by Julia London
“But I canna leave her!” Grif exploded. “Lady Worthall has told this man that she’s come here many times without escort! Do ye know what life will be left to her once the whole bloody ton knows she’s called on me, a thief and a scoundrel, without chaperone or escort? She’ll be labeled a whore!”
“Ach!” Hugh cried, throwing his hands up in anger. “She brought it on her own head! She came here seeking ye, Grif, no’ the other way around!”
Another loud bump and scratch, and both men looked at the bookcase.
“I willna ruin her,” Grif said again.
“For the love of Criosd!” Hugh roared to the ceiling, then dropped his head and his shoulders and sighed. “Ach, love! It makes a grown man as barmy as a bloody bean!”
“We’ll split apart,” Grif suggested, ignoring him. “They’ll be looking for two men. Take one of the horses, and I’ll take Anna in the coach. We’ll meet in Scotland in a fortnight.”
“What, you think to arrive on yer mother’s doorstep with the woman ye stole from England? If ye love her, lad, at least do what ye must!”
Grif nodded, considering that. “We’ll meet in Gretna Green, then, in a fortnight. And if, for whatever reason, one of us doesna arrive in a forthnight, the other will wait a week, no more, then carry on, to Talla Dileas. Can ye do it, then?”
“Me?” Hugh cried, as the scratching and shouting got louder. “Ye are the one to contend with that!” he said, pointing impatiently at the bookcase. “I’ll be waiting for ye in Gretna Green, I will. But I’ll need a wee bit of coin.”
Grif strode to a small table at the end of the room, pulled open a drawer, and withdrew a leather pouch, from which he fished out several banknotes. “There ye are—half of what we’ve got left, then. What of Miss Brody?”
“I’ll give her a week’s wages,” he said, extending his hand for more money, “and send the lass home.” Grif looked skeptically at Hugh. Hugh gestured impatiently. “I’ve no’ lost me fool mind, lad. Only ye can claim that. I’ll send the lass home.”
Grif pulled a few more banknotes from the pouch; Hugh took the money and pocketed it. “Where is it, then?” he asked, looking around. “I’d have a look at the thing that will see me hanged.”
Grif walked across the room, picked up the satchel. “They say the beastie is cursed, that she’ll slip through the fingers of any Scot who tries to possess her, for she’s truly English at heart.”
A sharp crack on the other side of the bookcase startled them both. Grif quickly removed the beastie from the satchel and held it up. Hugh recoiled. “I’d leave it to the bloody English were I ye. She’s hideous.”
Grif nodded and quickly wrapped it again, stuffed it in the satchel, and put it aside. “I’ll meet ye in Gretna Green in a fortnight. Godspeed to ye, lad.”
Another muffled scream and Hugh shook his head. “I wish ye Godspeed and the protection of the saints, for ye’ll need it all yer days.”
“Aye, that,” Grif sighed, and looked at the wall. “Ere ye go, would ye lend a hand?” he asked, nodding at the wall.
Hugh snorted.
Grif removed his neckcloth, frowning at the sound of her muffled shouts. “God in heaven, have mercy on me soul,” he muttered, “and forgive me for what I am about to do.” With a look at Hugh, he walked across the room, pushed the panel that sprung the bookcase.
As it swung open, Anna came tumbling out of the old wall safe, her pretty gown mussed with dust in a few places, a cobweb in her hair. But her eyes were on fire, and she whirled around, glaring at the two of them. “I beg your pardon, but it was rather close in there! Nevertheless, I am certain I heard you say you intend to kidnap me! Did you say as much?”
Grif wound the neckcloth partially around one hand.
Anna glanced at the neckcloth, then at Hugh, who stood casually before the open door. “You can’t carry me off like a bit of chattel!” she cried, backing up. “My father is a very powerful man, I’ll have you know, and he will look for you everywhere, and he will find you, and then, you bloody fool, you’ll be hanging by your neck!”
Grif walked toward her; Anna instantly backed up. “What are you doing?” she cried.
“I must do it, leannan, and pray that one day ye might see yer way to forgive me.”
