He had only just begun to sense the danger in his pleasure, in his reluctance to give her up to social success with others, when he turned straight into Alicia.
For an instant, the shock drove everything else from his head. He had not laid eyes on her in more than six years and the sight of her opened the floodgates to all the old emotions of blind adoration, loss, fury, and appalling humiliation. And the man who had caused it all stood beside her.
Well, he was older now, and wiser. He could not even be glad of the unhappiness he read in Alicia’s face. And he refused to give Dunstan any more satisfaction. And so, he murmured inanities, smiled, and got himself and Charlotte swiftly out of the toxic situation.
He hasn’t stopped. He’ll never stop…
Oh yes, he will. His own grim denial almost took him by surprise.
But he remembered his original plan and bowed to the Overtons with every respect as he left Charlotte with them and strolled away, to see what would happen. By the time he had travelled the length of the room and could glance surreptitiously in her direction, Harry Mauvern was sitting beside her chatting and two more young men hovered nearby waiting to be introduced.
Satisfied with the success of his plan, he looked around for Dunstan and was just in time to see him sauntering out of the room. Alicia was sitting with other young matrons, her eyes straying around the room. He averted his gaze and, bowing to a few acquaintances as he went, followed Dunstan out of the room.
The crowd in the hall had thinned out a little as more people entered the drawing room or the card room which had been set up on the other side of the hall, so Alvan could see at once that Dunstan wasn’t there. Nor was he in the card room.
Of course, Dunstan was staying there, and knew the house well. Alvan had no real idea where to look next. He entered the men’s cloakroom but found no sign of Dunstan. But he could not lose the idea that the viscount was up to something.
The cloakroom was on the edge of a dimly lit passage into a part of the house obviously not being used for the party. Alvan gazed down it for a moment. Just as he turned away, he was sure someone flitted across his line of vision, and on impulse, he walked down the passage, listening and glancing into rooms as he went.
It looked as if this was where the Laceys had stored the furniture moved from their drawing room for the party. There was also a rather fine-looking library, and there at last, by the light of one solitary lamp, he found Dunstan. He stood in the center of the room, one hand half-hidden in his pocket.
Alvan knew from his old friend’s sudden stillness that he had surprised him. “Dunstan,” he said neutrally.
Dunstan took his hand out of his pocket. “Your grace,” he mocked. “Have you come to fight with me? Again? Which lady will it be over this time? The pliable Lady Gordyn or the stunning Miss Maybury?”
Alvan chose an armchair in the shadows and stretched out his legs. “Neither.”
“Alvan,” Dunstan scolded. “I’m disappointed. Did it not move you to see the love of your life once more… or at least the lady you were so eager to ruin? As for Miss Maybury… I believe I might marry her myself. Or am I not rich enough for her papa?”
Alvan regarded him in silence until, inevitably, the familiar tiny tick twitched the corner of Dunstan’s eye. “Do you hear yourself?” Alvan asked. “Can you imagine what it’s like to listen to such a tirade? Anyone would imagine you totally without honor.”
The unflappable Dunstan took one hasty step in his direction. Even in the gloom, Alvan could make out the rising flush.
Alvan straightened. “And do you know what, Dunstan? They’d almost be right. Almost. You use women as weapons. The fact you use them against me is no excuse. For what it’s worth, you’re not hurting me, only them. And whatever trivial amounts of your once vaunted honor are still left to you.”
Dunstan’s eyes raged, although the rest of him was quite still once more. “Don’t you dare speak to me of honor—”
“Why?” Alvan interrupted. “Do you really believe it was honorable to bring Alicia here? To surprise me into some unwary speech that would reflect ill not on me but on her? The truth is, you did not care or even think about her. Only about discomfiting me.”
Dunstan curled his lip. “You do not haunt my thoughts as you seem to imagine. I did not bring her here. Mrs. Lacey invited her.”
