by Laura Parker
The boy nodded. “What do ye want o’ me?”
Jack ignored his question. “Once you leave here, set out on foot along the byway to the south. A man as tall as an oak and dark as the night will meet you. You are to go with him and do exactly as he says.” Seeing the guile of deception enter the boy’s gaze, he added, “If you do not, he will murder you with my blessing.” He shifted his greatcoat so that the younger man could see the pistol sticking out from his belt. “Now do we understand one another?”
The boy swallowed and nodded.
“Good.” He turned and walked as far as the door before he thought to ask, “What is your name?”
“John.”
Jack threw back his head in silent laughter.
Sabrina faced her hostess with a white face of barely contained rage. “So then, it has come to this. I will not do it! I will not!”
Lotte watched in mute sympathy as Sabrina crushed the letter between her hands. The girl had read to her the pertinent portions of the letter that had arrived the night before from her guardian. No innocent prisoner condemned to the gallows had ever looked more righteously indignant in her doom. Every rigid line of the girl bespoke her horror and disdain for the events about to overtake her.
“Perhaps he can be persuaded to reconsider,” she said finally.
Sabrina turned abruptly from the window out of which she had been staring at the setting sun, the hem of her gown rustling as she began to pace. “He has signed the marriage contract. There will be no turning back. Cousin Robert and Lord Merripace will presently be in Bath and I am to prepare myself for the marriage ceremony forthwith.”
“Surely he cannot mean to marry you out-of-hand, like some common— ah, some poor unbred chit.” Lotte pinkened at her faux pas but continued in her line of thinking. “I shall insist on throwing the wedding myself. He cannot deny me, a countess, the pleasure of the exercise. But there are so many things to be done in order to host a proper wedding.”
Nothing pleased Lotte more than the prospect of a party, even better if she were in charge of it. “If Lord Randolph had more amusing friends, I should find excuses to entertain frequently. But there, I stray. ’Tis late in the season. Everyone will have already abandoned London for the shooting in Scotland and will remain away until after the first of the year. I don’t see how a respectable wedding can be arranged in less than six months.” She smiled brightly at her device. “Engagements among the aristocracy have been known to endure some years before the ceremony.”
“Cousin Robert will not be denied the ceremony,” Sabrina answered shortly. “He’s bringing a parson with him for the express purpose of holding the ceremony within the hour of his arrival.”
“You don’t say? He is remarkably formidable.”
“For a commoner?” Sabrina suggested saucily.
Lotte dismissed the jibe with a feathery motion of her hand. “I am certain there are a number of capable people among the common stock.” She smiled most persuasively. “Have I not found much good company in you?”
Sabrina redirected her thoughts from the trap that lay before her to her hostess, who looked remarkably fit in a gown of green and gold. “I’m glad to see your smile, Countess. You are feeling better?”
A dreamy absent look came into Lotte’s face, making her seem a dozen years younger. “I suppose I am,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know precisely what I am.” She added briskly, “But I do not wish to discuss it.”
Nor did Sabrina. A few hours earlier in this very room she had believed that with Jack Laughton’s help she would succeed in her plan to free Kit despite all barriers. Now, like the hot breath of the coach horses that were no doubt being whipped along the highway on the orders of her impatient guardian, she could feel disaster overtaking her.
She glanced down at the foolscap she had wadded up in her hands and wondered how much time she had left. A day, only a few hours? What was remarkable was that Cousin Robert had bothered to write at all. But then, he was ever seeking methods by which to chastise and humble her. Perhaps it pleased him to shrive her with the thought that doom rode hard upon the heels of its delivery.
“I have been ordered to return to Mrs. Noyes’ cottage at once.”
“I do not see why that’s necessary,” Lotte answered peevishly. “After all, I’ve not been well and need the comfort of your pretty face about me.”
Sabrina smiled at this outrageous statement. “You are not an ailing housebound patient, Countess. Now that you are feeling well enough, you may attend the theater, or a musical evening, even play a hand of cards with any of the number of hostesses who’ve invited you out for the evening.”
“A hand of cards would be nice,” Lotte said wistfully.
Yet, in truth, she had found the idea of gambling less compelling with every day. There were other matters on her mind, matters that concerned most readily her absent and very silent husband.
It had come to her as she lay exhausted and miserable in her lonely single bed these past days that perhaps she had done wrong in running away. Perhaps she should not have abandoned Ran to the clutches of the scheming, conniving, unscrupulous wanton he had so thoughtlessly and foolishly allowed to ensnare him in her carnal web.
Poor darling, wonderful, dunce-headed Ran. She did love him, so much it was a pain in her middle, a sweet, deliciously sharp pain she would willingly die from if he would but hold her in his strong arms until she expired.
A brief knock at the door and the countess’s bid to enter produced a servant girl with saucer-wide eyes.
“There’s a very large and dark person at the servants’ door, ma’am, who wishes to speak with Miss Lyndsey.”
“A ‘dark’ person, did you say?”
“Yes, ma’am. Black as your shadow. Gives a person quite a turn, he does, ma’am.”
