by Jenn LeBlanc
He whistled for Grover, who drove the horses to them briskly with Smyth yelling to clear a lane.
“She’s gone,” he said to Smyth, handing him the bundled packages. “Take them to the house immediately and inform His Grace. I’m going to look around. I’ll return shortly.”
Smyth nodded and helped Miss Faversham into the carriage before jumping up to the rear step. Grover snapped the ribbons, racing toward Roxleigh House.
Hepplewort had waited in the carriage, shaking with anticipation from his slobbery jowls to his knocking knees. He sweated profusely, the stains gathering on his silk shirt and brocade jacket and making stiff, uncomfortable splotches on his clothing around the neck and armpits. He wiped his brow with his arm, streaking his sleeve.
He’d waited all week to find her away from the people that seemed to hang around constantly. He was so desperate and frustrated that he’d even tried to retrieve her from Roxleigh House the night before, but was thwarted. Then he caught her leaving the town house that morning, but that damned duke was close to follow. He cringed at the memory of their intimate ride.
When he saw her walk to the bookstore alone, the other three girls heading across the street, he squealed with excitement, then realized his error and hid from the window as she turned in his direction. He’d clasped his chest, breathing deeply as she entered the shop.
He sent his man to retrieve her as he watched. It all looked so easy; Morgan came up behind her like a lost lover hugging his beloved and no one paid heed, turning away from the improper spectacle. This beloved, however, went limp when her mouth was covered, not by a kiss, but a rag soaked in ether. He’d pushed her into the carriage, placing her on the seat next to Hepplewort, and then mounted the rear carriage step as the driver pulled away from the bookstore and drove them out of town.
Hepplewort had tied her hands and feet, placing a scarf in her mouth to keep her quiet should she awaken. It was several hours before he allowed her to come around fully, covering her nose with the ether-soaked rag whenever she stirred, making her his unwitting plaything. His pudgy hands roamed her body while she was unconscious. He scratched at her bodice, lifted her skirts slowly, stroked the bridge of her nose, tickled her ears, and massaged her pink lips while giving her an open-mouthed glare, his eyes glossy and his tongue licking the drool from his lip.
“Get my brother!” Gideon yelled at Smyth, who ran from the house and mounted his horse, bolting across the square. Gideon turned on Miss Faversham. “Explain to me precisely what occurred.” Miss Faversham stood tall, trying to remain composed as she told him everything she knew.
The front door swung open and Perry stormed in, followed by Smyth. “Are the horses ready?” Perry asked.
“No.” He gestured toward Smyth to run to the stable to help ready them. “It’s been nearly two hours. It has to be Hepplewort. I should have known better.” Gideon cursed. “I never should have let her—”
“Let her what, Gideon?” Perry said, taking his shoulders. “If you try to control her, you lose her. There is nothing you could have done differently. Let’s not waste time on what we cannot change.”
Gideon scowled and the servants scattered like mice for their holes.
Perry turned to Gentry, who had just entered after pulling up in an old rented hack.
Gentry shook his head at Gideon’s hopeful glance.
“Help Smyth ready the horses, all six,” Perry said. He looked to Gideon. “We can catch him. He must be bound for his estate—”
“Gretna Green,” Gideon cut in. “His intentions are to complete the contract.”
Perry shook his head.
“He couldn’t obtain a special license now. He’d need to take her to Gretna Green.”
“I don’t know, Rox—”
“Think about it. He’s entirely predictable. He refused to ruin her, he waited to take her, but he wouldn’t go through all of this only to screw it up at the end. He must marry her before he claims her, and…” Gideon clenched his jaw.
“And what?”
“And I have to believe that she’s all right,” Gideon said as his voice faded.
Francine was dizzy. Her head felt thick and it pounded as though a child were beating on it with a shoe. Her mouth was full of cotton and fire and her throat burned all the way to the pit of her stomach. It seemed like days passed as her mind fought for purchase, in and out of consciousness, willing the webs to clear so she could awaken. She groaned against the band in her mouth, but her hands wouldn’t move and her eyes wouldn’t open. She tried to remember what had happened, but couldn’t remember anything beyond the ball.
