An hour into the journey, the servants' carriage suddenly lurched and crashed onto its side with a disheartening thud. The cavalcade halted and Saddewythe scrambled from his coach, muttering oaths beneath his breath.
He trudged past the second carriage, ignoring three little faces peering through the curtains, and stopped to survey the damage done to the third coach. Baggage sprawled amidst splintered wood all over the road but, by some stroke of fortune, every trunk remained intact.
The coachman trotted up to him as he watched the female servants being helped from the wreckage. "The front wheel buckled, my lord."
"Yes, I can see that, Hawkins! Was anybody hurt?"
"No, my lord, but, beggin' your lordship's pardon, what do we do now?"
"How the devil should I know? Any suggestions?"
"Well, it won't be fixed afore tomorrow, my lord, as late as it is now. We could mount a guard on the carriage tonight, take the horses and females into Saffron Walden and arrange to get the coach into town in the morning. It would be repaired in a day or two and then we'd follow you to London, if your lordship is agreeable."
"Very well," Saddewythe said. "Transfer as much baggage as possible to the other vehicles. Here is some money. See that everyone has a bed at the Green Horse in Saffron Walden. If you run out of money, have the creditors send their duns to Saddewythe House, London." He turned away, muttering to himself as Hawkins organized the servants. After another half an hour, the undamaged coaches, groaning with yet more Saddewythe baggage, lumbered uneasily down the road.
Stars were already shimmering in the dusky sky when the Saddewythe entourage entered Epping Forest.
***
"Perhaps they are not coming, mon ami," Georges said hopefully as he watched the sun sink. "Après tout, Lady Saddewythe said that they were leaving at eight o'clock this morning and it must be six in the evening already."
Amberley consulted his pocket watch. "Half past. We will give them another hour."
Both men wore heavy frieze coats and battered tricornes that Robin had acquired in his travels. Their eyes glittered through slits in black masks that covered the upper halves of their faces. Each carried a brace of loaded pistols.
The horses, dark and unremarkable, stamped their hooves and tossed their manes, snorting softly. Stroking his mount's neck, Robin said, "I trust you are not regretting your decision to come with me, Georges."
"I am regretting it -- have regretted it -- since the moment I made it! If you do not succeed, you will be dead and that will be a tragedy. If you do succeed, a young lady's life will be ruined and that, too, is a tragedy."
"You know, mon ami, you have turned damned moral on me. I was merely thinking of the cold, the discomforts of the saddle, and the long, tedious wait," Amberley said. Georges retreated into tight-lipped silence.
Time dragged. The moon rose and the forest was alive with rustling bushes and eerie cries.
A sudden discordant rumble drowned out nature's symphony and Robin drew his pistols. "Ils viennent, mon ami! Preparez!" He watched the moonlit road as a carriage edged slowly around a curve. "'Tis Saddewythe's coach! I recognize the crest!" he said. A second coach, piled dangerously high with baggage, lumbered after the first. He watched the carriages a little while longer, then glanced at Georges. "You hold the coachmen and staff at bay. I'll take care of the rest." His eyes returned to the road. "Now!" he commanded, spurring his horse forward.
Brandishing their pistols, the bandits thundered out of the forest onto the highway and the carriages lurched to a halt. Inside his coach, Saddewythe growled, "Devil take it! What is it this time?"
The highwaymen, meanwhile, had ordered the drivers from their perches and disarmed them, Menacing the coachmen with his guns, Robin suggested in thick Cockney heavily laced with thieves' cant that they mind the horses and their own business, lest their brains be splattered against a tree.
While Georges remained on his horse, his weapons trained on the coachmen, Amberley dismounted. In a harsh, almost unrecognizable voice, he called the passengers out of the carriages.
The Saddewythes alighted, Nigel seething with indignation and Winifred whimpering hysterically. At first sight of the robbers, Pamela fainted in her father's arms and he shook her gently to rouse her. She awoke, weeping and shivering.
Amberley walked over to her. "There now, me pretty. No need to cry. Only one thing I'll be wantin' from ye." He pulled Pamela into his arms and brought his mouth down on her trembling lips, kissing her thoroughly and waiting, hoping to feel the wild, sensual intoxication that had sent him reeling when he had held the governess. It did not come.
