by Anne Gracie
Sylvia stared, then shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“I don’t give a damn what you believe,” Cal said as he strode from the room. “But I’m going to find your precious cousin, and if he’s abducted my little sister, he’s a dead man!”
“Don’t slam the—” she shrieked.
Cal slammed the front door behind him. If it woke her husband, it would serve the fellow right for marrying such a silly and irritating woman. With a soon-to-be-dead cousin.
* * *
• • •
“How this Nixon fellow has convinced Lily to go with him is beyond me. I assume it has something to do with the supposed note from Rose,” Cal said to Emm. He’d told her and the girls what he’d learned from Sylvia earlier and was now upstairs, changing out of his evening clothes into breeches, boots and greatcoat while his horse was being saddled.
“If the note said Rose was off to Paris, Lily might decide to follow her,” Emm suggested. “She’s always been the moderating influence even though Rose is her elder. And if this Nixon fellow offered to escort her . . .”
“If that’s the case, we can put that down to her experience of Rose’s earlier harebrained exploits. But it doesn’t explain those blasted hints in the note Nixon left his cousin. Lily might think she’s off to rescue Rose, but that bastard is planning to marry her, mark my words.”
“It’s not Rose’s fault,” Emm reminded him. “She didn’t send that note, and she’s been very well behaved since we came to London.” Emm put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Rose is already blaming herself for whatever has happened to Lily, even though she’s innocent of any wrongdoing. She’s extremely protective of Lily, you know that.”
“I know.” Cal picked up his pistols, checked them and slipped them into the pockets of his greatcoat. “And I’m not blaming Rose. I’m just worried for Lily. But with any luck I’ll overtake them before they reach Dover.”
Emm eyed the pistols with misgiving. “And if you don’t?”
He shrugged. “I’ll follow them to Paris.”
“And if they’re not in Paris? Before you spoke to Sylvia, you thought Lily was being taken to Gretna, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “I know, but this cousin of the Gorrie woman has her, I’m sure. He was seen leaving with Lily, and the note he left for his cousin is utterly incriminating. It said he was going home—which is in Paris. In any case, I’ve made arrangements for a couple of men—Radcliffe’s men—to head up the Great North Road, just in case. They have orders to search for a young woman and a young man traveling in that direction. They’ll go all the way to Gretna and if Lily turns up there, they’ll find her.”
He took her hands in his. “Don’t worry, my love. I know France well and my French is excellent. I’ll find her and make sure nothing bad happens to her. Even if she has eloped for some reason, she won’t be forced into a marriage she doesn’t want—I know how you feel about that. You just take care of yourself and this little one.” He placed his hand briefly on her stomach and kissed her. “I’ll be back with Lily before you know it.”
As she followed him downstairs, the clock in the hall chimed one. Just over three hours since they’d first missed Lily. It seemed so much longer.
“How long does it take to get to Dover?” asked George from behind them. She’d changed out of her evening dress and was clad in breeches and boots. Her intention was obvious.
“You’re not going,” Cal told her.
“I am. I have to do something!”
“You can stay here and behave yourself,” Cal snapped. “That goes for you too, Rose,” he added, seeing Rose behind George on the stairs. “I’m not having any more of you going missing! Stay here and look after Emm.” His horse was waiting in the street. He took the reins from the groom, swung lithely into the saddle and headed down the street. The sound of hooves echoed in the night.
Emm and the two girls watched until he’d disappeared. “I don’t care, I’m going after them,” George began.
“No, you need to stay here,” Emm told her. “You heard Cal—how do you think he’d feel if any more of his beloved girls went missing? It flays him badly enough to have lost Lily.”
George put up a stubborn chin. “Yes, but I’m not one of his ‘beloved girls.’ I’m just a duty to him. I’m not even a sister.”
Emm slid an arm around the girl’s slender waist and said gently, “You’re not his sister, but you’re not just a duty, either. Cal cares deeply about you—and not just because he feels ashamed at the family’s neglect of you in the past. If you didn’t enjoy clashing with him so much, you’d see what he really thinks of you.”
George sighed. “That I’m a pest, a wild girl and trouble.”
Emm laughed. “You can be at times, but even though he growls and snaps sometimes, never, ever doubt that Cal loves you. It’s because he loves you that he growls.”
George looked skeptical, and Emm said, “He also admires you, George—he’s quite proud of his wild young niece, you know. He cares for you, and he loves you.” She slid her other arm around Rose and added, “Both of you. All of you.”
“Yes, but Lily is his favorite,” Rose said.
“I don’t care about that,” George said. “I just need to do something.”
“I know.” Emm squeezed her affectionately. “But there’s no point in us running around like chickens with their heads cut off searching for Lily when we have no idea where she’s been taken. There is something we can do to help, though. It may not be dramatic or exciting, but we will have to be clever.”
Rose narrowed her eyes. “How do you mean, clever?”
Chapter Three
Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads to up to light.
—JOHN MILTON, PARADISE LOST
“Stop the coach!”
