To Claim the Long-Lost Lover

by Jude Knight

  After that, the only difficult part was ignoring the drop. A pipe ran close by the window, giving her something to cling to, as she used the ornamental carvings that festooned the building as footholds in her climb. This must have been an important building, in its time, before this part of London sunk into a slum.

  She reached the roof and dropped flat for a rest before trying to find a way across the roofs as far as she could get from her captors’ lair. A stir below had her peeping over the edge in time to see her rescue arrive—Nate in a phaeton driven by Lord Aldridge, and Uncle James and Drew on horseback with a full dozen of the guard. The bawd’s men scattered at their approach, and disappeared in the other direction, or down narrow ways between buildings.

  Sarah didn’t want to shout. No point in alerting a villain who might reach her before her family did. She felt in her hair and found she had retained a few hairpins. With a handful of them, she began peppering the men who were below, having a conversation before storming the house. Deciding strategy, beyond a doubt.

  Two of her pins must have struck, for one of the guards exclaimed and looked up, and then Lord Aldridge. He grinned and grabbed Nate by the arm, saying something and pointing upward.

  They were all gazing up, now, but Sarah had her eyes locked on Nate, and he had his on her, his smile a broad beam, his eyes full of warmth.

  18

  She is safe. Nate bounded up the stairs of the rooming house next door, having given the landlady such a generous bribe she would probably have sold him half the tenants, and not just access to the roof. The fear and anger that had driven him across London still roiled in his gut, a hollow burning ache.

  She is safe, he thought again as he stepped out onto the roof and she walked into his arms, filling the emptiness. “I have never been more frightened in my life,” he murmured in her ear.

  “I knew you would come to rescue me,” she replied, snuggling in as if she wanted him to absorb her, lifting her mouth to his.

  He met her lips partway, lingering over a kiss that heated him to the core, transmuting what remained of his distress into a different kind of passion. He caught at the shreds of his self-control and reminded her, “You rescued yourself.”

  Another kiss. He felt the urgency in her response; understood that it mirrored his own. But a roof in the slums was no place to celebrate her survival, especially when one of the duke’s men had followed him up and was leaning over the edge of the roof, signalling to the group below.

  “I have a phaeton below. Let us go home.” He released her reluctantly, but took her hand to lead her down the narrow stairs. “Your sister will be beside herself.”

  “The place next door is a brothel, I think,” Sarah told him. “The bawd ordered my kidnap, or Charlotte’s rather.”

  “Yes, the Wilton woman told us.” Nate looked back over his shoulder and grinned. “Aldridge has an inventive line in threats and your uncle is plain scary. He and his men are waiting for you to be safely away and for the constables to arrive, and then the bawd and her brawn will be arrested.”

  “It was an abduction to order. A gentleman, the bawd said. One who wanted to marry Charlotte. One of her bully boys called him ‘his grace’. Nate, I think it must be Richport. He made an offer for Charlotte earlier this year.”

  Nate stopped on one of the landings for another kiss, needing the reassurance of her presence in his arms. “How did they react when they found they had you, instead?”

  She shuddered. “Not well. They were waiting to find out if ‘the gentleman’ would accept me in Charlotte’s place. Easy to make me a widow, they said.” Her voice broke on the last sentence, and he kissed her again, until the duke’s man cleared his throat. He was standing above them on the stair, studiously examining the ceiling.

  Nate squeezed his arms around Sarah and released her. “They reckoned without my brave wife. You rescued yourself, and now let us tell your uncle what you’ve told me, and then I will take you home.”

  * * *

  Nate had Sarah’s reticule in the phaeton, and she was able to comb her hair and fix it into a simple roll with her remaining hair pins. Enough to keep it under the bonnet that he had also retrieved from Wilton’s workshop.

  She had replaced her stockings and shoes and tidied her clothes while waiting for Nate. She probably still looked ruffled and untidy, but not enough to draw attention as they crossed town.

  Nate lifted her up into the phaeton—Aldridge’s, apparently. The marquis and Drew had gone into the brothel to keep the bawd and her men distracted until the arrival of the constables Uncle James had sent for.

