“Why?”
“Because Crouch’s men are smugglers by profession rather than necessity. And notwithstanding your pretty tale about how
we
met last night, smuggling and marriage to gentry don’t mix.”
“What are you saying?”
His gaze met hers, cold, fearless. “I think this is a kidnapping, Helena.”
She caught her breath. As she set her cup back down, it rattled in the saucer. “K-kidnapping? Juliet?” Her nausea returned full force, and she had to fight to keep her gorge from rising. “That can’t be! Pryce…
courted
her. He—”
“He probably thought it would make it easier to get her to Hastings. I doubt he told Juliet he was kidnapping her.”
Her heart beat unsteadily in her chest. “But I never received a request for ransom. Papa would have notified me in London if a letter had come to Swan Park.”
“It’s not you or your father they want the money from—I’m sure Pryce learned that your family isn’t rich. No, they want money from Griff. He’s her brother-in-law and he’s wealthy—who better to pay a ransom? So any ransom note would have gone to him.” With a sigh, he raked his fingers through his hair. “I think it might already have.”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced away, his jaw rigid. “Two days before you arrived in London, Griff’s clerk mentioned that a man had come to Knighton Trading and insisted on having a letter sent personally to Griff on the Continent. The clerk tried to convince the man to broach his business with me,
but the man refused. I didn’t think much of it at the time—some men would rather deal with Griff than me. Then you came to London and all this happened, and I forgot about it.” His gaze swung back to her. “But with this new information, I have to wonder. The timing was right. It could easily have been Pryce.”
“So you think Mr. Pryce kidnapped her, then sent a ransom note off to Griff on the Continent before carrying her the rest of the way to Hastings?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “For all his wicked reputation, Crouch isn’t the sort to engineer a kidnapping. He’s limited himself to smuggling to date, which is a fairly innocuous criminal profession.”
“Innocuous? The Hawkhurst Gang tortured and murdered people!”
“True, but that was years ago, and they were a very bad lot. Your average smuggler is only trying to make a living in a part of the country where times have been hard. But kidnapping…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought it, that’s all. Still, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, why would Pryce take a false name? And you said yourself he could’ve sailed to Scotland quicker from Warwickshire. You said he’d been seen with other free traders before he went to Stratford, too. They must’ve been Crouch’s men.”
“Merciful heavens.” Everything fit. It fit far too well. “There’s also the fact that he tried to court me first. If he’d merely been looking for a fortune, he would have seized on
her
first because she’s younger and prettier.”
“Younger maybe, but not prettier,” he corrected with a faint smile.
She waved off his compliment. “Yes, but he chose me first. And why? Because I’m lame. He probably thought I would fall in with his plans more easily.”
“Thank God for your suspicious mind that made you see right through him.” His voice was fierce, protective.
“I wish I hadn’t. I could have held my own with the scoundrel, but Juliet—” She broke off, pressing her hand to her mouth as she thought of the horrors her little sister must be suffering.
He reached across the table to clasp her hand. “He won’t hurt her.”
“How do you know?” she cried.
“If Jolly Roger’s behind this, you’ve naught to fear. It’s not in his interests to hurt her. He’s too canny for that.”
“So you know him personally?”
He blinked, then glanced away. “No…that’s just what I’ve heard about him, is all. And I’m thinking like a smuggler.” His gaze shot back to hers. “That’s why you wanted me to help you, isn’t it?”
She nodded warily, not entirely satisfied with his answer.
“Any smuggler would realize that Griff would gladly pay a ransom to get Juliet back. They’d also assume he wouldn’t involve the authorities after she’s restored to him. They’d figure that Griff wouldn’t want people looking into his old connections to free trading.” He fingered her bare hand absently. “But they’d know that if she’s harmed, Griff would no longer have a reason to be circumspect. If they hurt her, he’ll see them hanged, no matter what it does to Knighton Trading. So she’ll be safe with them. I’m sure of it.”
His explanation made sense, but left her uneasy all the same. Daniel seemed very adept at “thinking like a smuggler.” And no matter how much he sat there stroking her fingers to soothe her, she could feel the tension in him.
