“What is it?” Henry asked, noting his concern.
“Amelia has suspected that something was not right about all of this from the moment that Grace was taken, in as much as our sister being kidnapped is wrong in every way, but something more than that.”
“Yes, I have come to hold great respect for her instincts and abilities in the past weeks. She has proven herself more than capable.”
“Aye, the lass is a strong canny one tae be sure,” Malcolm agreed coming up to ride beside them now that they were out of sight of Canterley Manor. Fergus did the same. “I share her reservations on the matter, lads. I cannae help but feel that we are ridin’ in tae a trap and leavin’ the Lady Amelia unguarded tae fend for herself.”
“Tristan will not leave her alone no matter what my father has said. He will find a way to keep watch over her without Father knowing,” Jonathan reassured him. “I apologize for the deception of your being a servant under our employ. Father would not have tolerated your presence otherwise.”
“Och, away with ye. Dinnae fash.” Malcolm shooed Jonathan’s apology away with his hand. “’Tis nae needed. I ken well enough that it was a needed deception.”
“I agree with Malcolm. I dinnae like leavin’ the Lady Amelia after all that has happened,” Fergus murmured. “Tristan is a good man tae be sure, but he cannae protect her from what he cannae see.” They all knew that he was referring to the poisoning incident.
“We must trust that she will be well and concentrate on retrieving Grace, unharmed. We must leave both of my sisters in the care of God’s hands and do our part the best that we know how.”
Henry frowned in anger at the thought. “Where was God when the brigands took my Grace?”
“She is alive, Henry, and I for one choose to thank God for that, no matter what led to her capture.”
Henry sighed and nodded, but he could not escape the feeling of betrayal that such thoughts evoked in him. He feared it would be a long time before he and God were once again on speaking terms. He knew such thoughts were blasphemous, but he could not bring himself to care. Sitting in Mousa Broch after having missed Grace by so short a time had left what remained of his heart and faith in tatters. He would not draw an easy breath until she was safe in his arms, but it would take an even longer time before he was able to move past everything that had happened.
Will Grace be able to recover from whatever horrors she has been forced to face at the hands of these scoundrels? The thought of everything that she had possibly been forced to endure caused a chill to shoot up his spine with such ferocity that he could barely breath. Clenching his teeth in barely-concealed fear and fury, Henry fixed his eyes on the horizon, determinedly turning his thoughts back to the task at hand. What may come, may come. Until then I will stand resolute in hope for both of us.
* * *
Amelia sat in her room and stared out of the window at the darkness. The men had left at day break with the ransom money, their faces set in determination for the task ahead. Amelia had watched them go with tears in her eyes until they had disappeared from view. Her father had locked himself away in the library and Amelia had gone below stairs to garner what comfort she could from Mrs. O’ Boyle’s presence. Now as she stood in her bedroom, the house silent around her, she could not escape herself.
Something is wrong. I can feel it in the marrow of my bones. Even with confirmation that Grace did indeed still walk among the living, she had not been able to rid herself of the dread that had threatened to overtake her soul since the very beginning of their ordeal.
The men would need to travel three days to the meeting point and had been sure to leave three days earlier than needed to allow for anything that might befall them along the way. It would be over a week before she would know for sure whether Grace had been returned as promised or not, counting the time it would take to travel back home to Canterley. Amelia felt as if her brain and heart would burst from the strain of not knowing.
Amelia was about to turn away when she caught a motion in the darkness below. Squinting she looked again and made out the black outline of a person making their way across the grassy expanse toward the back servants’ entrance. Alarmed, Amelia hastily threw on a robe over her nightdress and ran out of her room, down the back stairs, and into the kitchen. There she found Mrs. O’ Boyle, knife in hand, threatening to disembowel a man Amelia did not recognize.
“I am here at the behest of Tristan Knight, Earl of Ayle. He asked me to meet him here.” The man spoke with an accent that Amelia thought might be from the East End of London, but it was slightly different than what she had heard before. “My name is Jacob Cohen. Please just ask him about me.” The man had his hands up as a sign that he meant no harm as he eyed the knife so dangerously close to his belly.
“His Lordship is not here,” Mrs. O’ Boyle informed him.
“Where is he?” the man asked, a concerned frown wrinkling his brow.
“He has retired to his neighboring estate.”
“A thousand pardons for the intrusion, madam,” the man bowed in apology being careful to avoid the knife. “I will leave you now.” He turned to leave, and Amelia’s heart jumped causing her to step out of her hiding place.
“Please, Mr. Cohen,” she put out a hand in plaintive request for him to wait. “Are you the man that Lord Tristan was expecting from London?”
“Yes, I am,” Cohen turned taking in her undressed state with a raised brow.
“My Lady,” Mrs. O’ Boyle gasped in surprise. “Ye mustn’t be down here with such as the likes o’ him.” The cook turned up her nose at the stranger in a gesture of distrust.
