How can I escape? Should I scream? Not until I see someone, she decided, thinking through a fog. Her head hurt abominably, and she would have slipped back into unconsciousness if she hadn’t been laid so uncomfortably over the man’s shoulder. Suddenly she was tumbling like a sack of coal and shrieking out while she thrust out her arms to break her fall. She hit a wooden surface with a resounding crash and immediately struggled up into a seated position, thankful she’d fallen no more than a few feet.
‘Get your head down, miss.’ The giant seemed friendly enough, for all he was aiding her enemies. Then, when she didn’t react, he cuffed her gently as a reminder who was boss and she fell back.
Her shocked brain told her she shouldn’t obey his orders so docilely, for all there seemed no option, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do. In fact she was still no more than half-conscious and couldn’t have remained sitting upright for much longer even if she’d a mind to.
A greasy, muck-strewn tarpaulin was flung over her prone body and the cart she’d been tipped into began to move in sickening lurches down the pot-holed roadway. Not far, perhaps a half-mile at most. Too much for Clarissa though, for she fell back into her stupor.
The giant unloaded her without ceremony, but displayed a rough hewn gentleness that suggested he wasn’t entirely in sympathy with her kidnapping. His words seemed to back up those sentiments.
‘We ought not to deal with abducting the gentry, Jem. Likely as not her friends’ll be out searching soon. Won’t do for them to find her here.’ He set her down gently and held on to her until she found her feet. ‘You’ll do, miss,’ he assured her. ‘Not far to walk now.’
Another man interrupted him, a more educated voice with bitter overtones. ‘You hold your tongue, young Ned. Lord Dalwinton’s paying us well to house this chit safe and sound. Safe from us at any rate.’
‘You’re a fool, Jem. Dalwinton’s not the man to back you up if the Runners come calling.’
‘Hush, man. I told you to hold your tongue. He’s not a cove to cross either. You’ll be dead meat in spite of your size if he hears you speak against him.’
Clarissa, her head still swirling, leaned against the cart and attempted to look around, barely acknowledging the argument. It was too dark to mark any detail, but they were in a closed yard which smelt of stale beer and horse manure, both of which were conspiring to make her feel violently ill. The smaller of the two men, though she could barely see their features in the gloom, seemed to be staring at her. He spoke again at last.
‘Safe for now, at least. She won’t be so proud once Lord Dalwinton’s through with her.’ He sighed gustily. ‘Leave her be Ned, she can walk by herself.’ The giant had stooped as though to carry her again, but obediently straightened up once his elder had spoken.
‘Come along, miss. Not far now,’ he told her gently.
‘Don’t try to fool us either, lady. There’s no way out of here for you.’ The man called Jem was evidently the superior in their partnership and intended to have his authority acknowledged.
The way forward led through a thick oak door, which was locked and bolted behind them, and up a narrow, winding staircase. The scent of stale beer and tobacco intensified and she gained the notion she was in a common ale house, probably situated in the stews. They climbed higher and a curiously sweet smell began to overlay the heavier scents of the ale. Another door barred their way and she was unceremoniously thrust through it.
The sole lighting in Clarissa’s new surroundings came from a single, stinking tallow candle, which guttered and flickered alarmingly. The door slammed shut behind her and she stumbled forward, suddenly aware of a face, Lord Dalwinton’s, barely lit by the candle’s feeble light. Another figure closed in behind her to guard the doorway and she felt a moment of despair.
‘I wonder which Marianne we’ve captured?’ Dalwinton purred out the words in a velvet undertone, but he seemed to be talking to himself for no answer was forthcoming from his silent companion. He, Clarissa suspected, had to be the rogue’s valet.
‘Or is there only one of you, after all?’ Lord Dalwinton continued, laughing unpleasantly. Then, in a sudden change of mood, he stepped forward to take Clarissa’s chin firmly in his hand, and held up her head as though to study her face more thoroughly.
