Chasing Scandal

by Leslie V. Knowles

  A movement at a window on the second floor caught his attention, and he had a quick glimpse of a child's face and blond hair before a woman in the shadows pulled her away.

  CHAPTER 4

  Porter mounted his horse and rode off in the direction of Portsmouth. Tristan continued to watch. After a while, a man of lean build and late middle years emerged from the woods behind the paddock carrying two buckets of water that he poured into a trough at the side of the paddock. The horse ambled over and nosed the man affectionately before taking a drink. No one else appeared to be employed outside.

  The near silence of his surroundings made Tristan edgy. He knew and paid no attention to flies or rats foraging on street refuse in the city, but the drone of distant bees and the rustle of field mice made him too aware of the difference between the country and the city. The silence made him aware of odd things like the beat of his heart and the pace of his breathing. It made him aware of his thoughts, as though his mind were separate from his body—as though the world was a dream he observed but in which he did not actually exist. He took a deep breath and pressed his hand against the rough tree bark to regain his sense of reality.

  His brother, Lucien, often said he found the natural silence calming, but for Tristan, the overwhelming silence always felt smothering. He needed noise, action, and challenge to feel a part of the world around him. With a bit of luck and planning he would be gone from this bucolic nightmare and back to London soon.

  Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, the child came through the kitchen door and skipped across the yard to the stable. Tristan frowned when he saw the long linen bandage on her arm, but other than that, she appeared to be in good health and spirits. The Dorsey woman followed at a sedate pace that made it clear she did not fear the child escaping. Equally clear, the child did not fear her captor. Perhaps she truly was the neighbor's child and not Alice Goodwin.

  For that matter, if the Dorsey woman was some lord's mistress, the child might be hers. Often, the children from former lovers were kept out of the way of a woman's current protector. The child might live with a relative, visiting only occasionally.

  He looked around, searching for a way to get closer so he could verify the girl's identity. If she wasn't Alice, he needed to refocus his search quickly and return to the port city or the capital to trace other leads. His fascination with a woman's voice had no place in the fate of an innocent child. Yet something in his gut told him he could not ignore the possibility he was right, either.

  The older man emerged from the stable as the two of them approached and the child halted abruptly until he said something to her that made her grin before she dashed around him and inside. He and the woman exchanged a few murmured words before he headed across the yard and into the cottage.

  With the man's location accounted for, Tristan made his way through the trees and around to the area behind the stable. From there he'd be able to assess the true identity of the girl and her relationship to the Dorsey woman.

  When he reached the back of the building, Tristan eased close to the wall and dropped into a crouch to press his ear against the wood. The mewing of kittens and girlish giggles followed by a breathless, "Oh, Miss Dorsey, they are all so sweet!" told him why the child had gone directly to the stable.

  "When I go home, do you think I could have one? Papa won't mind.”

  "They are far too young to leave their mother yet, Alice, and I don't know how long you are to stay with me. We shall have to see when the time comes.”

  The Dorsey woman's voice touched that inner chord with Tristan again. Warm, caressing and pitched a bit lower than most, it soothed at the same time as it aroused his instincts. He could picture her smiling as she spoke. Odd how the woman's voice could heat his body at the same time as her words could chill his heart. Miss Julia Dorsey did, indeed, harbor the kidnapped Alice.

  Just because she claimed not to know how long the child was to be at the cottage didn't mean she wasn't a part of the blackmail scheme, but it opened the door for doubt. Who was he kidding? Of course she was involved. Alice’s length of stay depended on Goodwin’s compliance with the woman’s demands. Lying was a survival skill courtesans developed early. Kept mistress, procuress, or unwitting accomplice, the woman held a child who'd become the pawn in a treasonous plot.

  Another giggle sounded before Alice said, "The orange one is the color of marmalade. I would call him Toast.”

  Light womanly laughter floated on the air and Tristan gritted his teeth, frustrated by his body's response when he knew better than to be fooled by seductive laughter and eyes the color of moss after the rain.