She clenched her eyes, trying to clear the thickness that lay in front of them. It was like the time she’d tried on her grandfather’s coke-bottle spectacles—she couldn’t see. She also couldn’t move and she couldn’t speak, but she could feel, and what she felt was a clammy hand drifting up her leg toward her hip, underneath her skirts. The movement jerked her body awake abruptly and she kicked out, then heard a howl and a rain of curses.
She felt for the edge of the seat and pushed up. She pulled at the piece of fabric in her mouth, dragging it down and then rubbing her eyes. She realized her hands weren’t just working in tandem, but that they were actually attached to each other.
“Sonofabitch!” she screamed, looking around until her eyes settled on the angry troll cowering in the seat across from her. The carriage bounced hard and she thought they were moving swiftly down a deeply rutted country road.
“You worthless fuckwit! What the hell are you doing?”
He straightened his jacket. “What does it look like I’m doing, you ingrate? I’m claiming what’s mine, what always has been mine. I’ve waited more than ten years for your tutelage to be complete. You think I’ll sit aside and let some damnable duke ruin you?” he yelled. He shook from his core, his loose skin flailing around his face like that of a drooling bloodhound.
Francine tore angrily at the binds on her wrists. Her skin scraped against the hard ropes as she twisted and pulled, making them raw and bloodied, but she wouldn’t give in to her bondage.
Hepplewort watched her. His eyes widened with heat and she shuddered, her vision blurring from the anger coursing through her. She couldn’t remember what to do. The self-defense class she’d taken didn’t include being tied up and trapped in a carriage. She kicked at him, pushing her back against the wall to steady herself as she lashed out.
He was like a rat trapped in a cage with a pissed off cat. The binds didn’t immobilize her; they only inhibited her movement, making her more violent. She kept kicking.
Hepplewort screamed, the noise pealing from his throat, making him sound like an frightened thirteen-year-old girl.
The carriage ground to a stop and the door swung open. Hepplewort fumbled his way out and a man so large and unwieldy that he had to squeeze through the carriage door entered, one arm and leg at a time, silencing her struggles with a glare. He pressed in next to her and Hepplewort rejoined them.
Hepplewort stared at her, then reached out and slapped her, slamming her face into the side of the carriage. She winced, her bound hands flying to her cheek.
“I guess you won’t be trying that again,” he said with a triumphant snort.
She felt a hot, sticky rush of blood to her lip and sat still, crushed against the side of the carriage by the brute next to her. She started running various escape scenarios through her mind, closing her eyes tightly as each vision failed.
The carriage ride was long and arduous. Every bump in the road–of which there were many–threw her alternately into the side of the carriage or into the structure of man to her left. She drifted into sleep occasionally, even as she tried to fight it off, but every movement of the carriage set her body aware and her mind reeling, wondering where Gideon was.
Sometime late the next day she saw a large, patchwork manor come into view as the carriage rocked and the curtains swung open and shut. It loomed on the horizon, surrounded by a grea
t open field. The manor appeared to be a misshapen assembly of outbuildings that extended and built upon the main house in multiple architectural styles without regard for the existing structure.
They rolled up the long drive toward the ugly manor and she looked for signs of anyone who could help her. She didn’t see any houses or a town nearby. Her heart sank when she realized that this was their destination, in the middle of nowhere.
The carriage lurched to a stop in front of the dark entrance and the giant of a man squeezed out, dragging Francine behind him before tossing her over his shoulder. She squealed as he carried her up the steps after Hepplewort.
The butler opened the door. “Your mother is in the parlor.”
Hepplewort turned to the large man. “Take her to her room. Do not leave her alone.” He watched as Francine bobbed against the man’s back limply and then turned to the parlor.