Lady Saddewythe's voice shrilled in his ear. "Oh, my God! Nigel! Do something!"
With a laugh almost of despair, Robin pushed Pamela into her father's arms. She fainted once again.
He glanced toward the other carriage and caught his breath in surprise. Bathed in moonlight, Lucia Cothcourt stood beside the coach, stalwart and serene in the midst of all the turmoil. The boys, their eyes wide, peered around her skirts; Arabella stood behind her, sobbing quietly; and Honor, wrapped in a worn cloak, lay in her arms.
Unable to resist his own impulses, Robin approached her. "Another pretty lady!" he said thickly, leering at her.
"Please, sir!" She endeavored to keep her voice steady. "The children are cold and the little one is sick. They have nothing you want. Could they not return to the carriage?"
He gave a quick nod. Lucia laid Honor in the coach, then helped the boys and Arabella inside. She would have followed them had Robin not grabbed her arm. "They go, but not you, my pretty." He stepped a little closer, his pulse pounding. "Not you!" With a groan, he pulled her to him, desperate to feel her in his arms. His mouth crushed hers hungrily, urgently, his tongue forcing her lips open to savor the warmth and softness of her mouth. His arms tightened around her and his kiss deepened as he suckled, in some small part, the hot, ravenous need for her that churned inside him.
She stirred in his embrace and his lips reluctantly left hers. "Your Grace!" she whispered, peering up at him in bewildered amazement.
Robin glanced at Pamela who, having been revived a second time, was going into loud hysterics. He looked down at Lucia, still cradled in his arms, staring dumbfoundedly at him in the moonlight. From somewhere within the coach behind them, he heard Honor screaming for her Cothy.
"Giles be damned!" he muttered. He slipped one arm beneath Lucia's legs and scooped her up.
"No!" she screeched, beating him about the head with her small fists. She twisted and kicked and scratched at his face, tears streaming down her cheeks. "No! No! No! No!" When she tried to jab her fingers into his eyes, he shifted his burden so that he was carrying her, writhing and screaming, over one shoulder.
Georges held everyone else at bay while Robin, using a rope attached to his harness, tied her, struggling and sobbing, face down across his horse, then mounted behind her.
As the highwaymen disappeared into the forest with their prize, Honor wailed her grief, shrieking "Cothy! Cothy! Cothy!" again and again.
The gentlemen rode cross-country toward Brackenwell Hall, avoiding the main roads and the bright moonlight as much as possible. Lucia's futile pleas soon subsided into broken sobs.
Robin pulled his watch from an inner pocket. "Half past nine! We'll have to hurry."
"So 'tis to be la petite governess after all, mon ami," Georges grinned.
"She recognized me."
"Vraiment! I am not surprised, considering the ample opportunity you gave her to examine your features!"
"Meaning?"
"Only that I have never seen a man linger so long over a single kiss. I cannot credit it in an Englishman. Are you absolutely certain you are not French?"
Robin shrugged. "I enjoyed it! What good is all that money to me if I can't have what I want occasionally?"
"Et votre cousin?"
Amberley stared straight ahead, silent for a long while. "Giles be damned!" he repeated at last, urgin
g his horse to greater speed.
"Mountheathe's opinion may no longer matter to you, but can you live with this deed? You insist upon ruining a lady!"
"I've committed worse," Robin said, adding as if Lucia were not present, "Miss Cothcourt has been an outcast most of her life. She'll have no trouble adjusting to it again. It's a great deal easier with money, mon ami, and we'll have no shortage of that. Besides, she'll have me."
"Certainement, she'll count you a blessing!"
"Even my company must be preferable to loneliness, Georges. N'est-ce pas, ma douce?" Amberley finally acknowledged his captive by slapping her derriere. When she cried out in a mixture of indignation and alarm, Robin laughed, spurring his horse toward Brackenwell Hall.
Chapter 6:
In Which His Grace Proposes Marriage Once More With Greater Success
When the abductors arrived at Brackenwell, Georges led the horses away while Robin freed Lucia from her bonds. Lifting her off his horse, he threw her over one shoulder and started toward the door.
