If only she had told Dreyford last night. It would be so much worse if Lonigan got to him first. “No, not yet.”
“And why not, may I ask?” He glared at her across the battered table that served as a desk.
“I told you I need time.” That was it, she thought, get him to give her more time, time to tell Dreyford about this. “It’s difficult for me to come up with that much money right now.”
Lonigan’s eyes turned hard and avarice twisted his mouth, then his voice went deadly soft. “P’raps ye’re right. A week ain’t long. So I’ll be generous.” He paused and eyed her coldly. “One more week. And don’t be failing me this time. Ye understand?”
She sighed. “Yes, I understand.” She longed to tell him what she thought of him, a man who would blackmail a woman he had once purported to love. But she could not afford the luxury of anger, not until she had talked to Dreyford.
Lonigan got to his feet, his mouth stretched in an unpleasant smile. “I ain’t gonna wait much longer,” he said. “So ye’d best get busy.”
“Yes,” she murmured, swallowing hard. “I will do my very best.”
And then he was gone. She sat there for a few minutes, deep in thought. Then she got up and went to look for Huggins. She was going home.
* * * *
Once in the library she settled herself with her needlepoint. She would just keep herself calm and occupied until her husband arrived home. Dreyford was a reasonable man. Surely when she explained it to him— But her thoughts would carry her no further than that.
In and out the needle went. The clock in the corner ticked away the inexorable seconds and still Dreyford did not come. Her nerves were strung so taut that when Berkins appeared in the door, she started and gave herself a vicious stab with the needle.
“Yes, what is it?”
“A man in a carriage, milady. Says he was sent by Mr. Hadley.”
Needlepoint forgotten, she leaped to her feet. “What has happened? What is wrong?”
Berkins frowned. “He said only that there was trouble.”
“Trouble at the shelter?” She started toward the door. “I must go. Immediately.”
Berkins trailed her down the hall. “But, milady, let me send for your carriage.”
“No, no. There isn’t time. I’ll go with this man. You can send Huggins afterward. He can bring me home.”
She hurried out the front door before he could say more. The nondescript man who was waiting said, “This way, milady. We’ll be there afore you know it.”
“Yes, yes.” She allowed him to help her up the steps into the closed carriage. Just as she reached the top, she looked up. “Lon—”
She tried to turn, to go back, but the man gave her a quick shove and slammed the door behind her. She fell against the squabs near Lonigan’s knees, and when she opened her mouth to scream, his hand closed over it.
He dragged her up onto the seat beside him. “Drive on!” he yelled.
She struggled against him, but to no avail. Finally, worn out, she subsided. “That’s better,” he said. “Ye be behaving yerself now and I’ll let ye go.”
As soon as he released her, she turned to him. “Why—why are you doing this?”
“I’m getting me a little nest egg.” In the light of the carriage lamps his expression was almost jovial.
“I—I don’t understand.”
He laughed, and the sound chilled her blood. “Well, me dear, it’s like this. I’ve me friends on Fleet Street. And I heard ye was out looking for Brother Andrews.” He laughed sardonically. “To think ye didn’t trust yer own loving husband.”
Anger gave her strength. “You’re not my husband. And you never were. I’ll wager you weren’t pressed into the navy either. You were just through with me.” She gasped. “You’ve probably been living in London the whole time.”
“Ye ain’t as believing as ye used to be,” he said. “And it don’t become ye. If ye’d just come up with a couple hundred pounds now and then, ye could have been spared all this.”
She edged away from him. “What—what are you planning to do?”
“Why, I thought that was plain as day. I’m holding ye for ransom. And when yer loving hubby comes up with the blunt, then ye’ll be let go.”
“He won’t stand for this!” she cried. “He’ll track you down and kill you!”
Her outburst got no visible reaction from him. “I think not, me dear. He ain’t gonna have no idee that I’m the one as has ye.”
“But why— I was trying to get the money for you!”
