Henrietta started after him. “You’re not leaving without me.”
He did not break stride. “Someone must remain here in case one of the servants finds the girls.”
“Your aunt and mother are here. Cecelia can inform them what’s happened.” Henrietta glanced over her shoulder. Her complexion pasty, Alexander’s sister followed rather more slowly. Henrietta paused long enough to put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “In any case, you’ve been hurt. Someone should see to that wound.”
Once Cecelia hobbled off, Henrietta had to nearly run to catch up to Alexander. In the stable yard, a groom held the reins of two horses. The rest of the place lay quiet under a deserted air. If most of the household had already set off in search, so much the better. They still had a chance. She must believe that, and so must Alexander.
An hour later, Henrietta’s confidence had flagged. They’d gone door to door, but none of the villagers could report anything out of the ordinary. Not that day. Searches of barns, stables, pigsties had all proven fruitless.
They stood now in the center of the village, holding their mounts by the reins. Alexander eyed the Flotsam and Jetsam shop. “I wonder where the old beggar is really hiding.”
Tilly’s emporium lay dark and blanketed in a sad air of neglect. The door was shut fast, and no amount of pounding produced the slightest reply. Alexander kicked at the implacable wooden plank and swore aloud. The door merely shuddered before settling back in its frame. “Just as I suspected.”
“He really is gone,” Henrietta ventured. Peering through a window from beneath the shade of her hand gave only a view of dust motes drifting lazily through a shaft of sunlight onto the accumulation of junk in the shop.
“And he’s taken our last chance for information along with him,” Alexander grated.
“You … you don’t believe he’s …” She let herself trail off.
“If he is, then God rest him.” He looked away and muttered, “Another innocent soul on my conscience.”
“How does any of this lie on your conscience?”
“The girls do, certainly. I dragged Tilly into this by inquiring after my cargo. As for the rest, I’m the only one still alive, aren’t I?”
“You cannot think that way. The girls are still alive, and we can save them.” Surprising how positive she could make herself sound without putting any effort into it. She needed him to believe, so she must sound as if she believed. Simple. Or it should have been.
“What else am I to think? I’ve lost everything, or nearly so.” He stared at her, his gaze intense with despondency. “What else can we do?”
The bleakness behind his words turned her heart over, and she reached out to place her fingertips on his forearm. “We have to maintain hope.”
He let out a strangled sound. “And where else might we look?”
Lord help her, she had no idea, but she had to find some reply. Anything to erase that expression from his face. “Perhaps we need to approach the problem another way.”
“How? How can we do that? My daughters are missing. What’s left but to look for them?”
She gazed up the hill toward the manor. According to Cecelia, the girls had been halfway to the village when their abductors had leapt out from behind a rock, except the only real stones along the path belonged to the low wall that protected passersby from the cliff. “You have the note.”
“A note only Satya can read, and he’s also disappeared.” Still, he pulled the scrap of paper from his waistcoat.
She plucked it from his grasp and smoothed it flat. A mishmash of lacy gibberish met her gaze, but something about it told her it was in a language he could probably speak. “Can you read some of it, at least?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Whatever they want is probably somewhere in that cipher, but without someone who can properly read it, we’ll never know for certain what it is.” He let out a harsh laugh. “On top of that, we have no idea if whatever they want is at the bottom of the English Channel. How’s that for irony? They chase me halfway around the world, leaving a string of bodies in their wake, only for whatever they want to be irretrievable.”
“But we already have an idea what it is.” She nodded toward the saddlebag where he’d hidden the jewelry box. “And it’s not lying at the bottom of the sea.”
He pulled the object out and considered it. “We don’t know that with any confidence. This traces back to Foster, ultimately, and he may have given something to Marianne or had her hide it, because they did eventually come after her.”
The box with its precious inlays mocked them from his hands. Yes, and the means to opening it was a secret—one the girls knew. It was a perfect place to hide a treasure. “Are you sure it can’t be her jewels?”
