“I do. He has a great deal to gain by helping us, and much to lose by either escaping or being rescued. If his master is so unforgiving of failure, then he will not wish to return there.”
“No one is to go down into the cellar, Latham,” Archie said firmly, “save you or I. You will accompany the servant who brings him food and water, and that is to be once a day only. Feed him generously.”
“I will, My Lord.”
Latham hesitated. “So, you gave Mr. Hamden a second chance as Miss Hill’s bodyguard?”
“Do you have reservations?”
“Not of him so much,” Latham said. “I spoke to him afterwards and I believe he is contrite and wants to make amends.”
“Go on. Speak freely.”
“I worry about the strain it will be putting on Miss Hill. After all, she feared for her life from him and nearly shot him. I cannot imagine she is thrilled about it.”
Archie shook his head, his lips pursed. “No, she is not. But outside of you, he is the best trained for combat. He is truly the most likely choice.”
“I know. I can simply understand her discomfort from her point of view.”
“Objection noted.” Archie chuckled. “And thanks for being on her side.”
“I’m not the only one,” Latham replied with a grin. “After it became known that she advocated for the servants’ release back into their former positions, she has admirers and defenders all over the house and stables.”
“Good. I am glad of it. I like her too much myself to want her constantly harassed by the staff.”
“Once it became common knowledge that she knocked Mr. Hamden unconscious and was stabbed in the back, all her detractors changed their opinions.”
Archie shook his head. “A pity they didn’t change their opinions before she got hurt. But it’s all behind us now. Has the footman returned from the constables yet?”
“No, My Lord. I will advise you once he does.”
“The sooner we know who this lad is, the better. From there, we can move directly against his employer, Cornelia’s buyer.”
Chapter 20
Baron Barrett Hill had no idea he could ache in so many places. Lying on his bed in his tent, he moaned constantly, often slipping a quick glance at Peggy Wood to determine if she heard him. The only one of his employees willing to nurse him, Peggy still eyed him as though longing to finish the job the hired thugs began.
“May I please have laudanum?” he begged her.
“We don’t have any.”
He moaned louder and closed his eyes. He heard her rise from her chair and pour liquid into a glass, then her steps, as she came closer. “Have some brandy instead.”
Barrett made a great show of lifting himself up onto his pillows as though so weak he could barely raise his hand. Peggy watched him with a cold expression, the brandy in her hand. “Thank you, dear,” he gasped, accepting it. “You are a saint.”
“No. I’m an acrobat who got saddled with nursing you to health. I drew the short straw.”
He blinked. “You drew straws to choose who would help me?”
“Of course. You think I would willingly help you, Barrett? After what you did to Cornelia?”
He gulped his brandy. “I had no choice, Peggy,” he gasped, choking on the strong alcohol, his face heating. “My creditors were going to kill me.”
“You should have been more honorable in dealing with them, and pay them without selling my best friend.”
“She would have gone to a good home,” he wheezed, the brandy burning his throat. “He would treat her well.”
“And you’re twice the fool we all think you are,” Peggy snapped. “More than half of us are thinking it’s time to move on. Find other work elsewhere.”
“No!”
Barrett sat up, spilling his brandy on his sheets. “You must not. Talk to the others, Peggy, I’m begging you. Convince everyone to stay. If you all leave, I’ll be ruined.”
“What for?” she asked, her voice tight. “To earn the few paltry shillings you pay each month? Right now, you aren’t even earning that in income with us sitting here doing nothing. No one out here in the middle of nowhere will see us perform, Barrett.”
“We’ll move on to a big city, Peggy,” he went on pleading, his voice a whine he could not stop from making. “We can stay there for weeks and never see the same customer twice. I’ll make us all rich, you’ll see, I promise.”
“Meaning you’ll make you rich and the rest of us will earn the same.” Peggy stood. “I don’t think you need nursing anymore, Barrett.”
“Peggy, wait –”
Before she could open the tent flap, it opened and Mortimer strode in. Barrett narrowed his eyes upon seeing him, never forgetting how he stood in shadows and watched Barrett take a beating without offering to help him. Privately, he planned to have his revenge on the nasty imp. One day. But right now he needed the vile little creature.
Mortimer glanced from one to the other, a sly smile forming on his lips. “Why Miss Wood,” he purred. “Alone with our employer and no chaperone? My, how the town will talk.”
Peggy lifted her right hand and slapped him hard across the cheek. Before Mortimer could utter a sound, or even turn his head toward her, she was out of the tent and was gone. “I’ll teach her –” Mortimer snarled, spinning to face the tent flap.
“Shup up, imp,” Barrett raged. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. Now where are Felix and Maurice?”
“Nursing their very sore heads,” Mortimer sneered. “Those blokes that beat you hit them with bricks, you know.”
