Maggie MacKeever (28 page)

“No doubt they shall. In the meantime I’ve told them they may have you when I’m done. I’ve made a wager with myself as to how much of their attention you’ll be able to tolerate.” The Cap’n pulled a blade from his walking stick and slashed the ropes that bound her ankles. “Never fear, my dear, you
will
survive. Indeed, you’ll be an old hand at it soon enough.”

He did mean to break her. She wouldn’t let him, no matter what he did. At least she hoped she wouldn’t. Julie scrunched herself into the smallest ball possible at the far end of the bed.

The Cap’n took hold of her ankle. Julie got in a good kick to his jaw before he caught the other — and there came a knocking at the door.

He snarled.

The knocking persisted. The Cap’n released Julie and strode across the room, cracked open the door. Julie caught the words “constable” and “downstairs”.

The Cap’n cursed. “I’ll be back, and we’ll finish this. Think about that while I’m gone, Jules.”

The door closed. Julie heard the click of the lock.

Her legs were free. She struggled frantically to rid herself of the ropes that bound her arms so tight behind her back that her hands had gone numb.

If she broke the water pitcher, she might manage to saw herself loose. If she didn’t saw a vein open in the process and bleed to death, which was preferable to lying under Cap’n Jack.

She wouldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, in this moment think of Ned. Julie scooted off the bed and was halfway to the door when the lock clicked again.

No! The Cap’n couldn’t come back so soon. As the door swung open, Julie prepared to run straight at him, and catch him off guard, so as to attempt an escape, which would hopefully make him mad enough to hit her again. If she was going to be raped, Julie would much rather be knocked unconscious first.

Not Cap’n Jack, but a woman entered the room. An elegantly dressed woman with chestnut hair and lavender eyes. Julie’s lips parted. The woman gestured for silence. She made short work of the remaining knots.

Julie rubbed her aching arms. The woman glanced out into the hall, beckoned, whispered: “Quickly, before he returns. Go down the back stair.”

The hallway was deserted; the steps dark, narrow, and clearly reserved for servants’ use. Julie snatched up a mop-stick mid-flight. More than ever, she wished she had her knife. No, not more than ever, because she would have dearly loved to part the Cap’n from his pizzle. She also wished she was wearing something more substantial than a shift.

If a constable had come calling, he wasn’t being welcomed. Julie heard the crash of glass and wood, accompanied by angry shouts. The servants were either involved, or had prudently fled, because she met no one on the stair.

The back door lay before her. Julie burst through it — and almost bashed Bates with the mop-stick before she realized who he was.

He caught her by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”

Julie nodded.

Bates took off his coat and wrapped it around her. They fled.

Chapter Thirty

It is well to moor your bark with two anchors.
— Pubilius Syrus

The evening was far advanced when Ned arrived home, weary in
both body and mind. Hannah had been a harsh taskmistress, exacting her pound of flesh by means of his attendance on each
unwed female in the crowded rooms. Ned had gritted his teeth and done
his duty by his cousin, and was left with no inclination to repeat the effort any time soon.

It wasn’t Hannah but Julie who occupied Ned’s thoughts as he mounted his front steps. Julie, with her unknown origins and unexplained mishaps. When Bates opened the door, Ned took one look at his batman’s face and understood the uneasiness that plagued him all evening had not been without good cause.

Bates gestured for silence. Ned followed him into the library and closed the door, listened to an account of Julie’s misadventures with growing anger and dismay.

“I couldn’t stop them taking her, so I followed. And I didn’t like leaving her there for an instant, but I had to get help.” A look at Ned’s face caused Bates to quickly add, “Sir, she’s all right. I was going in to search when she ran out the back door. Almost knocked me unconscious with a mop-stick, she did. I brought her in through the tunnels, so no one but us knows she’s
here. I didn’t know if you’d be wishful of Miss Clea being involved,
but with all that happened—” He reddened. “Well, she’s a female. Miss Clea has put her in the turret room.”

“You did exactly as you should have, and I’m grateful to you for it. Now get some rest.” Ned took the candle that Bates handed him and approached the bookshelves. A twist of the concealed lever and the hinged section swung aside. Ned climbed the steep stair. Behind him, the bookshelf swung shut.