He found his mother sitting straight-backed on the divan, her hands in her lap as she peered down her pointy beak at her son. Her dark grey hair was drawn to the back of her head in a severe knot. It pulled at her wrinkly features, giving her a cat-like appearance.
“Is she here?” came the shrill voice, buried under years of stern complaints.
He walked over, sat on the divan next to her, and patted her hands.
She jerked away from him, continuing to stare.
“Yes, Mother, she is here.”
“Good. Did you send for the priest?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Where is she?”
“I had Morgan take her to her room. No reason for her to be uncomfortable.”
His mother stood. “I expect you to finish this, Fergus. I expect her to be heavy with my grandchild within a fortnight.”
He stared after her. “Yes, of course, Mother.”
She straightened her dark woolen dress. “Well, it is due time,” she spat at him, and then she left him in the parlor.
Gideon, Perry, Gentry, and Smyth left within the hour with six horses, only pausing for rest for themselves and the animals when necessary. With several legs of the main northern rail down as they replaced the old rails with steel, and the available detours so far from the mark, the men stayed close to the railways by horse and jumped trains wherever possible, taking the horses aboard, which afforded at least some rest for everyone but Gideon.
By the time they reached Roxleighshire, he was a hot-tempered mess. His hair stood on end from the weather and the rides, and his hands were painful and stiff. They went straightaway to Eildon for fresh mounts. Gentry and Smyth turned the horses in as Gideon took for the manor, Perry close at his heels.
They hoped they were ahead of Hepplewort. He had to be in a carriage the whole trip, as there was no way he could travel by rail because he would have Francine with him, and she would be none too happy which would draw some sort of suspicion. Gideon hoped they had passed him somewhere, or that Hepplewort had taken a longer route to get to Gretna Green—perhaps along the coast, where he would be less known. Gideon was still determined in his thinking that Hepplewort would insist upon marriage before touching Francine, and the only way to do that expediently was to go to Gretna Green in Scotland.
Mrs. Weston ran to Gideon, surprised to see him. “Oh, Your Grace, what are you doing here?” she asked as he stormed through the entry, kicking aside crates of supplies and tools for the work that had begun on the manor.
“Your Grace?” she questioned, noting each brother’s expression. “Where’s Lady Francine?” She glanced around the men out the door.
“We need food, Westy.” Gideon stopped in a weary stance, resting his hands on his hips.
“What’s happened?” she asked, her hand fiddling with the buttons at her neck.
He shook his head and headed for his study.
“That is it!” she boomed. “Gideon, get back here!” she yelled in her best mother-in-charge voice. Something about it stopped Gideon in his tracks the same way it had when he’d run amok as a child.
Gideon turned with painstaking care, his jaw clenched, not wanting to actually voice the words to her. “Hepplewort has Francine,” he choked out.
“Oh no, no, what are you doing here if he has her? Gideon! Why are you here? His estate is in Shropshire!” She advanced on him.
Perry tried to explain. “Without a license—”
Mrs. Weston shook her head. “No!” she railed. “That man told Lilly about Francine, he told her what he planned for her, while he—he—” She shook the memories from her head. “No! No! You do not understand! Lilly said they were to be married at his estate as soon as they returned. He already has the license. There is no reason for him to take her to Gretna Green. He only has to get a priest to carry out the license!”
Perry’s breath caught in his chest.
“No. Oh God, no.” Gideon stood in the doorway to his study, stricken and pale, his arms hanging limply. “What have I done?”
Mrs. Weston went to him, stretching to rest her hands on his shoulders.
“Your Grace. I’ll see to the food. We’ll get you out of here.”
The brute threw Francine unceremoniously on the gilded four-poster bed, then overtook one of the chairs at the other side of the room.
Francine glanced around. The room was decorated in hues of garish orange trimmed with gold braids, filigree, and paint. It made her even more dizzy and nauseated. Any bare wood appeared painted with a thick coat of glaring white enamel.
