The Heiress (24 page)

“I’m sorry, Suzie,” Lord Madison said glumly. “I should have thought to ask to see it.”

She blinked her eyes open and shook her head, her gaze searching out her father’s face. Seeing the misery on his expression, she shook her head again. “No. I didn’t think of it either. This is not your fault.”

“Do you want to know what the best part of it all is?” Jeremy asked, practically crowing with glee. “After I’ve married you, claimed your dower, and you’re both dead, I will ride back to London, search Dicky’s office until I find the marker and then make the estate pay up as well. I’ll get both the dower and the money from the marker.”

Suzette watched silently as he laughed at his own cleverness, and waited until he stopped before asking, “So how are we to die?”

“Hmmm.” He frowned. “I suppose another carriage accident would be a bit suspect when we just had one, and then I shot Thompson and will have to claim highwaymen did it, so that’s out too.” He considered for a moment and then shrugged. “I guess a fire would do. Dicky wanted to avoid that because his parents and brother died in fires. He thought it might look suspect. However, I don’t have that problem. Besides, it will be slow and painful for the two of you and I like that idea.”

“I really don’t like you,” Suzette said grimly.

Jeremy smiled. “Such a shame; fortunately, that isn’t a prerequisite to marriage.”

“Speaking of which, how do you intend to force me to marry you now that I know you plan to kill me anyway?” she asked dryly.

“Because you want to live and will do what I say, hoping to be able to save yourself later,” he said with a shrug.

Suzette suspected that was true, but pointed out, “I’m only doing what you say now because you have threatened my father. But you cannot hold a pistol on him when we get to Gretna Green. No one will marry us if they see you wielding the pistol.”

“I have considered that,” Jeremy admitted, not looking terribly concerned and she understood why when he said, “I am going to hide your father somewhere bound and tied while we get married. You’ll marry me if you want to see him again,” he said with certainty.

Suzette stared at him with impotent fury. His plan would work. She would marry him to keep her father safe and in the hopes that they would find a way to save themselves afterward. And that was their only hope, she realized. That Jeremy would make a mistake and they would somehow escape . . . or that Daniel and the others would be waiting at Gretna Green and save them.

“We’ve waited long enough,” Jeremy said suddenly. “Start walking.”

Suzette straightened at once, but Jeremy had to help her father rise as he had each of the other two times they’d stopped. The moment he was on his feet, though, her father was fine and started walking back toward the road.

“No. We will stick to the woods from here on out,” Jeremy said.

Her father hesitated, but then turned back into the trees and continued forward. Suzette followed, aware that Jeremy was at her back.

“W
e must have missed them between here and the overturned carriage,” Daniel said grimly as he led Robert and Richard back out of the stables.

While it appeared that Danvers’s driver had been shot, probably by a highwayman, they had decided that the other three must have escaped uninjured, or at least well enough to be able to walk. It just wasn’t likely that their robber would have dragged the three off. Highwaymen took money and jewels, not passengers. That meant Suzette, her father and Danvers should have been on foot and headed this way. However, when they hadn’t passed them on the road, they’d assumed the trio had already reached this, the first inn since they’d found the overturned carriage. However, on questioning, the innkeeper had assured them that no one fitting their descriptions had arrived yet. Still, they’d checked with the inn’s stable boy to be sure and had got the same answer.

“We could turn back and scour the road between the carriage and here again,” Robert suggested.

Daniel shook his head. “We could miss them that way. They are obviously on foot. They must be traveling under the cover of the trees to avoid further trouble with bandits. They could arrive here while we are back at the carriage and be gone before we return.”

“I wish we knew how long ago the accident happened,” Richard murmured, glancing toward the lane. “It would tell us how near they might be.”

Daniel grunted, his glance moving to the lane and then the trees surrounding the inn as he realized that Danvers, Suzette and Lord Madison could arrive at any time, and he wasn’t sure what would happen if Danvers saw their party there. As far as he knew, Suzette and her father had no idea that Danvers might be the one who had sent the letter, or that the man may have shot him. He wasn’t even sure of it, though he suspected that was the case. Suzette and her father’s ignorance on the matter would keep them safe, but if Danvers saw Daniel and the others waiting here, he wouldn’t want to approach. That would raise questions and probably protests, at least from Lord Madison, which might force the man’s hand and make things much more dangerous for Suzette and her father.