"Please, Your Grace! Please! I promise I won't fight you! Let me walk!" Lucia's voice was muffled and breathless against his back. Her cap and pins lost in her struggles, her loose ebony tresses curled and cascaded wildly.
"très bien!" Robin shrugged. Hugging her tightly, his eyes darkening with desire, he slid her body against his as he lowered her to the ground and captured her wrist. He propelled her into the house, dragging her, pell-mell, through the entry hall and up the stairs. As they burst into the Green Salon, Mr. Gleason and Reverend Stanfield jumped to their feet.
"My bride, gentlemen!" Robin's eyes glinted as he shoved Lucia into the room. She fell against a table, the clatter thundering in the thick silence. The men wordlessly watched her struggle to her feet, her face flushed with humiliation and her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Exhaustion crept over her like thick syrup and she craved sleep desperately after two grueling days without it.
"Mon Dieu, but I need a drink!" Robin said, striding over to a sideboard. He reached for a brandy decanter and filled a glass, emptying it in one swallow. Splashing more brandy into the goblet, he turned to face the room. "Abduction is thirsty work!"
Stanfield peered at Lucia in surprise. "But this is not Miss Pamela! 'Tis the Saddewythe's governess, is it not?"
Robin downed his brandy and shrugged himself out of his coat. "I changed my mind," was all he said. "Here is the special license. Now marry us! Quickly!"
"It's almost half past eleven, Your Grace," Mr. Gleason said. "It must, indeed, be quickly."
"It shall not be at all!" Despite her weariness, Lucia straightened and glared. "I declined to marry you once, Your Grace, and I must decline again. I find this entire escapade outrageous and insulting in the extreme. How dare you try to force me to the altar!"
"If the lady will not be wed, Your Grace -- " Stanfield shook his head.
"She'll wed me, never fear! Ready yourself to perform the ceremony." Grasping Lucia's wrist, Robin dragged her into the hall. "Well now, ma douce, if you are not to marry me, what do you propose to do?"
"We do not live in the Dark Ages, Your Grace! You cannot force me to wed you!"
"I can and I will," he said silkily. "Should it become known that you have been alone with me in my house, your reputation will be in shreds and, I can make quite certain the world hears all about our 'liaison'. You won't be able to find a respectable position in any household in England. The on dit should reach the Continent, as it most assuredly will." Shrugging, Robin grinned, pulling her roughly into his arms. He ran his hands down her body to her hips, his groin pressing against her as his eyes darkened with lust. "I intend to bed you with or without the church's blessing, ma belle. Refuse to say your vows and I will take you anyway, casting you out like so much filth when I have finished with you. After that, you will have but two choices; life as an adventuress or as a strumpet. There really isn't much difference between them, n'est- ce pas?"
Her shocked blue eyes met his, full of contemptuous amusement at her dilemma. She studied his face, searching for some sign of relent. "You are serious!" she cried at last, stunned.
"I want you, Lucia Cothcourt," he murmured against her ear, his brandy-laden breath warm and heavy as his lips caressed her temple. His hands splayed across her rear and ground her body against his, forcing her to feel his hardening desire. "You have fired my blood and I am determined to have you, one way or another. Will you be my bride or bear my bastard? The decision is yours, but you had better make it quickly, lest I take you right here in the corridor."
Pressing her hands against his chest to force some distance between them, Lucia turned her face away from his wanton leer, her blush deepening from coral to rose. Unbidden, all her unhappy memories, all those years of hunger and cold, of loneliness and fear, flooded into her mind. She had tasted so briefly, so delightedly, of comfort and security. The thought of returning to her old life filled her with horror and revulsion.
"I am waiting," Robin said, nuzzling her ear as his hands caressed her through her thin dress. "Bride or bastard?"
"B-bride," she murmured, closing her eyes against his lascivious gaze and bold hands. Her stomach knotted in an ache familiar to her from childhood; an unerring warning of impending disaster.
"I thought as much," he said, sneering. "Come along, then, and let us be done with the formalities. Mon Dieu, but I'm ready for the wedding night!" He pulled her back into the salon. "We are agreed! Marry us!" he commanded the vicar.