She looked down, the rough-hewn rope splintered, digging and tearing at her raw flesh. Her skirts were ripped and tangled around her, her stockings torn and slipping, and her ankles were bloody and painful as if full of glass shards, and sore from the same roughly-made ropes.
She caught the man’s eye on the other side of the room. “What’s your name?”
He only stared at her.
“Please, please help me. If you help me, the Duke of Roxleigh will be forever in your debt,” she begged quietly.
The brute did not give.
She stretched out on the bed, trying to straighten her tensed muscles after the cramped ride.
He only continued to stare and soon a small, pointy woman walked into the room.
The man stood, looking intently at the floor, and the woman waved at him, sending him out. She paused, listening for the door to close behind her, then slid toward the bed.
Francine watched carefully. “Please, help me,” she implored from atop the thick covers.
The woman stopped near the edge of the bed and peered down her nose.
“Do not address me as if you are of my station,” she drawled. If Hepplewort was the embodiment of sloth and gluttony, this woman’s demeanor bespoke wrath. Her beady black eyes bore into Francine, unnerving her, and she shrank.
“You,” the woman said in clear disgust while reaching out and grabbing Francine’s skirt before she could move away, “are a filthy mess. Have you no pride? You are betrothed to my son, the Lord Fergus Darburgh, Earl of Hepplewort. Consider that in your actions. Your one purpose in being born was to bear the future Earl of Hepplewort. If you cannot do that, you serve no purpose at all. Do you understand?” The woman turned, not waiting for Francine’s response. “Morgan!”
The behemoth thumped back into the room, his gaze downcast.
His entire being oozed simplicity, and his quiet actions scared her. It was the air of violence, pure and unadulterated, that chilled her to the bone.
The woman spoke at Francine over her shoulder, not wasting any effort by turning around. “If you behave, we will remove the binds. If you make one errant move, Morgan will stop you.” She nodded to the man, who moved to the bed and cut the ropes.
Francine didn’t move.
“Good,” the woman said, shifting her gaze back to the doorway. “I’ll send the girl in to attend you. You are filthy. Unworthy.” Without hurry she slipped from the room, and a few moments later a mouse of a maid entered.
She bade Francine follow as she walked into an attached ro
om covered in light green tiles. In the corner rested a square basin on the floor, and Francine looked closer, seeing the piping that rose above it. A shower, Francine thought. She would have smiled, but her body and her mind wouldn’t allow it.
The maid unhooked her dress and corset, letting them fall to the floor. Then she carefully removed her stockings, peeling them away from the injuries to her ankles. She shook her head. “I’ll get some salve fer ye, miss. As soon as we get ye clean,” she whispered.
Francine turned to smile at her, then shrieked when she saw that Morgan had followed them. “Get out!”
The maid quickly hushed her. “Please, miss, ye don’t want the lady back in ‘ere. Please,” she begged.
Francine convulsed, but her stomach was empty. She let the girl lead her to the shower and stood silently while she was washed. She clenched her eyes shut and thought of Gideon, willing him to her. The uncomfortable shower dribbled on and when she opened her eyes, Morgan was still the only man there.
The girl toweled her off and brought her back to the bedchamber.
Francine stood still again, her eyes closed, trying to pretend the brute wasn’t inspecting her with a threatening disregard as she was dressed in a chalky white dress. It was simple and tight, fitted over a painful corset and a giant caged crinoline with heavy woolen underskirts. Her breasts were compressed flat, her lungs crushed within her ribcage. The skirts itched horribly and weighed her down, but she bore them.
The maid pulled Francine’s hair into a tight bun on top of her head and secured it, covering it with a white linen mobcap. She left her for a few minutes then returned with a jar of brown goo that she smoothed on Francine’s wrists and ankles before wrapping them with strips of linen.
The mother scrutinized Francine. “This is to be my successor, the Countess of Hepplewort?” She frowned at the white bandages around her wrists. “These are terribly unsightly,” she said to the maid as she yanked and pulled and pushed at Francine’s dress.