“Sure an’ ye was.” The look in his eyes was decidedly unfriendly. “And ye was trying to find Brother Andrews, too.”
“I only wanted to know the truth.”
His gaze raked her over. “Well, now p’raps I’ll tell ye the truth. Since it don’t matter no more. Ye’re right. Of course we was never married. Ye think I’d marry a poor relation? Not a chance. Not me.
A wave of relief swept over her. “Why don’t you let me go?” she said. “I’ll get Dreyford to pay you.”
“Ha, ha. Ye’re good at the jokes, me dear. Now ye jest sit still there and hush up. We’ve a way to go yet.”
Drawing back into her corner of the coach, Fiona tried to think. Lonigan was wrong about one thing. There was someone who knew about him—Kitty. But how soon would Dreyford go to her? London was a big city. Even when they knew it was Lonigan, they would not know where to look. It seemed obvious that she could not count on them finding her. She must figure a way out of this herself.
Lonigan said he meant to let her go once he had the money. But would he really do that? Wouldn’t it be simpler just to dispose of her? She shivered. If he were squeamish, he need not actually kill her. There were other ways, cruder than death, to dispose of a young woman in a city the size of London.
Her captor leaned back on the squabs, his eyes closed. She looked at the door. She might be able to get it open and throw herself out. But the carriage was traveling at a high speed and she was likely to be injured. Better to rest for now, to gather her strength for later. She closed her eyes.
* * * *
When the carriage stopped several hours later, Lonigan straightened. “Well, me dear. Here we are.”
She looked around, trying to mask her eagerness. There might be people outside. Perhaps she could get them to help her.
He turned. “This seems the easiest way.” And he clipped her sharply on the chin.
When she came back to consciousness, she was in a room lying on a cot. Slowly she pushed herself upright. Her jaw was tender, and the room tilted a little at first, but she persisted and soon she could stand.
The room was empty. She crossed it and tried the door. It was locked, of course. She went to the window. Dusk had fallen, but outside was an inn-yard, ablaze with light. She pulled at the window, but it was fastened securely.
Slowly she made her way around the room, looking for something, anything, she could use as a weapon. She could not let Lonigan extract ransom money from Dreyford. She must find some way to escape him. And if he came back to this room for the night. . . . She shivered. She would die before she submitted to that man.
The dusk changed to complete darkness and gradually the bustle in the yard died down. Fiona peered out the window again. A shed roof below it would break her fall and allow her to slide to the earth below. But first she must find a way to get the window open.
She broke two fingernails prying at it, but to no effect. With a curse she turned away. There must be something—
The sounds of revelry floated up from below. Lonigan was no doubt down there, drinking, celebrating the good fortune he expected. And later—
Turning swiftly, she stumbled over the room’s only chair, a rough wooden thing. That was it! Break it. Use part of it to smash the window.
She raised the chair over her head. But not on the floor. That would make too much noise. Instead she slammed it down on the cot. One leg broke off. She grabbed it. But wait— The noi
se of breaking glass might carry.
Reaching up under her gown, she grabbed a handful of petticoat. One good jerk ripped it loose. She wrapped it securely around the end of the chair leg, tying it in place.
Then, using it as a club, she broke the glass carefully out of the window. In the dim light it was hard to see, but she ran the club along the edges, trying to knock out all the jagged pieces. She worked fast, her hands sweaty. At any minute Lonigan might decide to return.
When the opening was clear, she waited a long, heart-stopping minute by the door, listening for the footsteps of someone who had come to investigate strange noises. But there was nothing but the echo of drunken laughter from below.
She turned away. It was time to go. She yanked the cover off the cot and rolled it into a ball, pushing it out the opening ahead of her. A long cold night awaited her if she managed to get away.
Though the window opening was small, she scrambled through it with only a few scratches. The drop to the ground wrenched her ankle and almost made her cry out in pain. But she bit down hard on her bottom lip, and scooping up the cover, limped off into the darkness, the sound of drunken voices fading behind her.