Lotte’s expression cleared. “But of course. That will be Lord Darlington’s extraordinary personal servant. I believe his name is Zoo—? Que—? Hmm. It escapes me. Nevertheless, show him in.”
“He won’t come in. He said as much. Wants only to speak to Miss Lyndsey.”
“I will go,” Sabrina answered and hurried out of the room before Lotte could halt her.
Sabrina waited until she reached the gloom of the hallway to release her smile. Lord Darlington had news for her! As proud as the viscount was, it could only be good news. And that meant there might yet be a way to thwart Cousin Robert.
As she followed the maid into the depths of the servants’ quarters, a place in this house she had never before visited, she wondered how Darlington had accomplished his task so easily and then chuckled. He was nothing if not masterful, a man who knew what he wanted and one equally adept at winning by charm or by force.
She had not been able to sleep at all after he left her. She had paced her bedroom seeking any distraction from the wild unruly fantasies that had seized her mind in the aftermath of their tempestuous embraces. Could it be that she was truly and deeply stirred by Lord Darlington? Had she, too proud to believe in love, fallen for the very last man she would ever have expected to elicit her most tender feelings? How foolish. How like herself!
Impulsive, rash, daring with more courage than sense, she had lived the last years of her life by whim and defiance. Yet her escapades of the past were nothing compared to risking her heart with a man like Jack Laughton.
She laughed suddenly, the pealing sounds ringing on the cold stones of the basement walls. It served her right. No, it was perfect justice. She who had disdained the very notion had fallen in—love? lust?—with a man who could love nothing and no one.
“He’s just there, miss, in the garden,” the maid said at last and stopped to point to a darkened hallway with the kitchen door at the end of it, ajar.
“Very well, you may go.” Sabrina took the candlestick from the girl.
She waited until the maid’s footsteps had retreated down the hall before she stepped forward and opened the door
wide. At first she saw nothing. Disappointment arrowed through her, sharp as a needle’s prick. “Yes? Hello? Are you there?”
The colossal form that appeared from the garden shadow snatched her breath. For the space of two heartbeats she did not recognize the form as merely human. And then he smiled, a wide generous span that steadied her nerves.
“I bring you greetings, mistress, from my lord,” he said in tones so deep they seemed to resonate in his chest. “You will do him the honor of reading his note?”
Sabrina stared at the man revealed by the limpid halo of her candle a few seconds longer, fascinated by the enormous, ebony-skinned man who spoke with great courtesy and good humor. This obliging man served the uncivil Darlington? It seemed impossible.
“Mistess, the note?”
“Of course.” She took from his hand the small, folded scrap of paper.
The cryptic note read:
Come with the messenger. He is free. Proof awaits.
Scratched below it with the slash of a pen was a single bold “J.”
She refolded the note and lifted her head with a smile. “Your lord is an intrepid and resourceful soul.”
The large man merely nodded once with great solemnity.
“I am to come with you. But what shall I tell the countess? No, never mind,” she added as her mind began to work.
She would tell the countess that she must inform Mrs. Noyes of her guardian’s imminent arrival. That way she would be allowed to go out alone. “Wait here. I will be a few minutes.” She smiled briefly at the huge man. “You will wait?”
“Like the night upon the dawn,” he answered in his softly modulated basso.
Sabrina smiled in spite of herself. “You could give your master lessons in flattery.”
Once up in her room she debated some minutes how to dress. In the end she chose the riding habit of a deep blue, which fortuitously her guardian had had packed for her. It was woolen and durable and would withstand a long journey through the bitter days of autumn. For she had decided what she was going to do. She would ride for Scotland with Blackjack this very night, if he would take her.
“He must,” she whispered to the kitten that sat on her bed watching attentively as her flustered mistress hurriedly worked the last of the brass buttons through their holes in her tight-fitting jacket.
Rather than wait in Bath, as she had originally planned, while the highwayman found and brought Kit back here to her, she would go with the outlaw to Scotland and escape with Kit from there!
“It is a much sounder plan than you think,” she admonished the kitten who had lost interest the process and turned to grooming one small paw.
Cousin Robert was on his way, might even arrive this every night. When he did, she would be gone without a trace or an explanation. Let him then try to wed Merripace to her shadow!
When she had pushed her feet into her stiff new riding boots and then packed a few essentials into her portmanteau, she knelt on the floor beside her bed and thrust her hands under the feather tick. She smiled as her fingers found and curled over the items she sought and then she pulled them out. Her booty contained her precious pearls and Blackjack’s pistol.
“He will be pleased to know we are armed,” she said to the kitten who had come forward to rub her head against her mistress’s cheek. “Oh, little one, I wish that I could take you with me, but where I am going there will be no room for kittens. The countess is a generous lady. She will see to your care.” She bent and kissed the fluffy head. “Now, you must promise not to cry and rouse suspicions before morning. Promise?”
Jack waited in the shadow of the house across the square until Sabrina had stepped into the sedan chair Zuberi had purchased for her. He knew she was perfectly safe in his servant’s care, yet he wished he did not need to make her wait for him even as long as it would take him to finish his self-imposed errands. Seeing the countess was the last of them.