“At your behest, I’m sure. In fact, I suspect the entire party was at your suggestion, to confound me, no doubt, before Miss Maybury.” Alvan rose to his feet. “You’re not really the great man you once aimed to be, are you? In fact, you’re becoming more like a pantomime villain. My fighting with you won’t change that. Fix it yourself, Dunstan, before you become the despised fool you want me to be.”
Alvan turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Dunstan let him go in silence, certainly through surprise, though Alvan hoped there was a trace of shame and understanding in there, too. Surely there was still something of his old friend in there?
Outside the door, Alvan paused. He had lectured Dunstan on his failings, but he had not acknowledged his own. He, too, bore some guilt for what the viscount had become. He should have at least tried to make that right years ago.
He turned back. In the library, Dunstan still stood where Alvan had left him, laying something on the table. A fat purse. Alarm bells began to ring inside Alvan’s head, growing louder when Dunstan turned and saw him. More than guilt stood out in the viscount’s face. There was fear.
As though in confirmation of Alvan’s own sudden fears, something clanked in the room next door, closely followed by a very human curse. There would be no servants in this part of the house during the party.
I think you should do all in your power to find Cornell, he had said to Dunstan yesterday.
I am, Dunstan had replied.
“You’re paying a ransom for Cornell,” Alvan uttered.
“What is it to you?” Dunstan snarled. “For God’s sake, take your damned, long nose out of my business.”
“They’re robbing the house as we stand here. Your host’s house.”
“And if I speak, Cornell will die,” Dunstan burst out.
“How do you know? Did you arrange the time and place of the ransom? Did they know there would be a party and half the house deserted?” Alvan read the answer in Dunstan’s face. “How did they know?” he said urgently. “If you didn’t tell them, Cornell did. He is in on it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Cornell is a gentleman! Taken at the Hart, as I’m sure you know!” Dunstan spoke contemptuously, but he dragged his hand through his hair, showing how rattled he was.
“Taken at the Hart pretending to be you,” Alvan pointed out grimly. “How do you imagine such an enterprising gentleman got out of that? By leading them to more riches as well as a ransom. How else would they know you feel responsible enough for him to pay up?”
“You may not like the man,” Dunstan snapped, “but he is my friend, and I won’t risk his life on your theory of the moment.”
“Oh, they’re still likely to kill him,” Alvan flung over his shoulder as he strode away. “He’ll be able to identify them.”
In the entrance hallway, two footmen were carrying trays toward the drawing room. Alvan stopped them with one imperious finger. “There are thieves in the house,” he said succinctly. “Summon all the servants you can, but take care. The robbers are probably armed. Send word to the stables, too. I’ll inform Mr. Lacey. Run!” he added more forcefully as they showed an inclination to gawp rather than obey. The footmen ran, the glasses clanking together on their trays.
Alvan found his host just inside the drawing room with a group of friends, and drew him aside.
“Good God,” Lacey spluttered when Alvan had told him bluntly that he was being robbed. “I’m a magistrate!”
“I’m sure that’s part of the attraction,” Alvan said wryly. He spotted Charlotte across the room, extracting herself from her admirers and making her determined way toward him. The girl had a nose
for trouble. God help him, he liked that about her, too.
“I’d send for help immediately,” Alvan advised. “For now, I’ll see what I can do with the aid of your servants, if you don’t mind.”
If Lacey found it odd that his noble guest of honor should take on thief-taking duties, he gave no sign of it, merely nodded, clearly too deep in his own outraged thoughts. With a curt nod, Alvan walked back the way he had come, past a defiant looking Dunstan who glared at him, until he reached the corner by the cloakroom. Then, he broke into a run.
Bulging canvas bags and carpet bags of all shapes and sizes now stood outside most of the rooms in the passage—no doubt all the stolen gewgaws waiting for collection. Someone bolted out of the library, snatched up the bag at the door, and ran toward the back of the house.
