George shook himself and straightened his sleeves, grateful for the shadows that hid the heat rising on his cheeks. But those same shadows had obscured the other man’s face.
Isabelle had shrunk back against the hedge, her arms wrapped about herself, staring down the lane in her assailant’s wake. A quiet whimper escaped her lips, as if she’d tried in vain to hold it in.
“Did he hurt you?” George asked.
She glanced at him, eyes wide. “No. No. He’s gone back toward the village.”
“I imagine it makes sense for the likes of him to retreat there, where he can hide among the houses.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Her voice rose on a swell of panic.
“If you’d rather not head straight home—”
“No. I need to get home. Now.” She lunged down the path.
“Now see here. I can’t let you run off unaccompanied with such as him lurking.”
She ignored him. Her pace quickened to a jog.
Well. Invited or not, he couldn’t let her go haring off when oafish thugs waylaid unsuspecting women. He strode after her. “What did he want with you?”
“That’s none of your affair.” Isabelle clipped each syllable. She didn’t even favor him with a glance. “And no one asked you to come along.”
He lengthened his stride to catch up with her. “As a gentleman, I cannot allow you to return home unaccompanied.”
She glared at him over her shoulder. “You thought nothing of kissing me, and I won’t even get into what you suggested to me afterward. Hardly the act of a gentleman.” The words stung like so many tiny needles pricking his flesh, or more accurately, his conscience. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve spent far too much time away from Jack.”
SHE had to get away from Upperton. No, she had to get away from both of them, and most urgent, she had to get home to Jack. Something important, the note had said. A wave of panic rose from her gut, rose and mounted as if a hurricane drove it to drown her. But, heaven help her, she could not let it show. Not when Mr. Upperton had already come running to her rescue. Lord save her, he was feeling protective, and if he came to the conclusion she needed protection against something more, she’d never be quit of him.
And she had to get home to make sure Jack was all right, make sure some ruffian never got his hands on her little boy. Jack was hers, dash it all, hers to safeguard since his birth. He was all the family she had left.
She fisted a hand in her skirt to mask her shaking fingers. That blasted Mr. Upperton was still following, and as long as he continued, she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of a full run. She settled for lengthening her stride until her teeth clenched with every exaggerated step.
She ignored the man dogging her and squinted along the path ahead. Where had he got to? He’d left the note. He knew which among the village’s low huddled dwellings was hers. Had he taken a path directly there? Was he even now rousting Jack from his bed?
Her throat closed on a sob that swelled until she ached. Oh, blast it all. She broke into a run. Behind her, Mr. Upperton let out a shout. She closed her ears to his protests until an iron grip about her wrist pulled her up short.
“Here now, what’s the idea? You can’t think to outrun me.”
“Let me go.” She fought to keep her words even and officious, as if she were instructing a servant. Once upon a time, her father had taught her to do that very thing—to speak to servants with a quiet authority that ensured obedience if not loyalty. Those lessons had been part of a life she’d rejected. They failed her now. Her voice wobbled on a high note of hysteria.
“What’s the rush? You’ll never convince me you’re suddenly upset over Jack.”
She yanked at her wrist. “My reasons are none of your affair.” She let annoyance taint her reply. She was past caring what he thought of her. “Unhand me.”
“I’m certain he’s perfectly safe, dreaming away in his bed and has been all night. Didn’t you say you’d left him with someone?”
Biggles, yes, for all an old woman could do against such a hulk of a man. “You don’t know that, and you will kindly refrain from detaining me any further.”
He blew out a breath, and his grip slackened. Thank goodness. She tugged away and set off once more, her stride lengthening into a run. She didn’t stop until she came to her darkened cottage at the edge of the village. Compared to the manor where she’d grown up, she’d always thought it a mean little place, but it was her lot now. She deserved no better.
The door stood closed, a firm oak barrier set in contrast to neat, whitewashed walls. All lay quiet, so quiet the chirp of crickets echoed through her brain, loud enough to mask the heightened rush of her breathing.
Her heart fluttered. Her hand slipped on the door handle, and her chest ached with the fear of what she might find. Cursed imagination, always running wild. It had helped lead her astray when she was naïve enough to believe in a young buck’s assurances he would not go so far as to ruin her. And once he had, he would offer marriage. When would she learn?
“Isabelle?”
She had to get inside. Mr. Upperton was striding up the path. What sort of fool must he think her for fearing to enter her own house? She grasped the handle, turned it. The door swung open with a creak, flooding the main room with ghostly moonlight.
Her sense of unease increased. It filled her chest until drawing breath became an effort. Not a single item stood out of place, and yet, yet … Something was wrong. Someone had been here. Someone strange. It was almost as if he’d left a trace of lingering scent.
Right. The door to Jack’s bedchamber lay directly opposite. She straightened her spine and rushed across the bare planked floor, heedless of Mr. Upperton’s booted feet thumping in her wake. While she had not invited him in, a small part of her was grateful he had not stood on ceremony.