He was hiding something. She was sure of it. “Is that why they chose her? Because of our family’s connection
to Griff? Because Griff has a shady past they can use to their advantage that will keep them from being pursued?”
Abruptly, he dropped her hand, a shadow passing over his face. “Yes, I expect so.” He busied himself with cutting his sausages, making sharp, downward stabs at them. “And because Griff is rich.”
Aha! He
was
hiding something. “But that’s so much trouble to go to. Why not just choose some rich man’s daughter from Hastings?”
“Well, for one thing, their friendly townsfolk wouldn’t be so friendly anymore if the smugglers preyed on their own.” His gaze met hers, so remorseful and concerned that she forgot her suspicions. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, that it came to this. I hate that it had to happen, especially to her. But I do believe she’ll be all right. So far, everything I’ve learnt since we left has confirmed that Pryce is treating her carefully. He’s taken separate rooms for her at the few inns where they’ve stayed, and she’s appeared to be content. The innkeeper here says the man behaved like a perfect gentleman. He and Crouch both know just how far to push Griff. They’ll treat her like a queen, I expect.”
She wished she felt as confident as he did. “But the longer she stays among those men, the more chance—”
“Yes.”
His curt answer sent fear curling about her heart.
“And that’s why,” he went on, “she needs to be spirited out of there as soon as possible. It might be weeks before Griff can pay them off. I don’t like to think of her with them for that long.”
“You have a plan to get her out?”
He sighed. “I wish we could just alert the revenue officers, but if I know free traders, they’ve bribed the excisemen to look the other way. And we don’t know where he’s got her. Besides, if Crouch feels cornered, there’s no
telling what he’ll do. What if he flees to France and takes her with him? He can still demand a ransom from Griff, but then he mightn’t be so eager to keep her safe.”
He shook his head. “No, the best approach is a furtive one. I wish we hadn’t revealed our interest in her and Pryce last night, but that can’t be helped now. We can only hope Wallace won’t speak of it to Crouch’s men. They
are
rival gangs, from what I understand.”
She leaned forward. “So what is your ‘furtive’ approach?”
Lifting an eyebrow at her, he ate a slice of sausage. “If I had my druthers, it wouldn’t concern you, lass. I’d be sending you back to London this very morning.” When she started to protest, he held his hand up. “But I don’t have my druthers. That bloody Wallace is still hanging about, asking questions of the innkeeper about you and me. If I send you off to London alone, he’ll be after you like a fly after treacle. I can’t take that chance. I can look after you better if you’re with me.”
“Yes,” she agreed. If he’d even attempted to send her back, she would have fought him.
“Hastings isn’t but half a day’s journey away, if this storm will ever quit. I’ll take you with me as far as Sedlescombe—and we’ll try to shake off Wallace on the way if he follows us. Then I’ll leave you in Sedlescombe while I go to Hastings and nose about for Juliet. It might take a day or two to figure out where Crouch and Pryce are holding her, but once I learn it, I can steal her right out from under their noses.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?”
Her concern must have shown in her voice, for he smiled warmly. “Not if I do it right. They’re not expecting anybody to come after her—Pryce took great care to cover his tracks in London and travel under a different
name. They’re probably figuring on a long wait until Griff receives their ransom request. Even then, I’m sure they kept Crouch’s involvement quiet so Griff wouldn’t know to come after them. And they took great pains to keep me from knowing of it, so they won’t be expecting me. I can be in and out with her in a trice as long as—” He broke off. “Well, in any case, it shouldn’t be any trouble.”
“As long as what?” she prodded.
His face grew shuttered. “Nothing to worry you. I’m just thinking aloud is all.”
“Daniel,
tell
me.”
He stared her straight in the eye. “There’s naught to tell. Now eat your breakfast. Looks as if it might be clearing outside, and the muddy roads will slow us down as it is. If we eat hearty, we might make it to Sedlescombe without having to stop for another meal.”
While he returned to eating, she sat there seething. The man could be so infuriating! She
knew
he was hiding something from her.
