The Major and the Country Miss
Page 22
At her vivid remembrance of Maitland’s solicitous dealings with the recalcitrant lads in the Reverend Childs’s fledgling cricket team, Georgianne’s lips began to tremble and, closing her eyes, she sent up a fervent prayer that they would not be too late. It was bad enough that he was leaving the district but, if he— died—she could hardly bring herself even to think the word—what point would there be in her own survival? Without him, life would no longer have any real meaning. If she could see him just once more, just hold his hand, just let him know how desperately she needed him—wanted him—loved him!
As the rocking, swaying carriage approached the Dunchurch crossroads, her heart was in her mouth. Would they make it in time? Would he still be conscious? Would he be able to understand what—!
To her consternation and dismay, the carriage flashed passed the Dun Cow and carried on up the road towards the heath. Now totally confused, she swung round to face Fenton, causing the carriage to pitch dangerously. ‘Why have we gone past the inn? Where are you taking me, Mr Fenton?’
‘Do sit still, Miss Venables, please!’ returned Fenton crossly. ‘You will have us over, if you keep that up! Will isn’t at the inn, he’s—he’s in a—er—woodman’s cottage just along the road here.’
‘Woodman’s cottage!’ Georgianne would have none of that. The man was clearly lying! ‘What woodman’s cottage? I’ll have you know that there are no woodmen’s cottages anywhere in this vicinity!’ As the sudden realisation hit her, her hand flew to her mouth and, staring at him in horror, she gasped, ‘Just what are you up to, Mr Fenton? Will hasn’t been injured at all, has he? I demand that you put me down this instant!’
Realising that he had been rumbled, Fenton chose to ignore her and simply applied his whip to his weary horses’ rumps with even more determination than hitherto.
At his action, it became horribly clear to Georgianne that she was the victim of some sort of hoax—probably to do with Stephanie’s ill-conceived scheme to run away with Fenton, she concluded heatedly. Although in what way her presence might be required in that venture, she could not even begin to imagine!
Clutching at the side rail, she tried to stand up, wondering if she dared to throw herself from the swiftly moving carriage.
‘Now you’re being silly!’ exclaimed Fenton angrily, as he thrust out his hand to drag her back into her seat. ‘You can’t jump out and you know it! Just sit still and behave yourself!’
‘I demand to know where you are taking me!’ retorted Georgianne, as she reluctantly complied with his command. ‘My aunt and uncle will be furious with you for dragging me off on such a false premise! If this was one of Stephanie’s harebrained ideas, I promise you that she will live to regret it!’
‘Oh, do be quiet, Miss Venables!’ sighed Fenton, who was beginning to feel that kidnapping her might well turn out to be far more trouble than it was worth. He had the marriage licence, it was true, but was not at all sure whether it would be possible to substitute Georgianne’s name for Stephanie’s. But, if he could just keep her away from home for one night, he was confident that she would be only too glad to marry him, come the morning. Nevertheless, the thought of having to spend almost a full twenty-four hours in the company of this little hellcat appealed to him not in the slightest.
Georgianne, who had been sitting quietly at his side frantically trying to think up some way in which she could extricate herself from his clutches, suddenly detected the sound of horses’ hooves approaching from the rear. Turning her head sideways, she took a quick peek over her shoulder, her eyes gleaming with hope at what she saw. Some half a mile or so behind the carriage were two fast-moving riders and it was becoming patently obvious, even to their infuriated owner that, despite all his efforts to press them into greater exertion, Fenton’s exhausted horses were gradually beginning to lose pace.
She held her breath, hugging herself with anticipation and promising herself that, as soon as the two gentlemen were alongside, she would scream for help. It might well be that they would recognise her or turn out to be friends of Catford or his father, the earl. Whatever the case, they were surely bound to help a lady in distress?
The sudden sound of shots being fired brought her up short. ‘It would seem that we are about to be waylaid, Mr Fenton!’ she murmured, not entirely at ease with this latest development, although she could not help but wonder whether her failure to return home might already have set the wheels of a search in motion. Could it be that these riders were, in fact, racing to her rescue? ‘I trust that you had the forethought to provide yourself with a suitable explanation before you set out on this wild scheme.’