“It wouldn’t have happened if they were where they were supposed to be,” Barrett grumbled, at last rising from his brandy-soaked bed. He glared at Mortimer and held out his empty glass. “Pour me another.”
Mortimer complied with an oily smirk, refilling his glass to the brim. “Of course, drowning your sorrows is an intelligent answer to your troubles,” he said, handing it to Barrett.
“Just you never mind. What happened at the Rochester place?”
Mortimer sat down and crossed his legs in an attempt at elegance. “Oh, it was quite exciting, Barrett,” he simpered, his dark eyes laughing. “Your buyer’s employees took on the wrong Earl.”
Sitting in another chair, Barrett sipped his brandy. “What do you mean?”
“Well, somehow His Lordship got word that your friends were on their way to pay him a visit, it would appear. He was waiting for them. He captured one and the others escaped.”
Barrett felt his eyes go round. “How do you know all this?”
“When I saw them heading that way, I tagged along behind them,” Mortimer replied, peering at his nails. “Not so close I would get caught, but close enough to see what was going on. Rochester set a trap, your big friend shot his horse out from under him and he caught the man with the scars on his face. How dreadful.”
“And no sign of Cornelia?”
“None.”
Barrett cursed under his breath. “She has to be in there. You will sneak in there and fetch her out, Mortimer.”
“What? Not on your life.”
Barrett glared. “You work for me, you will do as you are told.”
Mortimer laughed. “Just what do you think I can accomplish, Barrett? Knock on the front door and demand her back?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Ceasing his laughter, Mortimer stared at him. “You are jesting, right?”
“No, I am not. Think of it. If Rochester realizes we know he has her, he may attempt to move her. Send her to some place of safety. When he does, she will be vulnerable to us taking her back.”
Mortimer shook his head. “He has no need to move her. He can keep her where she is.”
Barrett thought fast, biting his lower lip. “He cannot legally keep her from me. She is my ward. She owes me for caring for her all those years. Remind him of the legal trouble he will find himself in, and he will hand her over to you.”
“Just like that.” Mort
imer’s tone was sardonic.
“Just like that.”
* * *
Sitting with Cornelia in the library as she studied her medical journals, Archie studied her perfect profile. He loved the way her tongue stuck out at the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on what she was reading, often taking notes to supplement her learning. Mrs. Cates dozed in the corner, on chaperone duty once again, although she admitted often enough that she felt like a fraud in watching over the pair of them.
No doubt feeling his eyes on her, Cornelia glanced up at him, her tongue vanishing back into her mouth. Instantly, Archie stared down at the book he pretended to read. “I caught you again,” she commented, leaning back in her chair and tossing her quill pen down on her notes.
Lazily, Archie glanced up, gazing at her as though baffled by her remark. “Caught me doing what?”
“Staring at me. It is like twin coals on my skin. Stop it.”
His jaw dropped. “I am sitting here, innocently reading my book, and you accuse me of what? Staring?”
“Yes.” Cornelia glowered. “Stop it or I will have the dragon lady evict you from this room.”
Archie gazed from the now awake and scowling Mrs. Cates back to Cornelia. “This is my library,” he began, then caught Mrs. Cates eye. He slumped in his chair. “Oh, very well, I’ll behave.”
“Please do.”
Before she returned to her studies, Archie caught her swift, pleased smile before she hid it. Smirking to himself, Archie tried once again to read the book, but was unable to stop himself from snatching quick looks at Cornelia. She’s just so damn beautiful, I can’t help myself. A discreet knock at the door interrupted the third time he tried to read the same paragraph.
“Come,” he called.
His butler, Noah Sanders, entered. “My Lord,” he intoned. “You have a visitor.”
“Who? Lord Whitstone?”
“No, My Lord. A stranger with no formal calling card. He is a –” Noah wrinkled his nose slightly as though trying to distance himself from the word “ – a hunchback.”
He caught Cornelia gazing at him with worry. “Mortimer,” she said, her voice flat.
Archie dropped his book and rose to his feet. “What the devil does he want?” he demanded to no one in particular.
“Me.”
Cornelia also stood, taking a moment to close her book. “He has come to demand you turn me over to him. To Barrett.”
“Then I’ll just send him on his way.”
Passing Mr. Hamden, who stood on guard duty just outside the library door, he marched toward the front doors. He had gone perhaps halfway down the hall when he realized Cornelia and Mrs. Cates were behind him. “Don’t show yourself,” he warned her. “Just stay back. Let’s see how he plays his hand.”
“I can already tell you,” she said, catching up to him. “He will say I am Barrett’s ward and how I owe him my life for caring for me.”
“Are you legally his ward?” Archie asked, hesitating, gazing down at her.
“Not in the legal sense, no.”
Archie continued on. “Then that doesn’t mean a damn thing.” To a passing footman, he snapped, “Latham North, now. Check his office.”