Ned passed through the attics proper, a treasure trove of boxes, crates, ancient furniture and artifacts. The entrance to the turret room was camouflaged by a tattered wall hanging and a massive
sideboard. Clea had discovered the hidden chamber during her explorations. None of the household servants, including Tidcombe and Mrs. Scroggs, knew the room was there.

The murmur of voices reached him as soon as he opened the door. “Magnificent, isn’t he?” said Clea. “Notice the rings on all his fingers and the signet on his thumb. His ears are pierced so he can wear love tokens. That isn’t a wig, he let his own hair grow long.”

“Who is he?” Julie sounded less frightened than intrigued.

“His name is Francis Wakely, and he was a Restoration rake. This is his house. That was that cloak. I found the portrait wrapped in an old rug.”

The upper door stood ajar. Ned paused in the shadows at the top of the stair. It would do Julie no good to see him foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.

The turret room was small and semi-circular. One wall backed up against the chimney, which helped keep it warm. Ned hadn’t seen the chamber since Clea made it her lair. He noticed that his sister had closed the ancient window curtains to block the candle light. Julie’s mop-stick leaned against one wall.

Ned recognized the faded Chinese paper, the Oriental rugs on the floor, but as for the rest
—
Bates must have helped Clea with the daybed; she could never have dragged it up the stairs by herself. The thing must have been over seven feet long. It was piled high with pillows in faded
reds and blues, yellows and greens.

A tasseled coverlet lay folded at one end of the daybed. At the other end perched Julie, wrapped in a satin-lined black velvet cloak adorned with tarnished gold lace and pearl embroidery.

Ned’s eyes moved over her, noting the new bruises on her pale face, the swelling of her lower lip. She seemed bemused by her surroundings, which was scant surprise. The chair in which his sister sat was carved with roses and daisies and strawberry blossoms, leaves and fruit and a caterpillar worked cunningly into the design. The padded window seats were covered with gold-worked silk. A metal table clock that had long ago stopped counting time rested on an old carved chest. Candles burned in a five-armed metal stand.

Julie was staring at the chimney wall, from which a painted rakish gentleman — clad in a long coat with slashed sleeves and upturned cuffs; brocaded waistcoat, ruffled long-sleeved white shirt, and lace cravat; breeches with stockings gartered just below the knee; square toed shoes with red heels — gazed out with an expression of jaded unconcern. “He looks a right rogue.”

“From all accounts, he was,” Ned commented, as he entered the room. From his perch on Clea’s lap, Cerberus growled.

“Hello, Ned,” Clea said brightly. “We’re glad you’re home. I thought about sending Bates for you, but decided it was better you
didn’t act as if something urgent had occurred. No one will think to look for Julie here. It would hardly be proper for us to harbor a runaway. If someone
does
inquire, the servants won’t know she’s in the house.”

Clea looked the merest schoolgirl in her simple cotton nightgown and wrapper, her mahogany curls in wild disorder. Her voice, however, sounded alarmingly adult. Ned knew his sister. Clea was feeling protective. There would be no keeping her out of this business now.

“You’ve done well,” he told her. “Both you and Bates. Go to bed. I’ll take care of Julie.”

Clea took a firm grip on Cerberus and stood up, surveyed the small room one last time to make sure there was nothing she had overlooked. Large supply of candles. Corner stand with ewer and chamber pot tucked away discreetly inside. Brush and comb and clean linen; fruit and biscuits from the kitchen; a carafe of water and a chessboard.

Most important, Ned was here. Clea had done a good job of diverting Julie from what had happened to her tonight — Bates had been vague about the details, but Clea had no trouble figuring them out, or as many as she cared to, because she was after all a mere fifteen and there were things she didn’t
want
to know — but the matter must be addressed. Ned was very good at addressing
matters with females. Clea bid them good night, and descended the stairs.

Ned noticed that his sister had appropriated his brandy from the library. The level of the decanter’s contents had decreased. He wondered if Clea had been drinking, or Julie, or both. He wondered also what he was to say to Julie; if he should even be present, recent events quite possibly leaving her in no mood to be at ease with any man. Ned poured some liquor into a glass.

