Lord Devere's Ward

by Sue Swift

  She still clung to the slight hope he gave. There was no one else, and he was not sure if he wanted her or not. But then, why had he kissed her? Maybe kisses were a cheap stock to milord Devere.

  Kate rubbed the back of her hand over her lips, as if to erase her memory of the heavy, seductive weight of Quinn’s mouth taking hers. She didn’t succeed, couldn’t succeed. He lived in her heart as though he were a tree which had taken sturdy root in a garden.

  Chapter Ten

  Two days later, the entire family went to Vauxhall Gardens, the last of the treats which had been promised to Pauline. After boating over the Thames, they met Devere and Hawkes at Vauxhall just as darkness fell. They arrived in time to see all the delights of the gardens at dusk, and then to experience Vauxhall at night.

  Deliriously happy, Pauline sat in a box with her family imbibing the Tyers’ famous burnt wine and thinly shaved ham. Louisa and Kate were similarly diverted, but consumed with less abandon than did Pauline. The young women were occupied with examining the fashions of the throngs which crowded the famous pleasure gardens, and gossiped happily about the ensembles worn by the ladies who showed themselves off in the promenade. Quinn acted as host, genially ensuring that all the needs and desires of the party were met. He nodded and smiled at various passers-by, as his acquaintance in London was vast, and he was well-liked.

  Pen and Anna kept a casual eye on their daughters, and exchanged many speaking glances.

  “Bring back memories?” Kate asked.

  Anna smiled. “We did court here. There is something about the lighting at Vauxhall.” Kate gazed at the myriad tiny lanterns with which the trees and shrubbery at Vauxhall were lavishly decorated. “It is very romantic.” Anna eyed Sir Willoughby. “We shall have to watch the lot of you closely.”

  They had seen the cascade and eagerly awaited the fireworks when Pauline groaned, clutching her stomach. “I am not feeling quite the thing,” she whimpered.

  Her mother examined her. Pauline’s eyes were glassy, and she swayed slightly in her chair. “How many glasses of punch did you take, my dear?” Lady Anna asked.

  “I am not sure,” whispered Pauline. “I was very hot, and now I’m tired and dizzy and sick and I want to go home!”

  Louisa stared at her, dismayed. “Go home, before the fireworks! Whoever heard of such a thing?” Quinn took his niece’s hand. “Pauline, dear, would you like to come up in my landau? Perhaps a spot of fresh air will make you right and tight again, hmmm?”

  Anna said, “Thank you, Quinn. If she’s not feeling better, mayhap you can take her home, and we will return after the fireworks.”

  Pauline’s eyes teared. “But I so want to see the fireworks!”

  “There’ll be other times, I promise,” said her father. “Just now, you should go home if you are not feeling well.” He cast a worried eye over her flushed countenance and pressed a handkerchief to her forehead. She took it, dabbing at her tears as Quinn opened the door of the box.

  “Do you want me to come with you, Paul?” Kate asked. She slipped her hand into the younger girl’s.

  “Don’t you want to see the fireworks?”

  “We’ll come to Vauxhall again. I’m tired, too. I’ll make you a hot posset when we get home.” Kate struggled to cling to Pauline’s hand as the trio fought their way through the crowd toward the exit. It seemed as though that most of the visitors to Vauxhall were bound in the opposite direction, so walking to the exit put Kate in mind of salmon swimming upstream. Kate, who walked on one side of Pauline, felt Paul’s arm slip from her grasp as she was jostled by the throngs.

  Suddenly, Kate was alone. Where were Pauline and Quinn? They had been directly next to her, but now she couldn’t see anyone or anything familiar.

  Kate walked on, peering down this path and that, seeking her friends through the shrubbery. One passage looked greatly like another as the night deepened.

  * * *

  The fireworks were magnificent, and shortly thereafter, the Penroses returned to Bruton Street.

  After changing into her wrapper, Lady Anna went to Pauline’s room to check on her welfare.

  One candle was still lit in Pauline’s cozy bedroom, hung with pink curtains and white lace.

  Her maid had changed Pauline into a night rail, and she lay in bed, drowsy.

  Anna passed a hand over her daughter’s forehead. “How do you feel, my sweetling?” Pauline stirred. “Better. Where is Kay? She said she’d make me a posset.”