“We will wait here,” Daniel decided grimly. “But we have to get the carriages and ourselves out of sight. Then we will lie in wait.”

“M
ove faster,” Jeremy snapped, poking Suzette in the back with his pistol.

Suzette ground her teeth at the irritating jab. He had been poking her in the back and harrying them to move faster for several minutes now and she was sick of it. Aside from that, she suspected her father couldn’t move any faster. There was a reason he had a cane and it wasn’t for affectation. The man had injured his leg in a riding accident years ago and it sometimes troubled him. All this walking was apparently aggravating the old injury, because she’d noticed him beginning to limp some distance back. She didn’t say as much to Danvers, however. She already knew the man would have little sympathy, so she stopped walking altogether and simply said, “No.”

“Move,” Jeremy growled, giving her a shove.

Suzette turned and smiled at him sweetly, her eyelashes fluttering as she’d seen the females doing at the Landons’ ball. The only thing missing was the fan as she breathed, “Oh, my lord, I am ever so tired and my feet are beggared, can we not stop to rest?”

“So,” he said dryly. “You can
pretend
to be a lady when it suits you.”

“As well as you can pretend to be a man when it suits you,” Suzette shot back.

“God, you are such a trial,” Jeremy growled.

“Yes, you’ve whined about that incessantly already,” she said indifferently, and then suggested, “So don’t marry me. I’d rather marry Daniel anyway.”

“Yes, I noticed,” he sneered. “You acted no better than a bitch in heat with him when I saw you together in the stables.”

“I acted like a woman in love,” Suzette snapped, suddenly furious. The letter—his letter, she was sure though he hadn’t yet admitted to it—had rained down all sorts of shame on her when she’d read it, but she was not going to feel that shame again. Giving a humorless laugh, she looked down her nose at him and added, “I’m not surprised you didn’t recognize it was love you were witnessing. I don’t imagine any woman could ever feel that fine an emotion for you. But take my word for it, what you saw was a woman in love giving herself to the man she loved and planned to marry.”

“Love, was it?” Jeremy sneered with disbelief, and then added with cold amusement, “And yet look how quickly you agreed to marry me in his stead.”

“You made me think he didn’t want me,” she said defensively.

“Yes, I did. And that was so easy it was almost pitiful. Was your faith in him so weak? Was your
love
so weak?” he asked with apparent disgust.

Suzette paled. Was her faith weak? Should she have dismissed the letter as a fake when she read it? While she and Daniel had never spoken words of love to each other, and in fact, she doubted he felt that for her, she was relatively certain he liked her at least. And now that her heart was no longer breaking she was quite certain that Daniel wouldn’t treat any woman so callously. Had he wished to break off the engagement, his honor would have forced him to do it in person and as gently as possible. She half suspected he would have also endeavored to ensure she wouldn’t have suffered for his decision, either by offering to loan her the money to pay the marker or by finding a replacement husband of good character willing to take his place and marry her. He was just that kind of man.

“How crushed you were to think he cared so little,” Jeremy commented, and then tilted his head and said, “Or was it shame you were feeling for rolling about in the hay with him like a whore?”

“I am not a whore,” Suzette said with dignity, but Jeremy merely looked her up and down as if she were unclean.

“No doubt you would have wanted to act in just as base a manner with me,” he said almost accusingly. Danvers then shuddered, apparently repulsed by the very thought, and assured her, “You would have been disappointed.”

“I’m sure I would have been,” Suzette said dryly and was satisfied to see him flush with impotent fury.

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Oh?” She batted her eyelashes innocently. “You mean you are not like Dicky, unable to function as a man with a woman? And here was I thinking perhaps you two suffered such an affliction because you had a strange man love for each other.”

“Bitch!” he snapped, slapping her so hard that her head turned on her neck without her being able to stop it.

“Say!” her father yelled.

