As Sarah curried the large bay gelding, a spark of memory ignited in her mind. She shook her head. No, it couldn't be. She had to be mistaken...
The woman had had proofs. Or had she? Any good criminal could forge a marriage license, and any thief could take Alexander's or his dead wife's belongings. As for the so-called personal information, anyone who knew his real identity would know a few specific details. Marielle had told them little more which was verifiable immediately than his supposed real name and that Alexander came from the south and loved roses. She had figured all of that out herself, all except his actual name.
And Captain Breedon? He had acted a bit oddly at Bath. But to try commit murder?
Sarah paused in her combing, closing her eyes. Yes, it was the left arm he had been favoring. She recalled the arm snaking in to try to unfasten the door last night. It had been a left arm.
She dropped the currycomb and began to saddle her best horse as rapidly as her trembling fingers would allow. She had seen the vulpine blonde before. What had been the girl's name before? Agatha, Angela, Agnes, Angelica... No, it was Agnes.
And she had been friends with Paxton. Who had been friends with Ferncliffe. Who had known Breedon.
Was Breedon really so bad, then? He was a soldier, after all. But then Paxton and Ferncliffe had been evil. One had been a traitor, the other a murderer and possible traitor as well.
Sarah reminded herself that it could have been anyone who spotted Alexander. But nothing untoward had happened to them until they had met with Breedon at Bath.
The strange incidents had begun eight days later, giving him just enough time to do what? Get to London and back to confer with Ferncliffe? Gather his forces together to kill Alexander?
She led the horse down to the front of the house, and called Jed.
"Yes, Miss?"
"I need you to get all of Mr. Jonathan's pistols," she said breathlessly. "Put them in a holster and a bag for me, and tie it onto my saddle horn. Then you must take the gig and get to Caleb's. Fetch Tim and Edgar if they're willing to help. Tell Henry Stone over at Stone Court that I need his assistance. Ask him to get Malcolm Branson, and as many men as they can spare. They'll find me on the road south, heading to Lyme Regis. They've taken Alexander. I have to get him back before it's too late."
"You can count on me, Miss Sarah. He'll be all right. He loves you. He'll fight to come back to you, just you wait and see. He'll be fine."
Sarah shook her head. Her whole body quivered with fear. "He's blind and unsuspecting. He's in danger. I need to get my breeches, boots and coat. Put some water and food in the bag as well. Now hurry with those weapons."
"Let me come with you-"
"There's no time. And I need you to call on the others."
His young face fell, but he nodded in the end. "You be careful."
She nodded. "I will."
She ran upstairs, tore off her dress, thrust her legs into her breeches and fastened them. She did not bother with the split skirt, or even a blouse, simply buttoning the jacket over her chemise. She wrapped a scarf around her throat, took up her riding crop and gloves, and ran back downstairs to the hall.
She was about to head out when she paused and strode into the sitting room. She lifted her brother's sword and scabbard from over the fireplace where they had hung it, and strapped it to her waist.
It was a heavy weapon, but she knew how to use it, and at least it did not have to be reloaded. She had done enough damage with it the last time she had come up against Breedon. She would kill him with it now if he touched one hair on Alexander's head.
Chapter Thirty-one
The tip of her brother's sword just cleared the floor as Sarah marched out of the drawing room and the house, intent upon her rescue mission. She just had to save Alexander from Captain Breedon and his cronies. She just had to.
Jed had finished loading her saddlebags. She made sure he had not fastened down the flaps and peered in. He had packed the pistols and included a powder horn, wadding, and extra shot.
"Very good, Jed. Thank you. Go now, like the wind, to Caleb's and Stone Court."
She swung up into the saddle and began to gallop down the road to Brimley. She asked an elderly woman sitting on a bench in the sun shelling peas if she had seen a carriage and four. She nodded and she pointed south.
Sarah rode on, stopping only long enough to make sure that she was going the right way, and was fortunate that each person had in fact noticed the impressive vehicle thundering through at a breakneck pace.
She wondered at Breedon's carelessness. But then he had not had any reason to think she would suspect anything or recognize his accomplice Agnes. Her story had been plausible, her answers accurate. He had instructed her well. But Sarah had met the girl before in passing, and the Captain's arm being injured had been the final clue.
She paced the horse, not wanting to run him into the ground. Breedon's team had not been entirely fresh when he had come to her. They had traveled from somewhere nearby, no doubt in the direction of Bath if they had wanted to lend credence to their story. The horses would have to be rested or changed before long. With any luck Henry and his friends would be able to follow easily. The only trouble was there was nothing to stop Breedon from harming or killing Alexander right now. If only she knew what he was after...