  "An excellent choice. You should name them all, though I'm not sure we'll be able to distinguish between the two tabbies.”

  "Oh, that's all right. Cats never answer to their names, anyway.”

  Both of them laughed then, and Tristan eased away from the stable. His question answered, he needed to plan how to take the child back before Goodwin was compelled to disclose information. Nearly three weeks had already passed and the deadline was just a week away. The man had lost too much already to be forced into treason in order to save his only remaining family. Tristan needed to take the child somewhere equally obscure and out of the way. It had been pure luck that he'd discovered her whereabouts, and he didn't trust luck. It turned bad far too easily.

  JULIA JERKED AWAKE, her heart pounding as she tried to drag breath back into her lungs. Her skin prickled, her throat burned and her eyes watered with panicked tears. The shadow of her nightmare faded, but as always, it left her with a slight headache that she knew would linger well into the next day.

  She'd not had the nightmare for years, but since Alice's arrival, Julia had fought her way through the night terrors at least half a dozen nights. She always woke knowing that something lurked in the shadows ready to crush her.

  She recognized that Alice's danger had released her own childhood fears. The girl reminded Julia of herself, of the Juliette before revolution and death had turned her into a shadow being who preferred solitude to the claustrophobia of strangers. Before she had become a coward.

  Resigned, she rose and donned slippers and her wrapper then lit a candle. She would not be able to go back to sleep tonight. Nor would she be able to focus on a book.

  Crossing the hall, she checked on Alice. Moonlight filtered through the glass and cast windowpane shadows across the bed. Alice lay curled on her side, deeply asleep.

  Downstairs, in the sitting room, the fire had been tamped down for the night, but Julia knew how to coax it back into life. She had learned many practical skills since coming to the cottage. She soon sat in her favorite chair, filling in a section of tapestry by the combined light of the fire and table lamp. The familiar pattern of thread and cloth helped soothe her jangled nerves. As her pulse settled and her fingers worked the steady rhythm of laying threads onto cloth, Julia wondered what life would have been like had she conquered her wariness of crowds and been able to finish the season Renard had planned for her.

  Alice made her fiercely aware of how much she wished she had been able to make a match and have children of her own. At church each Sunday, the only times she ventured into society, she had watched young girls mature, marry, and bring their babies to be christened in a cycle of family that she envied. She adored the toothless smiles of the babies and forgave the defiant cries of restless toddlers who wanted to run up the aisles of the chapel instead of being restrained by harried mothers and nursemaids. Her own children, if she'd married, would now be the age she'd been when her family had been torn from her.

  And what of her husband? Those imaginary children would require a father. That thought made her prick her finger, and she dropped the needle to suck the drop of blood that welled. She pulled a muslin square from her workbasket and pressed it against the small hurt to stop the bleeding. She had adored her father. She had loved to see her parents together, laughing, teasing, and surrounding her with love.

  She remembered wa
rmth and safety and joy before revolution had torn it from her. To experience that again, to fill up the empty center of her being with family, had been her dearest hope.

  Yet, most men made her nervous. The occasions when she ventured into Portsmouth, where far more men filled the streets than women, she often had to control her breathing. She worked hard to appear calm and serene, but in fact, leaving Portsmouth often felt like the aftermath of her nightmares.

  Look at how she'd reacted to the man outside the cobbler's shop. He'd not touched her, but she'd felt as though he had. His clear, startling crystal blue eyes had darkened in interest when their gazes locked. Then he'd grinned in a way that made her heart race before she bolted for the draper shop as though all the hounds of hell nipped at her heels.

  Little had changed since her governess had broached the subject of marriage when she turned seventeen. The woman, an impoverished widow herself, had not explained much, only that a woman's role in life was to marry and submit to her husband in order to give him an heir. Something about the word submit had exploded an avalanche of emotions she'd not been able to explain nor even question.

