Martha Schroeder (11 page)

“I—I don’t know. I thought all three of us would do better thinking—I mean—”

Sir Richard smiled at this garbled response, but Gideon was far beyond caring for anything but news of Amy. “It doesn’t matter.” He paced around Jane’s sparsely furnished but cheerful sitting room like a caged animal, the iron ball twisting in his fingers. “What has happened? She never came home?” he rapped the question at Jane.

“No. The message came back directly. Amelia left at half past five.” Jane sank into a straight chair near the small fireplace. “Sit down, Captain, you are making me dizzy pacing like that.”

Gideon ignored her. He could not sit still when every instinct cried out for action. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

“What do you think has happened, Falconer?” Sir Richard asked.

Gideon turned, his face grave. “I think Amy hasn’t returned, because she cannot do so.”

Jane gaped at him. “You think Amy’s been injured?”

He shook his head, his straight dark hair gleaming in the lamplight. He didn’t know how to justify this feeling he had that something was terribly wrong.” All that the others seemed to see was that Amy had apparently gone elsewhere and had as yet failed to return, though it was now ten o’clock. Hardly grounds for alarm. Lady Amelia Bradshaw moved in circles where the evening’s entertainment had scarcely begun at that hour. But he knew.

“Not injured. She would have been carried here, or Jane would have been notified. She was not going anywhere that was not nearby and heavily trafficked by the ton.”

“Then, you think she has been kidnapped?” Sir Richard said. “Why?”

“Call it gypsy intuition,” Gideon said, trying for lightness, though his heart twisted within him. “But let us act on it.”

“If you are right, it must be the duke who is behind it,” Sir Richard said. “We can call in the Runners if you think it advisable.”

Gideon smiled a little crookedly. “Thank you for your willingness to humor a junior officer, but I doubt the Runners will be able to do much. We need to find out where Eustace has gone.”

“No difficulty there,” Jane said briskly. “I can send Molly’s brothers and several others out to inquire. They are old enough to have connections with servants of the families of the ton, and we should have some word within a few hours.”

Sir Richard looked at her with admiration. “Splendid idea. Miss Forrester.”

“Yes, thank you,” Gideon said. “I should have thought of it myself. It is amazing how much street children see and understand, particularly since most of the time no one even knows they exist.” There was silence in the room for a moment. Gideon seldom mentioned his childhood even obliquely, and as a result his friends tended to forget how dangerous and difficult it had been.

He turned away, ignoring them. He seemed to pull thought and solitude around him again like a cloak. After a moment he turned back to the two worried faces and said, “We are assuming it is Mannering—Doncaster. Yet the city is full of men who are thinking to marry to their financial advantage. Mr. Sturdevant, for example. I think we should check the northern roads to see if any coach traveling fast and containing a man and a beautiful blond young lady has passed. Everyone on the damned road must know what eloping couples are like, especially if no maid is there to lend a veneer of propriety!”

He ran an angry hand through his hair and clenched his jaw. “Go, Jane, and see if one of your famous young sleuths can lay a hand on Eustace while we check the road to Gretna. Whoever it is, I’ll kill him.”

Sir Richard stared with a keen eye at his friend. “Where else besides Gretna might the duke have taken her, if it is he and she is in fact missing? Have you an idea? Either of you?” He looked also at Jane, who was giving a note and a few whispered instructions to a poorly dressed but sharp-eyed lad who looked to be about twelve.

“He might have taken her to the Abbey,” Jane ventured.

“Why would he go there?” Gideon demanded. “He is almost completely unknown to the servants there. Their loyalty lies with Amy, not with Eustace. Once they know she is there—”

Jane had returned from her whispered colloquy. She looked thoughtful as she replied, “But they might not know. And I’m not sure Eustace would see things that way. To him, once you are the duke, everything you do is forgiven. He could well believe that the servants’ loyalty will have been transferred to him and not remained with Amelia because that is what his mother told him in his youth.”

Gideon’s lips set stubbornly. “I still say we look for some other hiding place. Has he any friends who might lend him a hunting box, or some other out-of-the-way place?”

“Eustace has never had any friends that I know of,” Jane said. “Amelia swears he was an odious little boy, and he certainly hasn’t improved over the years.”

