A Lady Compromised (The Ladies)

by Pennington, Ava

  “I give you thanks, my lord,” replied Delia, still a bit off kilter, “for your generosity. But compliments are not why I requested this audience. I am afraid I simply must meet with my publisher to review the final details of my manuscript.”

  “My dear Lady Delia, I’m afraid you must know that as you are now quite well known and celebrated as my future Marchioness, it is quite impossible for you to be gallivanting about the city, tossing off manuscripts of romantic literature hither and thither. Most especially when a visit to a publisher would immediately identify you as the author of Annabelle’s Adventures and by default, give credence to the rumors we have worked so steadfastly to quash.”

  “But my lord,” she began, “I cannot simply do nothing! They are expecting it!”

  “Well, I am quite sure that is the case. However, if you would like to draft a message to the effect that the finished manuscript has been delayed and you will be able to deliver it after the first of the year, by which time I can arrange for a more private audience, then I should be happy to deliver it.”

  “Mason!” Delia’s voice rose and she used his Christian name out of desperation, “I cannot postpone delivery even another week! I will lose my readership!”

  “It hardly seems to signify,” replied her betrothed, “given that you are no longer in need of a means of support for yourself.”

  “But I’m proud of what I’ve done and how the books have sold! I do not wish to give that up. It makes me happy to write and I wish to continue! If I prove to be a flighty and inconsistent author, I assure you I will not easily be able to find another publisher.”

  “My dear, I do sympathize,” said Lord Durham. “But I cannot have you wandering about alone and unprotected in this city until we discover the whereabouts of Rosewood. And I cannot accompany you to the publishers, nor can Lady Burke, without immediately exciting suspicion that you are, in fact, the authoress of Annabelle’s Adventures. I am very much afraid that as distressing as it might be for you, you must postpone the novel’s release.”

  “You do not understand!” protested Delia, tears pricking her eyes.

  “I do understand your disappointment. I just do not understand your desire to put yourself and everything we have worked for in danger.”

  She sighed. “I see that I cannot convince you of the necessity of this outing. I do hope, however, that you appreciate my willingness to consult you in the first place. When we are married, I trust I will have a bit more in the way of freedom over my own affairs?” Her chin went up and her pink cheeks, usually colored with a blush, were instead glowing with anger.

  “My dear Lady Delia, I can assure you that I have no interest in supervising your daily affairs. However as my wife, I expect you to comport yourself with a decorum appropriate to your station.” The Marquess’ unhappiness with the interview was increasing by the moment.

  “Do not again suggest that my behavior is improper! I have done nothing but protect my own—“

  “I am not!” Mason said energetically, “I would never suggest that—not again. I only ask that you please trust me. For just a little longer.”

  Lady Delia recognized the subtle plea in his voice but was extremely vexed with his stubbornness and refusal to countenance the importance of the prompt delivery of her manuscript. She grimaced.

  “I will, my lord,” said Lady Delia, rather tersely. “And I will trust you will still permit me to keep my engagement with dear Lady Harriet, to shop this afternoon in Bond Street? We are, I believe, to take several footmen with us as protection.”

  Lord Durham felt like an ass but could not apologize without taking her in his arms, which would be disastrous for them both, as he felt at this point a distinct possibility that touching her would lead to the immediate requisition of a door that locked.

  “Of course, my dear. I have no intention of spoiling your outing with my sister. She is, in fact, most likely on her way in the phaeton as we speak.”

  “I am pleased to hear that, my lord. I was looking forward to the shopping trip and did not relish the prospect of giving it up.”

  “I would never propose to limit a pleasure of yours.”

  Delia could not help but snort.

  “You are limiting my pleasure as we speak by keeping me from publishing my book!” And, she thought, by refusing to touch and caress and kiss her. But he was prevented from answering as at that moment, Lady Harriet Broadstone was introduced and, after a short admonishment to the ladies discouraging profligacy, he took his leave.