Anna opened her mouth to shriek, but Grif had been trained by the best—his brother, Captain Liam Lockhart. He managed to get the neckcloth into her mouth and twirl her about while Hugh grabbed her arms.
And the fight was begun.
Twenty-eight
A nna had no idea where they were, or how long she’d been on the floor of the coach wrapped in some sort of carpet, which, incidentally, smelled as if a dog had once called it home. The least he might have done was to find a clean carpet.
Her hands, tied behind her back, hurt awfully, and her shoulders ached. She desperately wanted to sleep, but she was terribly uncomfortable. They’d been traveling a while; she had bumps and bruises from every rut to prove it.
She hoped that he had at least remembered her pelisse and gloves in this ridiculous abduction.
Anna was angrier than she’d ever been in her life. She was mortified, a little frightened, and desperate to escape this unconscionable attempt to kidnap the daughter of an important lord!
But there was no possibility of escape—not like this, not wrapped in a carpet with her hands bound behind her back. Images of her parents kept flashing in her mind, horrified at the news she’d been abducted, or worse, horrified, if anyone suggested it, that she’d gone off willingly. When she got out of this bloody carpet, she’d tear Griffin Finnius Lockhart limb from limb and feed him to her dogs.
And really, what in God’s name did he intend to do with her? If only he’d stop and let her out of this horrid carpet, she would ask him what he intended and, furthermore, suggest a few things.
Until that happy moment, apparently, she’d be forced to endure the agony of bumping about the interior of an old coach that had not even a single spring as far as she could tell, and feeling absolutely faint with hunger.
She must have fallen asleep; the next thing she knew, she was being abruptly tossed back and forth between the two benches, rolling like a log as the coach made a series of sharp turns. But then the coach came to a complete halt. At last! She hoped it was an inn of quality, where they might have a hearty dinner. And a bath! Oh yeesss, a hot, steaming, scented bath.
The coach bounced a little with the weight of someone climbing down from the driver’s bench. Anna tried to move herself around so that she could see out the top of the carpet tube she was in. But she couldn’t budge—it seemed as if part of the carpet was stuck somehow. There was more jostling about, and she could hear one of the horses neighing. At last, the door opened after what seemed another eternity. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear and smell the rain.
“Quite awful out,” Grif said, climbing into the coach and, apparently, stepping over her as he took a seat on one of the benches.
And then she felt the weight of something on her hip. What was that, his bloody boot? Anna wriggled furiously, trying to knock his boot off her hip, but he pressed down.
“Stop that, Anna.”
And what in heaven’s name did he expect? She was trussed up like a Christmas pig! “Uuuh,” she shouted against his neckcloth that was bound around her mouth.
He nudged her, annoying her to no end. “Aye, I know ye are quite alive and quite vexed, and Diah, I can hardly blame ye, can I? ’Tis no’ every day that a lass is taken from the bosom of her family.”
Certainly not, and if he’d just let her out of this carpet—she jerked hard again to indicate that he should free her, and he instantly put a foot on her hip again, stilling her. “Calm yerself, Anna,” he said sternly.
She would strangle him. Squeeze his neck until his head popped off—
“Now, then. As to where we are…” He paused then, and Anna shrieked against the neckcloth for him to let her up, but he only increased the pressure. “W
e have passed through St. Albans, which means, of course, that it would be near to impossible for ye to find yer way home were ye of a mind to escape.”
Oh, honestly! All right, but what about food? And an inn? If she couldn’t escape, why couldn’t he let her out of the carpet? Anna bucked with all her strength again against his foot, and succeeded in dislodging it and rolling onto her stomach. But then he was suddenly on top of her, straddling her, squeezing his muscular legs tightly around her, and stifling what little breath was left in her after her monumental struggle.
“We’ll no’ have another round of scuffling and squabbling, do ye hear me, lass? I’m right tired, I am, and soaked through to me drawers, for ’tis raining like the end of all time. The fact is, Anna, ye are in a wee bit of a predicament, and the best ye might do for yerself is to act a lady and make the most of it, aye?”
