Serena nodded.
“Very well,” Jessica grumbled, even though she didn’t feel at all like shopping anymore.
They fetched their gloves. Since the day was so warm, they opted to forgo coats. As they went outside and turned down St. James, Jessica pushed her dire thoughts about Meg aside. Determined to behave normally, she tried to have a mundane conversation with Serena. “Truly, I am curious. Why coral for your dress? You don’t usually choose such… bright colors.”
Serena slanted her a look. “Is it too much?”
“Not at all. Just different, for you.”
“I ordered it a few weeks ago, when…” Her voice faded and then she added, “I suppose I was feeling bright.”
“I see.” Jessica did see. Meg had come back into their lives a few weeks ago. Smiling, Jessica linked her arm in her sister’s and squeezed her hand. “I was feeling bright, too.”
“I hope she can come back to us soon,” Serena said under her breath.
“Me, too.”
Serena glanced behind them, then gave a wry shake of her head. “Here I am, breaking my own edict. Talking about things that I don’t want people to overhear. Let’s stop speaking of it.”
“Of course,” Jessica said amiably.
They walked in silence as they turned onto Piccadilly where Jessica stopped in a dressmaker’s shop to look at the few pairs of gloves on display. Not finding any she liked, the two sisters moved on, turning into Regent Street from Piccadilly Circus. Jessica went into a shoe shop, and they emerged only a few moments later. Serena had already chosen her shoes, a simple pair of brown leather shoes with low heels, and had arranged for the shoemaker to send them to her house in St. James.
“Utterly dull,” Jessica murmured as they left the store.
“The shoes or the shopping?” Serena asked.
“The shoes.”
Serena chuckled. “I could tell you despised them by the look on your face.”
“They’re so bland,” Jessica said on a groan, “and they’re the color of—”
“They’re sensible. They’re comfortable. And no one ever sees my shoes, anyhow. They’re always covered by the hem of my dress.”
“You see them. That’s enough.”
“Oh, Jess, please. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Their conversation was cut short because they were passing a millinery shop displaying a pair of gloves in its window that fronted the street.
Jessica hurried in and found that it was a quite large shop with rows of lovely evening gloves for her to look at and try on.
She’d tried on five or six pairs, dismissing them as too tight, too dull, too loose, too heavily adorned, when she picked up a pair of simple white kid gloves with a row of delicate pearl buttons.
“Oh, Meg, won’t these look lovely with my pearls?” Jonathan and Serena had given her a beautiful strand of pearls for her nineteenth birthday. She motioned to the shopkeeper to take them out of the case so she could try them on, and then she glanced over her shoulder. “Meg?”
Her sister was nowhere to be found. Quickly, Jessica glanced around the shop. Unless she was bent over something, she wasn’t in here. “Meg?” Jessica called, a little louder, fighting the urge to yell “Serena!” at the top of her lungs.
She spun back around toward the shopkeeper, grabbed her reticule, and tugged it over her wrist. “Excuse me, please,” she managed, and then she turned and dashed out of the store.
The street was busy, with thick crowds of pedestrians strolling, footmen lounging, and fancy carriages lining the curb. Jessica looked this way and that, then ran between two of the parked carriages, ignoring the horse that nudged her shoulder as she rushed by and into the street.
She looked up and down the street with no regard to the traffic that flowed around her or the dust that billowed into her face.
“Here now, gel, this street ain’t for gawkers!” a driver yelled at her as his carriage passed by.
“Would ye like a ride, missy? Easier than walking about in this traffic, I daresay.”
She ignored it all and looked frantically ahead of her and behind her, turning in a slow circle, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might bang right out of her chest.
And then she saw it. About a hundred feet ahead of her, a carriage pulled away from the curb with a bit of coral-colored fabric stuck in the doorjamb and flapping in the breeze.
“Oh, God,” Jessica murmured. “No. Not Serena.”
She spun, turning to the cabriolet driver who’d asked her if she wanted a ride. He grinned down at her from his perch on the right side of the cab. He had ruddy cheeks, bright blue eyes, and thinning blond hair, and she made a split-second decision to trust him.
Not that she had a choice.
She flung her arm out toward the offending carriage, which was quickly gaining distance. “Yes, I need a ride. And I need you to follow that carriage!”
She ran around the horse and leaped into the interior of the cab, thrusting open the curtains so she could see out the front. She bent forward, out of the open front window, and yelled, “Hurry!” at the driver.
When he only stared at her, slack-jawed, she threw out her very highest connection. “My brother-in-law is the Duke of Wakefield. My sister is in that carriage.” She didn’t bother to mention that this particular sister wasn’t married to that particular brother-in-law. “If you follow that carriage successfully to its destination, I promise you, the duke will reward you handsomely.”
The man’s round blue eyes only grew wider.
“Move!” Jessica roared. Then she blinked. She sounded so much like her mother when she’d yelled at the sisters to do something quickly and properly, it made her stomach twist.
The man swallowed, nodded, and then urged the horse into motion. Just as they pulled into the street, Jessica saw the carriage with the coral fabric sticking out from the door turning left with the curve of the street.
“Hurry!” she cried. “We’re going to lose them!”