"I cannot perform the ceremony until the marquis is here, Your Grace. Mr. Gleason informs me that your grandfather's will stipulates two witnesses," Stanfield said, praying that even a slight delay might somehow bring this insanity to a halt.
Gleason cleared his throat. "That is correct."
Lynkellyn whirled toward the door, scowling. His face smoothed as de Valiére entered the room. "At last! Georges, it's time for the ceremony!"
Facing the vicar, Robin grabbed Lucia's arm and jerked her to his side. His fingers bruising her skin, he held her fast beside him and nodded to Reverend Stanfield. "You may begin."
The vicar smiled sympathetically at the pale and exhausted bride. "What is your Christian name, Miss Cothcourt?"
"Lucia." She spoke in stricken tones. "Lucia Danielle Elise."
"The ceremony, Stanfield!" Lynkellyn urged him sharply.
"Yes! Yes! Very well!" The churchman plunged into the wedding rites. When the time came for Lucia to pledge her vows, she hesitated, wanting to run from this nightmare as far and as fast as possible. The duke's hand tightened painfully on her wrist. Terrified and pleading, her eyes met his, but the smoldering menace in his glare compelled the words from her lips.
After she stumbled through her vows, Robin pledged his devotion in a crisp, detached voice. He slipped a heavy gold ring on her finger and she curled her hand to keep it from falling off as Reverend Stanfield said, "I now pronounce you man and wife."
The full significance of the vicar's declaration struck Lucia like a sword's blow. 'Married!' she thought. 'I am married! And to such a man! A cruel, terrifying, heartless villain!' She stood frozen with sick horror as his brandied lips brushed hers.
"What is the time?" Robin called.
"A quarter until midnight, Your Grace," Gleason said. "You have met the dictates of the will with fifteen minutes to spare. I have a few documents that require signatures." He began to pass papers around.
After signing Gleason's documents, Stanfield bowed and left, in a hurry, as he witheringly informed his host, to wipe the night's disgraceful work from his memory. Announcing his departure for London the next morning, Gleason gathered his papers and retired.
"We did it, mon ami!" Robin exulted, thumping de Valiére's back.
"What happens next, Robin?" Georges inquired, grinning.
"We, too, shall leave for London tomorrow. Her Grace and I shall open the ducal house in Berkeley Square. As befits our consequence, tu comprend." He bowed with mock solemnity, his eye
s laughing. "Tonight, however, I intend to dally with my bride." He glanced toward the middle of the room where his new duchess still stood, looking dazed and exhausted.
"I don't think she is fit for anything but sleep tonight, Robin," Georges said.
"A little brandy will revive her! A bit of Dutch courage to help her face her marriage bed, héin?" Brushing past de Valiére, Robin collected the brandy decanter from the sideboard and grabbed Lucia's arm. With a bawdy jest, he bid the marquis good night and dragged his scarlet faced bride out of the room, her small wrist crushed in his powerful hand as he tumbled her after him like a rag doll.
Robin swept down the hall and took the stairs at a spanking clip, his stride lengthening as he crossed the dark corridor on the second floor. Flinging open an ornate oaken door, he swung Lucia into his arms and carried her across the threshold.
With one arm firmly around her waist, Robin set her on her feet. Kicking the door closed with his heel, he emptied his brandy decanter with one healthy swig and pulled his bride close, crushing her lips beneath his. He raised his head to look down at her, a haunted, hungry passion burning in his eyes as he tightened his embrace. "Mon Dieu! I have waited so very long!" he whispered raggedly.
Tossing the decanter onto the carpeted floor, he lifted her again, carried her to the bed, and dropped her unceremoniously onto the ivory sheets. "Off with your clothes, ma chérie! I've not much patience left," he urged as he doffed his coat.
Lucia took a deep breath and sat up. "Your Grace, I implore you..."
"Robin! Je m'appelle Robin!" He threw himself into a chair to tug at his boots.
"Robin," Lucia conceded as she rose from the bed. "This is surely some jest! You didn't want to marry me! You don't even know me! You have had your amusement. Now, please, please let me go!"
The Rogue's Revenge Page 6