  “I shall see you this evening,” he said to Lady Harriet and Lady Delia, “at Lady Ledgerhall’s musicale.” And, bowing, he called to Lady Burke’s butler to have his team brought round.

  “Where shall we go, dear sister?” asked Lady Harriet, already taking advantage of her future relationship with Lady Delia.

  “Bond Street, of course! Gloves? Hats? A new reticule? What should you like to purchase?”

  “Why, something for your engagement ball, of course! Mason says I am permitted to attend but may not stay up all night. He says it’s only proper I should be there to give my congratulations but I must go home after the announcement since I am not yet out.”

  “Far be it for me to contradict your illustrious brother,” Delia said with an attempt at good humor, not wishing to alienate Harriet or criticize Mason but unable to entirely resist.

  “I’m afraid he can be quite officious and it’s rather maddening,” Lady Harriet admitted, giggling. “You will soon learn to tease him out of those moods, as I have.” At this, Lady Delia brightened, thinking that if a little sister could put a stop to her betrothed’s sententiousness, it was likely his wife would learn to as well.

  “Quite so. Shall we go?” she asked, putting a hand through the crook of Lady Harriet’s elbow.

  “Indeed! And you shall see me drive!” replied Lady Harriet with delight.

  The two ladies set off toward Bond Street with the phaeton’s team in Lady Harriet’s capable hands. It was not yet exceptionally crowded and they found the street moderately full of shoppers but found nothing to test the young lady’s control of her cattle. Leaving the footmen to exercise the horses, they walked up and down the street, making various purchases of ribbon or lace but Lady Delia’s heart was not yet in it. She had brought the manuscript with her, with the thought that perhaps she might sneak away to Wright & Wright to leave the unbound pages, even if she could not stay for a meeting.

  When they approached the street on which her publisher was located, Lady Delia looked about for the footmen who were constantly at the ladies’ elbows. She asked the one walking with her if he might fetch her a glove she had inadvertently left in the phaeton and walked quickly down the street when he turned to obey. She reached the doorstep of Wright & Wright in minutes and, seeing no one, darted inside.

  “May I help you?” asked the spotted young man at reception, glancing up at her.

  “I would just like to deposit this manuscript for Messrs.’ Wright? I believe they are expecting it.” Delia waited only half a second for his affirmation before expelling a rushed thank you and dashing back out the door. She was walking past an alley when she heard a sharp cry of her name.

  “Delia!” she turned, quickly, and was immediately grabbed about the waist, a rancid cloth pressed to her face. She tried to struggle but the chloroform was too strong. Despite her struggles, she was unconscious in an instant.

  Chapter 33

  Lord Durham was at home that evening, wondering why he was feeling so off about his conversation with Lady Delia that day, despite the fact that everything he had said was for the specific purpose of her safety and well-being. He heard the dinner gong and was approaching the door to the dining room when Weebold approached him.

  “Yes?”

  “My lord. The Lady Harriet has not yet returned from shopping. Should you like us to hold dinner?” The Marquess sighed. Tonight, just as he was hungry and thought perhaps a good dinner might improve his mood, his sister dec
ided to stay late in Bond Street or over at Lady Burke’s.

  “No, Weebold,” he replied. “I will dine alone. But send a message to Lady Burke’s requesting that the Lady Harriet return as soon as she finds it convenient. I do not like her to drive that phaeton when day turns dark.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  He had only finished the soup when Weebold received a message from a footman.

  “My Lord, Lady Harriet is not at Lady Burke’s. The footmen who were accompanying the lady today only just arrived at Lady Burke’s with the information that her phaeton is still in Bond Street and the ladies nowhere to be found.”

  “What!” Mason stood up and dashed to the door. “She is gone?”

  “Lady Burke does not know where she is and Lady Delia has not returned, either. After a short search, both footmen sent word to Lady Burke and have been searching the streets near her phaeton for nearly an hour.”

  “Good god!” Mason ran his hand through his hair in utter fury and frustration at the realization of his worst fear.