As the bearers set off with Zuberi as escort, he noticed his servant carried a portmanteau. Doubtless, it belonged to Miss Lyndsey. He had noticed that she was dressed for traveling in a riding habit and the great cloak she had worn the night he attacked her coach. Yet there was no need for luggage on this occasion unless …
“What now does the minx have in mind?”
He crossed the square in long purposeful strides, uncaring that it might be noticed that the Viscount Darlington was paying a visit upon the Countess Lovelace. Whatever rumor sprung up in the wake of his footsteps on this night could only distract from his real intent this night.
“I do not ask for nor want your approval in the matter.”
“She is so young, so innocent.” Lotte emphasized that last word with a significant lift of her copper-bright brows.
“It is my intent that she shall be a great deal less so by dawn,” Jack replied coolly.
His frankness drew a harsh glance from Lotte. The last thing she had expected when the arrival of Lord Darlington had been announced was that he had come to tell her that he was absconding with her companion for a night of debauchery.
“I cannot condone this. To admit to me that you intend to corrupt my companion!”
“Yet you do suppose that seduction at my hands will not be a fate worse than death?” The suggestion ignited and smoldered behind his light eyes. “At one time, you were the object of my dishonorable attention,” he lied, in hopes of distracting her.
“Really?”
Lotte’s guileless question drew his laughter. “You proved rather too great a temptation.”
“I don’t understand.” She sounded injured by the idea that anything she might be should shoo him away.
He had come to be kind. “Let us just say that you are too good for me. I felt the danger of sentiment lurking behind the seduction.” He smiled his most beautiful, heart-startling smile. “I am, as you know, heartless. You might have ruined my credit as a rake.”
It was a pretty speech, unlike his usual acid-tongued remarks. Lotte could find no fault in it, nor any way to answer it in kind. He was, as she had always suspected, a shade too clever and irreverent for her. “You have a facile tongue, Darlington.”
He took her hand in both of his. “Jack, for tonight. This one last time, let me hear you call me Jack.”
She blushed the high strawberry color of which only true redheads are capable. “Very well, Jack.”
“Ah, you see, a liaison between us would have ruined us both.”
“You are a great flatterer and deceiver, my lord,” Lotte answered with the proper amount of reproach due a gentleman who had propositioned a lady, however indirectly.
“I thank you for seeing me for what I am. And still liking me a little despite it.”
“I suppose you had better go now,” she said in a tone so regretful she blushed again.
Jack brought her unresisting hand to his lips and placed a lingering kiss on first the back of it and then the inside of her wrist. From the corner of his eye he saw her lips part as his own touched that sensitive inner skin and he chuckled inwardly. Perhaps he was being a greater fool than he realized. How ripe she would be for the plucking, if her heart did not belong to someone else.
He straightened quickly. “When do you intend to tell your husband?”
Lotte blinked rapidly, her red-gold lashes fanning her overheated cheeks. “What can you mean?”
“If the signs be right, you will in spring deliver to the earl his first child.”
Her eyes widened alarmingly and then her mouth crumpled. “Oh! Oh!” She gripped his hand with surprising strength. “How did you know? It is common rumor even now?”
The sudden change alarmed Jack. “ ’Twas a lucky guess on my part.” As her stricken gaze swept up to his in trepidation he nodded reassuringly. “I played a long shot, Countess. But I am right, am I not?”
“Yes! Yes,” she repeated more softly. “And I don’t know what to do.”
“Go home and delight your husb
and with the news.”
She shook her head so vigorously her powdered curls raised a mist about her head. “You do not understand. He will not welcome it. That is, he might have, before now.”
Jack said in his most jaded voice, “Then you have taken a lover.”
“Not quite.” She glanced up guilty at him. “We had a most horrible misunderstanding. And my gaming debts and … and other things.”
She took a deep bracing breath. “Lord Randolph has taken a mistress. Yet he forbids me to console myself with friends!” A bit of the old provoking spirit flashed in her blue eyes. “I might have said something about someone else to lead him to believe that I would not sit docilely by while he dallies his fill.”
Jack had played this scene too many times to appear innocent in the matter. It explained at once Randolph Lovelace’s enmity and hunger to run him through. “Your husband believes we are lovers.”
Lotte’s legs trembled so hard she staggered. Even so, she angrily batted away Jack’s hand as he tried to steady her.
“Oh, but this is a pretty coil!” She took several quick steps away from him toward the window at the front of the salon and then spun about. “I have done nothing—well, very little. And now I am ruined.”
Jack hid his inclination to exercise his amusement at her expense. He could guess that Lotte had said and done enough to inflame her husband’s ardor and jealousy. At the moment he would have liked to give her a good shaking for her foolishness. She was, after all, indirectly the reason he had left of London.
He approached and touched her gently, taking her by the upper arms. He was amazed when she came willingly in against him and lay her cheek upon his coat front.
“I thought Ran would have come for me long before this,” she whispered unhappily. “He should have. A husband should pursue his wife.” She hiccuped, but it sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Unless he no longer cares.”
Jack cradled her head in one hand and patted her back with the other, feeling a thousand years older than the blithe spirit he held. “Go home, Lotte.”