To keep her mind off her panic over anything happening to her beloved, she tried to piece together what she knew. Paxton had wanted all three of the Rakehells dead. For who they were, what they knew? What they owned? With Jonathan dead, he would have gained what?
Nothing, for their parents had been alive then. There had been three other heirs, three sisters, two already married, with husbands to protect the family interests. Sarah had been the youngest, of little importance in the whole line of inheritance. Only when Jonathan had inherited had he divided their fortune equally, instead of keeping it all for himself. So Jonathan could not have been the target.
But a Duke's wealth, a Duke's sister, would have been a far better catch. Jane and Elizabeth Eltham had been two lovely girls, both young and impressionable, independently wealthy, with access to vast estates throughout Great Britain and Ireland if their brother were killed. Elizabeth had been too young, but Jane... Poor Jane. She had ended up Paxton's victim, terribly treated when the family solicitors had refused to give her access to a penny of the Eltham wealth even though she was presumed heir.
It was easy enough to see why they wanted to kill the Duke. But what of the third Rakehell Clifford Stone? He was wealthy, a decent man, possessed of a good fortune, but with his brother Henry to inherit.
So her best guess was that the Duke had been the target all along.
The Duke's wealth was tempting enough. But was there something special about the lands, perhaps? Not really. They were all prosperous farms, worth a great deal in steady income from the rents and crops. But there had to be more to the game than just money.
Where did Alexander fit in? An honorary Rakehell, a friend of her brother's, and the Duke's? That was her best guess. If she assumed yes, why had he not been on the battlefield with them when they had all been in the breach?
How did she know he had not? She didn't, but she knew her brother had never once mentioned him. She knew Alexander had been unhurt after Cuidad Rodrigo...
"Because Jonathan sold his commission to him, after the next great battle, after Badajoz in April, three months later," she said aloud. "That's why Alexander was carrying the papers in a secret pocket in his trousers!"
So whatever had happened to Alexander, the torture, the blinding, had been after Badajoz as well.
To what end?
A person was tortured because they knew something worth discovering. Marielle had been his: wife, lover, sister? Wife. He remembered that much. And she had been killed, and him forced to watch?
Or not killed, at least not at first, she thought with a feeling of sick dread. They had tried to extract information from her, perhaps? And when that had failed...
Was that how the boys had died? Or had they killed them to get him to tell?
How had Alexander escaped? Had he told them and they had simply let him go?
But no, men like that would never have let him live. Or his wife. So if they had taken him now, it had to be because they still needed the information, or his help?
Help to do what? What were his special skills?
She galloped on, heedless of the darkening clouds overhead, and the gusting wind tearing at her jacket and scarf. Special skills, special skills... He was good with roses, gardens, crops, numbers, music, languages, the prices of things, fabrics, wine...
He was a merchant, who spoke many different languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, French. His wife had been French, supported Bonaparte. He had been a double agent, pretending to be on one side while he informed the English of everything he learned. So her best guess was that Alexander had been living in Spain, working as a merchant, spying. He had been friends with Jonathan, perhaps his liaison to whom he had passed his vital information. Had helped the anti-Bonapartists.
Jonathan had been at the siege of Badajoz, been promoted, sold his commission, then come home with his injured friends.
Alexander had remained behind, been attacked and tortured. Why? Because they knew he was a spy? Or because they knew with his intelligence and skills that he was a runner of spies?
The realization winded her. Of course, it seemed so logical now. He had been pretending to be an ordinary merchant, but actually helping the remaining aristocrats, or anyone persecuted under Napoleon, to get out of France.
From them, he had been gathering information on French movements in France, and throughout the Peninsula. He had been the linchpin of the operation. His skill, planning, bravery. His passionate commitment to both England and France. It all made sense. They must have found out, and tried to kill him, but not before he told them-
What?
The identities of his network of informants, for one thing.
But that would not be important now, with the war over. Though revenge was a powerful motive, it was a lot of trouble to take, and a great deal would have changed in two years. What else could they want?
A vague memory of a couple of conversations that she had overheard the Duke and her brother having about the Earl of Ferncliffe also rose to the surface.
She remembered the spectacle her sister-in-law Pamela had made at their last ball at Bath in an effort to make Jonathan jealous. She had been about to console her brother when she had overheard him speaking to Clifford. What was it he had said?
Jonathan had said, "All right, I admit it. I wanted one last day and night with her, one memorable ball, one romantic evening when she was all mine, and I could hold Pamela in my arms and pretend that it would be forever, and then let her go. At least I would have a memory of one perfect night with her."
Clifford let out a short laugh. "Except that you've made a complete muddle of it. You haven't spoken one word to her in hours, and she hasn't stopped long enough for you to get in one dance."