  She set aside the cloth she’d pressed against the pinprick and resumed sewing. Julia sometimes had other dreams. Dreams from which she awoke with yearning. Dreams in which she did not submit, but shared. She didn't think she would fear a man who shared. A vision of crystal blue eyes formed at the back of her mind and she wished...

  CHAPTER 5

  Tristan strode down the wharf, portmanteau in hand, as he mentally checked off the list in his head: walking shoes, two dresses, shift, stockings, petticoat, cloak, bonnet, comb and nightrail. Alice would be adequately clothed until he could expose the mastermind and return her to her father. Once he notified Ravencliffe and arranged for someone to relieve him of her care, he would bring the Dorsey woman and her cohorts to justice. He doubted she worked alone. Satisfied he'd not forgotten anything, he crossed the street to return to the inn.

  Passing the mercantile, he spotted a wooden doll in the window and stopped. He remembered how his half-sisters had squealed with joy when presented with dolls on special occasions. Tristan also remembered how little Maisie Hobbs had stared at them whenever she spied dolls in shop displays. Cloth dolls, wooden dolls, dolls with fine porcelain faces, they all fascinated her. She'd loved the rag and stick baby he'd made her before her father sent her to join her sisters. Alice isn’t much older. He entered the shop.

  An hour later, he had loaded the portmanteau and his own necessities into the back of Goodwin’s low phaeton, drove out of Portsmouth and turned onto the road to Langstone. Goodwin and he had agreed that Tristan should take the Viscount’s vehicle. Riding horseback made for a quicker search, but he’d need a carriage to travel with the child once he found her. A task Tristan vowed he would accomplish despite the odds against him. And he had. Satisfaction made him smile with grim intent. Now he had to steal her back.

  The salt tang of the sea air diminished as he traveled further away from the docks, though sea birds still swooped and glided overhead, their cries strident over the marshlands. That was another thing he disliked about open spaces. Sounds carried for long distances, a fact that made it difficult to pinpoint the location of its source. Not impossible, but difficult.

  At Langstone, Tristan drove into the tavern yard. Several carriages filled the grounds and a sand-colored mongrel wandered about investigating scents and occasionally finding someone's leftover crumbs. Inside, the place was small, but clean, and filled with the aroma of hearty stew and English ale.

  He ordered a meal and arranged for an extra basket of provisions so he wouldn’t need to stop once he'd secured the child. When he finished his meal, he sent a report to Ravencliffe confirming that he'd located the girl and would take her to Hartford Manor. Few knew that his father had willed him the property in nearby Surrey, but Tristan had sometimes used it for a safe house on previous assignments. He drove out to wait in the woods by the cottage until dark and all had gone to bed.

  Anticipation furled along his spine. He’d learned to pick locks early in life so getting into the house wouldn’t be difficult, but abducting the child without rousing the household was the challenge. He studied the light spilling from the windows, noting when they shifted to the upper floors, then waited for them to be extinguished and the house to settle for the night.

  He had considered taking the Dorsey woman for questioning at the same time as he took the child, but ruled that out in favor of quick action and travel. Alice's safety came first. Until he knew if Miss Dorsey had a partner, he needed to avoid delay. He had no doubt that he would be able to trace the woman if she fled. Ordinary as her appearance was at first glance, no man would forget those eyes or that distinctive voice.

  As he waited in the darkness, Tristan appreciated the cloud cover that obscured the full moon. Though moonlight made driving a carriage at night easier, it also raised the chance of revealing his clandestine movements. He'd attached a miner's lantern low to the front of the phaeton to light his way once they were out of sight of the cottage.

  Time passed slowly and the air took on a dampness as the hour grew later. The temperature dropped, and the crickets and other creatures of the night gradually ceased their constant rhythms. He'd learned that they only went quiet when an intruder entered their territory or wet weather threatened. Rain complicated things. He hoped the roads remained dry until he was well away with the child.