Casting a nervous look over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching pair, Fenton found himself in a dilemma. With his whip in one hand and the reins in the other, there was no way he could reach for the pistol that was tucked away under a concealed flap in the driver’s squab. Could these fellows be yet more highwaymen, out to terrorise the neighbourhood? he wondered fearfully, conscious that, after having cashed the draft that Maitland had so generously made out to him, he was carrying the greater part of that money in the inside pocket of his jacket!
When the two horsemen drew alongside, however, and commanded him to pull up, his heart sank to a new low. These were not highwaymen, as he very quickly realised, but two of Sir Maxwell Allardyce’s henchmen! Mad Max, so called because of his predilection for exacting the most vicious of revenges from anyone who failed to honour his promissory notes, and the gentleman to whom Fenton owed the best part of thirty thousand pounds!
‘I’m afraid that we are going to ’ave to ask you to come along with us, Mr Fenton,’ said the first of the two men, a swarthy-looking individual whose squashed and broken nose gave a clear indication of his previous profession. ‘Sir Maxwell is keen to ’ave a word with you, if you’ve no objection?’
‘As a matter of fact, Biggins,’ retorted Fenton, racking his brain for some way to forestall the inevitable, ‘I object most strongly! Can’t you see that I have a lady with me—at least let me escort her home, before you come the heavy on me!’
‘Can’t be done, sir,’ put in the other man. ‘And begging your pardon, Miss—’ here he tipped his hat in Georgianne’s direction ‘—Sir Max will have our hides if we let you slip out of our clutches a second time!’
‘But I’m just on the verge of laying my hands on more than enough money to pay him what I owe!’ protested Fenton. ‘By this time next week, I swear that I’ll be rolling in the stuff! Go back to your boss and tell him that he’ll find me on his doorstep before the end of the month and that’s a promise!’
‘Seems your promises,’ said Biggins, with a sorrowful shake of his head, ‘’ave about as much value as the paper they’re written on!’
‘But if I come with you now,’ cried Fenton, in desperation, ‘I shan’t be able to marry Billingham’s heiress here and then Mad Max will never get his money!’
‘Are you telling us that this young woman has inherited your uncle’s fortune?’ demanded the second of the two men, one Hopkirk, an ex-stockbroker by trade who, although he had served his time for fraudulent practices was, by far, the more intelligent of the pair.
‘That’s right!’ nodded Fenton eagerly. ‘And the minute we’ve tied the knot, every penny of hers will belong to me!’
Having been listening to this puzzling interchange with growing alarm, it did not require a great deal of ingenuity on Georgianne’s part to arrive at the conclusion that Fenton owed someone—this Sir Maxwell character, presumably—a great deal of money. Clearly, he had thought up this ludicrous fabrication on the spur of the moment in the hopes that these men would let them go, which left her in something of a quandary. Although it was against her nature to tell deliberate falsehoods, she was quite sure that for her to deny Fenton’s fantastic claims at this point in the proceedings would do little to help their present situation. Quickly making up her mind, she decided that it might prove rather more beneficial to go along with his story.
Frowning, the two men eyed each other uncertainly. ‘We wasn’t told to put the squeeze on the nieces of earls,’ muttered the ex-pugilist. ‘Fellows ’ave been ’ung for less!’
‘That’s true,’ returned his companion. ‘Trouble is, Mad Max will play merry hell with us if we just let them go. There has to be a way we can hang on to them until we get word to him.’
‘Stash ’em away somewhere, you mean?’
‘Mmm,’ Hopkirk nodded, then, pulling his accomplice to one side, he muttered into his ear, ‘I believe that there’s a shelter of sorts on the heath over to our right somewhere—place where that highwayman hung out, so I was told. Near a disused quarry, apparently so, if we keep our eyes peeled, it shouldn’t be that difficult to make out signs of the old wagon track!’