  Anna’s heart chilled. “Didn’t she come home with you and your uncle?”

  “No. We supposed that she changed her mind and went back.”

  Anna raced to Kate’s room, finding it dark and empty. Her scream ripped the night before she realized it had left her throat. “Pen! Pen! Oh, my God!

  Kate!”

  Her husband rushed in, and wrapped his arms around his trembling wife. “Nan! Where’s Kate?”

  “I don’t know! I thought Quinn brought her home, but she’s not here.”

  Louisa, disturbed by the shouts, dashed into the room. “What is it?”

  “We don’t know where Kay is.” Anna pulled from Pen’s embrace and walked jerkily back and forth. The fine silk of her dressing gown crumpled between her fingers.

  “Shall I send a message to Uncle Quinn’s residence, or even go over with a footman to see if he’s home?” asked Louisa. “‘Tis just a few steps.”

  “No!” Anna screamed. She clutched Louisa’s arm.

  “Don’t any of you go out of my sight!”

  * * *

  Kate’s consciousness struggled up through wads and layers of fuzz which seemed to have grown in her brain to vastly cloud her thinking. She heard voices, as if from a distance. As she came to, the voices sharpened until they seemed to pierce right through her mind.

  The voices were male. Other sounds intruded: coach wheels grinding on a graveled road, the shouts of a coachman.

  The lurching of the coach made Kate sick and queasy but she managed to sit up, rigid with outrage.

  She’d been caught entirely unawares and had taken a nasty cosh on the head. A foul-smelling rag clapped over her mouth and nose had completed the job.

  Ether, she supposed. Thank God Pauline is safe with Quinn, she thought. But what on earth is this about?

  The coach rumbled to a stop. Its door opened, allowing a lantern’s gleam to shaft into her prison.

  The light jabbed her eyes. She rubbed the backs of her hands over them as they adjusted to the changing illumination. Her detestable uncle Herbert pushed in, accompanied by her cousin Osborn.

  Absence hadn’t made Kate’s heart grow any fonder. She looked at them with loathing. “I assure you, you’ll catch cold if I’m not returned to London at once.”

  Dressed in dark clothing appropriate for an abduction, the tubby peer smirked. “Talking tough now, Lady Katherine. We’ll see how your tune changes when you’re married to my son.” Kate remained untroubled by the threat. “I do not see how that can happen. I cannot marry until I am of age without my guardian’s consent.”

  Herbert leaned back into the coach’s tufted squabs. Kate noted irrelevantly that the leather of the seat was cracked and scratched. Mayhap it was a hired vehicle. Herbert said, “I think after this night’s work you shall not hesitate to marry Osborn. Your reputation will be in tatters. No one, despite the size of your fortune, will marry spoiled goods.” She erupted into an angry tangle of fists and kicks. She shot out of the coach before either Herbert or Osborn could stop her. Still nighttime, a soft spring rain fell. Kate tripped, landing ignominiously into a mud puddle. As resourceful as any heroine from Mrs.

  Radclyffe, she grabbed handfuls of mud and cast the muck into the surprised faces of her uncle and her cousin. As they shouted in pain—she had hit their eyes—she scrambled back under the wheels of the coach. She hoped desperately that the horses would stay still, and that there would be an escape route on the other side of the coach.

  She burst out from benea
th the coach and ran.

  Muddy and bedraggled, she crashed full tilt into an older fellow dressed in rough clothing. Though he was a scarred, rascally-looking chap, Kate was not inclined to be choosy at this time. She grabbed his sleeve. “Get me to London. My guardian will pay you well!”

  He looked at her dispassionately, gripping her by the back of the neck of her gown. “I say, milord, I believe you’ve misplaced a certain baggage.” Before she could run, he’d grabbed her arm to pitch her back into the coach.

  “We’ll have to tie her up.” Osborn used a grubby kerchief to wipe mud from his face.

  Kate didn’t like the gleam in his eye. “Touch me and I’ll kill you, you misbegotten, poxed whoreson!” He laughed. “I’ll enjoy taming you, darling Kate.”

  “I’m not your darling, and you can call me Lady Scoville.”

  “When we’re married I’ll teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head. I’ll put the crop to your back if I must.”