  While he waited, he remembered how the little girl’s chatter had charmed him that day when young Alice spilt her lemonade. He’d envied her open innocence and the fact that she’d never gone to bed hungry or shivered with cold when weather changed for the worse. He’d had no reason to believe she ever might face that possibility.

  Yet her father’s position left her particularly vulnerable to the predators who existed at all levels of society. The children of the streets learned early to beware of strangers who showed undue interest in them. Alice showed no wariness of her captor and must have accepted whatever story she’d been told to explain her time at the cottage. Once he removed Alice from danger, he would have to teach her how to stay safe.

  Two full hours after the last window went dark he walked the horse and carriage to the back door of the cottage. The lock offered no resistance to his tools and Tristan eased open the door. He lit another miner's candle and adjusted the cover to permit only the narrowest and lowest beam to light his way. As he'd surmised, the lamp revealed a short hall with cloaks hanging from pegs on one wall and the entry to the kitchen on the other. The faint aroma of roasted chicken from the evening meal lingered in the air.

  He waited a moment, listening for the house sounds that assured him all were asleep. So far as he'd observed, the only servants were a maid, the cook, and the man of all work he'd seen by the stable. Still, as he moved past the kitchen, he checked to see if a scullery maid or pot boy slept by the fire. No one.

  He climbed the back stair to the upper floor, careful to place his steps close by the wall to avoid creaking boards. At the landing, he paused again. To the right, nearest the stair, was the room where he'd seen the child through the window. He caught the scent of cut roses when he pushed the door open. A quick inspection showed it to be a sitting room with pale walls, wing-backed chairs and a settee covered with several pillows. Not what he pictured for the lair of someone threatening to sell a child into perversion.

  Along the corridor on the left were two doors opposite each other. Which one? The room on the right would have a view of the front of the property and, by its placement, would be larger than the room on the left. Doubtless, the master quarters.

  The left one, then. He again stayed close to the walls as he crossed the landing and made his way to the door beyond the sitting room.

  He turned the handle and slowly opened the door to the smaller room. Now that he was inside the cottage, stealth and calm leashed the impatience that drove his need to rescue and escape without alerting anyone. He took
two slow breaths to settle his pulse, and surveyed the room. A lighter patch of darkness revealed the location of a window. Tristan crept closer until the pale lantern beam caught the shape of the bed on the far wall. He set the lantern on the table beside the bed and hoped Alice slept as deeply as had his sisters had when they were her age. He needed to get her down the stairs and as far away as possible without waking her. She might well cry out before he could assure her he meant her no harm.

  Leaning down, Tristan slipped his arm under the pillow, supporting her head and shoulders. With his other arm wrapped around her torso and the bed quilt, he lifted the sleeping child from the bed and tucked her around his body. She turned her head to fit against his chest, and his pulse kicked, but she did not wake. Another deep breath. He lifted his foot to the edge of the bed and used his knee to support her while he adjusted the blanket to keep her warm.

  Careful not to jostle her, Tristan snuffed out the light, then settled Alice into a firm hold and carried her to the door. Now that he knew the layout of the cottage, he didn’t need its faint beam to guide him. Subtle shades of dark on dark guided him to the landing and staircase. He used the stairwell wall for an anchor as he counted the twenty-eight steps down to the back hall. He adjusted his hold and managed to open the door, slip through it and shut it again with only the snick of the doorframe when it closed.

  The carriage horse turned his head when Tristan approached. He didn’t need a skittish horse and jangling traces to disturb the child or household, so he reassured the beast with a low voiced, “Easy, boy.” The gelding’s nostrils flared to catch Tristan’s scent, but he didn’t shy away.

  Tristan moved past the horse, and a quick step on the wheel hub launched him into the seat. Alice stirred, making a soft questioning sound before he soothed her back to sleep. Satisfied she had not truly woken, he placed her onto the seat. It was deep enough to hold her slender form without having to resort to the cording he'd brought to secure her while they moved. If she woke, he didn't want her to think she was a prisoner. The quilt held her firmly and she gave a soft sigh before snuggling deeper into its folds.