Authors: Elizabeth Thornton
To Deborah, it seemed like an aeon before they turned into a rundown farmyard and reined in the horses. The events of the day had taken a toll on her. Her arms ached; she was dropping from fatigue; and the pain in her shoulder and hip made her wince with each jarring step. She knew she looked a fright.
Her abductor, who had dismounted first, seemed as fresh and vigorous as when they had started out. His movements were easy, and his garments, she did not doubt, would be immaculate beneath the sodden cape. It galled her that their confrontation, which had brought her to her knees, had made so little impression on him.
When he helped her down from the saddle, sheer willpower kept her legs from buckling under her. She listened with an inward sneer as he issued orders to his companions in that soft, cultured intonation of his. Issuing orders seemed to be this man’s forte.
She learned something from their exchange. The dark-haired, sinister-looking man was called Hart. As Nick went off to stable the horses in what appeared to be a barn, Hart entered the farmhouse to get a light going. Her abductor, meanwhile, pulled on the bonds that held her wrists together, and the rope came undone.
It was a point of pride to feign indifference to the burns that the bonds had made on her tender flesh. She would get no sympathy from him. Turning from him, she allowed her gaze to drift over the farmhouse, and she gave a start. It was an abandoned hovel, and not fit for human habitation. Every window on the ground floor was boarded up. The thatch on the roof was so bare in places that the joists were showing.
“Is this your
villa
, Lord Kendal?” Outrage made her voice shake.
Propelling her with one hand on her elbow, he answered mildly, “For my purposes, it will do very well, Miss Weyman.”
She wrenched her arm from his grasp. “I am Mrs. Mornay, as you know very well.”
“Lady Becket does not think so.”
“Lady Becket does not know me.”
“It won’t wash, Deborah. One of my coachmen identified you.”
“Coachmen?” Her expression was puzzled.
He answered patiently. “The coachmen I sent to meet you in Dover.”
“I am Deborah Mornay, I tell you, a widow. Miss Hare will vouch for me. You have made a ghastly mistake.” Her eyes shimmered with resentment.
His held a trace of humor. “Have I, Deborah?” he said in a languid drawl. He had removed his gloves, and one finger touched her cheek, tracing the path of a tear that had long since dried. She jerked her head back. Her flashing eyes seemed to amuse him. “Be careful,” he said softly, “that you do not tempt me to put you to the test.”
“And what might you mean by that?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose with one finger. “One presumes that Miss Weyman is a maid, and Mrs. Mornay … is not.”
She stared at his smiling face for one uncomprehending moment, then she flushed scarlet from throat to hairline. As she stumbled away from him and entered the house, his laughter followed her.
The room she entered was as crude as she had feared it would be. The furniture, for want of a better word, consisted of a broken-down table and three horsehair chairs that had seen better days. A long, cluttered sideboard filled one wall. At the boarded window, there was a stone sink, but there was no sign of a pump. On the floor in front of the cast-iron fireplace was a litter of blackened pots and pans. Tinkers would scorn to live in such filth.
At least Hart had got a couple of lamps going and was trying, not very successfully, to light some kindling in the grate. When he turned to her with that fierce look of his, her courage faltered, and she made haste to shore it up. Though she did not consider herself a particularly brave person, she had learned how to overcome her terrors. Anger and outrage were her best weapons. When one dwelled on one’s grievances, one forgot to be afraid,
and her grievances against the man who had engineered her abduction were grave, indeed.
“Sit!” The peremptory command came from Lord Kendal.
For a moment she hesitated. Deciding that the point was not worth arguing, she accepted the chair he indicated. “I demand that you explain your outrageous conduct,” she said.
He seated himself on one of the chairs. His outer-things had been discarded, and she took no pleasure in having her conjectures confirmed. The man was immaculately turned out, except for his boots. Shirt, dark coat, buckskins—there wasn’t a mark on him. Her own clothes were mired to the knees and she smelled of wet horse. She hoped he stank as much as she did. Without asking his permission, she undid the clasp on her cloak and eased out of it. It was as she feared. Her gown was no improvement on her cloak, but looked as though she might have slept in it.