  She and Nate passed them as they drove away. Two of Uncle James’s fierce retainers accompanied a group of perhaps half a dozen, Bow Street Horse Patrol men by their red waistcoats. The guardsmen grinned at Sarah and exchanged acknowledgements with the two guardsmen who had been sent to escort her and Nate back across London.

  As they drove, Nate told her how Aldridge had brought the warning, and she asked him about the footman and Yahzak. But most of the trip was taken in silence, Sarah with her hand tucked around Nate’s arm, leaning against him to feel his strength and his warmth.

  As the streets grew wider and the houses larger and more fashionable, she began to see people she knew. Nate kept the phaeton to as fast a pace as possible, while Sarah returned any greetings with nothing more than a wave or a nod, though the nods became harder and harder to manage as her headache built, until it throbbed with every bump in the road, swam with every sway around a corner.

  At last, they turned into the mews behind Winshire House. Several grooms rushed for the horses, and Barker, the head groom, appeared on her side of the phaeton himself, ready to help her down. “Thank God you are safe, my lady,” he said. She swallowed her nausea, braced against the pain, and smiled at him.

  The sentiment was repeated over and over, as she entered the house clinging to Nate’s arm. They made their way through a throng of servants to the parlour where, or so Grosvenor the butler said, Charlotte was waiting.

  Two men stood as they entered—David Wakefield and another, whom she recognised after a moment, even as Nate started forward with a cry of recognition. “Cousin Arthur!”

  Sarah braced herself again, smiling at the room, wondering how long she needed to stay before she could seek her bed.

  “You look as if you could do with a cup of tea,” Charlotte said, as the two men exchanged delighted greetings, and tried to compress seven years of news into a few exclamations.

  “I could murder for a cup of tea,” Sarah agreed. She sat beside Charlotte, who was looking pale, but better than this morning. She removed her bonnet and her hair tumbled down. “Oh dear. Perhaps I should go up and make myself tidy.”

  Nate interrupted his conversation to turn to her. “Darling, what am I thinking! Gentlemen, can we continue this another time? I need to see to my wife. Charlotte, could we put my cousin up in a guest room? Sweetheart, how is your head?

  “Your father,” she reminded him. “We were going to take Elias to see your father.”

  “I’ll let my father know that we have to postpone, and I’ll talk to Elias. You are going up to bed, my love.”

  Bed sounded wonderful. Gratefully, Sarah let her husband coddle her.

  * * *

  Nate fussed over the scrapes and cuts on Sarah’s wrists, the bruises she’d accumulated when she was being manhandled. Wilson had ordered up a hot bath, and he insisted on staying while she undressed so that he could inspect all of her wounds.

  Since she was a small girl, Sarah had only ever been unclothed in front of two other people—and that rarely—her maid, when in her bath, and her husband, in the dark and under the sheets on the three nights—four now—she had spent in bed with him. Stripping in front of him in full daylight had her blushing like a young maiden, which she had not been for seven years.

  He set her at ease with his manner: crisp and matter-of-fact, focused on checking that her injuries were no worse than she said
. He finished by taking her gently in his arms and pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. “Now have a long soak, my love.” He stepped back and held out his hand to help her into the water. The scrapes stung as she lowered herself, but once she was immersed, the heat felt wonderful.

  Nate knelt beside the tub, so his head was close to hers. “Wilson is bringing you a soothing herbal tea. If you will permit, dearest heart, I shall go up to see Elias. I daresay some of today’s doings might have reached the nursery, though I hope his nursemaid will have had enough sense to keep it from him. If not, I will be able to reassure him that you are home and well.”

  A swift knock at the door was followed by Wilson’s entrance, with a tea tray. She could smell some of Cook’s delicious drop scones, and suddenly realised that she was hungry.

  “Go, of course,” she told him. “Tell him I shall be up to see him later.”

