“I’m listening.”
She drew a shaky breath. “I know the conditions we agreed upon. However, I shan’t give this baby over to you. I cannot bear to be separated from my own child.”
“As you wish.”
He answered so quickly, she looked at him uncertainly. “And that’s not all,” she ventured softly. “I should also like for us to be a family—you and I, Jenny and the baby.”
He gently splayed his fingers over her abdomen. A look of torturous longing lit his face. Then he closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them, all tenderness had vanished. She might have been gazing into dark, desolate blankness. “No, Emma,” he said in a fatalistic tone. “You ask the impossible.”
He released her, walking away to flatten his palms on the desk. The bow of his broad back spoke poignantly of his deep despair, a despair echoed in her own heart. She would not let him go. She could not.
Heedlessly, she ran to him. “Why? Do you regret losing Shalimar so much?”
Frowning, he turned his head. “No. She filled a place in my life once, a much-needed place. But we spoke a mutual farewell weeks ago, shortly after you and I had sealed our bargain.” He straightened, raking his fingers through his hair. “That cursed bargain. I was unspeakably cruel to you, Emma. When I think of how you must have suffered …”
A ray of hope shone into her heart. At least now she had an inkling of what tormented him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, loving him, willing him to love her back. “Oh, Lucas, if you refuse to live with me and our children, well, then, you’ll make me suffer for the remainder of my life. That would be unspeakably cruel.”
His hands tightened around her shoulders. His taut lips and lowered brow reflected his inner battle. “And you … do you regret losing Woodrow Hickey?”
She shook her head. “When I agreed to marry him, I was seeking a father for Jenny. For all his lies to me, he does love her. All along, he wanted Jenny, not me.”
Andrew lives on in her. Surely you can understand how precious she is to me.
Woodrow’s plea saddened Emma. She remembered the look of wild desolation on his face when Lucas had forbidden him to visit Jenny. Emma too was loath to let her child associate with the man who had tried to wreck her marriage. “Poor Woodrow,” she said. “He has nothing left now. It pains me to admit it, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know what he truly wanted.”
“Jenny,” Lucas said in a strange, harsh whisper. “He wants Jenny.”
Their gazes caught and held in a wordless exchange of dawning horror. The nape of her neck prickled. Emma began to shake. A terrible, fearful shaking.
She didn’t know Woodrow.
Lucas snatched up the branch of candles. He and Emma raced out of the library to the nearest staircase, the one used by the servants. The pounding of their feet echoed in the dim tunnel of the stairwell. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the top floor. Emma felt sluggish and slow, trapped in a nightmare. They were mistaken, she told herself in a litany. Mistaken.
They burst into the nursery. The banked fire cast a faint orange glow over the schoolroom with its tidy cupboards, the sturdy chairs and tables, the globe atop the bookcase. Hastening through the gloom of an opened door, Emma stopped short. The candelabrum in Lucas’s hand illuminated the cozy bedroom with its tasseled rose curtains, the miniature dressing table where Jenny liked to play grown-up, the four-poster bed trimmed in frilly lace.
And Emma’s nightmare changed to hideous reality. The bed was empty, the covers thrown back. The pillow held a small indentation where the little girl had rested her head.
Jenny was gone.
Chapter 24
Staving off panic, Lucas strode into the next room and awakened the nurse. The apple-cheeked woman expressed bewilderment over the disappearance of her charge. She struggled into her wrapper and declared the wee girl must have wandered off on some innocent task, perhaps to fetch her dear puppy a midnight treat.
Lucas harbored no such hope. With the faith of the innocent, Jenny trusted Woodrow Hickey. The scoundrel could have concocted any lie to convince her to leave the house with him.
“Dear God,” Emma whispered in the darkened schoolroom. “He can’t stay in England. He’ll spirit Jenny out of the country. I’ll never see my little girl again.” She seized hold of Lucas’s arm, her nails pressing into his flesh. “We must leave for Dover immediately. He’ll be at least an hour or more ahead of us. If they sail off to a foreign port on the morning tide, we’ll never find them!”