Making the hunchback on the other side of the door wait, and cool his heels, Archie waved Cornelia and Mrs. Cates to the far side of it. Noah Sanders awaited his order to open it, even as he himself waited on Latham. He wanted Barrett’s lackey to receive a very nasty welcome for daring to step foot on his lands.
Latham trotted up, a question in his hazel eyes and a pistol in his hand. “My Lord?”
Archie gestured toward the pistol, and included Mr. Hamden in his glance. “Very good. Now, when Noah opens the door, you stay out of sight. You’ll know the time is right to aim the pistol at his head.”
Latham nodded, and stepped back, out of the line of sight of the person on the other side of the door. “Noah,” Archie said. “Shall we greet our visitor?”
Noah formally opened the door and intoned, “His Lordship, the Earl of Rochester.”
To irk the man, Archie gazed down his nose at Mortimer as though never having seen him before. “Yes? Who are you?”
The hunchback bowed fluidly. “I have come at the behest of my master, Baron Barrett Hill, Your Lordship.”
Archie folded his arms across his chest. “You do, do you? What does that insufferable maggot want with me?”
Mortimer’s lip curled. “He wishes for My Lord to return to him his beloved ward.”
“Ward? What ward? Speak clearly, man, or I’ll have you tossed by your hump into the dirt.”
Mortimer’s eyes glinted with malice. “Miss Cornelia Hill, My Lord. She is Baron Hill’s ward, and he wishes her safe return to his care and custody.”
“And what makes Mister Hill believe she is here?”
“She is in your household, My Lord, please do not demean either of us by denying it. She owes him her life, and she must return to him. You have no legal standing by which to keep her, My Lord. Please turn her over to me now.”
“No legal standing,” Archie murmured. “Those words are bigger than you are, Mortimer.”
“You know my name?” the hunchback hissed.
“Oh, that and more. I also know how you sit in the hills on my land and watch my house. Do you care to know how I deal with those who trespass on my property, Morty?”
Instantly, Latham oozed from behind the door, his cocked pistol aimed at Mortimer’s head. Blood drained from the hunchback’s face, and his dark eyes lost their malicious gleam. “Y – You won’t kill me,” he stammered. “That’s murder.”
“And who will testify against me, eh? My people? You? You’ll be dead. Besides, I have the legal right to defend my lands against invaders, Morty. You were there when I tossed your master from my property. And the next time I catch you in the hills watching this house? Morty, there won’t be anything left of you to find.”
With a polite bow, a far cry from the arrogant one Archie received upon opening the door, Mortimer slid backward down the steps of the veranda, never taking his eyes off either Archie or Latham and his pistol. Upon reaching the ground, he turned, and hurried across the lawns to the lane. Archie watched him until he disappeared into the distance before finally closing the door.
He glanced at Latham. “Keep an eye out. He may still try to watch the house.”
“I will.”
Archie met Cornelia’s worried violet eyes. “Well?”
“Clearly, Barrett is growing desperate,” she said, nibbling her lower lip. “He should know better than to demand me like that. Yet, you never admitted I was here. That may confuse him for a time.”
“At least old Morty knows I know he’s been watching the house at night.” His hand on her arm, Archie steered Cornelia from the door, as they were followed by both Mrs. Cates and Cornelia’s new watchdog, Mr. Hamden. “There’s not much more he can do, angel. He cannot get in and abduct you, not under the nose of Mr. North and Mr. Hamden, or me. Or even out from under your personal fire breathing dragon.”
Cornelia smiled. “He is not the one who worries me, Archie. It is this buyer. Barrett is a fool, but mostly harmless. This other – he’s the one we need to worry about.”
“And once we know who he is,” Archie answered with confidence, “we will expose him for trafficking in human slaves, that would be you, and have him tossed into gaol.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“You just need to put things into perspective, angel.”
Cornelia hesitated, gazing up into his eyes. “Archie, you are being too cavalier about this. Do not underestimate this man. He is dangerous.”
“How can you be so certain?”
She rubbed her arms as if cold, glancing aside, her eyes distant. “I can feel it. Him. He is evil, truly evil, and he will stop at nothing to have me in his possession.”
“Do you have any idea what he wants you for?” Archie asked. “I mean, does he plan to start his own ex
hibits, beginning with you?”
“I don’t know,” she cried, desperate and near tears. “I just feel his eyes, hungry, like spiders crawling all over me. I cannot stand them, Archie, I cannot.”
Cornelia shivered, rubbing her arms, her pale face a mask of distress, of terror. He took her into his arms, holding her close to his chest, unmindful of the eyes of Noah, Mrs. Cates, Mr. Hamden, all watching with emotions ranging from pity to curiosity. “Easy, my angel,” he murmured, feeling her arms creep around his waist. “Be easy, now. I’m going to protect you. You’ll be safe, I promise you.”
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