  “After you have had a sleep,” Nate told her, firmly. “I shall be back by the time the water cools, and shall dress those cuts, then tuck you into bed. Drink the willow bark tea first, my love, and then the other. Wilson, stay with your mistress and make sure she doesn’t go to sleep in her bath.”

  It had always annoyed Sarah when other people made decisions for her, but she had seen the shadow of Nate’s fear still lurking in his eyes. He needed to take care of her. He needed to nag her gently, because he loved her to distraction and had suffered when she was taken. Her hero.

  Sarah obediently downed the willow bark concoction, which had mercifully been sweetened with honey. Then she sat back in the bath, her tea in one hand and a scone in the other, sipping and nibbling by turns, while her mind drifted from Cousin Arthur’s arrival, to the coming meeting with Lord Lechton, to musing about their future. They had not discussed where they might live. Would Nate come home to the dower house in Oxfordshire with her and Elias?

  She could not see him choosing to live with his father, whom he did not like above half, and Sarah was very much afraid that if she lived with Lady Lechton, she would soon find herself managing the entire household and Lady Lechton, too. Which would not be at all fair to the poor little mouse.

  They would work something out. She and Nate. Something that suited their family.

  19

  Nate was also thinking about heroism. His need for Sarah had always been fierce, since their first tentative kiss all those years ago. The embers had flared when he set eyes on her again after seven years. The need to court her had driven the flames higher, and last night had done nothing to quench them.

  If he’d thought about it, he would have expected his fear and anger during the chase to rescue her to be followed by intense craving. The need to affirm life was a common response to close brushes with death.

  It was only right to keep a lid on the raging inferno of his yearning for her sweet body. She was hurt. She was tired and pale and determined to maintain her dignity.

  But when she stripped before him, blushing so endearingly, it had been almost more than he could bear. Rather than turn into a ravishing brute, he had invented the errand to the nursery, though he’d realised as he spoke that Elias might well have heard something of the abduction, so it had been a necessary errand, as well as politic.

  And he had better think about his son and the necessary explanations rather than his wife in her bath, or he would be in no fit case for the visit to come.

  A boy’s voice reached him as a footman let him into the children’s realm on the third floor. Not his son’s, but an older child’s, with the occasional slip in vowels that identified him as Charlotte’s rescued orphan, Tony.

  “See, Master Elias? I told you Uncle Aldridge would rescue her.”

  “And my papa.” That was Elias. “But Millie said he took Mama up to her chamber, and then sent down for medicine. She must be hurt, Tony.”

  “Now, then, Master Elias.” An adult voice, female. The nurse? “If there is anything you need to know, you will be told. And that Millie will be feeling the rough edge of my tongue before she is very much older, you can be sure of that. Upsetting you with her stories.”

  “Can you not ask William to find out if my mother is hurt, Nanny?” Elias begged.

  Nate entered the room and drew the eyes of the three occupants as he said, “A few bruises, Elias, and she is very tired after her adventure, but nothing more.”

  Elias leapt to his feet, pushing his chair over in his hurry to hurl himself at Nate. “Papa! Did you rescue her, Papa? Tony says his uncle did, but I told him his uncle has not been in the navy, as you have, Papa.”

  Nate caught him up and gave him a hug. Tony stayed seated, his splinted leg up on a stool before him, but bowed as well as he could. The nursemaid curtseyed. “You and Tony are both wrong,” Nate explained. “Your mama rescued herself. She cut her bonds with a hidden knife, climbed out a window, and reached the roof of the building to which the kidnappers had taken her. She was on the roof by the time Lord Aldridge and I arrived, with the duke, your uncle Drew, and all of his men.”

  “Cor!” said Tony.

  “Did you hit the bad men, Papa?” Elias wanted to know.

  Nate sat for ten minutes, entertaining the boys with edited excerpts from the day’s trials. He left them to their nurse when a footman brought in a tray with bread to toast and butter and jam to spread on it. “Go ahead and reprimand the maid Millie,” he told the nursemaid before he left, “but also tell her that my lady may wish to speak to her about her loose tongue.”