Since she and Marianne were so exactly alike in their features, Clarissa seriously doubted whether even someone who knew them intimately could have told them apart just by looking. In the Stygian gloom of a barely lit attic the base nobleman stood no chance of doing so. She spat in his face.
The resultant slap knocked her clean off her feet, but, somewhat oddly, seemed to clear her head rather than amplify her dizziness. She rose immediately and faced her tormentor with a bravado she was far from feeling.
‘You won’t be so satisfied with yourself when Leighton discovers you’ve abducted me,’ she told him with a sudden rush of confidence.
‘I’m already at issue with your lover, my dear,’ Dalwinton acknowledged. ‘He, too, will discover what it means to cross me before long.’ He stared at her for several seconds before he continued his monologue. ‘You are very alike. Are you truly Marianne? Or just a common deceiver?’ His voice was soft, but there was a hint of menace apparent in it that chilled the girl to her bones.
Clarissa made no answer, but stood tall and raised her head proudly, her eyes flashing defiance.
‘It matters but little, either way,’ Dalwinton drawled easily. ‘Perhaps you’re just a silly young chit who’s made a fool of him by taking up with a soldier boy, or maybe he’s foisted his own deception upon society. Whichever it is, he’ll be made to play the cuckold in front of the ton.’ He laughed again and tapped her lightly on the cheek, chuckling wickedly when she recoiled. ‘You’ll talk to me, my dear, believe me, you will. I’ll enjoy the interrogation too, but not just yet. Most unfortunately for my plans, I have an engagement I must keep.’ He raised his head and rapped out a command. ‘Marston.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Bind her and make certain the door is locked.’ Dalwinton was already striding towards the exit when he turned to further instruct his underling, ‘I’ll have your hide if she escapes.’
‘No chance of that, sir.’ Marston advanced on Clarissa with a twisted skein of rope in his hands.
‘Don’t you dare lay your hands on me.’ Dalwinton had gone and Clarissa stood straight, bravely meeting the servant’s stare. Perhaps she could overawe the man by acting the grande dame.
‘You heard the master,’ Marston laughed at her play-acting. ‘You ain’t the first woman he’s had up here, nor likely to be the last. Don’t matter what airs you play off on me, my lady, you’re going to be secured, and you have my word on it. Hold out your hands like a good little girl or I’ll come and get them myself and you won’t like that.’
Numbly Clarissa did as she was bid, crossing her wrists in front of her body. Marston was quite capable of forcing her, and the deed would be done in a far more undignified manner.
‘No!’ she shrieked out loud when he tipped her on to the floor and swept her skirts off her ankles. A deft loop and he was tying them together too.
‘I’m leaving you now, miss,’ he told her, ‘but I’ll remain on guard downstairs with Ned. Ain’t no other way out of this room, that’s why the gov’nor uses it.’
‘What about something to eat? I’m starving.’
‘I doubt that,’ he returned, ‘but I’ll get one of the girls to bring something up later.’
‘What about the candle?’ She watched the dim flame eating away at the tallow and shuddered. It wouldn’t last much longer.
‘You can have that,’ he conceded, and left her to her own devices.
It didn’t take Clarissa long to discover that Marston’s knots were tied fast. She’d tried to separate her wrists while he bound her, but he’d had too much experience to be fooled by such a raw girl’s trick, and he had drawn the rope tight before he knotted it.
She searched ar
ound her prison, taking in as much as she could from her prone position, hoping to find a sharp edge on which to sever the bonds. As she soon realized, there was so such thing. Perhaps she could burn through the rope with the candle. She eyed it hopefully, twisting and turning her hands to discover whether she could find any point loose enough for the flame to sear the rope and not her tender skin. There wasn’t and, deprived of any hope of freeing herself in that manner, she drew herself up into a seated position, supported by the wall.