“Shh.” Subduing his own fears with difficulty, Lucas held her close and forced himself to think. A spark of hope burned in him. “Hickey would have acted on impulse,” he said. “He was distraught because I forbade him to see Jenny. That means he isn’t prepared to leave England.”
“You’re right,” Emma said, her voice catching. “He’ll need money, clothing, legal documents. He’ll surely stop at his town house.”
“Precisely. He won’t expect anyone to notice Jenny’s disappearance until morning.”
Lucas swiftly guided Emma down the stairs. The urge to protect her drummed in his chest. Yet he knew it would do no good to command Emma to stay behind, to keep herself safe. She would follow in an instant, risking all to save her daughter.
Their daughter. He felt as if blinders had been removed from his eyes. Jenny was his now as much as Emma’s. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to either of them. Never.
Assisted by a sleepy stable lad, Lucas had the curricle ready in record time. Dying bonfires illuminated the streets, a lucky happenstance as he sent horse and carriage careening through the night. Wrapped in a warm pelisse, Emma sat huddled against him. The cold wind slapped their faces, but Lucas dared not drive slower. Not when every moment counted.
He found himself praying for the first time in years. Punish me if You will, Lord. But spare Emma the agony of losing a child. She’s suffered too much already.
At last they arrived at the quiet residential road where Woodrow lived. To avoid alerting their quarry, Lucas stopped the curricle halfway down the street. No lights glinted in the front windows of Woodrow’s town house. No carriage waited out front for the flight to Dover.
They might have guessed wrong. The bastard might already be gone.
Lucas’s heart sank, but he kept the doubts out of his voice. “We’ll try around back.”
Emma nodded. Her face shone a pale oval against the darkness. She trusted him to rescue their daughter. Lucas only hoped he would not betray that faith.
His hands spanning her slim waist, he swung her down from the high perch. Fleetingly he wondered how many weeks would pass before her belly began to swell to beautiful roundness, making room for their baby. With a fierceness that shook him, he wanted to be with Emma every step of the way, to share the joy of anticipation, to watch their child thrive and grow.
He locked away his longing. There was no time for self-indulgence. They hastened through the night and reached the darkened mews behind the row of residences.
“Stay close to me,” he whispered.
He took her hand and quietly led the way through the narrow alley. A horse snorted in a stable nearby. The odors of manure and rubbish hung in the gloom. Emma’s fingers felt small and delicate nestled inside his palm. Yet for all her daintiness, she had an inner strength that set her apart from other women. How he loved her. No other lady of his acquaintance would have the pluck to accompany him on such a dangerous mission.
He spied Hickey’s town house, the third in the row. A fury of exultation jolted him as he saw an unattended horse, harnessed to a phaeton, outside the tiny stable. And just above the ground floor of the dwelling, a corner window glowed with a halo of light.
“They’re here.” Emma clutched his arm. “Oh, Lucas, Woodrow must be in his study. Jenny will be up there with him. Let’s go fetch her.”
As she started across the small yard, Lucas stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Wait. He’s a desperate man.
He may be dangerous.”
“He won’t hurt Jenny. I know he won’t.”
“But he could hurt you—shoot you,” Lucas whispered grimly. “Don’t forget, you stand in the way of what he wants. Now, you’ll remain here—”
“No!”
“Yes. I can’t protect both of you, and we daren’t risk Jenny being harmed.”
Through the fire of her fear, Emma acknowledged the logic of his words. Lucas stood before her, a big, black silhouette in the moonlight. They had not spared the time to change, and the garb of a maharajah only added to his aura of command. His hands were. gentle yet firm on her shoulders. She had to trust him. She did trust him.
“I’ll wait here,” she said reluctantly.
“I’ll bring Jenny to you,” Lucas said. “That’s a promise.”
After brushing a swift kiss to her lips, he was gone, a shadow stealing across the yard and through the rear door. Ah, he would make a grand thief, Emma thought with pride. She looked up, wanting to be certain he hadn’t been spotted. And she gasped.
The corner window was dark now. Woodrow and Jenny might be on their way downstairs. Tension gripped Emma. They might run straight into Lucas … .