  “She is not a bad girl, my lord,” Morris assured him, “but she is foolish. I hope she will learn from this.”

  Nate met Drew on his way back to Sarah’s chamber. “Is my cousin well?” the young lord asked.

  “A few bruises and scrapes, and very tired. I left her at her bath while I went up to Elias. I’m now going to bind up the wound she sustained when she cut herself free from her bonds. Little more than a scratch, but it will do best not being rubbed on her bedding or sleeves. What news of the villains?”

  “Locked up. The magistrate arrested the two women and the bawd pointed the finger at half a dozen of her men. Father has gone with Wakefield to Haverford House, where they expect to find Aldridge, who left not long after you did, and the person who warned him about the kidnapping. Tell Sarah we all send our love.”

  Nate agreed. He knocked on the door of the sitting room that Sarah shared with her sister, and let himself in when nobody answered, then knocked again at Sarah’s bedchamber. This time, Lady Charlotte opened the door.

  “Lord Bentham. Sarah is still in the bath.”

  “Come in, Nate,” called his beloved, and Lady Charlotte stepped back out of the way, colouring almost as prettily as her sister did.

  “Elias had heard something of the abduction,” he told her, “and was arguing furiously with young Tony about whether you had been rescued by me or by his hero, his uncle Aldridge.” He knelt by the tub to run a gentle finger over her cheek and smile into her eyes. “I told them you rescued yourself, and Aldridge and I arrived after the fact. They are both very impressed.”

  Sarah chuckled, and Nate leaned forward to touch her lips with his, in as gentle a salute as the brush of his finger. She clasped the back of his neck with a wet hand and pulled him in for a deeper kiss.

  “I’ll leave the two of you alone, then,” Lady Charlotte said, surprising Nate, for he had forgotten she was in the room. He straightened and looked around, and frowned when he saw the maid was gone.

  Sarah guessed his thoughts. “I sent Wilson away. I didn’t need her with Charlotte here and you returning. Charlotte, darling, go and lie down again. Nate will look after me, now.”

  She held out her hand to her sister, who took it and bent over to peck Sarah’s cheek. “Sleep well, Sarah. Good afternoon, Lord Bentham.”

  “Will you not call me Nate?” he asked, and she turned her smile on him.

  “Nate, then. And you shall call me Charlotte. Good afternoon, Nate.”

  A large linen towel had been set read
y on a chair next to the bathtub. Nate offered Sarah his hand to help her stand and step out of the water, and then wrapped the towel around her. His mouth had gone dry and his blood had rushed south, but he had no intention of imposing on his poor injured wife. “Come here by the fire, my love, and let me dry you,” he said, and if he could hear the strain in his voice, he hoped she could not.

  Drying her inch by delicious inch was a torture he did not want to end. The night rail left to warm before the fire was a sensuous concoction in silk that covered but outlined her shape. He helped her put on the matching robe, but it made little difference to the tempting package Sarah presented, warm from her bath, womanly shape almost visible through the concealing fabric, smelling of the herbs and flowers that perfumed her soap.

  Her knife cut kept him tethered to her need for care, and he slathered it with the salve he had ready and wrapped it in a bandage, then kissed the poor bound wrist.

  “Take me to bed, Nate,” she murmured.

  “Yes, of course,” he answered, reminding himself again that she was almost an innocent and an injured one at that. “You must be tired.”

  “I am hungry,” Sarah replied, a hint of irritation in her voice. “I am hungry for my husband’s love, and tired of being treated as if I shall break at any moment. Take me to bed, Nate.”

  “Do you mean…?”

  Sarah stamped one elegant bare foot. “Yes, I do.”

  “Thank God,” Nate replied, and lifted her to carry her the few feet to the bed.

  * * *

  When Nate woke, a few last red streamers of cloud threaded the sky beyond the window. After sunset, then. Sarah slept snuggled into his arm, and he hated to move and risk waking her. Perhaps they should just stay here, and leave all that needed to be done until tomorrow.

  She shifted her head, twisted and kissed his shoulder. “What time is it?” she murmured.