The room she occupied was longer than it was wide and tapered towards the only doorway through which her gaoler had vanished. It was boarded all around, not even a window to break the monotony, and although the wood smelt strongly of rot and damp, it was evidently still in reasonable repair. The floor was wooden too, its ancient timbers heaving over the rafters beneath like the swell of a sea frozen in time. The roof was solid, and far too high for her to access when there was no furniture in the room. She settled back and began to plan her escape.
In actual fact, none of her plans amounted to anything. The devil was in the detail, for all of them depended on her hands and feet being free, and none of them could get her past the guard on the stairway – nor even past her first obstacle, the locked door to her cell.
The candle guttered and went out, leaving her in absolute darkness. No, not absolute, as she quickly realized. The floor-boards had shrunk over the centuries since the ale house had been built and chinks of pale light were visible here and there. She shuffled across to the far corner where the boards were particularly unsound and laid her eye to a narrow crack. The room beneath was dimly lit and appeared to be occupied with rough beds or bunks, one or two of which were in use, though their occupants lay still as though unconscious. The heavy, sweet, sickly scent of incense cloyed in her nostrils, overwhelming the stench of rotten wood and the all-pervading damp. Opium: the thought ran into her head from nowhere. She was held fast in an opium den.
The rattle of a key in the door brought her back to her senses and she swiftly shuffled away from her spy-hole when a servant girl appeared with a trencher of bread and cheese, and a heavy pewter mug filled to the brim with some sort of foaming ale. Marston stood immediately behind her, holding up a branch of candles, and Clarissa immediately held up her hands for his inspection. The appeal was by no means less effective for being mute. Clearly the manservant’s prisoner would be unable to eat unless he removed her bonds.
‘Stay with her while she eats,’ he warned the serving wench, and set about freeing Clarissa’s bonds. Then he lay down the candles and retreated towards the stairs with a final admonition, ‘See you tie her securely again and lock the door. I’ll be up to check on her once I’ve seen to my own meal.’ Then to his prisoner, ‘I may be gone, but Ben’s still on watch, and Jem too. There’s no escape for the likes of you, even if you succeed in overpowering the girl.’
Since Clarissa had immediately taken stock of the servant-girl’s broad figure and decided she’d come off the worst in any violent encounter, she’d already discounted this method of escape. Thus his words had little effect on her. She fell on the bread and cheese as though she really were starving, and even sipped a mouthful or two of the filthy looking brew, which tasted as foul as it looked.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, anxious to obtain any information that might aid her escape.
‘Don’t matter much to you, my love.’ The girl’s voice was slurred by the drink that reeked on her breath, but she didn’t seem particularly unsympathetic to Clarissa’s plight. ‘Once Lord Dalwinton’s got you in his power you’re lost, as many a wench has found. Jem won’t help you either, for all he owns the place lock, stock and barrel.’
‘You don’t like Dalwinton?’ That much was obvious, as was the fact that the servant girl feared him.
‘If he wants something from you, my love, you see you give it to him quick. He’s a nasty streak in him, that one, and he’ll enjoy forcing it out of you. Once you’ve served his purpose, you’ll be left no better than me. Drink and drugs, enough to get you snared, then you won’t be too high and mighty to do his bidding, even if it’s to please a man.’
Clarissa had already worked that one out for herself. Dalwinton was in too deep to ever allow her to return to society; abduction, with the probable threat of torture to follow! He’d be ruined if even a tithe of her story was believed. Her too, of course, and Marianne with her.
She’d finished, and subserviently held out her hands to be bound again, gambling that the servant girl wouldn’t be as adept at binding her as Marston. Clarissa swiftly decided she was right to make that assumption when the girl began to twine the rope around her wrists. Far too loose to be effective, she’d be able to free herself in no time.
‘Please,’ she begged piteously. ‘Leave me one candle to light the room. I’m frightened of the rats.’
‘Here you are then, my love.’ The girl set one of the candles on the floor, steadying it in the sticky mess of tallow left by the dead one Marston had allowed her. ‘Won’t do you much good, mind. It’ll be out in an hour.’