A lady. A lady? After kidnapping her and putting her in this wretched carpet with his neckcloth in her mouth and something terribly stiff and scratchy around her wrists and ankles, he would think to lecture her on decorum? Fury renewed her strength to that of ten men, and she was suddenly kicking and squirming all at once, trying again to dislodge him, to get out of that ridiculous carpet and explain to him that yes, she did indeed understand she was quite kidnapped, but that the least he could do given his unconscionable crime was to untie her and feed her, for Chrissakes!
“Ach, did ye hear a word I said, then?” he exclaimed, and put his hands on her back, pressing down, holding her still. “Give me yer word ye’ll behave and I’ll free ye from the carpet. If I’ve yer word, wiggle yer bum a wee bit.”
She’d die before she’d wiggle anything for him, the rotten bounder.
He sighed, then abruptly lifted off of her. There was a bit of grunting and moving about, and suddenly she was shoved up on her side, and then rolled onto her belly again. She heard the coach door open, heard the rain falling, and suddenly the carpet was pulled free of her body.
Still on her belly, she screamed through the gag at him, but Grif ignored her and struggled to pull the carpet out of the interior. Then there was more bouncing around as he obviously put it on the back running board.
More important, she saw no evidence of an inn. She could see no evidence of anything. It was absolutely pitch-black outside the coach, and it seemed as if they were miles and miles from any sort of life.
No food! No lovely country inn where they might dine. No hot bath! Her fury pounded like a drum in her chest and ears.
Grif appeared in the doorway and climbed inside, closing the door behind him. He leaned over Anna, slipped his hands beneath her arms, and easily hoisted her up like a sack of grain, propping her up on the bench across from him. A thick strand of hair had fallen from her coif and was lying, annoyingly, over her eye. And her gown, her perfect rose day gown, felt oddly twisted about on her body. Worse, as she looked down at her shoes, she noticed one of them had a horrible gray stain that covered the toe. Her specially made shoes.
That was the last straw. He might have kidnapped her, but he didn’t have to be so intolerably crude about it. She slowly raised her gaze and glared daggers at Grif.
He smiled a bit impishly. “Kidnapping, it would seem, is no’ exactly tidy.”
“Not exactly tidy?” she screamed against her gag with such force that she actually levitated off the bench, and then fell back against the squabs.
Grif leaned forward, propped his hands on his knees. “That willna help, all the squiggling about,” he said, gesturing in what she assumed was a squiggly way. “There’s naugh’ that can be done for it now. It is what it is.”
Oh, how very profound, Anna thought, glaring at him still, and tried to twist around and show him her hands, hoping to make him understand she wanted to be untied.
“I know ye want me to untie ye now,” he said, surprising Anna. “But I must explain something to ye first, about the beastie.”
Oh no, not that bloody gargoyle! Was he blind? Could he not see how uncomfortable she was?
“The beastie, as I told ye, is worth a fortune. A fortune large enough that the thing has been stolen back and forth across the Scots border many times, and has been since the days of Culloden.”
Anna groaned to the ceiling of the coach. This was hardly the time to review the history of that blasted thing!
“I tell ye this, lass, so I might defend why I kidnapped ye. Our family is in rather dire financial straits, what with all the sheep…’Tis quite complicated, really, so we’ll just leave it at this—the beastie rightfully belongs to us, and we desperately need the money she’ll bring to save our home, Talla Dileas. But the beastie, ye see, she was in England when we needed her. So me brother, Liam, came to retrieve her last Season.”
Had he heard even a word she’d ever said? She knew this. She’d told him so and tried to kick him now with her bound feet for not listening to her.
“Aye, but he was distracted by a woman, he was. Perhaps ye know her, then…Ellie Farnsworth? And she has a wee lass, Natalie.”
Ellie Farnsworth? Anna stopped squirming, her eyes wide. How exciting and how romantic that it was true—Miss Farnsworth had run off with the captain!
“Aye, I can tell by the look of ye that ye’ve suspected the truth. There was a wee bit of wrangling for the beastie between them—Ellie needed it to escape her father, and, well, she stole it from Liam, she did, and sold it to Lady Battenkirk for a paltry sum.” His face darkened for a moment, but then he leaned back and said, with a flick of his wrist, “Ach, she didna understand what she did—nevertheless, the only thing the lass knew in all certainty was that Lady Battenkirk intended it as a gift for her friend Amelia.”
