadler to bring Hotspur round to the front of the house. By that time he had changed into riding coat and boots, his horse was waiting for him. He bounded into the saddle and cantered off, weaving skilfully in and out of the traffic.
Alfred was away from home, his aunt told him frostily when he burst into the drawing room where she was entertaining her cronies.
‘Where has he gone?’
‘I am sure I do not know.’
‘Have you seen S— Miss Langford?’
‘No, and glad of it. She is beyond redemption. Try the Count.’ And she looked meaningfully at her companions, who smirked behind their gloved hands. They had all heard of Sophie’s indiscretion, it seemed, and she was not to be forgiven.
‘I am sorry I troubled you,’ he said.
His next call was on Richard, where he told him he thought he might have been right and Sophie had been abducted. But where was Cariotti hiding? And what did he want?
‘Are you sure she hasn’t gone off on her own?’
‘No, not this time.’ He had to have faith; that was what Harri had been trying to tell him, wasn’t it?
‘Go home and wait,’ Richard advised. ‘If he has got her you will hear soon enough. He won’t harm her until he has what he wants.’
‘Have another go at that prisoner, Dick, will you? I daren’t trust myself to do it. I’d throttle him before he could open his mouth. Find out where the rogues hide out. If we are prepared, we might stand a chance of foiling his plot before Sophie suffers too much.’
But if she was being held, then she was already suffering. He did not know how he was going to find the patience to wait. Surely, there was something he could be doing?
He went back to Harriet and relayed his abortive conversation with their aunt and his subsequent meeting with Captain Summers. ‘Sophie was right,’ he said. ‘They are in league. That’s why Alfred has gone to ground.’
‘Alfred is a jackstraw, but I cannot believe he would become embroiled in something truly evil. He doesn’t have the courage for it.’
‘I hope you are right. I’m going to send Sadler to Baldock.’
‘Baldock?’
‘Yes, to question those two servants who brought Sophie to London and find out exactly where they left her and if she was seen talking to anyone. I’d go myself, except I dare not leave in case a message comes for me. He can ride Hotspur. With luck he’ll be there before midnight. He can put up at Dersingham and go to Baldock the following morning and be back again by tomorrow night.’
‘Hotspur will never make it.’
‘Yes, he will, ridden sensibly. He carried me many a mile when we were campaigning.’ He hurried off to give his orders and then settled down to wait, something which he found inordinately difficult. He was a man of action and doing nothing irked him. He cleaned and primed his pistols in readiness, then paced up and down until Harriet lost all patience with him ‘Sit down, James. Find something to read. Do your accounts.’
He retired to the library to take her advice, but he could not make the figures in his ledgers add up and none of the books he took from the shelves held his interest. He paced about, then fetched Sophie’s manuscript from his desk drawer and sat down to read it again.
It made him feel very close to her. He could hear her voice as he read her words. They were softly reassuring. He leaned back and closed his eyes and then he could see her. She was wearing that shimmering blue-green gown; her hair was piled on her head, thick dark coils, sparkling in lamplight; her shoulders were bare and there was a pearl necklace about her throat. She seemed to be reaching out to him and her eyes implored him. ‘Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘Where are you?’
Sophie did not know where she was. Cariotti and Alfred had draped a large burnous over her and pulled the cowl down over her head so that she could see nothing but her feet, then bundled her into a closed carriage that had taken them to the river; there they had transferred to a rowing boat. Two men already in the boat had picked up the oars and began rowing steadily. She thought they had rowed downstream, judging by the salty tang in the air. It had made her think they must have a rendezvous with a ship and that had terrified her.
No one would ever find her if she left England. She would never see James again, never again hear his voice berating her, teasing her, laughing with her. Oh, how she wished she had not been so forthright, so independent, so foolish. If she had not boasted about that book! But if that was what the Count intended, why bother to send the Duke a letter demanding the manuscript and money? Surely he would not leave until he had both.
It was not a ship she was being taken to, she had realised when they turned up a small creek, and a few minutes later, the rowers had shipped their oars, tied a mooring rope to a post and hauled her unceremoniously out on to soggy grass. The Count and Alfred followed with the fourth man bringing
up the rear. She was guided up a narrow track and pushed roughly through a door, heard them strike a flint and saw, through the thickness of the hood, a faint glow. The cowl had been pushed back from her face, making her blink as she tried to focus her eyes.
They were in a rough hut. It was furnished with a table, a couple of chairs and a rough truckle bed. ‘I am afraid I must leave you here,’ Cariotti had said. ‘I am expected at the opera tonight and it would not do to be absent. Everything must appear normal. And I do believe Mr Jessop is taking a lady to Lady Holland’s soirée. My men will look after you.’ He had nodded towards two ruffians, one dark as night, wearing filthy black clothes, the other bald as an egg with a deep scar from the corner of his eye to his chin. ‘Do not give them any trouble because they are not gentlemen and will not hesitate to use violence, though I have forbidden them to kill you. At the moment you are more valuable alive. I am sure you understand me.’
Unable to find her voice, she nodded.
‘Good.’
Alfred was looking scared, as if he could not wait to be gone, though Cariotti seemed icily calm. He had killed before and the prospect did not frighten him. He stopped to give last-minute instructions to the ruffians and to warn them that if they allowed the prisoner to escape, their heads would roll, then he followed Alfred from the hut, leaving Sophie facing the two men.
Her prison could not be that far from the capital, she surmised, if the two men had time to return and fulfil evening engagements. But that was little help when she did not know how James could possibly know where she had been brought. He would never find her. They wanted to kill him, but they would not do it before he had handed over her manuscript. He would realise that, wouldn’t he? He would hold them off as long as he dared. But supposing he did not care what happened to her? She had quarrelled with him, defied him, run away—why would he put himself in danger for her? She needed all her strength and will power because, if he did not come, there was no one to save her but herself.
‘How much has the Count promised you?’ she asked.