  “How dare you? You’ll be dead first.” Kate had no doubt that her guardian would find her. Her Quinn was more than a match for ten Herberts and twenty Osborns.

  “I’ll be master over my wife, I will!”

  “You’ll be master of nothing!”

  Herbert intervened. “Tie her up and gag her, son.

  We’ll be traveling through a few villages yet, and we can’t have her crying out for help.”

  Thrusting the same muddy cloth he’d used to wipe his face into Kate’s mouth, Osborn used his cravat to tie it around her head as Herbert and the hired tough tried to hold her down. Kate landed a solid kick in her uncle’s substantial breadbasket. He fell back with an oof, but her kicking and her scratching were to no avail. In just a few moments, Kate, trussed like a bird destined for the oven, lay helpless in the hired coach.

  * * *

  Devere arrived on Anna’s doorstep long after midnight, tortured by a devil’s brew of guilt and fear.

  Where was his Kate? How could he have let her slip through his protective net?

  The Penroses’ house, brightly lit, shone like a beacon to draw him down Bruton Street at this late hour. Devere rapped at the door, which was answered not by the butler, but by Louisa, who flung herself into his arms. He hugged her tightly and kissed her on the top of her head.

  “Come.” She pulled him into the house. “We’re all in the drawing room.”

  “Ah,” said Pen, as Devere entered. “We wondered when you would appear. Tea?”

  “Brandy.” Quinn strolled to the sideboard. He couldn’t stop a slight tremor from disturbing his hand as he poured. “Anyone join me?”

  He looked ’round the room as he dabbed at his face with a handkerchief. Pauline huddled beneath a large shawl at one corner of a sofa. Anna sat nearby.

  Louisa and Hawkes decorously occupied wing chairs near the piano.

  Quinn wedged himself between Anna and

  Pauline.

  “I imagine that you’ve been sitting here, wallowing in guilt,” he said to Pauline.

  “‘Twas I who let her hand go,” she whispered.

  Quinn sighed. “This mull isn’t your fault.”

  “What mull?” asked Pauline. “Everyone’s been mysterious all night. ’Tis very rude.” Quinn wrapped his arm around his niece.

  “Pauline, I have a confession to make.” Pauline stared.

  “Pauline, Kay isn’t your cousin. She’s my ward, Lady Katherine Scoville. She lived with you as our cousin at my behest, with your parents’ full knowledge. I believe that tonight she was abducted at the order of her uncle, Lord Herbert Scoville, Earl of Badham.”

  “Dear heavens, Quinn.” Anna’s eyes filled anew.

  The males sat, unmoved. Apparently this possibility had already occurred to Pen and Hawkes, Quinn decided, for neither looked surprised by his statement.

  Louisa, however, looked puzzled. “But I still don’t quite understand. All right, I knew something was smoky as soon as cousin Kay turned up in Kent, but why the abduction? Why the charade?”

  “Well, it was the money, of course.” Quinn sipped his brandy. “Their part of the family spent all theirs, and they wanted Lady Kate’s. They wanted to get it by marrying her to her appalling cousin. Her uncle imprisoned her, hoping I’d agree to the marriage. When she escaped, I hid her with us.” Louisa nodded with understanding, but Pauline had been glowering at her sister. “You knew? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “There was nothing to tell. I just suspected a hum, that’s all,” said Louisa. “You know how Uncle Quinn is with his jokes, and how often does he happen by with pretty girls on his arm?”

  Pauline considered, her elfin face grim. “Never,” she finally said. She looked around the room, surveying the faces of the adults, none of whom met her eye. “Do you mean to say I’m the only one who didn’t know?” Her voice rose with outrage as she jerked away from Quinn and stood up.

  Quinn spoke nervously. “Pauline, believe me, it isn’t as though I didn’t trust you, but I wanted to keep it as quiet as possible—”

  Pauline continued as though Quinn had never spoken. “Well, that’s just devilish fine!” She burst into tears and ran from the room.

  Quinn rubbed his forehead. He’d rather shoot himself than hurt Pauline. “What a bloody awful mess.”

  Anna rose. “Quinn, there’s no use crying over spilt milk. What’s done is done. It is clear you will be travelling on the morrow, so go home to bed.”