In the darkness of her cramped prison, Lily stirred, willing the drugged haze to pass. She focused her dazed attention on the voices outside.
“What the—who the devil are you and what business do you have stopping my coach?”
“No need for alarm, sir. We’re on official business.”
“Indeed? What’s the problem?”
“A young lady has been abducted. They’re believed to be making for the border.”
Rescue! They were looking for her. Lily tried to call out but all she could manage was a muffled moan. Nixon covered it with a coughing fit. He said in a loud voice, “A lady abducted, you say! How shocking! Whatever is the world coming to!”
Lily tried to bang on the walls of her prison, but the thick blanket they’d rolled her in impeded her movements and muffled any sound. The space under the seat was a tight fit. She couldn’t even raise her arms enough to reach the gag.
She tried to call for help again, but with her throat so dry, her mouth so tightly gagged and her drugged, thick tongue barely able to move, all that came out was a whimper.
And from the sound of the conversation outside, the men didn’t hear a thing.
“So you haven’t come across a young lady in distress in your travels, sir?”
“No, and as you can see, gentlemen, there’s only myself in this carriage,” Nixon said. “No young women at all, sadly. I could do with one to while away this dreary journey to Carlisle.”
One of the men laughed.
Lily tried again, calling out and banging her head against the roof of her prison but again, there was no reaction from the men outside.
“So you’re not destined for Scotland, sir?”
“Heavens, no! Carlisle is quite far-flung enough for me. Best of luck in finding your young lady, gentlemen. The villain who abducted her deserves to be horsewhipped.”
Hearing the men take their leave, Lily tried to call out one last desperate time, but a moment later the carriage lurched on its way, and she was once again left alone with her abductor.
Sick with fear and feeling desperately alone, she sank back. She was never going to get away from him. He was too clever, too plausible. He’d planned it all so carefully. Who would have thought of making a hollow space under the seat and keeping her captive there? And invisible.
Those men . . . if only she could have made them hear . . .
A few moments later the lid of the seat was raised and the smothering, dusty rug pulled off her face. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to a soft gray light. Morning? Already? She’d been here all night.
“Awake, are we?” Nixon’s sneering face loomed over her. “I heard your feeble little squeaks. Lucky for me there’s a filthy wind blowing down from the north and it drowned everything.”
Hard fingers pulled at the knot of her gag, ripping at her hair uncaringly. He dragged the damp strip of fabric aside. Lily moved her aching jaw experimentally.
“I should have dosed you earlier,” he said, and grabbed her hair, forcing her head back.
She glimpsed a blue bottle in his hand, and as he jammed it into her mouth, she retained just enough presence of mind to push her tongue into the bottle’s opening. She pretended to swallow and struggle and cough, and only a trickle of the vile drug passed her lips.
“That’ll do it.” He released the painful grip on her hair, corked the bottle, retied the gag and pushed her down, back into the dark, airless space under the seat. “I’ll wake you when we get to Gretna, darling. Sleep well.”
He was laughing at her, laughing at her helplessness, her foolishness in falling for his trap in the first place.
How she hated him.
That note from Rose. She’d believed every word of it. But now she’d had time to think. Rose would never have written to her. Lily hadn’t thought at all, just reacted. This mess she was in was all her own fault. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
She lay in the lightless gloom, berating herself, and fighting the effects of the drug. She’d ingested a smaller amount this time, but still, it was strong enough to keep her woozy and lethargic.
She would not give in to it. Somehow she must fight this thing. Sylvia’s cousin would not get her, not get his horrid, cruel, greedy hands on her inheritance. She would rather die than marry him. And she didn’t want to die.
Sylvia . . . Was she part of this? Would she do something so cruel? No. Why would she do such a thing to Lily? What had Lily ever done to her except try to be her friend?
* * *
• • •
The journey seemed endless. They stopped at inns and posting houses to change horses, but Nixon never left her alone, never let anyone come near enough to hear her. He sat on the seat above her whistling and kicking his heels. Mr. Carefree.
The pressure on her bladder was becoming unbearable.
Without much hope of being heard, she did her best to call out again, but almost immediately the lid of her imprisonment was lifted. “What?” Nixon demanded.
She couldn’t speak, so she tried to signal her desperation.
“Need to piss?”
She nodded.
He put the lid back down, and if she could have, she would have screamed. Surely he couldn’t ignore her urgent need?
But a few moments later the coach pulled up and the lid was jerked open again.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her upright. “Come on, then, out you get.”
Acting dizzier and more lethargic than she felt, Lily struggled to free herself of the heavy blanket and climb out of her imprisonment. It wasn’t entirely an act—she was stiff and sore, aching from being squashed into the cramped space for who knew how many hours.
As she jumped down from the carriage her legs crumpled beneath her and she found herself sprawled in the mud. “Get up,” Nixon said.
She struggled to stand, but her legs were so cramped from being in a confined space for so long, there was no feeling in them. He jerked her roughly to her feet, and she stifled a moan of pain as pins and needles—painful pins and needles—brought the return of sensation.