Having thoroughly searched the bothy, both inside and in its immediate environs, and having found nothing that might incriminate either himself or Josh, Pete Andrews pulled the planked door shut behind him and set off to head back to Dunchurch. Barely fifty yards out of the little clearing, however, the sound of an approaching carriage halted him in his steps. His immediate thought was that it must be a group of law officers coming back to have another look at Matty’s hiding place and thanked providence that he had had the foresight to check it out beforehand.
Nevertheless, knowing that it would hardly do for him to be discovered in the vicinity, he gazed hurriedly about him, in an effort to find somewhere to hide. To his consternation, he was very soon to realise that the scrubby heathland, with its proliferation of low-lying gorse bushes and occasional groups of rowan offered very little in the way of concealment. As the sounds of the horses’ hooves grew louder, he grew more desperate and, finally, in a blind panic, he hunched himself up and backed into the narrow opening between a nearby pair of gorse bushes where, gritting his teeth in agony as the vicious thorns cut into his hands and face, he endeavoured to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
Less than two minutes later, the carriage, accompanied by its two outriders, bounced awkwardly past his makeshift hiding spot. Screwing up his eyes, he could just make out the identities of its two occupants, the sight of whom was very nearly enough to cause the incredulous Andrews to exclaim out loud. What, in God’s name, was the major’s cousin doing here? he wondered, in astonishment—let alone his lordship’s niece, Miss Venables! And, by the look of their two companions— a couple of none too savoury-looking characters, in his opinion—there appeared to be something decidedly fishy going on here!
He watched as the carriage trundled into the clearing where, pulling up in front of the old bothy, it ground to a halt. He saw Fenton leap to the ground, furiously gesticulating and, by straining his ears, Andrews managed to catch the better part of what was going on.
‘…all but wrecked the damned springs!’ Fenton was complaining. ‘Think yourselves lucky the pole didn’t fracture!’ Then, looking about him in disgust, he added, ‘What is this place, anyhow, and why have you brought us here?’
‘Just a temporary stop-gap, until we’re told what’s to be done with you,’ the taller of the two men grunted as, after leaning down to extract a coil of thick twine from one of his saddlebags, he slid down from his horse and walked across to Fenton.
‘But you can’t possibly mean to keep us here while you go off to London to confer with Allardyce,’ protested Fenton, backing away nervously, as the man began to unravel the twine. ‘You could be gone for days!’
‘The guvnor ain’t in London.’ Biggins grinned as, at a signal from Hopkirk, he approached Fenton from the rear and, after grabbing at the horrified man’s wrists, clasped them roughly together, ready for his partner to bind. ‘As it ’appens, ’e’s just down the road at ’is ’unting box in Little Stretton—which is ’ow he got wind of your presence—’ im and the local vicar being such bosom bows and all!’
Fenton, by now thoroughly deflated and quaking with fear, allowed himself to be propelled into the little stone shelter where, after being pushed down to the floor in the far corner, he found his ankles being tethered together in a similar fashion to his wrists.
‘Wha’ we gonna do about the gentry mort, then?’ asked Biggins, when he finally re-emerged from the bothy. ‘Go’ any more cord?’
‘Just about enough to tie her hands, at any rate,’ replied Hopkirk who, in his partner’s absence, having ordered the greatly alarmed Georgianne out of the carriage, now held her firmly by the wrists. Relinquishing his hold, he pushed her towards the waiting Biggins and strode across the grass to where his horse stood quietly grazing and extracted a smaller coil of twine from his saddlebag. ‘Take off her boots and stick her in the doorway, where you can keep an eye on her. She doesn’t look the sort to give you any trouble.’
‘I’m to stay ’ere, while you go off and report to Allardyce, then?’ queried Biggins, as soon as they had completed that task.
Hopkirk gave a perfunctory nod. ‘Might be a good idea to shift their carriage over to that stand of trees and uncouple the horses, as well—just in case one of them does happen to find some way to make a break for it.’