Her temper was simmering, and she counted that a blessing. “The transformation in you, Mr. Gray,” she said acidly, “—or should I say Lord Kendal?—is mind-boggling. You started the day as a mere commoner, and now you are a peer of the realm. I think I deserve an explanation.”
He answered her without heat. “I might say the same of you. You began the day as an elderly governess, and now look at you. If there is any explaining to be done, since I hold the upper hand, I leave it to you.”
She took a moment to moisten her lips, putting her thoughts in order. “Parents and guardians have a decided prejudice against youthful-looking governesses. I tried to make myself appear older. There is nothing more sinister to it than that.”
At this point, Nick entered. He glanced in her direction, then moved to the fireplace to help the other man get the fire going. It wasn’t much of a look, but she sensed his concern. She hoped she wasn’t imagining things.
When her eyes returned to Lord Kendal’s, she had the uncanny feeling that he had read her mind. Hoping
to distract him, she went on with her explanation. “You are right in this. When Lady-Becket, is it?—came to my door, she did mistake me for someone else. You may imagine how I felt, however, when she revealed that the man I understood to be Mr. Gray was no less a personage than the Earl of Kendal.”
“Oh yes, I can well imagine your feelings,” said Gray dryly.
“How could I know what you meant to do with me? Gentlemen belong to such strange clubs and societies. For all I knew, you might be a libertine or … or worse.”
“Strange societies?” said Gray.
“The Hell-Fire Club … Oh, I know it’s no longer in existence, but I’ve heard that there are others that have taken its place.”
This was no lie. Such clubs proliferated, and decent women went in dread of them. It was rumored that the aristocratic lechers who made up the membership abducted young virgins and had their way with them, and afterward sold them to Eastern potentates for their harems. Deborah was skeptical of all such reports, but it suited her now to pretend she believed them.
“And that was the reason you bolted like a terrified rabbit? You suspected that I, a libertine, might have designs upon the virtue of an aging schoolmarm?”
Put like that, it did sound a bit ridiculous, but in lieu of a better story, she had to stick to it. “I wasn’t sure what you meant to do with me,” she said stiffly, “but I feared for my very life.”
“Indeed. Then why didn’t you appeal to someone to help you? There was ample opportunity. Good God, at one point, we were in the thick of a bevy of saintly clerics. Why didn’t you appeal to them?”
Her look was scornful, withering, and conversely, anxious. “And would they have taken my word over yours? I think not. I am a mere female. You are a nobleman. Nothing I could say would have persuaded them of my innocence. On the other hand, whatever story you cared to offer, however farfetched, would have been accepted as the gospel truth.”
“It sounds to me,” said Gray, “as if you are speaking from experience. Who are you, Deborah Weyman? I know that you came to Gil from Miss Hare’s. But where were you before that?”
She swallowed the lump of fear in her throat. “I told you, until recently, I lived in Ireland with my husband. And who is Gil?”
The blue eyes, with their startling intensity, seemed to probe into her very soul. She wanted to look away but she was caught and held by a force she couldn’t resist.
“One way or another,” he said, “I mean to get the truth from you.”
It took her a moment or two to realize that she had been given a reprieve. He motioned to Nick, and when he approached the table, she turned to him eagerly.
“Mr.—”
“Oh, do call me Nick,” he said easily. “No need to stand on ceremony. Here, I’ve brought you a glass of wine. You look as though you could do with it. Old Hart is warming up the stew. I daresay you haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast.”
His kind words, his obvious concern in the face of Lord Kendal’s cruelty, was almost her undoing. She had to swallow several times before she found her voice. “Thank you, Nick. But I was wondering … that is … could you direct me to the … um … ah … convenience?”
“The …? Oh, the … ah, of course. How remiss of us not to think of it before. If you would step this way.” He gestured with one hand.
“Hart will take her to the latrine,” said Gray.
The crude word as much as the tone of voice brought a sudden pall. Once again, Deborah was aware of the faint animosity between the two men. She would have sworn that they were brothers and that their animosity, which was largely resentment on Nick’s part, had got its start when they were boys. She didn’t care how it had got its start, she knew only that so long as Nick was present, she felt relatively safe.