The wind blew sharp and strong over the moors. After the smothering airlessness of her confinement the bitter cold of it sliced through her, but Lily didn’t care. Anything was better than being in that black hole. She inhaled deeply, breathing in energy and clarity as she took stock of her surroundings. Moorland as far as the eye could see, muddy and wet from recent rain. No buildings, no sign of life.
She glanced up at the coachman, who sat holding the reins, staring straight ahead, pointedly indifferent to her fate. No help there.
Nixon gave her a little shove. “Go on, then. What are you waiting for?”
She indicated her bound hands—she couldn’t relieve herself without free hands to deal with her skirts. He hesitated, then untied her. “Don’t think you can get away. There’s nothing for miles.”
She pulled the gag off and, rubbing the circulation back into her hands, she staggered toward a small clump of grass, slipping and stumbling in the mud as she went.
The clump of grass didn’t provide any privacy, and she was aware of him standing only a few yards away, openly watching her, enjoying her shame and embarrassment as she squatted to relieve herself.
Despite her fear, despite the drug and the freezing cold and her deep humiliation as she squatted in the open under the gaze of two horrid men, a warming surge of anger sparked deep within Lily. This man, this vile excuse for a man, was nothing to her—less than nothing. He was vulgar, greedy and cruel, but even though he had her trapped and in his power at the moment, she vowed he would not win.
She would not be a cowering frightened creature, a victim of his evil scheme. Die before she let him marry her? Never!
She would kill him before she let him take her as his wife.
“Finished?”
She straightened, feeling so much better than she had just a few moments before. The fear of lying, trapped, in a puddle of her own making had passed, and the bracing, moisture-laden wind had given her fresh hope and determination. And anger, she discovered, gave her strength.
She looked around. Even if she’d been steady on her feet, there was nowhere to run. The road was empty and there was no sign of people or any kind of habitation. She had no choice but to return to her captivity.
She made her way carefully back to the carriage to where Nixon was waiting. He grinned at her discomfort, at her disorientation and unsteady gait.
How she loathed him.
She wasn’t even a person to him, she was a thing, a way to get money. He would happily ruin her life just to enrich himself.
He retied her wrists and replaced the gag, then helped her into the carriage. He lifted the lid and gestured for her to get in. It was fastened, she saw, with a small hook catch. If she could block that . . .
“Carriage coming, sir,” the coachman called out.
Nixon swore. “Get in, blast you, woman.” He shoved her roughly back into the space beneath the seat, and jammed the little blue bottle into her mouth. She managed to stop it again with her tongue, but not before a trickle of the vile liquid made it down her throat. He pushed her head down and closed the lid. An instant before it closed, Lily tried to slip a fold of cloth over the catch. But in her haste, she missed, and the lid closed tight above her.
As the lid closed over her once more, shutting her into that dark, cramped airless space, Lily fought the sensation of despair that threatened to swamp her.
For the second time, she’d managed to block the neck of the bottle with the tip of her tongue and keep from ingesting the amount of drug he intended. That was some kind of victory, she told herself, a kind of fighting back.
And next time he let her out to relieve herself, she’d try again to block the catch of the lid. She was better off than before, she told herself; now she had a plan.
Still, she’d absorbed enough of the drug to have to fight with every bit
of willpower she had to keep from sliding into unconsciousness again.
If she didn’t stay awake, she couldn’t escape.
Time passed. She fought the drug with everything she could think of, mentally reciting poems and rhymes she’d learned over the years, reciting her times tables, counting backward, keeping her eyes wide open, staring into the dark, and scrunching up her toes and tightening and relaxing her muscles to keep her legs from falling asleep again as they had before.
She needed to keep her legs in full working order in case she got the chance to escape.
* * *
• • •
“Any news?” Rose said before she was hardly in the room. She and George had just returned from their morning ride. Emm had practically had to force them to go out as usual.
Emm shook her head. Rose flung herself onto the settee. “I hate this, hate going about pretending Lily is just sick in bed upstairs. I don’t know why we have to go riding and pretending everything is all right. I need to do something!”
“I know, my dear,” Emm said patiently. “But though it doesn’t feel like it, you are doing exactly what needs to be done. It’s the best—the only—way we can protect Lily at the moment—act as if nothing is the matter.” They’d had this out before. The girls were desperate to take action of some sort, but there was nothing they could do except wait. And hope and pray that Cal would find Lily soon and bring her home safe and sound.
In the meantime they must all act as usual, so that nobody would suspect anything was wrong.
“But it’s unbearable, having to make meaningless, polite conversation when anything could have happened to poor darling Lily!”
“I know. Mrs. Pinkley-Dutton commented today that Lily must be afraid of a little rain, missing two morning rides in a row—and I wanted to hit her!” George said.
“We can’t protect Lily, but we can protect her reputation,” Emm reminded them. The trouble was that neither Rose nor George cared much for their own reputations.