The man clucked at the horse, and they maneuvered around a slower carriage and turned, and she spotted the carriage carrying Serena making a right into the Haymarket. It was all she could do not to stand up, leap out of the carriage, and chase after her sister.
“Patience, miss,” said the man in his scratchy voice. “I’ve got ’em.”
Obviously the man didn’t—couldn’t—understand how impossible it was for her to be patient right now.
They turned into the Haymarket, and they gained on the carriage until they were just a few yards behind. When the carriage turned into the Strand, they were directly behind it.
The Strand became Fleet Street, and then Jessica lost track of the streets and began to worry that the coachman of the carriage in front of them, whose back she could clearly see, might realize he was being followed.
She drew the curtain to cover most of her body and face, and peeked out the top. “Do you think he knows we’re after him?” she asked her driver.
“Nay, how’d he figure such a thing?”
Because he’s a bad man, and he knows whoever is inside that carriage has done a bad thing, Jessica wanted to retort, but she kept her mouth shut. For the first time, she wondered what she’d do when the carriage in front of them stopped. How could she and Serena fight whoever was in that carriage? He might have a knife… or a gun, and all she had was her reticule. It would be ridiculous for her to come at the villains like a blood-lusting warrior brandishing a little silk embroidered purse.
Dash it all.
She glanced around the inside of the cab. Of course, there were no convenient weapons lying about. And from what she’d seen of the driver, he didn’t have anything, either. But there was no harm in asking at this point, she supposed.
“Excuse me, sir?” she asked as the driver turned another corner.
“Aye, miss?”
“Have you any weapons?” she asked hopefully. “A gun, perhaps?”
She couldn’t crane her head out to l
ook at him for fear of someone in the carriage ahead noticing the movement, so she waited through the silence, chewing on her lip.
Finally, he responded, “Ah, no, miss.”
Double deuce it, she thought. She blew out a breath. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. When they stop”—and hopefully they weren’t intending to drive out of London, because she had a feeling the driver wouldn’t be willing to take her much farther—“please continue on a short way. I’ll tell you when to stop. Then I’ll see where they’ve gone, and you can be on your way.”
Another long pause. “That don’t sound quite safe to me, miss.”
“Well, do you have a better plan? My sister is in that carriage. She’s been kidnapped, and dangerous or not, I must know where they’re taking her.”
“Well, then,” the driver said gruffly. “I’ll stay until such time as I knows you’re safe.”
“Thank you,” she said with feeling. “That’s very kind of you.”
They kept going, and Jessica glanced around at the unfamiliar scenery. Here, the houses were gray and drab, with none of the sparkling green and pretty flowers that grew in Mayfair and St. James. The deeper they went into this part of Town, the stronger the ugly smells of sewage and rot became. The pedestrians, too, were dressed in drab, gray, brown, and black, a far cry from the lace, feathers, jewels, and bright fabrics she’d seen just a little while ago in Regent Street.
Then they made another turn, she glimpsed the river to the right, and she sucked in a breath. They were headed toward the docks.
Which ones, though? The London docks were vast, populated by hundreds of ships. Captain Langley kept his ship, the Freedom, at St. Katharine’s, the new docks near his offices. She’d been there just a few days ago when she had cajoled Briggs into allowing her to come along when Jonathan had asked to see the Freedom.
This didn’t look much like the area of St. Katharine’s Docks, but she couldn’t be too sure. She hadn’t been observing the scenery when they’d driven to the docks that day. She’d been analyzing Briggs’s terrible scar and envisioning the many ways in which he could have obtained it. Perhaps he’d fallen down some stairs as a boy and had landed on a rock on his face. Or maybe, since he was a sailor, he’d encountered a flying fish hook and it had flayed him in the forehead…
They drove for another mile or so, and as the scenery transformed, Jessica twisted her hands and gnawed on her lower lip behind the curtain, peeking out once in a while to make sure they still followed the black lacquered carriage that had taken Serena. She was growing to know the carriage very well at this point; it was no different from any of a thousand others on the London streets, except for the deep, ugly scratch above its rear axle.
Serena’s dress was still there, still dangling from the closed door. She supposed no one had noticed that her sister’s dress had been caught. It was probably the least of Serena’s worries at this point.
Poor Serena, and in her delicate condition… Jessica tasted blood and forcibly opened her teeth. Her lip certainly had had enough abuse for one day.
“They’ve pulled to the side,” the driver said in a voice so low Jessica hardly heard him.
Jessica glanced up, and sure enough, the carriage had drawn to a halt on the side of the road.
“Pass them, as we planned,” Jessica murmured. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”
“Aye, miss.”
She snapped the front curtains closed and sank back in her seat as they passed the carriage that held her sister. When she was sure they’d passed, she asked, “Where are we?”
“Just past the Wapping Dock Stairs.”
She really wished there was a window in the back of the cab. “Can you see them still?” she asked the driver. “Have they got my sister out yet?”
There was a brief pause. “They’s still sittin’ there. A man’s got out of the carriage, but no lady. Miss, we might stop here—ought to be a good place to watch ’em from in secret.”
“Do it.” Jessica made the decision quickly. She didn’t want for him to drive too far from Serena.