  “Get Blackwell here immediately. Find him. I don't care where he is. No—tell him to meet me in Bond Street. I want to see where the phaeton is left. And get me Melville.”

  Weebold did as he was bid, as his lordship flew out the door, shouting for his horse. He tore toward to the shopping street he had so many times frequented but never with such terror and energy. When he found the abandoned phaeton in the street, the footmen were searching about, clearly frightened witless that they had lost their charges.

  “How could you let this happen?” demanded the Marquess as he examined their surroundings. “You had strict instructions never to let the ladies out of your sight!”

  “Yes, my lord. But we did not expect them to be taken off, my lord! Or to try to give us the slip, sir!”

  “What?” he demanded as he took inventory of the shops and alleys nearby.

  “The Lady Delia, my lord! She asked me to return to the phaeton to collect her glove, my lord, I am so sorry, my lord,” replied one footman, Thomas, with terror.

  “Where was she?”

  “She was over there, my lord, right outside the book shop. She asked me to get the glove, and then she was gone.”

  Lord Durham cursed at himself for not telling the footmen that the ladies were in fact in danger, and cursed again his desire for privacy. And now his precious sister was missing as well. He walked to the corner where the footman indicated Lady Delia had gone and noticed, on the next block, the name of Delia’s publisher. The one she had begged to visit that very afternoon. The normally urbane and sophisticated Marquess of Durham swore a blue streak. She had surely evaded the footman to drop off the manuscript, but then what had happened?

  “Where was the Lady Harriet?”

  “My lord,” the footman responded with horror, “The Lady Harriet, she says, ‘Thomas,’ she said to me, ‘Where is Lady Delia?’ and so sir, I pointed to the direction I thought she went! Then Lady Harriet said she would follow and she told me and Willie here,” he pointed to his compatriot footman, “to look in the other direction. I am most aggrieved, my lord! I did what I thought I ought what when I was looking and getting her glove!” Thomas was clearly terrified but as angry as Mason was, he was aware that Lady Delia had purposefully attempted to avoid her guard. He was as furious as he was terrified of what would happen to her. And now Harriet was with her.

  “I am certain you did as you thought best, despite this disastrous result. However, recriminations at this juncture are pointless. Where is Lord Blackwell?”

  “I will look again for him, my lord,” replied Thomas, fairly running in the opposite direction to find the Earl.

  Lord Durham walked down the street to where the publisher’s was, now closed, and then back up toward Bond Street. He saw that a few yards from the offices of Wright & Wright, there was a small alley. He stepped into it and looked it up and down. A piece of thick white paper rested on the dirty cobblestone. It was a calling card. Lady Harriet Broadstone.

  So they had both been taken.

  Chapter 34

  When Lady Delia awoke, she was in a dark, moldy cellar room, where a small fire was lit in the grate. It looked like the below-stairs servants’ quarters of a small house but to her horror, she found her hands were bound and Lady Harriet, her would-be sister-in-law, also lay bound and tied against an adjacent wall. Delia swallowed tears of terror as she looked at the sweet Harriet, so vulnerable and defenseless and she knew it was her own fault that the girl was a captive.

  It had to be Rosewood, she reasoned. There was no one else with enough to lose to kidnap her. He must have read of her engagement to Lord Durham in the papers and thought to force her to marry him before it was too late and she was married to another. She wracked her brain, thinking of anything she could do to escape. Or, perhaps she should simply agree to marry him in exchange for Lady Harriet’s release. Then footsteps came down the stairs with frightening noise. Lady Harriet awoke with a scream.

  “Shut up!” Rosewood shouted when he came down the stairs. He was holding a small pistol and he pointed it directly at Lady Harriet’s heart. She burst into tears and tried not to make a sound as he continued to hold the gun at her.

  “Christopher, leave her alone! She has nothing to do with this!” Lady Delia called out to him, furious.

  “You, you know this man?” cried Lady Harriet, horrified.

  “I have that misfortune,” said Lady Delia, “He is my guardian.”

  “Guardian!” gasped Lady Harriet.