“We’ve been over this.” He shook his head. “No, there’s nothing there. I’m sure of it.”
“She couldn’t have hidden something in with them without you being aware?” Another idea flashed into her mind. “And come to think of it, Satya was very interested in that box when I had it, and now he’s gone.”
“No!” His temper came roaring back into his voice. “I will not believe he’s betrayed me. He couldn’t have. Why wait until we’re all the way back in England? He could have returned to his own people.”
“Would they have accepted him? Didn’t you tell me he served you as a point of honor and he would have disgraced his family if he failed in that duty?”
“Damn. Damn, damn, damn!” He punctuated each word by pounding his clenched fist on the jewel case. His horse snorted and tossed its head. “You’re right, of course. Here, no one would know of his past.”
Despite her earlier irritation with his behavior, another upwelling of sympathy flooded her chest. He’d lost his daughters and a man he’d counted on as a friend all in the same day. God willing, they could still get the daughters back. Perhaps they wouldn’t have to decipher a thing. “I think we ought to have a look at what’s inside. If we can work out what they’re after, we may not need the note, after all.”
“All right.” He wrapped his reins about his wrist so he could use both hands. “We’ll have a look, but I’m positive we won’t find anything.”
He ran a hand over the smooth wood. Before she could see how he did it, he opened the lid. The string of pearls Francesca so adored spilled into his palm. Beneath the necklace lay the ear bobs Helena had delighted in wearing.
Henrietta scrunched her eyes closed at the sight. Dear God, please let those girls have another chance to wear their mama’s jewelry. Please. The poor things, they must be so frightened, in the hands of violent strangers, not knowing when they’d see their papa again, having already lost their mother. Henrietta’s throat stung.
One by one, Alexander considered each piece before tucking it into his pockets. “There’s nothing here I can’t identify. All of this was hers. All of it.”
“And were all those pieces obtained by legitimate means?”
Slowly, he raised his gaze. “As far as I know.” But something in his tone suggested doubt. He shook his head. “Harry gave her some of this. The rest was in the family. But if he gave her anything forbidden … He loved her. Why would he do such a thing?”
“Perhaps he did not know.”
He rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his forehead. “I’m no longer sure what anyone knew. Harry, Foster, Marianne, any of them.”
Henrietta ran a hand along the pearl inlaid side. Another thought had just occurred to her. “Is that everything?”
“Why, yes.”
“I was just considering, an object like this might have more than one secret.”
He frowned and held the box up to inspect it from the bottom. “Even if it did, I don’t know that we could work it out in time. Foster gave this box to Marianne, and he had to show her the trick to opening it.”
“Still, it’s awfully sturdy. It survived the shipwreck and Lord knows what kind of pounding on the waves and rocks.” She held out her hand. “Might I see?
”
He passed it over, and she hefted it. “Odd, it’s awfully heavy for its size now that it’s empty.”
“It’s the type of wood along with the inlays. They make it heavier. Something about the technique.”
“Still.” She shook it. A rattle echoed inside, a small, heavy object like a stone. Raising her brows, she exchanged a look with Alexander.
But inspection revealed no other latch, not even a hinge or a crack, and the bottom was secure.
“I don’t know any other means of opening it,” Alexander said. “If I could only find the key to this accursed box, because nothing will break it. I’m about ready to throw it from the cliff.”
“You might finally manage to break it open that way, but I don’t think—”
He shook his head. “I’m not quite that desperate yet.”
She’d have laughed but the situation hardly warranted mirth. “What are we desperate enough to attempt, then? Head back up the path and try to find the spot where the girls were taken?”
“And what shall we do when we get there?” Even though he questioned the plan, he led his mount off in the direction of the hill.
“See if we can work out where they might have gone from there.”
“We inspected the spot on our way down,” he reminded her. “We didn’t see anything then.”