While he pondered how to gently broach the subject — if he
should
broach the subject, or leave it for another day — Julie mumbled, “Thank you,” not meeting his gaze.

“You owe me no thanks.” Ned drained the glass and set it down. “With all that’s been taking place, I should have increased your guard. I shouldn’t—”

“—have let me go back to Ashcroft House?” Julie drew up her knees and hugged them. “I’m not yours to order around, my lord. And if we’re going to play the ‘shouldn’t’ game, I shouldn’t
have filched those teaspoons and wound up in Newgate in the first place.”

“Teaspoons?” inquired Ned.

Julie rested her cheek on her bent knees. “I was hungry. They were there. Where they shouldn’t have been, as I recall, and I shouldn’t have been there either, and at the moment I can’t say why I was. It was a long time ago.”

If Ned was to make himself unthreatening, he couldn’t continue
looming over her. He had a choice of seating himself in either Clea’s abandoned chair or beside Julie on the day bed. She had drawn herself up in a defensive ball under the velvet cloak. Ned dropped down beside her, prepared to immediately move away if she so much as flinched.

She didn’t flinch, but neither did she relax. “They took me out of Ashcroft House. I don’t know how they got in. I know I didn’t leave the side door unlocked.”

Ned leaned back against the pillows piled at the daybed’s far end. “Tony, you think?”

“I did at first, but now I wonder. Lady Georgiana seems a more likely choice.” Julie smoothed her fingers over the cloak’s fine lace. Ned listened without comment to an explanation of Tony and the corset, and how Tony swore he wasn’t a molly-mop even though he preferred to play the harp. Ned’s own feeling was that while Niddicock’s upper story might be sparsely furnished, he wasn’t a bad sort. However, Ned could be wrong. They already knew that Tony could be coerced.

Ned was afraid to touch Julie. She was running on nerves. But if he didn’t touch, he couldn’t soothe her, or reassure himself. He reached out very slowly, removed her fingers from the lace, and twined them with his.

She gazed at their clasped hands. “I saw his face. Cap’n Jack. At
that place. He’s the one as had me brought there, and who sent Pego and Mick. He said he didn’t have anything to do with the carriage. It might have been true.”

Ned unclenched his jaw sufficiently to speak. “Did he touch you, buttercup?”

“Depends on what you mean by touch.” Julie chewed her lower lip. “He hit me. And he poked me with his walking stick.”

She was holding back, Ned realized. “Swear to me that he didn’t damage you.”

“He scared me. I thought I would never see you again. He said he’d ruin me for you, that once he’d had me you wouldn’t want me any more.” Julie’s fingers tightened around his.

Ned didn’t know what to say to her. His concern wasn’t that Julie be untouched —
he
certainly wasn’t — but that after the Cap’n was done with her, she wouldn’t be Julie any more.

Ned had frequented his share of bawdy houses. The notion of Julie trapped in such a place made him ill.

Now that the Cap’n had let her see him, Julie was in further danger. The bastard hadn’t expected she would escape.

She had fallen silent. “The Cap’n was trying
to frighten you,” Ned said. He hoped her reasoning hadn’t followed his.

Julie relaxed enough to uncurl herself. “He asked about your statue. I didn’t tell him it’s hidden at Ashcroft House.”

“Forget about the statue. Even if he found the thing, it would do him no good.”

She tilted her head. “Why is it so important?”

“It shouldn’t be, to him.” Ned dared tug her closer. “How did Cap’n Jack know of my interest in you?”

“I told you he has eyes everywhere.” Julie’s cloak had slipped off one shoulder. Under it she wore a plain nightdress. It was too big for her, and the most fascinating garment Ned had ever seen.

Which was no way to be thinking about a young woman who had just escaped a brothel, and was consequently like as not to take her mop-stick to
him.
“Forget the Cap’n. He’ll not touch you again.”

Julie shook her head, and tried to free her hand from his. “Thank you for rescuing me, but now I have to leave.”

Ned had been expecting this reaction. He didn’t release her. “And where will you go?”