Ripe for Scandal (26 page)

Beau laughed and knelt down beside him. There was a child after her own heart. Horses were far better than naps. “Would you
like to go see the horses?”

Jamie nodded, dark curls bouncing all about his head.

“Then go to the horses we shall.” She scooped him up and turned toward the stable, only to find her path blocked by two very
familiar faces. Granby and Nowlin.

Granby’s smile didn’t hide the malice in the eye she’d left him. Beau took a step back and let Jamie slide to the ground.
She glanced at the house. Not a servant in sight.

“Good afternoon, Lady Boudicea,” Granby said, bowing formally, as though he were paying a call.

“Jamie,” Beau said, not taking her eyes off the men. “Go back to the house. Back to Peg.”

Jamie’s grip on her hand tightened.

“No need for the little mite to cause alarm.” Granby snapped his fingers and pointed from Nowlin to Jamie. The Irishman reached
for the boy, and Beau lashed out with a fist, landing a lucky and unexpected hit that sent him sprawling onto the wet grass.
Jamie clutched her skirts and shrieked at the top of his lungs.

Nowlin scrambled up, wiping mud from his breeches. He and Granby moved in from opposite sides. Granby grabbed hold of her
arm while Nowlin plucked Jamie up.

Beau struggled free but tripped as Granby caught her by the skirts and yanked. She pulled away, stumbled, and then she was
falling.

The water felt like stone when she hit it, knocking the air from her lungs. It took a moment to realize that she wasn’t dead,
another to recognize the sensation of sinking and to combat the overwhelming urge to scream.

Her skirts dragged her down, making it nearly impossible to kick. Beau fought her way toward the surface, clawing at the water.
Her lungs burned. The pain—the
need to breathe—growing more intense by the second. She broke the surface, swallowing air and water both, and sank back under,
choking.

Something hard and sharp caught her arm, and this time she did scream, losing what little air she’d managed to inhale. She
was pushed up. Borne up. She gasped for air, hands disconcertingly full of fur.

Beau took another breath, and the panic started to recede. Gulliver circled, whining softly, pushing her up whenever she started
to sink. Beau looked about frantically. No tiny body bobbed in waves. No toy monkey either.

The dog nudged her as a wave broke over her, thrusting her down. Beau grabbed ahold of him, arms around his neck. He turned
about and swam powerfully toward shore.

Men splashed into the water as they approached the beach. Beau struggled to her feet, using Gulliver as a crutch. Someone
threw a blanket smelling of fish and smoke about her shoulders, and Beau clutched it to her, teeth chattering as the wind
raised gooseflesh all over her body.

She pushed her hair from her face and looked up at the top of the cliffs. She could see no one peering down. Had they taken
Jamie? Left him alone on the cliffs? Had they watched as she was rescued? Or had they fled the moment that she’d tumbled over
the cliff?

“My lady?” one of the men said, face puckered with concern.

“Poor woman’s lucky to be alive,” another one responded.

The dog sat at her feet, pressed close, rumbling low in the back of its throat whenever any of the men got too close. Beau
put a hand on its head, and it quieted.

“Don’t growl at me, beast,” the second man said, wind-chapped face stern. “Get her ladyship back to the vicar’s house, John.
You, Henry, run up to the Hall and tell them we’ve got her safe. Have them send a coach and a change of clothes.”

“Henry,” Beau said through chattering teeth, “tell them to look for Jamie. He was with me. He’s up there by himself now.”
Or she hoped he was. Better that than with Granby.

Men darted off in several directions. The man who seemed to be in charge offered his arm, and Beau took it, shushing the dog
again as she did so. Gulliver protested softly all the way to the vicar’s cottage and then flung itself down across the doorway
when the vicar refused to allow it inside.

The vicar’s housekeeper chased Beau into her own quarters and ruthlessly stripped her wet garments off. “You can wear my flannel
wrapper, ma’am. I mean
my lady
.”

“Either is fine, Mrs. Batey,” Beau said, reaching for the proffered robe. “I’m not about to stand on ceremony. Not today.”

“You tuck in by the fire. And I’ll be back with something hot for you to drink quick as a cat can lick its ear.”

“Thank you. Have they come back from the Hall yet?”

“No, my lady. It’s a steep hill, and they were on foot. They’ll be a while yet.”

Beau huddled by the fire, toes and fingers cold on the inside, skin painfully hot as she held them near the flames. The numbness
in her extremities gave way to full-fledged pain as she slowly warmed up. Everything ached. Every joint. Her head throbbed
as though it had been used as an anvil.

Mrs. Batey returned with a pot of tea, Gareth hard upon her heels. Beau flung herself into his arms, and he held her tight.
“What the devil happened?”