She yanked open the bedroom door. Empty. Oh God, the bed lay empty, the tangle of sheets clearly limned in the moonlight. The curtains swayed in a breeze drifting in through the open window.
Open window.
She pressed her fingers to her lips and rushed over, as if she might somehow catch her son scampering through the back garden.
“No!” The back garden lay just as empty as the bedroom. The breeze that toyed with the curtains stirred the grass, green blades washed to gray beneath the pale moon. “No, he’s gone. I knew it.”
Her eyes burned, but she had no time for tears. Not with Jack missing. She turned to Mr. Upperton and launched herself at him.
“I never should have come. I never should have left him.” She balled her hands into fists and pounded on his chest. Anything to calm the shaking.
His hands gripped her shoulders, gentle but firm. “What’s happened?”
“He’s gone, you idiot. They’ve made off with Jack.”
“Who has? Who would do such a thing?”
The nerve. This was none of his affair. His doing, perhaps in delaying her return, but never his affair. “We’ve no time to yammer about this. We might still find him.”
Possible, yes. The culprit could not have gone far. He’d only had five minutes’ head start. Given his size, why hadn’t they heard him? Why hadn’t Biggles?
“What of the person you said you left Jack with? Where is she?” Clearly Upperton was thinking along the same lines.
“She sleeps in the loft, but—”
“Call her.”
“She can’t have—”
“Call her.”
She stiffened. Just like a high-born man to take such a high-handed tone.
“Is she even here?”
“Of course she is, and how dare you imply—Biggles!”
But Biggles was already making her way down the ladder. The thump of sturdy feet in the other room announced her descent. “Mum, what is all the racket?”
Isabelle brushed past Upperton into the main room. “Where is Jack?”
“Why, he ought ter be sleeping by rights, although how anybody can sleep with all
these carryings on—”
“What have you heard?” Upperton’s terse question cut the woman off.
She blinked and drew her tattered woolen shawl more closely over her night rail. “I don’t hold with such.” Her jowls quivered. “It ain’t proper.”
Upperton took a step closer. “What have you heard?” He enunciated each syllable precisely, as if he were declaiming before a schoolmaster.
Biggles drew herself up to her fullest height—she’d have topped five feet if she’d bothered to put on shoes. “All manner of clattering about. It’s enough to rouse the dead. How a body can sleep—”
“Clattering,” Isabelle broke in. “We haven’t clattered.”
“Ye have so.” Biggles sniffed. “Stomping about, making all manner of noise.”
“We haven’t made that much noise,” Isabelle protested.
“I beg to differ. Why—”
“It means they can’t have gone far,” Upperton said over Biggles’s muttering. “Stay here. I’ll have a look in the garden.”
“No, he’s my son.” Isabelle started for the door. “My responsibility.”
“Wot’s this about the boy?” Biggles asked.
“He’s not in his bed,” Isabelle said, her voice unnaturally calm.
So many years having to hold a tight rein over her emotions where her son was concerned—so that strangers might not guess their true relationship—had made her an expert in detaching herself. She appeared cold and uncaring. Half the time, she feared the front was all too real, that she’d encased her emotions so deeply in ice, she might never thaw. But beneath that frozen veneer, her stomach knotted.
The color drained from Biggles’s fleshy face. “Save us.”
“If you heard so much noise, why didn’t you investigate?” Upperton stepped closer to her, and she seemed to shrink before him.
Her shoulders collapsed, and she tucked her chin into her chest. “I thought it were mum coming home. I swear it.”
He nodded. “Go put on some tea and when it’s ready, pour a healthy shot of whatever spirits you’ve got into it. Miss Mears is going to need it.”
Of all the nerve, giving the orders in her house. She crossed to him and yanked at his hand. “I am not. I’m coming with you.”
A sandy brow arched, and he glanced at her fingers curled about his. “You’ll stay right where you are. There’s no telling who made off with Jack.”
“He’s my son. Mine.” She spit the words. “And the longer we argue, the farther he gets.”
“Why would someone make off with the boy? He’s not some secret heir to a dukedom by any chance, is he?”
Why indeed? None of it made any sense. Some stranger had summoned her to the manor. How had anyone even discovered she was living here? And how had they learned which house was hers, unless—a cold finger of fear traced down her spine and raised the hairs at the nape of her neck. Unless they’d been watching for a while. Unless they’d planned for this chance to lure her away and leave Jack unguarded. Perhaps … perhaps Jack had already been abducted when the man stopped her in the road.
Upperton shifted his grip so that his fingers entwined with hers. “What is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost or worse.”
“That man in the road tonight. I think … I think he’s made off with him.” Her reply emerged thready and shaking. “Only I don’t know why. Please … please, let’s just find him.”
“Of course we will.”
BUT an hour later they’d turned up nothing. A search of the garden had revealed not so much as a footprint in the soft earth at the edge of the house—and it was far too late to consider waking the neighbors. If anyone had heard anything untoward, they’d have come forward on their own.
“I don’t understand it. A full-grown man just doesn’t disappear like that.” George tore a hand through his hair. “And making off with an active boy.”