‘’ardly perishing likely!’ scoffed the other man, as he watched his accomplice remount. ‘No fear o’ that while I’m on guard!’
Crouching well down until the obvious mastermind of this very sinister-looking operation had ridden out of his hearing, Andrews waited until his partner began to busy himself with the moving of Fenton’s carriage. Then, as soon as the man’s back was turned, the ex- sergeant wriggled painfully out of his hiding place and, using the occasional clump of gorse as his only means of cover, he crawled around to the rear of the shack. He was not entirely sure what it was he was going to do when he got there, but felt that it might be of some comfort to the two prisoners to know that their plight had been witnessed.
Despite her underlying anxiety, Georgianne, who had remained stoically silent throughout the whole of the extremely uncomfortable journey and subsequent ordeal, was gratified to learn that she appeared to have gained her objective in making the kidnappers believe that she was some timid miss of little account. Having been thrust down with her back against the rough stonework at the bothy’s opening, in full view of their captor, she soon realised that any attempt on her part to try to extricate herself from her bindings was likely to prove a complete waste of effort. Fenton, as she could see, to her utter disgust, was still slumped on his side in the far corner of the bothy and, clearly, had no intention of trying to free himself.
‘You might, at least, make some sort of effort to get us out of this!’ she flung at him, in a scathing undertone.
‘What’s the point?’ he replied wearily. ‘There’s no way that we’d be able to get away from that bully boy out there. In any event, Allardyce is sure to tell Hopkirk to release us. As soon as he gets wind of who you are, he’ll be far too eager to get his hands on the money than in doing me—us, that is,’ he corrected hastily ‘any more harm!’
Furious at the man’s cowardly acceptance of the situation, Georgianne was too dumbfounded to argue with him. Instead, she brought her wrists up to her mouth and, surreptitiously, tried to loosen the knots with her teeth. But then, as a sudden thought occurred to her, she swung round to face him again. ‘And why on earth you had to come up with that ridiculous cock-and- bull tale about me being your uncle’s heir is completely beyond me!’
Fenton stiffened. ‘It’s not ridiculous at all!’ he retorted at once. ‘Granted that you may not have been aware of the connection but, let me assure you that I saw the evidence with my own eyes—your father’s name was Étienne-Georges D’Arblaise and Melandra Billingham, my late cousin, was your mother—it’s all there on the tombstone outside the chapel up at Highsmith
House!’
For several moments she was beyond speech but, then, ‘Are you completely mad?’ she exclaimed, staring at him in astonishment. ‘I know for a fact that my father was the Viscount George Arthur Venables and my mother was a Miss Anne Yardley. Indeed, I have the birth certificate to prove it!’
‘But you told Hopkirk that I was telling the truth!’ cried the now thoroughly alarmed Fenton, finally straightening himself up into a sitting position and starting to wrestle violently with the twine that held his wrists together.
‘Only because it seemed the most sensible thing to do at the time,’ snapped back Georgianne, shooting him an indignant glare but then, having registered the look of total wretchedness that had appeared on Fenton’s face, her eyes softened. ‘Nevertheless,’ she added, ‘if it serves to get us out of this mess, I am prepared to keep up the pretence.’
Andrews, who by this time, had gingerly edged his way round to their side of the building, poked his head round the doorway with an urgent ‘Psst!’
Georgianne’s head jerked up and, by straining to her left, she was just able to catch sight of the tip of the speaker’s nose. All at once, the faintest glimmerings of hope began to rise in her breast. ‘Who’s there?’ she called softly.
After poking his head forwards briefly and instantly retracting it, Andrews dropped to his knees. ‘Pete Andrews, miss,’ he mouthed in a husky undertone. ‘Ostler at the Dun Cow.’
‘Have you brought help?’ she asked eagerly as, impatiently motioning to Fenton, who, leaning forwards with excitement, was demanding to be told what was going on, to hold his tongue, she bent her head in the direction of the opening so as not to miss what their would-be rescuer was saying.