Then to her relief she saw the light had moved higher. A glimmer appeared on the floor above, where the bedrooms were situated. Woodrow must be packing his valise. And Lucas wouldn’t know where they’d gone.
Emma wasted no time. Rushing to the back door, she slipped into the house. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom of a passageway. She knew the general layout of his house from her visit here, and with a burglar’s instinct she felt her way through the darkness to the stairs. At this late hour, the housekeeper would be fast asleep—in an attic bedroom, perhaps. Emma doubted the woman would be of much help, anyway. She was far more likely to side with her master than come to the aid of a stranger.
Hitching up her costume with dampened palms, Emma quietly climbed the steps to the first floor, which held the dining room, morning room, and study. She hastened from room to room, peering desperately through the shadows, but saw only the black lumps of furniture. Where was Lucas? Had he spied Woodrow on his way upstairs? She thought she detected the murmur of voices overhead.
It maddened her to think of Jenny, scared and bewildered, on the floor above. Dread thickened Emma’s throat. What if she were wrong about Woodrow? What if he abused her little girl?
She could not bear to wait. Finding the ornately carved newel post in the darkness, she gripped the balustrade and started to mount the steps.
Lucas crept along the upper passageway. Candlelight spilled from an opened door at the end of the corridor. He could hear the sound of voices. That deep, chiding tone belonged to Woodrow. Jenny’s incoherent reply had the whining quality of an overtired child.
Hot anger spurred Lucas. He’d like to string up the craven bastard by his cock. He forced himself to cool down and think. Whatever the cost, he must avoid frightening Jenny. He would subdue Woodrow, then turn him over to the magistrate. He doubted Woodrow would spill out the truth about why he’d kidnapped Jenny. Not when the news of his secret predilection would put a noose around his cowardly neck.
His fingers curled into fists, Lucas reached the doorway. A bedroom lay within, lit by a pair of candles, one on the mantelpiece, the other on the dressing table. His back to the door, Woodrow rummaged in an opened wardrobe. Jenny sat yawning on the bed, Sissy in her lap. The puppy spotted Lucas and yapped, tail wagging.
Holding an armload of shirts, Woodrow turned, his gaze on Jenny. “You must keep Sissy quiet, remember? We mustn’t wake Mrs. Quimby in the attic, though she’s a sound sleeper.”
But Jenny wasn’t looking at him. A big smile brightened her sleepy face. “Papa!”
Scrambling off the bed, she flung herself at Lucas. He caught both her and Sissy up in his arms. His throat knotted. Nothing in the world could match the sweetness of hugging his own little daughter. Andrew’s daughter, too. Without his seed, Jenny would not exist. That realization brought a searing ray of forgiveness into Lucas’s heart. He could not hate his brother, only pity him for never knowing Jenny.
“Sissy and me were missing you and Mama,” she chirped. “Are you going to the fireworks with me and Uncle Woodrow? He’s promised me a grand view.”
“We shall see.” Lucas set her down and smoothed his hand over the crown of her soft chestnut hair. “You wait a moment in here, sweet pea. I need to have a private word with … Uncle Woodrow.”
As she trudged back toward the bed, Lucas turned his gaze to her kidnapper. Woodrow stood by his opened valise, his arms clenched around the shirts, his gray eyes wary and watchful.
Seized by the raw urge to kill, Lucas jerked his head toward the corridor. “Step out here,” he said quietly. “Now.”
Woodrow bent with jerky movements to set down the shirts by the valise. Seething with frustrated fury, Lucas stood in the doorway and kept an eye on his quarry. Until he noticed the shrine on the bedside table. A candle shed light on a collection of military paraphernalia—a silver flask, a blue sash, a pair of white gloves. On the wall hung a small painting of Andrew, handsome and smiling in his cavalry uniform.
Lucas’s temples pounded. His gaze swung back to Woodrow, the bastard who had driven Andrew into madness and death. Lucas could scarcely wait to take the scoundrel into custody. It would be damned difficult not to beat him to a bloody pulp.
Yet he had to remember their audience. Jenny was too young, too sweet, to witness violence. He hadn’t had the chance to save her mother from brutality, but he could at least spare Jenny.