"Let her go her own way," Jonathan said with a wave of his hand. "I can't keep her, I can't stop her. I have to let her go. You know all her family and she want is for her to marry well. I will do whatever I can to stop her from becoming any further involved with that bastard Ferncliffe, but I will have to be careful that my interference does not seem as if it's motivated by selfishness and jealousy."
Clifford asked in a low voice, "Have you found out anything useful yet?"
"My people have come up with nothing, but I'm sure Thomas's will do better."
"Let's hope so. The more I see Ferncliffe, the more he worries me."
"Me too. Though I'm even more worried about our old friends."
"As am I. But we can only do our best to find the answers. And try not to fear the worst," Clifford had added, seeing Jonathan's grim expression.
What could she infer from that? That Ferncliffe had laid claim to an estate he was not entitled to because someone else had first claim upon it. But something had happened to them, and the Rakehells had been trying to find out what it was only a few weeks ago.
So Breedon had met Alexander in Bath, and gone straight to the supposed Earl of Ferncliffe if her guess was correct. What had been the name she had heard him mention? Simon? No, Jason.
Jason Alexander Davenport, if the false Marielle were to be believed. JAD. The initials on her lover's arm.
So Alexander was the true heir to Ferncliffe Castle? But who would care? It was only a run-down old place anyway, so far as she knew.
But Agnes had said Alexander came from the south. She had guessed as much from the accent. From Lyme Regis, on the coast... Not too far from France, just a boat trip away, and an easy one if a ship was flying the English colors. They would be allowed through the blockade with no questions asked. Merchants had ships...
"Oh God, no. They're planning to invade!" she gasped, and spurred her mount harder.
Sarah tried to calm herself. Alexander had been injured and out of commission for two years. Why had they not acted before? Because they needed his information, they needed him? What difference could it make now? If Napoleon were now defeated, exiled to Elba, if he had been overturned by his own people, what did they hope to gain?
Perhaps they'd decided not to go ahead with the plan after all, given Wellington's spectacular successes in the Peninsula in 1812 and Napoleon's huge failure in Russia in the autumn and winter of that year. Fighting a war on two fronts had been bad enough. To fight upon a third, and one overseas as well, with no fleet to speak of, must have struck even the imperious little Corporal as the height of folly.
So why now?
A simple case of wanting the inheritance, she supposed. And as long as Bonaparte remained alive, there would be people who rallied to him, who shared his dream of conquest. They needed Alexander if they wanted to get their hands on his wealth. As Jonathan had said, the tattoos were proof if a man was killed. No body, no inheritance.
They could of course have had his name or initials tattooed upon any other man's limb. There had to be something she was missing. Some other precondition which had to be met before the estate was given to Ferncliffe. Something he was hiding, which they would torture him to get.
Except that Alexander couldn't remember his old life. Not that they would believe him! But people looted dead bodies on the battlefield all the time. What on earth was the key? Not just any arm and leg, one that was special, which could not be easily duplicated. A birthmark, a defect.
Of course! She nearly laughed aloud. Only someone who knew him very well would notice his distinguishing features, someone like her, who had reveled in every inch of his body. Distinguishing features which could not possibly be imitated, unlike the tattoos, which, with time and patience could have been.
Alexander must have known he was in danger and left instructions that no one could inherit without a reputable doctor having certified that the dead body presented was that of Jason Alexander Davenport. It had been his insurance policy to keep him alive as long as possible. Up until now it had kept the plotters from their goal. Any number of 'accidents' could produce the body they needed, and any number of biddable doctors would not inquire too closely into how the poor man had died.
But it would be far easier now if they just got him to make a new will. Or seized him and killed him. A blind and crippled man. Suicide. Who would wonder at it? The cliffs around Lyme Regis would serve very well. Unless of course the will said something about that too?
His so-called wife had most certainly seemed familiar with all of his identifying attributes, but not in terms of intimacy. She hadn't mentioned them all. No, they were simply a list of the obstacles which prevented Ferncliffe from getting what he wanted.
Sarah clicked to her horse, an almost peaceful clarity of thought and purpose filling her as she rode. There was still time. Not much, but some. She could only hope that Alexander might become alert to the danger by somet
hing one of them said.
Perhaps they would not harm him immediately. It was far better to get him to make a new will, lull him into changing his instructions. He had to be vastly wealthy, with valuable holdings throughout Europe. It was worth their while to keep him alive a bit longer. She just had to hope their greed would win through in the end. At least long enough to save him.
Chapter Thirty-two
Jonathan and Pamela Deveril rolled up to the vicarage, and looked in consternation at the hastily repaired front door, and once inside, at their much altered drawing room.
"What on earth has happened here?" Pamela gasped.
"More to the point, where's my sister?" he asked, unable to hide his alarm.
They commenced calling from room to room, but all was silent and empty.
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection Volume 2 Page 31