Suzette saw him start back toward them, but turned slowly to look at Jeremy dispassionately and said, “I must have struck too close to the mark to cause such rage, Jeremy.
Did
you fancy Dicky, then?”

A roar of fury ripping from his throat, Jeremy lunged at her then.

Hands tied behind her back, all Suzette could do was try to back away. Before she’d taken two steps, Danvers’s fingers were at her neck.

Chapter Sixteen

S
omething’s wrong,” Daniel muttered, staring out through the door of the stables and toward the trees.

“They
are
taking a long time,” Richard said sounding grim.

“They are walking, and one of them may have been injured, making them walk slower,” Robert suggested.

“If one of them was wounded, they would have hailed one of the carriages that passed rather than walk,” Daniel said with certainty. The innkeeper had told them that two other carriages had stopped at the inn before them and reported the overturned carriage and dead driver on arrival. The first had been almost half an hour before they themselves had arrived at the inn. It shouldn’t have taken much more than an hour to walk to the inn if they’d taken the road. Walking through the trees and underbrush may have slowed them down a little. It may even have added as much as another half hour if the land was very uneven, but he and the others had been waiting for nearly an hour now. Where were they?

“You don’t think they bypassed this inn and continued on to the next?” Robert asked worriedly.

Daniel frowned at the suggestion. He doubted Suzette and her father would have willingly done that, but Danvers might have forced them to. It was a long walk to the next inn though. Cursing, he turned and strode to the first stall holding one of their horses.

“What are you doing?” Richard asked, following him.

“I am going to ride back through the woods and see if I can find them. If I can’t we will travel on to the next inn and check there,” Daniel announced grimly.

“You can’t ride with your wound,” Richard protested.

“It’s a mere scratch. Doesn’t bother me at all anymore,” he lied blithely, grabbing a saddle off a sawhorse against the wall and moving into the stall to saddle the horse.

“I’ll go,” Richard offered, taking the saddle from him and lifting it onto the horse.

“Someone has to stay here in case I miss them and they arrive while I am gone,” he said, scowling at Richard, but really grateful he’d taken over the task of handling the saddle. His wound had screamed with pain when he’d picked up the damned thing.

“You and Robert can stay here to watch for them while I go,” Richard said calmly, cinching the saddle.

Daniel caught his arm. When Richard paused and glanced at him, he asked solemnly, “Would you stay here if it were Christiana out there instead of Suzette?”

Richard frowned and turned back to finish with the saddle. Once done, he sighed and shook his head. “Your mother is going to kill me for letting you go.”

“She doesn’t have to know,” Daniel said firmly, and then smiled wryly and added, “In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her. She’d come after me herself.”

“You’re damned right I would,” Lady Woodrow announced.

Sighing, Daniel turned to watch her step into the stall. “I am going, Mother, and that is that.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else,” she admitted, not looking pleased. “But you are not going alone.”

“Robert and Richard have to remain here in case they—”

“Then I am coming with you,” she said simply and glanced to Richard to ask, “Would you saddle me a mount, please, Richard? Don’t worry about it being a sidesaddle, I can ride astride.”

“Yes, Lady Woodrow,” Richard murmured and slid out of the stall to find a saddle and carry it to the next horse over.

“Mother, you are not—” Daniel began, but she interrupted him.

“Do you want to stand here and argue about it, or shall we go find your Suzette?” she asked abruptly. “Because if it’s arguing you want, I will give it to you. But it will be a waste of time. I
am
going with you.”

S
uzette woke to pain. She seemed to hurt everywhere, her head, her throat, her side, her wrists, her ankle. Everything was either throbbing or burning. It was most unpleasant.

“Suzie?”

Recognizing her father’s voice, she opened her eyes and peered around. It took a moment for her to realize the dark sentinels surrounding her were trees and that she was lying on the cold ground in a fetal position. She couldn’t see her father though.

“Are you awake?” he asked, and Suzette realized his voice was coming from behind her. When she felt a warm hand clasp her own, she turned her head, biting back a groan as her throat protested the move.

“Father?” she asked, able to make out a dark shape behind her.