  “I am,” said Christopher. “And I have been trying for a number of months to collect my erstwhile ward, who was hiding from me in London and contracting engagements to which she has no right to enter without my permission.”

  “I may marry precisely as I please and I have chosen Durham,” Lady Delia said defiantly.

  “You do not choose Durham. You choose me. I’m afraid I cannot continue much longer without your fortune and that has made me quite desperate.” He smiled. “And I choose to marry you. You will have no choice, after I am done with you.”

  “Do not touch me!” shrieked Delia but Rosewood only smiled. “I’m not interested in your frigid body,” he began, “I am used to much more delicious delights of the flesh than your pathetic figure can provide. But I will take you and you will have no choice but to be my wife. I have a special license in my pocket, procured at great expense from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Only waiting to be signed by some nice, frightened curate.”

  “I will never agree,” Lady Delia retorted.

  Mr. Rosewood stepped closer to her and bent over. Then he slapped her face, hard. She cried out and she heard Lady Harriet begin to cry harder.

  “Don’t!” she sobbed. “Please don’t!”

  Mr. Rosewood walked over to Lady Harriet.

  “And you. Who is this extra luscious baggage I have found in my basement?”

  Lady Harriet continued to weep but she stuck out her chin a bit.

  “No!” shouted Lady Delia, but it was too late.

  “I am Lady Harriet Broadstone and I demand you release me!”

  Mr. Rosewood looked as if Christmas had come early.

  “You are Lady Harriet?” he said quietly. She nodded proudly and Lady Delia wept silent tears of fear, streaming from her eyes as she struggled to think of anything to save the young girl who would never be her sister-in-law and whom she had now placed in the greatest of danger.

  “Isn’t that the best news I have ever heard? I have here the two women most essential to that man I am most anxious to meet again, Lord Mason Broadstone, Marquess of Durham. How excessively convenient! Tell me my dear, does your brother love you?”

  Lady Harriet looked confused but not aware of the danger she had put herself in.

  “He adores me!” she said with honesty.

  “And would do anything to prevent harm to you?”

  “Quite.”

  “Well you look to be developing into a deliciously voluptuous
young woman and as much as I prefer my women to look like you instead of that wretched skinny Delia, I might resist taking you and instead sell you back to your brother. For a price.”

  Lady Harriet moaned with fury.

  “Or, rather, I might sell back the both you. There’s no reason I should endure a lifetime of marriage to the nasty, frigid Lady Delia if I can simply extract her twenty thousand pound dowry—or, maybe more—from his lordship? And another twenty thousand for little sister? And maybe some additional funds to ensure the ladies are unharmed…”

  Rosewood dragged the pistol from Lady Harriet’s shoulder up to her temple and then reached to the neckline of her gown and tore downward. Poor Lady Harriet struggled and screamed as he revealed her chest, covered only with a thin chemisette. He untied the drawstring holding the garment together and some of her generous bosom spilled out.

  “Shut up,” he said, slapping her, then raking his hands over her exposed body, with lascivious pleasure. “Yes, your ripeness is much more my type than that horrible creature, my ward. And you are probably worth even more.”

  “Leave her alone!” shrieked Lady Delia, “Please! Christopher! Leave her alone. You don’t even need to extort the Marquess! I will marry you. You can have my entire dowry and more. Just let Harriet alone!”

  “So noble, for such a dreadful trouble as you have caused me. I want you now only to punish you for being such a damned nuisance.” Mr. Rosewood drug himself from the side of Lady Harriet and instead tossed Lady Delia onto a low bed in the corner of the room as she struggled. “There was a time during which it was less appealing to you to marry me, as I recall.”

  She struggled as he tied her already bound wrists to the wrought iron headboard and bound her ankles, still tied together, to the posts at its foot, so she could not kick him. She glared at him, furiously, quite terrified.

  “That was before I knew what you were truly capable of. And I cannot permit you to destroy or harm Harriet or Mason. If that means I must marry you, I am prepared to do it.”