His face drawn and his eyes lowered, Woodrow plodded out of the bedroom. Lucas motioned him ahead, and the baronet meekly obeyed. Midway down the passageway, he whirled around, his hand inside his coat. He whipped out something that glinted in the dim light.
Before he could take more than a step, Lucas found himself gazing into the steely eye of a pistol. A smooth-barreled cavalry sidearm.
“Don’t be hasty,” he said, cursing his stupidity. “We must talk—”
“I’m afraid,” Woodrow broke in, “there’s really nothing for us to say.”
And he pulled the trigger.
Emma was halfway up the stairs when she heard a man’s guttural voice. A shot rang out. Followed by a crash and a thump.
She froze, her heart lurching madly. The noise had come from upstairs.
With a frenzied cry, Emma rushed up the steps. A light shone at the end of a dim passageway. It illuminated the man sprawled on the floor.
“Lucas,” she whispered.
Somehow she found herself beside him, on her knees, cradling his bloodied head in her lap. His eyes were closed, his face abnormally pale. Warmth seeped into her skirt. Blood. Her husband’s blood. It matted the side of his head and stained his blue robe.
Her own veins ran cold as ice as she moved her shaking hands over him. Was he breathing? Dear God. She couldn’t detect the rise and fall of his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Woodrow said. “Truly I am.”
His voice came to her from afar, swimming through a thick sea of horror. She looked up to see him standing over her. His elegant features wore a look of abject shock. Her gaze widened on the smoking pistol in his quavering hand.
“You shot him,” she said faintly.
“I had no choice. He wanted to take Lady Jenny from me.”
His words broke through Emma’s dazed senses. “Jenny. Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“She’s in there,” he said, pointing with the barrel of the pistol to a doorway. “She’s perfectly fine. You surely don’t think I would hurt her …”
Emma didn’t hear the rest. Leaving Lucas, she stumbled into a bedroom lit by a pair of candles. The garter-blue walls showcased the grand, gilded furnishings. A valise stood open on a chair, surrounded by tidy piles of clothing—folded cravats, starched linen shirts, pressed suits. A movement caught Emma’s attention. On the other side of the tester bed, two woefu
l pairs of eyes peeked out. Jenny, holding Sissy.
Emma ran and gathered them close, keenly aware of Jenny’s precious little form. Hugging her made the wrenching pain inside Emma more bearable.
Teary-eyed, the girl clung to her, and the puppy licked the two of them. “What happened?” Jenny asked fearfully. “Me and Sissy heard a loud bang.”
Her throat tight with anguish, Emma could only shake her head. How could she give her daughter nightmares by telling her the truth? “Shh. It was only a noise from the street. People are still celebrating.”
“But where’s Papa? He was just here.”
Emma swallowed hard, resisting the blackness of grief. “I’m afraid he … he had to go away suddenly.”
“I shall be your papa now,” Woodrow said, appearing in the doorway. “Just as I was always meant to be.”
His gaze met Emma’s. His gray eyes held a dangerous determination, a warning to her not to resist. Lest she suffer the same fate as Lucas.
“Aren’t we going to see the fireworks?” Jenny asked. Her lower lip quivered. “When you woke up me and Sissy, you promised we would.”
“I’m afraid we’re too late,” he said gently. “The fireworks are over.” He sat down at the dressing table and, with smooth efficiency, began to reload the pistol. “We must go on a long journey, dear child. We’ll see sights far more exciting than fireworks. The pyramids of Egypt. The châteaus of France. You can swim in the ocean and climb to the top of a mountain. Perhaps we’ll even buy a yacht, you and I. We’ll sail the seven seas …”
As he rambled on, his plans growing more and more grandiose, he used a long ramrod to push the ball down the barrel of his pistol. The sight of the gun unnerved Emma. She picked up Jenny and held her tightly. Woodrow was a murderer. He had killed Lucas.
Lucas!
She swallowed again, struggling valiantly to keep panic at bay. There would be no reasoning with Woodrow, not in his maddened state of mind. She could never again allow him near her cherished little girl. Never.
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