“Yes.” He squeezed her hand. “How is your head?”

“It pains me,” she admitted wearily.

“I am not surprised. You hit it when you fell. It bled badly,” he added. “Is it still bleeding?”

“I don’t know,” Suzette said, wondering how she was to tell. It hurt, that was all she really knew, and then she frowned and asked, “When I fell?”

“When Danvers attacked you I rammed him with my shoulders. It was all I could do,” he said apologetically. “I was afraid he was going to choke you to death.”

“He was very angry,” Suzette said dryly.

“You have that effect on people,” was his wry response.

Suzette gave a short laugh and then asked, “So ramming him was enough to stop him?”

“Well, that knocked you both down and got his attention. But I suspect reminding him he couldn’t marry a corpse was the real reason he didn’t simply go back to choking you,” he admitted.

“Good thinking,” she sighed.

“It worked,” her father said, and then added apologetically, “Unfortunately you knocked your head on a boulder as you fell. So you have me to blame for your aching head.”

“You saved my life,” she pointed out, and tried to shift to a sitting position, but found she was anchored down somehow.

“He tied us together,” Cedrick Madison explained. “He didn’t have any rope, so he ripped strips off your gown and used those.”

Startled, Suzette craned her head up and around to look at herself and saw that her dress was much shorter than when she’d set out that day. That explained why she was so cold, she supposed. “Where is he?”

“He was going to walk to the next inn to rent a hack and then come back for us. Hence the reason he tied us together. He figured that way if you regained consciousness before he returned, we wouldn’t get far.

Suzette stilled and asked, “How long has he been gone?”

“Long enough that if we are planning to escape, we should get moving,” her father said solemnly.

Suzette nodded, and immediately regretted it as pain shot through her skull. It felt like a squirrel was up there gnawing on her head above her right ear. She waited a moment for the worst of the pain to pass, and then said, “Count to three and on three we will both sit up.”

Her father began counting.

“W
e must be halfway back to the overturned carriage by now.”

Daniel didn’t respond to that fretful comment from his mother.

“Surely they would have got farther than this by now?” she added, her gaze slipping over the woods on either side of them.

Daniel’s mouth tightened, but he stayed stubbornly silent. He wasn’t going to turn back until they’d reached the carriage, though he was sure his mother was going to suggest that next.

“Daniel, I think——” Lady Woodrow began, and then paused and reined in her horse. “What is that?”

He reined in as well and glanced to her to see her leaning forward on her mount, staring ahead and off to their right with bewilderment, and then a little alarm.

“What kind of creature is that?” she asked, her voice going higher in pitch with anxiety.

Daniel turned his head, following her line of vision and searching the dark woods ahead until he spotted movement. He leaned forward now himself, trying to make it out. It was still a good distance away, and large, as tall as a person but bigger around than one. Under the moonlight it was a patchwork of whites, grays and black . . . and he didn’t have a damned clue what it was. It appeared to be leaping about, but was far too big to be a rabbit and its movements were clumsy, almost drunken as it weaved one way and then another in an awkward, hopping manner.

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. Daniel watched it for a minute, and then said, “Stay here,” and urged his mount forward. He kept the horse to a slow walk, his approach cautious because he wasn’t sure what it was. But as he got nearer and heard the racket the creature was making, he realized it would never hear his own approach. The crackle of underbrush as it thumped about was loud enough to drown out any sound he was making. In fact, it was making so much racket that it took him a minute to realize it was speaking . . . English . . . in two different voices . . . one female and one male.

“Straight ahead, Father. You keep hopping to the right.”

“I
am
going ahead, Suzie.
You
are the one who keeps going to the side.”

“Not
your
ahead,
parallel to the road
ahead. Jump to your left instead of forward.”

“Oh. Well why didn’t you say so, girl?”

Suddenly Daniel knew exactly what he was looking at. Relief rushed through him, but was followed by a wave of laughter so strong that he had to bite his tongue and lower his head to keep it from bursting out. He knew without a doubt that his riding up, laughing his head off would infuriate Suzette immensely.

“Is that her?”