Yes, yes, she had discovered who Amelia was, how could he have forgotten? She tried to express her desire to speak by inching forward on the bench until her knees were touching Grif’s, but he did not seem to notice, was too determined to prattle on.
“So then Hugh and I came to fetch it …Well, there are quite a lot of details I’ll spare ye, but the point is, ye found it ere I did, which left me with no choice but to endure yer demands because of how important the beastie is to me family. Ye must understand, Anna— had the situation no’ been so bloody important, I wouldna have agreed to help ye seduce a man, aye? That’s a very wicked thing to do—but then ye held me captive with that bloody beastie!”
She felt an ugly twist in her belly at the word captive. Well, then, they were quite even on that score, weren’t they? she thought, and lifted her chin.
But then Grif bowed his head, dragged his hands through his hair, and said, low, “It was a wicked thing to do, aye, because ye also held me bloody heart captive.”
Anna’s heart stopped pounding for a moment. Then started again in earnest. She screamed against her gag.
“Aye, ’tis true!” Grif said crossly at her scream. “While I was teaching ye to seduce me cousin, I was falling in love with ye, damn it all! I donna know how it happened, for I didna care for ye in the least in the beginning—I thought ye impossibly bold,” he said, waving his hand at her. “And then, as if by magic, one day I was… well, I was bloody well staggered by yer grace and beauty, I was. Just like that, it seemed. And it’s only gotten worse.”
Staggered. By her. A tear trickled from the corner of Anna’s eye. If that was what he’d felt, why, then, had he kept such a distance from her?
“I couldna say as much, could I?” he said, reading her thoughts. “I couldna offer ye the sort of life ye had or deserved. I couldna offer ye even a fraction of what Lockhart could provide. I had nothing, really, but me heart to give ye. Aye, but I’m no’ fool, Anna. A heart is no’ the tender used to win a lady’s hand.”
Yes, yes, yes it is, you stupid, stupid man! she screamed against her gag.
“Calm yerself, lass. I was set to let ye go, I was, but then that bastard Lockhart called, and he knew ye had come to me, and more than once, thanks to that meddlesome old cow, Lady Worthall. I knew then and there that there would be no end o
f it for ye. The ton would never forgive ye—they would label ye a whore.”
Anna tried to kick him, to make him look at her and understand she wanted to speak, but he put his hands on her knees and held her there.
“Regardless of what ye might think of him, Anna, I believe Lockhart would have seen ye ruined. I couldna leave ye to that fate, no’ having put ye in it.”
When would he stop speaking? In a desperate fit of frustration, she threw herself back against the squabs as tears slid down her face.
“ ‘Tis no’ happy news, I understand,” he said sadly, his voice trailing off. “I know how confused ye must be. But I give ye me word that I’ll do all in me power to make it up to ye. I swear it, Anna.”
Then, by some miracle, he leaned across the coach, his hands slipping behind her back and pulling her up. He pushed her up to the edge of the bench, helped her to turn partially, and untied her hands. The moment the ties were off, Anna grabbed her wrists, rubbed them tearfully for a moment, then reached up behind her head, untied the blasted neckcloth, and spit it from her mouth. “You… you are such a fool!” she sobbed, and angrily shot forward, striking him in the chest with her fist as hard as she could.
Grif did not even flinch. “Aye,” he said sadly.
His reaction infuriated her. “Dear God, how could one man be so…so ignorant?” she cried, and struck him again, but this time he caught her by the wrist.
“I’ll take it once, but no’ twice,” he warned her.
Anna ignored him and kicked him hard in the shin. With a yelp, Grif let go her arm to grab his shin. “You’ll take it until I am quite done, you bloody fool!” she shouted at him.
“Anna!” he shouted, and deftly grabbed both her wrists.
“A bloody fool!” she sobbed. “And blind! I think you should see a physician straightaway about your sight, sir, for only a blind man or an imbecile would not be able to see how much I love you, and have loved you! Could you not deduce that I kept that wretched gargoyle in my wardrobe for as long as I did just so that I’d have an excuse to see you?”