A whistle pierced the air. Alvan swept up the nearest bag, which was unexpectedly heavy, just as someone erupted from the doorway. Without hesitation, Alvan swung the bag into the thief’s head with a massive thunk. The man sprawled forward on the floor and lay still. Alvan seized his bag, too, and sprinted on. He laid about him with both bags as he went, collecting two as they erupted from doorways just ahead of him, and running hard to catch up with a third, who fell like a stone when Alvan caught his head between the two smashing bags.
At the next corner, a side-door lay open, clearly how the thieves were escaping. Alvan ran outside—and got a taste of his own medicine. Something hard crashed into his shoulder, knocking him sideways. As he staggered, he only just managed to fend off another blow by holding the bags in front of him. His attacker seized both bags and tugged.
Alvan held on grimly for a moment, then threw himself forward, releasing the tension so suddenly that his attacker fell back. Alvan, rushing forward with the same momentum, struck him on the way past. He didn’t have time to stop, for by the light of several flaring lanterns, he’d glimpsed the horsemen galloping across the lawn from the stables. Which he had to acknowledge was clever. They’d stolen their own fast means of escape, which they could sell later for considerable amounts of money in most cases.
But these were city thieves, not skilled horsemen. One, astride a fine bay stallion, veered away from the others, charging directly at Alvan, or perhaps his bags of stolen property. Alvan swerved to avoid being run down, and swung the bag. It glanced off the rider’s shoulder, but didn’t displace him.
Alvan dropped the bags and hurled himself at the rider, this time taking him by such surprise, that he managed to push him out of the saddle altogether. As the man fell with a cry of surprised rage, Alvan threw his leg over the beast’s back, turned it by wrenching on the reins, and hung low to snatch up the bags once more. Then, soothing the angry stallion at the same time, he galloped around the house to the front.
A few people had spilled outside onto the steps. Mr. Lacey, Lord Overton, and Dunstan, although inevitably, Charlotte was slipping through them, her attention divided between Alvan in one direction and the escaping riders in the other.
“Don’t even think it, Charlotte,” Alvan muttered beneath his breath. But of course, she did. After all, she wanted to be in at the end of the mystery that had begun at the deserted inn. She began to run toward him, clearly expecting him to take her up with him in the chase, which, of course, he had no intention of doing.
Alvan threw the bags of stolen goods to the ground where Lacey would see them, and urged the horse into a faster gallop. He saw the expression of furious disappointment on Charlotte’s face as he rode past her without waiting, and was sorry for it. She would have made a fun companion, but under no circumstances would be put her in such danger.
Too late, he saw the man looming out of the ornamental hedge only yards from where Charlotte stood, and rushing at her. The man carried a bulging satchel over his shoulder and a pistol in either hand. Whether the purpose was to take her hostage for their escape or for money, or simply to steal from her, Alvan could not guess and did not much care. Dragging on the reins, he wheeled the horse around and galloped straight back to Charlotte.
Wreathed in astonished smiles, she ran to meet him once more, her hand held up to him. Behind her, the man levelled his pistol.
Reaching down, Alvan grasped her hand and she sprang, her foot landing on his in the stirrup as the gun reported, and then he yanked her into the saddle while he shifted behind and kicked the stallion back into a gallop.
“Are you hit?” he demanded urgently. “Are you hurt?”
“No, no!” she assured him, peering over his shoulder. “He has disappeared under a positive pile of footmen who have disarmed him. How wonderful!”
Alvan pulled on the reins again. “Then, down you go, and back to your father.”
“Under no circumstances,” she said vehemently. “They’re getting away, and surely we need to know exactly which direction they take when they reach the crossroads over the hill?”
“Don’t be silly. You’re in evening dress without so much as a pelisse. It’s the middle of the night and they are desperate men.” And yet, even as he spoke the words, he did not halt the stallion altogether, for the sudden knowledge of what he actually wanted, what he actually could do, swept over him in a deluge.
He recognized it as one of those rare moments of insanity in his life, but it seemed there was nothing he could do to halt the wild, reckless elation.