Beau opened her mouth and nothing but a sob came out. Gareth forced her back into the chair, pulled a flask from his pocket,
and dropped down beside the chair, his expression harried.

“Brandy,” he said. “Drink it.”

Beau took the flask and drank, the fumes nearly choking her.

“All of it,” Gareth said, pushing her hand back to her mouth with his own. He tipped it up, so she had to either drink it
or wear it. Beau pushed his hand away and drained it.

“Jamie?” she said when she’d finished, knowing to expect the worst. Granby. Her past come back to haunt them this time. Hers,
not Gareth’s.

Gareth shook his head. “No sign of him. No one seems to have known either of you were missing until Mr. Dobbs showed up claiming
they’d fished you out of the sea.”

“They had nothing to do with it.” Beau clutched the robe tighter around herself as the brandy burned inside her belly. “It
was the dog. Gulliver. I’d have drowned if he hadn’t swum out and pulled me in.”

“What happened, brat?”

“Granby. Granby happened,” she said bleakly, tears leaking uncontrollably down her cheeks, so hot that they stung. “It’s been
him all along. Nowlin was his, and now this. I think he’s taken Jamie. What could he possibly want with him?”

CHAPTER 37

W
hat the hell did you bring that along for?” Granby asked, staring with revulsion at the squalling child clutched in Padrig’s
arms.

Padrig looked down at the little boy. He’d wrapped him in his coat and chased after Granby’s coach on horseback. “You said
grab them. I thought you wanted him.”

Granby rubbed his temples. “A misstatement. Clearly. I wanted Lady Boudicea. That,” he said and waved one hand dismissively
at the boy, “you could have chucked over the cliff after her. Should have, as a matter of fact.”

Padrig’s mouth fell open. “You can’t just drop a baby over a cliff, sir.”

“Why not? Once we’d lost Lady Boudicea, there was no reason to keep the child. I’m certainly not going to cart it all the
way back to London. You took it. You get rid of it.”

CHAPTER 38

B
eau’s breathing steadied as she dropped off to sleep. Gareth loosened his grip and let her slide down beside him on the bed.
She’d been disturbingly quiet until they’d entered the house, but once she’d started crying, she’d been unable to stop.

She’d sobbed until she’d begun hiccupping, face buried in his chest, the child’s toy monkey locked in her hand. Gareth hadn’t
the slightest idea what to say to comfort her. She’d been flung off a cliff. Had nearly drowned. And Jamie was gone, perhaps
forever.

Granby could be anywhere by now, though there were a couple of options more likely than the rest. Gareth wiped a thumb over
his wife’s tear-stained cheek. Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it now. Every minute put Jamie further out of their
reach.

He slipped out from under Beau and tucked her in, twitching the bed curtains closed behind him. The best thing he could do
for her at the moment was let her sleep. From beside the fire, the giant Newfoundland silently
wagged its tail. Gareth crouched down and rubbed its head. Gulliver had earned his place, and he’d seemingly decided to transfer
his trust of Jamie to the rest of them.

Dover was the most immediate concern. If he could get there before the next packet left, he could at least rule out a flight
to France. If they’d fled to London, there was no catching them now anyway and finding them would be next to impossible.

Gareth left the dog to guard his wife and went to order Monty saddled. He dashed off a quick note for Beau and instructed
Peebles to give it to her should she wake while he was gone. He claimed the reins from a groom, checked the girth out of habit,
and swung into the saddle.

It was getting dark already. He was in for one hell of a dismal ride. Gareth loosened the reins and gave Monty his head. The
gelding lengthened his stride, breaking into a flat-out run.

He reached Dover well after dark. Monty was slick with sweat and breathing like a bellows. Gareth reined him in, and the gelding
dropped into a walk.

By the time they reached the docks, the horse had cooled. Gareth handed him over to an ostler at the largest inn and went
inside to question the innkeeper. The man shook his head. No one-eyed man, and no one with a small boy in tow. The results
were the same at every other inn.

All the same, Gareth waited at the quay and watched as the passengers piled aboard the morning packet. No sign of Granby,
Nowlin, or Jamie.

Bloody-holy-fucking-hell.

Dover had been his best hope. They could be anywhere. Traveling to anywhere. They could have run for
London, the largest city in the world. A city rife with almost impenetrable slums. Or they could be bound for Nowlin’s own
country. Ireland might as well be the moon. He’d have no chance at all of tracing them there. Or they could simply disappear
into the English countryside.

A sick feeling roiled through him. He couldn’t turn to his family. Souttar had seen to that. Gareth’s mouth was suddenly dry.
He was trapped in a web of half-truths and necessary lies.