“Perhaps we missed something.”
A few yards farther on, Alexander’s horse half reared and began a sideways dance. The reins slipped from about his wrist. Henrietta’s mare stretched her nose out and pricked her ears. With a snort, the other mount kicked up its heels and galloped off, headed on the straightest line to the stables.
“Devil take it!” Alexander took off in pursuit of the steed.
“Wait! Alexander!” She set off after him, but her mare jerked her head and set off after her companion.
Damn it all. His long legs continued to devour the ground. She hiked her skirts and broke into a jog. “Alexander!”
He ignored her. Blast the man and his stubbornness. Blast, blast, blast.
She lengthened her stride, but something pulled her up short. A hand clamped around her arm and hauled her back against a solid chest. Her heart pounded. A scream lodged in her throat, held prisoner by fear.
“Not one word,” said a heavily accented voice from behind her.
She wasn’t about to disobey. Not when the barrel of a pistol pressed a cold circle against her temple.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alexander sensed Henrietta running after him, even if he couldn’t work out why. She didn’t need to chase him while he caught the damned horses. Of all times for the bloody beasts to run off, just when he needed to regroup and figure out how he was going to find his daughters.
A harsh cry from behind sent a prickle up his spine. That language. So familiar to him, yet so out of place in this temperate climate. The voice belonged to the hellish heat of India, not the coolness of England.
Box clutched under his arm, he turned and froze. Christ almighty. Perhaps fifteen yards down the path, a dark-skinned stranger held Henrietta, her arms pinioned to her sides, a pistol to her head. His heart throbbed in his neck, and a wild energy pulsed through his veins. Stop him. Now. Fight.
The same damned feeling as the day he’d found Marianne, already lifeless. He couldn’t do anything then, and anything he did now would put Henrietta at risk. He should have insisted she stay at the manor—out of danger.
“Let her go. It’s me you want.” He meted the words slowly to make certain the stranger understood.
The other man grinned from behind a straggly beard. “You are wrong. I want both of you.”
Half of Alexander wanted to shove the box at him and let the stranger worry about how to open the damned thing. But as long as there was a chance his daughters might still live, he had to hold on to his bargaining chip. In full view of his adversary, he slipped the box into the front of his waistcoat.
Her face pale and drawn, Henrietta watched through round eyes.
“Why the pair of us?” he asked. “Why both when you want me?”
“An exchange. I have two I will set free, if you will take their place.”
The girls. He nearly sagged with relief. Henrietta gave a slight nod of understanding. Yes, she would sacrifice herself if she could, but only a scoundrel would ask it of her. Not when those girls, by rights, should have been hers. Their daughters, their family together, if the world had been more just. He could still have his complete family, if only they could live through this ordeal.
“You can set both girls free in exchange for me. The young lady has no part in any of this.”
“Please,” Henrietta said. “If he insists on the two of us, agree, so the girls will be safe.”
Nilmani’s servant ground the pistol into Henrietta’s temple. “You had better listen to your friend. Now come with me.”
“Where is Satya?”
The henchman laughed, loud and harsh. “Do not you worry. He is in a safe place. Very safe.”
“What did you do with Tilly?”
“I grow tired of your questions.” With a movement of his thumb, he cocked the pistol. “You come or I pull the trigger.”
Alexander suppressed a wild urge to rush the man. If he did so, he’d not only risk Henrietta, he might never learn where his daughters were. Grimly, he set his jaw and stepped slowly down the hill.
Nilmani’s man waited until Alexander was level with them. “This way.”
He steered them off to the side, through a cleft in the rocks. From there, a narrow path twisted down the cliff face toward a secluded cove. Alexander remembered the spot from childhood explorations. Tilly was highly familiar with the features of the area, as well. The cove contained a cave, accessible at low tide, that wound back into the cliffs behind it. An ideal spot to hide smuggled goods and all manner of criminal activity.