“We need to keep looking. Surely something will turn up.” Isabelle’s voice wobbled on the final words.
“And you’ve still no notion as to why?” If he’d asked the question once in the last hour, he’d asked it ten times.
“No, nothing.” For the tenth time, she gave him the same answer. “Why anyone should care to make off with … with a natural child …” The rest of her sentence was lost in a choking sound.
He snapped his head toward her. The night breeze stirred her hair, long since fallen out of its pins to trail in tendrils about her cheeks and neck. Moonlight shot through it, turning it to a nimbus that framed her face. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth.
“Isabelle.” When she didn’t protest the use of her given name, he took a greater chance. He strode to her and gripped her shoulder. “We’re never going to find anything in the dark. The best we can do is wait until morning. The new day might well show something we’ve passed over in the night.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Her voice hardened. Somewhere she’d drawn forth the strength to protest.
He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll comb the village. It isn’t that big.”
“They could be long gone by then.”
“They’ll never make it unnoticed.” He placed his free hand on her other shoulder but resisted the surge of desire to pull her into a full embrace. He might only wish to show her comfort, but she’d not take the gesture as such. “I have friends up at Shoreford. They’ll help us.”
“They’ll not help me.”
“What makes you say that?”
She tossed her head. “I might have been one of those people in that fancy manor once. They turned their backs on me. All of them—even my own family.”
In spite of himself, he gathered her closer. Not quite a hug, but near enough that her scent of lavender tickled his nostrils. “I haven’t turned my back on you. I’m willing to help.”
“It’s not the same. You’re only here until you realize you won’t get anything from me. Then you’ll be gone like the rest of them.”
He dropped his hands. “I ought to take a great deal of offense at that. In fact, I would, only we’ve more pressing matters to consider. So the offense is merely set aside until we’ve found Jack, and then I shall demand satisfaction.”
She gasped. “How can you—”
“Oh, nothing as prosaic as pistols at dawn. I’ve been a party to that sort of thing, and once was enough. But I do intend to prove you wrong, and then you shall make me a proper apology. Until that time, I suggest you take what rest you can. I shall come back in the morning with reinforcements.”
He turned to go, knowing he well deserved her outrage in light of his blunder earlier this evening. What had he been thinking, asking this lovely, proud woman to become his mistress? He should have known she’d never stoop to such a level, not for him, not for any man. She might have commanded a high price from any number of moneyed gentlemen of the ton had she chosen to take such a path. She might have done so long ago, and they’d have never met. Even as a kept woman, she’d have been far beyond his means—and she set herself above that. A man such as him didn’t deserve her favors.
But he could make up for his blunder. He could restore her son to her and quietly walk out of her life to return to his own problems. Next to her clear desperation over her child, what were a few thousand pounds of debt?
She reached out and laid her fingertips on his arm. The touch burned through the superfine of his topcoat in four tiny ovals. “Wait.”
In obedience to her command, he stilled. What more might she possibly want of him? “Please … I … I don’t wish to remain alone. I’ll never sleep, not until my boy is back home …”
She couldn’t possibly be implying she wished for distraction in the form of his body. Not when she’d already refused him outright. He cleared his throat. “I don’t know that it’s the best idea for me to stay. What of your reputation?”
“What reputation I had was destroyed long ago, and you’ve already been here longer than is seemly. Please. I do not wish to face the long hours
of the night alone.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE WAITED, fully expecting him to turn away. He’d every right to, the way she’d impugned his honor. His integrity. Not only that, she’d just betrayed weakness in expressing her need for comfort before him. Her stomach burned with self-loathing.
The moment stretched between them until the quiet rhythm of chirping crickets embedded itself in her ears. Her heart echoed the beat. No other sounds broke the night’s stillness, not the turning of a carriage wheel, nor the thud of a booted foot or the even softer pat of an ill-shod child’s tread. Jack.
She closed her eyes against the renewed pain in her heart. How many times over the past few years had she struggled against resenting an innocent child for his very existence? How often had she thought with longing on her one season and what she might have had if temptation hadn’t changed her life’s path? Jack hadn’t asked to come into the world, and certainly not under such circumstances. She fought a daily battle to treat him fairly—to avoid assigning him blame for what her life had become.
But now, in the face of the uncertainty, confronted with the knowledge she might never see her boy again, she wanted to pull that sturdy body into her arms and bask in the scent of an inquisitive child—grass and earth and the salt of seawater.
Her throat swelled achingly tight, and she swallowed against a sob. Without warning, a pair of arms enfolded her. George. Why was he still here lending her comfort when she didn’t deserve it?
Another sob wrestled its way past the obstruction in her throat, and she released it on a shuddering breath. The weight of his palm settled on the back of her head. His fingertips burrowed into her hair, exerting gentle but insistent pressure until she rested her cheek against his shoulder.
The sheer size of him surrounded her. Never had a man held her like this with no expectation of more coming from the embrace. He gave without demanding anything in return. Lord, where had this man been when she was a green little chit, completely unprepared for the lure of a determined rake? Would he have saved her? Or would he have lured her in, too?
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