Daniel glanced around to see that his mother had ignored his order and ridden up beside him. This close, she apparently had also recognized that it was two people, bound back to back and hopping through the woods in the most ungainly fashion. Daniel nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak without a laugh slipping out.

“Well.” Lady Woodrow tilted her head as she eyed the woman who was soon to be her daughter-in-law. Finally, she said, “She must be cold in that . . . er . . . whatever she is wearing.”

Daniel turned his head back, blinking as he took in what Suzette was—or wasn’t—wearing. He couldn’t believe he had been so distracted by everything else that he had missed that she wore little more than a very short shift or shirt. At least that’s what it appeared to be at first, but then his gaze slid to the torso of the outfit and he realized it was a gown with a good deal of the bottom missing. Her legs were naked almost all the way up to her hips. Good Lord.

Digging his heels into his mount, Daniel urged the horse forward, moving more swiftly now to cross the remaining distance between them.

“A
gain,” Suzette panted and they hopped again, she to her right, her father at her back hopping to his left so that they were moving, she hoped, toward the next inn.

“Suzie?” her father asked, forestalling her repeating “again.” He sounded as breathless as she was.

“Yes?” she puffed.

“Maybe we should be heading the opposite way,” he wheezed. “After all, this is the way Danvers went and the way he’ll come back.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “That’s why we’re going this way.”

“It is?” he asked uncertainly. “Why?”

“Because he’ll expect us to go the opposite way,” she said simply. “We are only going this way for a little bit longer, and then we’ll move deeper into the woods. He’ll go right past us and when he finds us missing from where he left us, he’ll continue on and search in the opposite direction, thinking we would head back toward the last inn rather than risk running into him at the next inn where he went.”

She felt his deep chuckle vibrate along her back, and then her father said, “You always were a clever girl.”

“Not clever enough,” she said sadly. “If I’d only been smart enough to trust in Daniel—”

“Now, don’t start berating yourself for that. Danvers obviously saw the two of you up to something in the stables that you thought no one else knew about. Of course you’d think it was him.”

“You thought the letter might be a fake,” she pointed out.

“Not at first. I only started to wonder because it just seemed a little suspicious that Danvers was there to rush you to wed after you got the letter. And then I remembered him being at the club with Dicky and me,” he admitted. “So don’t be blaming yourself for any of this. None of it was your fault. Danvers and Dicky had it planned at the start, and Danvers just carried on with the plan.”

“Yes.” She sighed and then glanced around. “Perhaps we should start hopping deeper into the woods now. Danvers could return any time and—” Her voice died as she noticed a dark shape approaching ahead. After a moment she recognized it as a man on horseback, and for one horrified moment, thought it was Danvers and they’d left it too late to get off the path. But then she realized the shoulders were too broad to be Danvers. In fact, the shape looked to her to be Daniel’s. She had stared at the man and admired his form often enough to recognize it even in silhouette and she relaxed.

“It’s Daniel,” Suzette said out loud as she became aware that her father was almost vibrating with his anxiety.

“Are you sure?” he asked worriedly.

“Very,” she assured him, but Cedrick Madison didn’t relax until Daniel drew his mount to a halt and hailed them.

“Suzette, Lord Madison!” he said as he slid off his horse. He paused for the briefest moment once his feet hit the ground, not long really, but the way he held on to his saddle for that second made her frown, and then he was moving quickly to them, his face pale in the moonlight.

“Are you all right?” he asked, coming around in front of Suzette.

She nodded, hardly noticing the shaft of pain the movement sent through her head. Every hop they had made since she’d woken up had sent agony through her skull, so the small jolt of pain was easily ignored.

Daniel caught her face in his, and frowned as he saw the dried blood on her forehead. “You’re hurt.”

“I hit my head is all,” Suzette said quietly, her eyes moving hungrily over his face. She’d thought she’d never see him again, and yet here he was.

Daniel didn’t look reassured, but asked, “Danvers did this?”

She grimaced. “Yes.”

“Where is he?” He glanced around.

“Father said he headed to the next inn to rent a hack,” she answered.

Daniel relaxed a little, then met her gaze and said firmly, “I didn’t write that letter.”