Sir Richard put his arm around Gideon’s shoulders for a moment. “We will find her. Remember, the duke has no resources, so he can’t have planned anything very elaborate.”

Gideon tried to smile. He could see that both Sir Richard and Jane were worried about him. They did not share his apprehension. How could they? They did not know Amy as he did, did not share the bond that had kept him close to her through all the years he had spent fighting abroad. They thought he was behaving strangely.

Let them! What mattered was finding her. If, please God, they found her at some Society function she had forgotten to tell Jane about, he would be the first to laugh at his fears. But he knew they were not going to be that fortunate.

He had to do something to find her. Inactivity was driving him mad. It was almost as if he could hear her calling to him.

Gideon, where are you? When will you come for me?

“I am going to ride north. If I can’t find a trace of them by dawn, I will return in time to get your news about Eustace.” Without waiting for a reply, he swung out of the room almost at a run, relieved to be finally taking some action.

* * * *

Eustace had been attempting all evening to establish his presence in London, but with little success. He needed to secure his alibi not so much with the law as with public opinion, and he did not have access to the haunts of the Haut Ton. Lack of money, lack of prospects, and a shabby reputation kept many doors still closed to him.

He attempted to find someone to take him to White’s or Watier’s as a guest, but to no avail—who wanted to sponsor a man who could not pay his debts? Finally he decided to go to the opera and later attend a dinner at the home of a cit who welcomed anyone with a title.

Relieved, he circulated around the opera house greeting as many people as he could, telling them that Amelia and he were engaged and were going to spend Christmas together at Doncaster Abbey. He never noticed the sharp-eyed lad who darted away once he had taken a close look from behind a pillar. So far Blakeley had taken all the risks. Eustace would go down to the Abbey in the morning in order to establish that he and Amelia were there alone together. She would have to marry him, the world would give her no choice. It was a simple plan, but one that had worked more times than anyone could count. His mouth curved in a smug smile.

* * * *

A door slid open, and a shadowy figure stood looking at Amelia. A man, but one she did not recognize. Amelia shivered, remembering that she had no dress on. Someone—this man?—had removed it. Clutching the thin blanket around her and hunching her knees to her chest, she stared at him.

“So, yer ladyship, we’re awake are we?” His voice was harsh, his accent proclaimed his birth within sound of Bow bells.

“Who are you?” Why had she asked that? What difference did it make?

“Call me Mr. B. At yer service, ma’am.” Josiah Blakeley sketched an awkward bow.

“Eustace hired you?” Her voice was steady she noted with pride, although she was beginning to know real fear. This man might act like a stage buffoon, but she could hear the hard note in his voice.

He laughed. “ ’Im ’r me? Not bleedin’ likely. No, no yer ladyship, the duke, ’e’s in no position to be ’irin’ nobody. You might say I agreed to do ’im a small favor. A business proposition, more like.”

Slowly the man advanced into the room through a doorway Amelia had not been able to find. The light coming from behind him was suddenly augmented by that of a candle he drew from around the side of his body. In its flickering light Amelia could see the hard planes of his face, the lank greasy hair, and most of all the cold, cold eyes that took in her figure hunched under the thin blanket.

“So, yer ladyship, you about ready to give in and marry the duke? Or will it take more persuasion?” He closed the distance between them and stood looking down at her. Amelia felt like a small animal cornered by the hunter.

She threw up her head. Nonsense! She was no one’s victim, least of all Eustace’s. “No, I am not ready to wed anyone, least of all my odious cousin! You can give up that idea right now.”

Quick as lightning, Mr. B. reached over and grabbed her hair with one bony hand. He dragged her head back until her face was directly under his. “Oh, I would not be too sure of that, my fine lady. Get too ’igh-and-mighty wif me and some very bad

things might ’appen to you. Very bad.” With his other hand, he stroked her cheek. Amelia felt as if her very flesh shrank from his touch, but she could not move her head.

She could, however, still move her legs, and with a mighty heave she brought both of them up and jackknifed them into Blakeley’s stomach. With a cry, he let go of her and stumbled backward. Amelia jumped to her feet and ran headlong toward the door. She had just reached it when he grabbed her arm and almost wrenched it from its socket. He whirled her around and hurled her into a corner of the room.