Clarissa didn’t care. Marston would be back to check on her bonds long before that happened. She had less than an hour available to gain her freedom, quite possibly much less.
‘The drink too,’ she requested. ‘I can lie down and lap at it if I get thirsty.’
The girl nodded and duly did as she was bid, before walking out and locking the door behind her.
As soon as she was left alone, Clarissa began to work on her bonds, twisting her wrists and biting into the knotted rope with the renewed strength of desperation. Just as she’d speculated, the girl had left her no more than loosely tied, and within a few minutes she was shaking the last of the knots off her wrists. With her hands loose, her nimble fingers went to work on the ropes that held her ankles, and it wasn’t long before she was completely free of her bonds.
She listened at the door, but though she could hear nothing, she didn’t seek to advertise her freedom by checking the latch when she’d clearly heard the key turn. Instead she slipped quietly across the room and began to work on the loose floor-boards in the corner, employing her fingertips in lieu of a suitable tool. A rotten piece tore away in her hands and she used it as a lever, throwing her weight on to the fragile wood until it splintered beneath her.
No matter, the floorboard had loosened further, the crack was now a small hole, but big enough for her purposes. Clarissa fed the lighted candle through the aperture and let it drop, delighted when it struck one of the cots directly below, overturning on to the blanket that covered it. A faint skein of evil-smelling smoke began to arise from the thick, greasy material, which commenced to blacken around the candle, and eventually burst into flame.
Clarissa continued to pray the blaze wouldn’t be noticed while the minutes passed, and the flame burned more fiercely, sending her spirits crashing into the depths when it guttered, then of a sudden, elation, when it grew into a fire and finally, with its momentum assured, into a conflagration.
The girl retrieved her drink, and measured the heavy mug in her hands. Satisfied by its weight, she flung the contents across the floor and began to slam it against the door, screaming out with all the youthful power of her lungs.
‘Fire!’ she shouted. ‘Fire!’
The far corner of the room was beginning to let in a haze of smoke through the splintered floorboard and, as time passed by, more faint tendrils began to appear through other weak spots. A hint of scarlet showed in the thicker smoke and Clarissa began to panic. Had she miscalculated? Surely someone must have noticed the fire by now, but would they bother to save her?
‘Fire!’ She renewed her hammering on the thick oak door and listened carefully, screwing her courage up for the task ahead. She could hear heavy boots echoing on the wooden treads.
The key turned in the door, the latch sprung and the door opened.
Clarissa swung the heavy mug with all her might and Marston staggered crazily across the floor, droppi
ng heavily on all fours while he shook his head to rid it of the haze of swirling darkness that threatened to overcome him.
He was bleeding freely from a cut on his forehead, but Clarissa had no time to note that before she was on the stairs and racing down with scant respect for their uneven treads. At the halfway point, blinded by the smoke which added to the night to render the stairway barely visible, she collided heavily with someone ascending. She had no way of knowing, but that person was the owner, Jem. They both staggered and fell, rolling and slipping down the stairs in a heap of flailing limbs. The door at the bottom was open and Clarissa, the first to recover, flung herself through it with a cry of triumph.
‘Not likely, young miss.’ The giant who’d first imprisoned her caught her in a fast embrace.
The end, though unexpected, was swift, catching Clarissa by surprise as much as her captor.
A second figure appeared, tall and broad of shoulder, with something familiar in his silhouette. He was evidently intending to come to her rescue and the young giant realized this at the very same moment she did. He thrust his captive to one side and turned to meet his new adversary.
The newcomer held the advantage of surprise, however, and delivered a powerful punch before his opponent had time to cover up. Clarissa wasn’t entirely au fait with the sport of boxing, but even she could see how effective the hit was. Her huge captor was as strong as an ox, as she had good reason to know, but he staggered under the blow and fell back before his antagonist.
‘Clarissa.’ The newcomer motioned her to stand aside when his game adversary came back at him and attempted a round-house swing that would have taken his head off had it connected.
A Fraudulent Betrothal Page 16