She was everything he had ever dreamed of and more. And she liked him. It was the only way to change the inevitable and make everyone happy, and the chance might never come again.
He laughed aloud, causing her to gaze at him in pleased, breathless surprise.
“Very well,” he said. “Come. But you must do everything I tell you.”
*
Thomasina emerged on to the front steps escorted by Lord Dunstan.
“What on earth is going on?” she asked, bewildered. In the distance was an erratic trail of horsemen bolting across the country. Another rider galloped by much closer to the front of the house—and he looked astonishingly like the Duke of Alvan.
And then things really got bizarre, because the unmistakable figure of Charlotte in her slightly shabby evening dress ran across the terrace toward him. Thomasina let out a squeak of terror, because for an instant, it looked as if Charlie would run right in front of him and be trampled. Instead, the duke veered away and rode right past. But then, a second later, he wheeled around, reached down and hauled her into the saddle.
From somewhere came the crack of gunfire, which made Thomasina squeal again, just as a large number of Mr. Lacey’s servants fell on the man who had, presumably, let off the shot.
Equally as entranced, apparently, as Thomasina, no one had yet answered her question. Numbly, she blurted another that shattered her world. “Is the duke abducting Charlotte?”
“Probably,” Lord Dunstan drawled. “He has a history of it, you know.”
Chapter Eleven
Charlotte had known something was wrong from the moment she saw the duke draw Mr. Lacey away from his guests. So, she had slipped away from her new companions—whom she could only suppose sought her out to be introduced to one of her sisters. She followed Alvan to the dimly lit passage that led to the morning room, the library, and the study.
At first, she couldn’t imagine why the Laceys had left bags in the passage. And then, as she paused, frowning, Alvan had swept up two of them and swung them into a man emerging from the library. Under her stunned gaze, he’d charged down the passage, laying about him with the bags and knocking men over as he passed. That was when she understood the men were not servants but robbers. And she rather suspected they were the intruders from the Hart.
On impulse, she started after Alvan, with some vague idea of helping against the intruders. But the first man he’d struck down began to rise groggily to his feet, pulling a pistol from his belt.
Her stomach lurched in warning as his eyes met hers in fury. There was only one thing to do and she did it, fleeing from his sight, back across the main hall. A positive her
d of footmen were pouring out of the front door.
“What is it?” she demanded, seizing the arm of the last. “Where are you all going?”
“Robbers, Miss,” he said succinctly, pulling free. “Go to your family and stay inside.”
Resisting the urge to follow and satisfy her immediate curiosity, she hurried instead toward the drawing room. Here, she ran into her father and Mr. Lacey who were striding purposefully toward the door with Lord Dunstan close behind.
“Go to your mother,” her father ordered.
She almost did. But she knew Alvan was chasing the robbers in the direction of the side door and the servants were charging out the front. She wouldn’t have been human if she wasn’t tempted to see for herself. Besides, anxiety for Alvan clawed at her. This time, after only a moment’s hesitation, she followed the gentlemen across the hall and out on to the steps.
Which was how she came to see Alvan charging across the terrace on horseback, in pursuit of the stream of fleeing riders. Part of her wanted to laugh and yell encouragement in a most unladylike fashion, but in truth, the situation was far too serious.
Cries and thuds from all around the outside of the house told her that many of the thieves had been challenged, and one or two were already being marched away in captivity by the Laceys’ servants. But it wasn’t over. A movement by the terrace wall caught her eye and she glimpsed a pistol being aimed toward Alvan.
That was why she ran toward him at first, calling out her warning. But he couldn’t have heard her for the hammering hooves. She ran harder, suddenly desperate not just for his safety but for the thwarting of all the wretched villains. She had to know.
And though he swerved to avoid her at first, she did end up in the saddle in front of him, just as the gun went off. Her terror fizzled out as she realized no one had been hit and that the gunman had been caught by Lacey’s men.
The Deserted Heart: Unmarriageable Series (Unmarriagable Series Book 1) Page 11