Fortunately for her the inn was set at the edge of a wood. She moved through the trees slowly. The pain in her ankle was receding a little and she wanted to hurry. But between the darkness and the pain, the going was slow.
She forced herself to keep walking. She should not stop too soon. Lonigan, fast talker that he was, was capable of mobilizing the whole inn to look for her. She pulled the cover around her shoulders and limped on, her breath coming harder.
She did not know how long she walked, but when finally she stopped, she had waded some distance down a creek and crossed to the other side. There she found a thicket and crawled in, pulling the brambles closed behind her.
* * * *
> In his London drawing room the Earl of Dreyford glowered at a frightened Ben. The earl had been in a vile mood all day. Someone had been circulating Roxanne’s Fleet Street remark among the members of White’s. He had barely escaped calling out some witless young fop. And then he’d arrived home to find his wife had gone rocketing off to that disreputable shelter, the cause of all his foul temper.
And now this—the stableboy had come panting in, cap in hand, to beg an audience.
“Well, what is it? What do you want?” the earl demanded, the Dreyford temper on the ascendancy.
“It’s Her Ladyship,” the boy stammered.
“She’s at the shelter, boy. She can’t talk to you now.”
“Begging yer pardon, me lord, but she ain’t. She ain’t at the shelter.”
The earl glared. “Boy, you must not contradict me.”
The boy flushed a bright crimson, but he stood his ground. “But, me lord, she’s took.”
A distinct feeling of uneasiness hit the earl in his stomach. “Took? Whatever are you babbling about?”
“She’s took!” Ben cried. “I seen it happen!”
Dreyford stared at him. Could he really mean— He drew the boy to a divan. “Sit down here and tell me exactly what you saw.”
“ ‘Twas this afternoon—late. I seen the carriage come up. A man come to the door. Her Ladyship come running out.”
Dreyford sighed. “I know all that. Berkins told me she was summoned to the shelter.”
“But she weren’t!” The boy was very insistent.
“How do you know this?”
“When she were getting in—it were a closed carriage—I saw the man. He shoved her in and he slammed the door after her. And the carriage took off, lickety-split.”
“My God!” Dreyford was at last convinced. “Fiona! Abducted!”
Ben clutched his cap in nervous hands. “I think I knows where they went, me lord.”
The earl grabbed him by the shoulders. “You what?”
The boy stared back at him bravely. “I followed the carriage, me lord. I thought to run for someone. But it were going too fast. So I hopped on the back.”
“And—”
“It took the Dover Road. I dropped off when I were sure. That’s why I’m only just back to tell you.”
“The Dover Road.” Dreyford got to his feet. “Ben, do you know any more? Have you any idea who did this thing?”
Ben hesitated. “I ain’t sure. But I think I seen the man afore. On Fleet Street. He was with that flashy cove—the one what come here that day.”
He knew instantly who the boy meant. “Lonigan!” Dreyford turned toward the door. “Don’t worry, Ben. We’ll get her back.”
“Yes, me lord.” The boy’s lower lip trembled. “I hopes so, me lord.”
* * * *
It was well past midnight when Dreyford reined his stallion in and slid down at the inn. He had stopped at every establishment along the road and he was weary, and furious to boot. To think that this scoundrel had taken his wife. But he would suffer for it. Yes, indeed.
Everyone looked up when the door burst open and the irate lord came thundering in. And when they saw the look he gave Lonigan, the wise ones shrank away. Lonigan’s eyes were not so glazed with drink that they couldn’t recognize the turn fate had taken. Still, he tried to carry it off. “Why, ‘tis the Earl of Dreyford. What be ye doing here?”
Dreyford strode across the room and lifted the drunken man by his coat front. “I have come for my wife. Where is she?”
“Yer—yer wife?” replied a stammering Lonigan, as the onlookers backed away.
“I do not intend to repeat myself.” Dreyford shook him, as a terrier might a rat. “Where is she?” he demanded.