But what? She thought back through the past two days, their many conversations, their discussion with the smugglers, and this morning’s revelations.
A horrible suspicion crept over her. Could it have been
Crouch
that Daniel had worked for in his smuggling days? Could that be what he was hiding?
It made sense. If Daniel had worked for Crouch, then he knew precisely how the man would behave. Her stomach sank. That would also mean Griff knew the man well, too. So this entire elopement/kidnapping had been planned with Griff and Daniel in mind. A gang of smugglers had come after her poor sister because she was connected to their old compatriots…
Wait a minute,
she chided herself sternly,
there you go
again, jumping to conclusions about him. Remember what heartache that caused you yesterday?
She simply must stop this. If Daniel had worked for Crouch, he would have said so. She’d asked him if he’d known the man, and he’d answered quite plainly that he hadn’t. What’s more, he’d sworn never to lie to her again.
Besides, he’d revealed his suspicions about Crouch and the kidnapping when he hadn’t needed to do so. Why tell her all that if he wanted to hide some connection to Crouch?
Though he’d sometimes tried to keep her from being involved in his plans—probably wisely so, last night—he’d been forthright about the situation from the beginning. So why should he start lying now?
No, this time she would not allow her overdeveloped sense of caution about men to rule her thinking. If ever there’d been a man she could trust, it was Daniel. For heaven’s sake, the man didn’t even hide his past from his clients! Why bother to hide it from her?
So if he said there was nothing to worry about, then there was nothing to worry about. Because she refused to believe that after all they’d shared, all he’d promised, he would look her in the eye and lie to her.
So gaily sings the lark and the sky is awake,
With the promise of a new day
for the road we gladly take.
Tramping song from the Outer Hebrides off
the coast of Scotland
D
amn it, he’d lied to her, Daniel thought for the fiftieth time in the three hours since they’d left Tunbridge. He was driving them in the only equipage for hire at the Rose and Crown: an ancient gig with two dips worn into the seat and tarnished harness buckles. The post chaise had been rented for a return trip to Bromley and nothing else had been available.
What had possessed him to lie after swearing never to do it? He’d never hidden his connection to Crouch from
anybody else. He’d never hidden any of his past. That was why he lived in St. Giles, to make sure people understood who he was, what he was. They knew who they were getting when they consulted Daniel Brennan.
The trouble was, he didn’t care about those other people. It was Helena he cared about. He cared too bloody much. This afternoon she’d turned to him for help with her problems, her eyes full of trust and respect, and he’d balked at telling her the truth. It was as simple as that.
He’d had no choice—it was either lie and have her keep trusting him, or tell all and risk shattering that trust. He couldn’t do it. Her faith in him intoxicated him, made him want to leap mountains on her behalf. When she looked at him, she didn’t see a highwayman’s son or Danny Boy, the smuggler. She saw only Daniel Brennan, the man she trusted to rescue her sister.
So he bloody well would never tell her the one thing sure to make her despise him. If she ever learned that he hadn’t been some errand boy for free traders, that he’d worked for the very man who’d kidnapped her sister…
His fingers tightened into fists on the reins. It didn’t bear thinking on. Besides, she needn’t ever know. He could snatch Juliet out of the jaws of her captors without their even realizing who’d done it.
“Watch it!” Helena cried as a hare darted in front of the horse’s hooves, barely missing being struck. “You nearly hit that poor creature! And look how you’re hugging the side of the road—we’re liable to end up in the ditch. Lord, who taught you how to drive?”
“Clearly somebody you wouldn’t approve of,” he said dryly.
“I should say not,” she grumbled, but he could tell he’d squelched her complaint for the moment.
It wouldn’t last long, judging from how she’d been
since they’d departed from Tunbridge. Though the day had turned fine after the storm passed, it had left the road so pockmarked with puddles and ruts that it might as well have been Romney Marsh. He’d tried his damnedest to keep the great wheels from bogging down in the mud and avoid slinging too much water and filth on them both, but still Helena had complained about every maneuver he made.