Henrietta stumbled on the loose stones lining the path, and Alexander held his breath, as her captor grappled with her. A cold trickle of sweat wormed its way down his spine. Shite, if the man misinterpreted Henrietta’s actions as an escape attempt and shot her, Alexander didn’t know what he’d do. He’d lost so much; but he’d do whatever it took to save Henrietta and the girls—including give up his own life.
Their captor must have felt Alexander’s eyes boring into his back, for he turned. “Do not get any ideas. In fact …” He stopped in the middle of the path. “You may precede.”
Alexander pushed past the pair of them, his gaze meeting Henrietta’s for a moment. Her eyes flashed at him, as if she was trying to jam several lines of conversation into that one look. Run ahead. Save your daughters. Don’t worry about me.
Not bloody likely. If there was a way out of this mess, he’d save all three even if he had to die in the attempt.
If she understood his visual reply, she gave no indication. He pressed on down the path, small stones slipping under his boots, rendering the footing all the more treacherous. He strained to hear behind him, and at any given moment, he dreaded the shattering report of the pistol.
Waves lapped at a sliver of stony beach forming the mouth of the cave, creeping higher with every inrush of water. The tide was coming in. He would be able to swim for it and escape, but he had no clue about Henrietta—and his daughters were too young.
God, the dark dankness of the cave. Helena especially would hate it. He refused to subject them to any more of this torment than necessary. He had to get them out before the waves covered the rocky entrance. Resolved, he slogged into the darkness, Henrietta and her captor splashing behind him.
The heavy air closed about him and chilled through his clothing. He breathed in the scent of salt and seaweed and rotting fish, shuddering at the thought of his daughters holed up in here. Please, God, let them be alive so they didn’t have to die in such a place. Not them, not Henrietta.
Something hard and cylindrical poked into the small of his back. “Keep walking,” Nilmani’s man warned. “No tri
cks.”
“Henrietta?”
“I’m here.” Her words echoed off the rocks, her voice somehow steady.
The passage began to climb, twisting up into the cliff’s side. The path beneath his feet was dry now. Before long, the walls that pressed close enough to graze the backs of his hands opened into a gallery. He remembered this place. It was Tilly’s secret hiding spot. A feeble light flickered at the far end, casting eerie shadows over the rock.
Several yards ahead, two small bundles huddled back to back and bound. A tall, dark figure loomed over them, one eye covered by a patch. He, too, held a pistol at the ready. At his feet glowed a lantern.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. His fault, all his fault. If only he’d told his sister to keep the girls inside. If only he’d searched the village alone. In his utter panic, he’d acted without thought.
“Papa?” That was Francesca’s screech.
Alexander wanted to rush to her, but the gun at his back convinced him to curb his pace. “I’m here, poppet.”
She burst into a piteous wailing.
“Quiet,” their one-eyed captor barked.
“Let them go, and she’ll be quiet soon enough,” Alexander grated. “Miss Upperton can see them out. I’ll give you what you want.”
“That was not our agreement,” growled the scruffy-bearded man at his back.
Damn him. But naturally he would hold on to at least one person Alexander cared about. “Francesca, listen to me. You must stop crying. Can you do that?”
Her eyes large in her face, she sniffed and swallowed hard. Helena simply stared, her face equally pale.
“That’s good, darling. Now, can you girls find your way out?” He made a conscious effort to keep his speech rapid and upbeat sounding. “There’s a bit of water at the entrance, but if you’re very quick about it and careful where you step, you’ll be all right. You cannot wait too long, though.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Helena rasped, her voice hoarse, as if she’d been screaming for some time.
God damn it, if these bastards had hurt so much as a hair on either of their heads, he would exact punishment. “Not just yet. I’ve some unfinished business here; then I’ll be along. But I’ll expect to find you both back up at the manor when I get there. Your aunt Cecelia is waiting for you. Can you do that for me?”
What a Lady Craves Page 25