“My Lady?” Cohen asked.
“Lady Amelia Dowding, daughter of the Earl of Canterley,” Amelia raied her head ever so slightly to compensate for her state of dress.
“My Lady,” Cohen swept himself into a deep bow of respect with a gentle knowing smile playing about his lips. “I have heard many wonderful things.”
Amelia pushed away her surprise at his words and moved forward in earnest. “Have you brought news of my sister?”
“I have, My Lady, but I fear I must tell it to Lord Tristan and to no other. It is a matter of great delicacy, you see.” He gave her an apologetic look but stood firm in his refusal to do anything else.
“Wait and I will go with you to show you the way,” Amelia instructed turning to go and change her clothes.
“Lady Amelia, you cannot!” Mrs. O’ Boyle proclaimed loudly.
A light flickered in the hallway as the butler opened his office door. “What is going on out there?”
Amelia turned back and clapped a hand over Mrs. O’ Boyle’s mouth. “My sister’s very life depends on the information this man has. You will not say a word to anyone about my leaving. Do I make myself clear, Mrs. O’ Boyle?” Amelia desperately pleaded in a whisper.
Mrs. O’ Boyle silently nodded her head and Amelia released her hold on the cook’s mouth. The cook bustled over to a peg on the wall and took down a dark cloak, handing it to Amelia. “For our darlin’ girl,” she whispered with a nod.
Amelia hugged the cook, tossed the cloak around her shoulders, and followed Cohen out into the night. She knew that she was taking a great risk, that the man could be other than who he said he was, and that her reputation would be ripped to shreds were anyone to discover what she was doing, but she did not care. She had done far worse in the days since Grace’s abduction and she would just add this one to the ever-expanding list of societal taboos that she had broken.
Cohen led her to the edge of the forest where he had left his horse tied to a tree. He swung up into the saddle and took her hand pulling her up behind him. “Which way?”
“North, through those trees,” she pointed in the direction of Tristan’s country manor house, then held on to the man’s waist as he kicked his horse forward. They rode silently through the darkness as quickly as the forest would allow. When they crossed over from Canterley onto Tristan’s lines, Amelia looked behind them to ensure that
no one followed. Seeing nothing, she turned back and willed the horse to go faster.
“If someone had told me that I would be racing through the forest with a noblewoman in a nightdress before the day was out, I would have said that they were mad,” Cohen chuckled in bewilderment at the state in which he found himself.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Amelia replied not amused in the slightest and only wishing for the ride to be over. They lapsed back into silence until they arrived at Tristan’s manor house. Amelia slid from the back of the horse and ran to the front door banging on it with her fists. “Tristan! Tristan!”
The door swung open to the startled face of Tristan’s butler. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded to know, taking in Amelia’s state of less-than-reputable dress.
“Leave us,” Tristan’s voice ordered from the darkness of the hall. The butler bowed as his master passed, entering the light of the lamp. “Not a word of this to anyone. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, My Lord.” The butler bowed once more then disappeared from sight.
“Amelia?” Tristan’s eyes flickered briefly over Amelia’s form in surprise, then focused over her shoulder on Jacob Cohen. “Jacob,” he greeted with a nod, understanding passing over his features.
“Tristan,” Jacob moved forward to clasp hands with his friend. “It is not good,” he warned, meeting Tristan’s eyes.
“Come inside, both of you.”
Amelia swallowed hard at Jacob’s words of warning. Her heart raced as she moved forward and followed the men inside.
Chapter 29
Tristan’s mouth had gone dry at the sight of Amelia in her night clothes on his doorstep. He feared the worst, yet in the same breath hoped that she had finally decided to give her heart to him. When he had seen Jacob, all had fallen into place. Now as he stood in front of the fireplace in his library listening to all that Jacob had learned, it was so much worse than he had originally thought.
“It is William Dowding, the Earl of Canterley. He is the one responsible.”
“What?!” Amelia nearly shrieked. “You, sir, are greatly mistaken!”
Tristan moved forward and wrapped his arm around Amelia to keep her from punching Jacob in the face. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, I am afraid so, my friend.”
Tristan nodded his head and took Amelia to sit down. “His own daughter,” he shook his head in disbelieving disgust.
“You lie!” Amelia accused fighting off Tristan’s restraining arms.
“I am afraid that I do not, My Lady.”
“Jacob does not lie and is never wrong, Amelia, not about such things as this. If Jacob says it is so, then it is so,” Tristan held her as she fought and cried in an effort to keep the horror of the truth at bay. He sighed and met Jacob’s eyes. “Why?”
“Debt. The Earl is in vast amounts of debt over multiple failed business ventures. He is about to lose everything. The plan appears to be that he intended to take the money from the ransom and clear his debts.”
“How do you come to know this?” Amelia demanded.