The dark-haired man, Hart, had taken one of the
lanterns and was holding the door for her. No word was spoken as he led her to the side of the house, along a well-worn path to the ubiquitous privy. There was no need for a lantern. From the stench of the place, she could have found her way in the dark.
Though this was no ruse on Deborah’s part—she really had to go—she had hoped to use these few minutes to get a sense of where the farmhouse was situated in relation to Wells. She knew it could not be more than a mile or two away. They had left Wells as the sun was setting and had arrived at their destination before dark. If Nick had taken her to the privy, she would have questioned him about it. She couldn’t bring herself to speak to the man called Hart. There was something about him that made her tremble—the way he looked at her, glared at her, glowered. Lord Kendal might kill her once he was done with her, but it would be clean and quick. This man would make her suffer first.
The return journey was made in equal silence. On entering the kitchen, Deborah halted. Her eyes swept the small interior, but there was no sign of Nick. Her abductor made a motion with one hand, and with that signal, Hart withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Steeling herself to act naturally, she returned to the upright chair she had previously occupied and took several fortifying sips of wine. When the silence lengthened, and she could no longer sustain his stare, she turned her attention to the hearth. The fire in the grate blazed merrily, and the aroma from the blackened pot which was suspended above it reminded her that she had not eaten since breakfast. The thought that he meant to feed her was vastly comforting.
More minutes dragged by. Finally, subduing her terrors, she said conversationally, “Where are the others?”
“I sent them away so that we could be private.”
The fear she had experienced before was only a pale shade of what she experienced now. Without Nick’s presence, she felt defenseless, and those words had an ominous ring to them.
When he rose she started to her feet. Shaking his head, mocking her, he moved to the hearth and returned
almost directly with a tray of food which he set on the table.
“Eat!” he said, and indicated the bowl of stew he had set out for her.
Eat! Sit! Mount up! Do this! Do that!
She was heartily sick of taking this man’s orders. It did not sit well with her, either, that she had betrayed her fear to him. Though her stomach was rumbling, she said indifferently, just to defy him, “I have lost my appetite, thank you.”
He smiled grimly. “But not your hearing, one hopes. Let’s try again, shall we? Sit and eat.”
Her hands fisted helplessly at her sides. Fuming, she sank into her chair and picked up a spoon. There were no knives or forks to be seen.
He grinned devilishly. “I don’t underestimate you, you’ll observe.”
It was a compliment of sorts, she supposed. If she had a knife, she really would be tempted to use it on him. He was watching and waiting, his eyes glinting with humor. Head down, she lifted the spoon to her lips. After the first bite, she needed no urging. She really was famished, and the stew was edible. There was a hunk of coarse bread beside her plate, and she ate that too. There were no napkins, and when she had finished, she groped in her pocket and found a handkerchief which she used to dab her lips. Only then did she chance a look at her companion.
He had finished before her, and was reclining at his ease, sipping his wine. She hated that gloating look. Reaching for her wine, she took a small swallow.
“Where is Quentin?” he asked.
Her hand jerked, and droplets of wine spilled over the front of her gown. Mopping at it with her balled handkerchief, she said uncertainly, “Quentin?”
“Yes, Quentin. Don’t bandy words with me, Deborah, or it will be very much the worse for you.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” she said miserably.
He leaned closer, one hand on the table, eyes boring
into hers. She could hardly credit that she’d once thought he had a kind face. He was the devil incarnate.
“What happened, Deborah? Did you get in over your head?”
Her voice was painfully hoarse. “You’re not making sense. I don’t understand you.”
“No? Then let me tell you what I think happened. You were recruited in Paris. I don’t believe you murdered Gil, but when your accomplice murdered him, you became frightened. That’s why you ran from my coachmen in Dover. Is that what happened? Listen to me, Deborah. If you take me to Quentin, I shall let you go. I swear it.”
If he was trying to confuse her, he was succeeding remarkably well. The horrible, perverse truth was that she wanted to believe him. But she knew there was no one else involved. He had an appointment with Lord Barrington that night. His was the name Lord Barrington had spoken only moments before he was murdered. If this man had his way, he would have murdered Quentin too. That’s why he was trying to confuse her. It was only a trick so that she would lead him to Quentin.