Apparently Lonigan realized that the jig was up. He crumpled and hung limp in the earl’s grip. “She’s—she’s in the room at the top of the stairs. I ain’t hurt her none.”
“I should hope not.” With a smile of complete satisfaction, Dreyford dealt the lout a hard left to the jaw and dropped him in a heap on the floor. Then he took the stairs two at a time and, not waiting to ask for a key, kicked the door in.
The room was empty. His eyes took in the battered chair and broken window, and a smile spread over his features. Fiona had escaped her captor. But where was she?
He went back down the stairs, more slowly than he had ascended them. Lonigan was gone, but Dreyford didn’t care. He wanted only to find his wife, to hold her in his arms and tell her what this day had revealed to him. He loved her. He would no longer deny it to her. Or to himself.
* * *
Chapter 12
Early the next morning the singing of a wren woke Fiona. She was cold and stiff and hungry, but still she smiled. She had escaped Lonigan. He would not be likely to find her now.
Slowly she edged her way out of the thicket and took her bearings. It was best to follow the stream. Water always led to civilization.
Midmorning found her on the road back to London. In such light slippers her feet were soon bruised and sore. But home was still many weary hours away and somehow or other she meant to get there.
The sun rose to its highest and Fiona kept walking, putting one aching foot before the other. But as she walked, she thought.
She had built a false dream around a false man while all the time, right before her, was a real man, a man she could trust, could love. She did love Dreyford. She had never been more sure of anything in her entire life.
A sob rose in her throat. She loved a man who did not believe in love, who had told her he would never love. And now she had to confess to him this awful thing about herself. What would he say? What would he do?
* * * *
Toward midafternoon the Earl of Dreyford sat in his library. An observer would not have recognized the well-known Corinthian with his disheveled hair, untidy cravat, and dusty boots. His eyes gazed unseeing at the Turner landscape above the mantel. From time to time he sighed, and the dog at his feet looked up at him with woeful eyes and wagged its tail.
He had not been to bed the night before, but had been waiting, sitting
there ever since he’d returned from the Dover Road in the wee hours of the morning. He had scoured that road, all the way into the city, but there was just no sign of her.
He had sent men out to continue the search. They had apprehended Lonigan’s confederate and Lonigan himself had fled. Surely Fiona would come home soon. There was nothing for it but to wait. But the hours dragged like long lonely years. “Where is she?” he asked the dog. “Why doesn’t she come home?”
Wearily, he rose and went to stare out the window, into the sunlight-dappled courtyard where she had planted flowers. Where was she? And, more important, was she safe? In his mind he could see her so clearly—the thick chestnut hair he loved to stroke, the green eyes flecked with brown that flashed when she was angry, were warm when she was tender, the soft pink mouth, the warm pliant body that he had pressed so eagerly to his own.
Now, too late, he cursed the fact that he had never told her, never let her know what his feelings for her were. He rattled off a string of curses that would have made a coachman blanch. He was a damned fool for not recognizing his feelings sooner. For not letting her know.
He groaned aloud. “Fiona!” The dog came to him, pushing her cold nose into his hand. But she was scant comfort. She reminded him of the wife he had lost. Everything in this house reminded him. Good God! She had to come home. What would he do without her?
It was late afternoon when Fiona finally reached the house on Grosvenor Square. She climbed slowly down from the delivery wagon that had brought her the last few miles and thanked the kindhearted driver.
Outside the door, she shifted from one aching foot to the other. The hem of her skirt hung in tatters; a big rip left one sleeve flopping around her wrist. One of her slippers was losing its sole. And her face was streaked with dirt and sweat.
But none of that mattered. She was home at last.
And now Dreyford must be faced. She straightened her shoulders and lifted the knocker.
Berkins’s mouth gaped. “Milady!” he cried, the picture of consternation. “We have been so worried about you. Are you all right? Shall I send for the physician?”
If only Dreyford cared this much, she thought. “I am fine,” she assured the butler. “Just weary and footsore. I look much worse than I feel. Is the earl at home?”
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