“The men that he hired were not as discreet as I am certain that he assumed they would be.” Jacob examined his fingernails in an effort to ease the hidden meaning behind his words, but Tristan knew what he meant.
Chances are it started with an indiscreet word to a whore, Jacob finding out about it through his network of informants, then tracking him down and torturing the information out of the man. Tristan knew better than to ask if the man still lived. Chances were that it would have looked like a back-alley mugging. Jacob would never have left a threat alive to return to harm anyone he knew and cared about. He would have perceived the man as a threat to Tristan and as such something to be dealt with expeditiously.
“Father would never…” Amelia breathed, and yet it was plain on her face that deep in her heart she knew him to be capable of it. If anyone knew of the Earl’s dark side, it was her.
“I followed what the man told me and have confirmed everything he said, the only difference being that the Earl appears to have changed his mind about paying his debts and has made arrangements to flee the country on a boat headed to France tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” Amelia asked in confusion. “How can he run without the money?”
Jacob met Tristan’s eyes and it hit him as if he had been punched in the guts. “He swapped the bags,” he breathed in horror. “Jonathan and Henry are about to exchange fakes for Grace’s life.”
Jacob nodded. “And when the men he hired to kidnap her find out that he has betrayed them and has no intention of paying them for their services…” The thought hung unfinished in the air like the stench of burning hair.
“No,” Amelia breathed in horror. “They will kill her. They will kill them all.”
Tristan launched to his feet yelling for his horse to be saddled immediately. “We must away to Canterley at once. The Earl must be stopped before he leaves for London.” The three of them ran from the room and raced on horseback toward Canterley Manor.
* * *
Amelia felt as if her entire world had exploded around her like a cannon ball ripping through the mast of a ship. Our own father… it was unfathomable. She clung to Tristan as his horse leapt over a fallen log. They were racing through the night with such speed that she could not make out where they were exactly within the forest, the trunks of the trees slipping by as little more than a tear-stained blur.
When they arrived at the manor house, Tristan launched himself from the back of the horse tossing Amelia the reins. He drew his pistol and barged through the front door, nearly knocking over the butler in his haste. A groom stumbled out of the stables, wrinkled from sleep. Amelia slid down from the back of the horse and handed him the reins. She raced up the stairs and entered the house with trepidation.
Tristan exited the library door and made for the stairs to, she presumed, her father’s bedchamber. She moved to follow, but Jacob Cohen stopped her with a gentle hand to her elbow. “You best not, My Lady,” he advised kindly. “You would not want to get caught in the crossfire.”
Amelia felt the blood leave her face in a rush at his words, but she nodded in acknowledgement of his wisdom. Seeing the state of her, he offered her his arm for support and she took it gratefully in spite of her earlier attempt to beat him senseless. She was feeling light headed and quite past the point of overwhelm. “Thank you, Mr. Cohen.”
“Please, My Lady, given the situation I believe that you might call me Jacob.”
“Thank you, Jacob.”
“You are most welcome, My Lady.” He bowed his head in acknowledgement and he patted her hand on his arm in understanding sympathy.
Tristan barreled down the stairs and took the butler, Applegate, up by his shirt front. “Where is he? Where is the Earl?”
“He left, My Lord,” the butler stammered out. His face was red with fear and sweating profusely. “I know not where.”
“When?” Tristan growled.
“Shortly after Lord Jonathan and His Grace the Duke of Slantonshire, My Lord.”
“What?!” Amelia stepped forward demanding explanation. “He has been gone all day?!”
“Yes, My Lady.”
“Why was I not informed of this?” She let go of Jacob’s arm and stood over Tristan’s shoulder glowering at the butler.
“His Lordship told me not to disturb you, My Lady. I did not know it was of import. I assumed that he had changed his mind about going for Lady Grace as his bags were packed for a journey.”
“Damn the man to Hell!” Tristan roared shoving the butler back so hard that the terrified man fell onto the floor.
“My Lord,” the butler stammered in chastisement in spite of his terrified and undignified state, “My Lady.” He gestured toward Amelia as a rebuke for using such language in her presence.
“In this particular instance, Applegate, I agree with His Lordship’s sentiments exactly,” Amelia reassured the man and offered him a han
d up from the floor. The butler graciously took it and stood, tiding his clothing in his usual fastidious manner in an effort to hide his fear and uncertainty.
It was then that the butler noticed Amelia’s state of dress. “My Lady?” he questioned, eyeing her nightdress under the servant’s cloak.
“There was no time,” she brushed his concern away and reached out for Tristan’s arm. “What should we do?”
“I will have to go after him and pray that I can catch him before he boards the ship,” Tristan turned and met her eyes.
Amelia nodded. “I will ride to warn Jonathan and Henry of what has happened.”
“You cannot go on your own. These men are dangerous and will kill you as soon as not,” Tristan shook his head in worry.
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