She lay helpless, the breath knocked from her body, as Mr. B. walked slowly to her and stood over her, still breathing with difficulty. “I should kick yer bleedin’ ribs into yer bleedin’ backbone!”

Horrified but unable to move, Amelia stared at his thick boots only inches away from her eyes.

“But I ain’t goin’ to do it. ‘And why is that, Mr. B.?’  you may ask.” She could hear his snigger, and it sent a chill down her spine. She should never have tried to escape without a plan. Gideon would deplore her lack of tactical skill. How many times had he told her to think before she acted?

“ ’Acos I got bigger plans fer you, Lady Amelia Bleedin’ Bradshaw, that’s why.”

The boots turned away, and she could hear the man retreat. The door slid shut, and Amelia let out the breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding in a long sigh. Slowly she got to her feet, her body aching from the manhandling she had received. She made her way back to the iron cot. Her eyes once again growing used to the semi-darkness, she moved with greater assurance around her prison this time.

Then, her body aching, her head still a little muddled from the drink Mr. B. had given her, Amelia curled into a ball on her hard bed. Often Gideon had had to go days without sleep. He had told her that a soldier learned to sleep as much as he could as often as he could so as to be ready for action when it came. She would be ready. She closed her eyes and slept.

* * * *

It was after seven in the morning when Gideon returned to the house in Hans Crescent. Sir Richard was there looking remarkably fresh. He and Jane hurried out to the hall to greet Gideon with the news brought to them by Jane’s young friends. They told him Eustace had remained in London and that Lady Amelia had gotten into a large black carriage with a crest on the door just outside the house she had visited.

Gideon, mud spattered and grim, slumped on a chair and gulped down the cup of coffee Jane handed him before reporting the results of his efforts. “Nothing,” he said. “Not a trace. Unfortunately, there was a couple who had taken the road north yesterday afternoon, so I chased them down. By the time I found them at some little cottage not that far out of London, it was almost dawn.”

He shook his tangled dark hair off his forehead with an impatient movement. “A waste of almost ten hours! And still no word. I cannot believe that we have been able to do nothing.” He clenched his fists and shut his mouth in a grim line. There was no point in blaming either Sir Richard or Jane.

Jane removed the cup from Gideon’s slack hand. “Is it possible that she never left London? That Eustace has kept her at Doncaster House?”

“It seems unlikely,” Sir Richard said. “There is no impropriety if his mother is there, and we have had no word from Miss Forrester’s legions that either of them has left town.” He went over to Gideon, still slumped in the chair, and put a bracing hand on his shoulder. “I am afraid that all we can do for the moment is await events.”

Gideon’s tired eyes blazed, and he rose to his feet. “I cannot. I will not! Amy is out there somewhere at the mercy of God knows who! I know that Eustace is involved somehow, some way. I am going to Doncaster Abbey. It is only a short ride, and if she is there I know I can find her. There are a hundred ways to get onto the property and stay hidden and I know them all.”

His fatigue seemed to fall away from him like a heavy, wet cloak, and he felt a surge of energy and hope. He grinned at Jane. “The cavalry cannot abide awaiting events. Sir Richard has spent far too much time at Horse Guards—he has lost his dash and daring!” With a grin and a handshake for Sir Richard, Gideon left the room. He was on his way to a fresh mount and a bruising ride to Doncaster Abbey, where he had a sudden heart-lifting conviction that he would find Amy.

Gideon, where are you?

“I’m coming, Amy,” he whispered. “Hang on, my angel, for just a little while longer.”

Chapter Nine

Something jolted Amelia awake. The door slid open, and she saw the man who called himself Mr. B. silhouetted in the opening. She sat up, trembling, every sense alert. He stood looking at her for a moment, then dragged a large bundle onto the middle of the floor, stepped back, and closed the door. She heard the clank of a bolt, the rasp of a key.

No sound came from the heap on the floor. As her eyes became adjusted once again to the lack of light, she could distinguish the deeper, more solid blackness of that menacing pile.