  “On the morrow? Absolutely not. I ride tonight.

  Hawkes, are you with me?” Quinn cocked his head at his friend.

  “Certainly. But where will they have gone?”

  “There are three possible destinations. Either they will take her to Gretna, to make a hasty marriage. Or they may take her to Wiltshire to find an unscrupulous cleric, possibly the one who owes his position to Badham at the Abbey. The third possibility is that they will try to spirit Kate to France.”

  Hawkes stood. “I’ll ride south. It’s likely they’ll try to get her out of the country, away from English law, at the earliest possible time.”

  “I’ll ride north. I shall have to kill Badham, of course,” said Quinn, in the same tone of voice he might use to discuss the weather. “I’ll shoot the cub also, if I can find him. Pen, Hawkes, will you second me?”

  “Of course.” Hawkes said promptly.

  Quinn tossed off the rest of his brandy. “Pen, will you send a footman round to Brian St. Wills’ lodging?

  I am sure he will wish to ride to Badham Abbey to find Katherine, if Badham attempts to take her there.”

  “I should go,” Pen said.

  “Not at all. Please stay in London and inform Bow Street of these events. Badham and his spawn bed at Limmer’s. There is the chance that they remain here to obtain a special license so that cub can wed my Kate. It is improbable, but we cannot overlook any possibility.”

  * * *

  The night, cool and clear, was perfect riding weather. Perfect driving weather, also, blast it, thought Quinn. He couldn’t drag his mind away from a vision of his Katherine, hurt or raped by that pimply Captain Queernabs of a cousin. Rage coiled like a poisonous snake in his belly. An unaccustomed feeling, but Quinn found that it stiffened his resolve.

  He urged his horse onwards, winding it, then replaced his mount at Barnet.

  With luck he’d catch up with them at some time the next day. He assumed that Herbert, with his pockets to-let, couldn’t afford the finest coach or horses. Badham therefore couldn’t travel faster more than five or six miles hourly. Quinn, with an abundance of ready cash, bespoke the fastest horse in every village through which he passed, changing mounts often.

  The next day dawned warm and sultry. Quinn rode coatless, with his cravat undone; fashion be damned in his quest for Kate.

  Beyond the environs of London, the country cleared and flattened into gently rolling fields, covered with grass and wildflowers. Sniffing the late morning air, Quinn cocked an eye at the sky. They were in for a storm. He ho
ped his horse, a chesty gray he’d rented in Huntingdon, wouldn’t toss him off when the storm broke.

  The first crack of lightning split the sky with a stunning white pitchfork. Rain began to fall in torrents. The skittish mount shied at the lightning and thunder, rearing. Clenching his thighs against the horse’s heaving sides, Devere controlled its temper, then whacked the crop on its flank. The gray settled down into a steady, swift canter.

  * * *

  Kate realized that the close, humid weather gave her one great advantage: both Herbert and Osborn preferred travel outside the coach, leaving Kate alone.

  After she’d head-butted Osborn that morning when he’d tried to kiss her, they’d left her in peace. The sight of blood streaming down his face from his nose more than compensated for the lack of breakfast.

  Hungry, but happy with the morning’s work, Kate struggled to loosen the knotted rope confining her hands. Tied in haste, the knots would surely come loose. She hadn’t dared to try last night, when Herbert and Osborn also occupied the coach, but she’d chased them away and had the day to free herself.

  It was midmorning when one wrist tugged out of its bonds. Releasing the other, she tied the rope into two loose loops, sliding them back over her hands.

  Until certain of her escape, she daren’t let her captors know she was free. She bent to untie her ankles as she heard the boom of summer thunder. The flash of lightning illuminated the interior of the coach through its spotted panes.

  Rain thrummed, heavy and hard, on the roof as she tugged at the rope restraining her feet. The carriage lurched alarmingly, and its speed began to pick up. Good God! Had the coachman lost control of the horses? She had traveled enough to know the difference between a well-trained coach-and-four and a team which had kicked over their traces and were now bound hell-for-leather toward whatever fate might await them.

  Kate clung to a strap inside the coach, praying.

  For one dizzy, nauseating moment the coach trembled, as if swaying on the edge of an abyss, then tipped and fell, flooding with mud and rainwater.