The driver directed the horse to the side of the street, and Jessica stuck her head out of the curtain. “Is it safe for me to come out? Do you think they’ll see me?”
“Nay, not if ye stay behind the cab.”
He had already jumped down, and he helped her out, very gentleman-like. She gave him a quick smile. “Thank you.”
He nodded, then looked over the roof of the carriage. “They be takin’ her out now. And she looks none too pleased about it.”
Jessica flinched. “No doubt,” she murmured. But she didn’t dare look. What if one of the men saw her… or what if Serena did? No, it was better for her to stay out of sight… for now.
“Where are they taking her?”
He looked over the cab roof again, his eyes narrowed. “They’re pulling her along…” Pause. “They took her between two buildings. Toward the dock stairs.”
“I have to follow.” Jessica made to go after them, but the driver caught her arm and held her still.
“I’ll be doing it, miss. You just sit tight right here.”
“But…”
“I’ll find where they’re taking ’er.”
“Please,” Jessica whispered, and he slipped around the cab, pulling his hat low as he slunk along. Jessica peeked around the side of the cab and saw him turning toward the river.
She had to follow. She had to know where they were taking Serena. Lifting her skirts, for the cab had parked in muck at least three inches deep, she hurried to where she’d seen the man disappear and turned down a cobbled alleyway that stank of rotten fish and polluted water. At the end, she could see the opening to the dock stairs, but she couldn’t see anyone descending them, nor any boats waiting at the bottom.
The driver reached the end of the alleyway and paused, craning his head around the corner to the right.
She hurried up to him. “What is it?”
He whipped his head around, then frowned down at her. “It ain’t safe for you here.”
“I don’t care.” She wasn’t entirely stupid, though—she did keep her voice down.
He heaved a sigh and moved away from the corner. “Well, go ahead and look, then.”
Cautiously, she moved forward and peeked around the corner.
Serena, flanked by two men holding tightly to her arms, was stumbling down a narrow walkway fronting the river. A sign reading “Wheatsheaf Wharf” in fading letters was nailed to a low post just close enough that Jessica could barely read it.
A ship was tied to the wharf, and as Jessica watched, the two men pushed and pulled her sister onto the ramp leading to the ship’s deck. She nearly lost them among other men and the ship’s rigging, and then they disappeared completely as one of them shoved Serena below.
Jessica swallowed hard and hesitated, her mind working fast. Finally, she turned to the driver. “I must ask you to take me to St. Katharine’s Docks, please. It’s not very far from here, is it?”
“Not at all,” he said.
“Let’s go.” Lifting her skirts again, she sprinted back to the cab.
Chapter Thirteen
That afternoon, John, the coachman, and Benson had taken Thomas and Jake out on the two horses. Both boys found the animals fascinating. Thomas had never had the opportunity to get too close to a horse, though he’d always wanted to, and for Jake, who’d lived his whole life on ships, horses were something new and interesting to fixate on. He was learning everything he could about them, to the point of driving Meg and Will to distraction with all his questions.
Meg stood at the door watching Benson ride the dappled gray mare down the drive. The man had been raised on a farm and was an excellent hand with horses, and he held Jake snugly in front of him, the boy squealing in delight as Benson took the mare from a walk to a trot.
Meg turned and glanced at Will, who was smiling down at her. “I love that sound,” she said. “The sound of him happy. I’ve rarely heard
it, you know.”
“It is a good sound,” Will agreed.
The boys and servants turned out of sight. If their pattern held, they wouldn’t be back for at least an hour. Just a few minutes ago, the cook and Molly had headed to Prescot for the second market day since their arrival. The realization struck Meg like an anvil: for the first time since they’d come to Lancashire, she and Will were completely alone.
Her heartbeat quickened. It had been ages since she’d been alone with Will.
He stood behind her, and she felt his presence keenly. Warmth emanated from his body. His hand skimmed her waist, then settled over it in a possessive, firm hold, and she felt the heat of his touch through all the layers of fabric separating his skin from hers.
“Remember how we met?” he asked in a low voice, his breath tickling her ear.
“Yes,” she breathed. “The waltz.”
She turned in his arms, letting the front door swing shut behind her, and he moved one hand from her waist to capture her hand in his own. She closed her eyes, remembering that moment just before the dance had started. Like now, his hand had been firm and warm on her waist. Even though she’d danced a dozen other waltzes with different men, the way he held her—then and now—had been so different from any of the others. He was firm and warm and strong, making her feel very feminine against his innate dark masculinity.
Every inch of her skin tingled in awareness as he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Dance with me.”
She gave a small laugh. “We haven’t any music.”
“We’ll make our own.”
And he began to dance. No matter what song one waltzed to, the music always had a particular rhythm, and Will danced to that rhythm now, taking her on a smooth journey from the entry hall into the parlor, where there was a large enough open space between the sofa and the hearth that they could turn in a wide circle.
And then she began to hear it, too, in her mind. The swell of the notes as they carried over the dance floor. As he spun her in a tight circle, she laughed and gasped, “You’re right. I can hear the music now.”
Pleasures of a Tempted Lady Page 17