Captive Surrender (15 page)

“
What is it?
Prudence?” Despite the dizziness that made his stomach churn,
Stephen moved to stand beside her. He peered through the gap in the
shutters to the garden and driveway outside. Sure enough, Will was
just remounting his horse, and was quickly joined by a clearly
disgruntled Levant, Taylor and Brown. He watched the men turn and
slowly amble down the driveway and, at first, didn’t notice that
Prudence had fallen strangely silent. He frowned down at the top of
her head. Was she crying?

“
What is it?”
He glanced at the driveway. A sudden flash of fear made him study
the landscape outside with more astute eyes. There was nobody else
there. Prudence had told him that there were four riders, and four
riders were just leaving. What had upset her so?

“
Prudence?”
When she didn’t immediately answer him, he gently placed his hands
on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. Although the
tears didn’t fall, he could see them on her lashes. He frowned down
at her, unsure if Levant’s visit had upset her so, or whether it
was something else.

“
The garden,”
she whispered. “Look at what they have done to the garden.” Her
voice broke and she sucked in a breath to steady
herself.

There, beneath the
window, was what could only be described as carnage. The plants and
seeds she had lovingly tended and left in neatly planted rows had
been torn up, presumably sometime during the night, and left
scattered around the muddy soil. Most of the plants had been ruined
beyond redemption having been stomped into the mud, broken in half
and generally smashed into mulch.

Stephen knew that this
had dire consequences for the family. They couldn’t afford to buy
new plants from market, and there wasn’t the weather, or the time
in the season to grow new plants for the vegetables they would
need. The food that the family desperately needed to sustain them
had just been destroyed in the cruellest of ways.

“
Don’t worry,
Prudence,” he whispered. He drew the shutter closed, partly to
block out the sight of the riders turning out of the driveway, and
partly to block Prudence’s view of the destruction they had wreaked
on the family. “We will work around this.”

If he had to go to market
himself and purchase an abundance of plants for the garden, then he
would do it. Right now though, he knew that they would most
probably just be pulled back up again anyway, so it would be a
futile exercise.

It felt as though
Levant’s callous act of vandalism had just sealed his future,
because Stephen knew with absolute certainty that whatever happened
between him and Prudence, he couldn’t, and wouldn’t, leave the
family to fend for themselves. Not even when Levant was either in
jail or dead.

He could only hope that
he could bring Levant to justice before Prudence and her family
paid a much higher price than a few spring vegetables.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

It unnerved him greatly
that once the ladies had learned of the mess the garden had been
left in, they hadn’t wept and wailed, they hadn’t screamed and
ranted, they had merely stared askance at the mess that had been
left behind before they had waded in to clear the debris aside and
dig the garden over.

He had been aware of
Georgiana’s tearful occasional sniffs, but wasn’t sure if she was
silently crying or simply cold. None of the ladies seemed
adequately clothed for winter and had braved the autumnal weather
with nothing more than muslin dresses and woollen shawls to protect
them from the stiff sea breezes. They were either incredibly hardy
souls, or dicing with severe winter illness.

Stephen had suspected
that the family were borderline destitute. He had never realised
just how impoverished they were, or how inventive they had been
forced to be because of their lack of funds. Everything, absolutely
everything, had been used, re-used, mended and, when it was beyond
the use it had been made for, it was reshaped, resized and used
again for something else. There wasn’t anything of excess in the
house, and the items that were there all had a direct purpose and
use. It was as though someone had been through the house and either
cast out or sold anything that was deemed as frivolous or
unnecessary. Had they sold everything they could to earn some extra
money?

The idea made Stephen
disgusted with their sire. Whatever fate had befallen the man, it
was considerably easier than the future he had thrown at his
children. Hopefully, the man had suffered a slow, lingering death
somewhere. It was the least he deserved.

Stephen lay on the bed
and stared at the ceiling. Although dinner had been plentiful, it
hadn’t been lost to him that there had been no meat in it. Meat was
a luxury this family simply couldn’t afford. He had eaten
sparingly; very aware that every mouthful he took would deprive
them all in the coming months if anything happened to him. It made
him even more determined that, unless something went horribly wrong
with his plans for Levant, he would not be moving anywhere for the
foreseeable future.

Despite their lack of
finances, the group of people who occupied the house were a family,
and a very close knit one at that and, for once in his life,
Stephen yearned to be a part of it.

At eight and twenty, he
had spent nearly all of his adult life in the army. He had been
raised by an aunt who had worked in service and been gone from dawn
to dusk throughout his childhood, leaving him to literally raise
himself. Although he had enjoyed his freedom, he had desperately
wanted to belong; to someone, somewhere. In the end, when his aunt
had died suddenly from a wasting disease one summer, he had used
the meagre savings to purchase a commission and had joined the
army. Since then, he had been fighting for king and country,
although he had no idea why. He had no family; no place to call
home; and no affiliation to anyone he had left behind in
Wednesbury, and he felt as though he was fighting a war that
someone else was going to benefit from him winning. The closest
thing he had ever experienced to a normal family home was the one
he had been in throughout the day at Cragdale Manor and he
desperately wanted to protect it.

Over the course of the
day he had watched, listened and learned, and had slowly fallen
deeply in love with the house, the family and, unless he was much
mistaken, one beautifully angelic lady named Prudence. They worked
hard to eke out a living in the most impoverished circumstances,
yet didn’t grumble, moan or argue. They simply got on with it, and
helped each other out while doing their best to keep an eye on
their seriously ill mother. It galled him to think that they had to
live with such an appalling set of circumstances, while being
victim to Levant’s greed.

He sat in front of the
roaring fire and listened to Robbie read. It brought him more peace
than he had ever felt. He felt himself dozing, but was so relaxed
and content that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything other
than smile at Robbie when he began to make snoring sounds and tease
Stephen for his sleepiness at a baby’s bedtime. He took the gentle
ribbing with good grace and issued a mock challenge to the young
boy that left him in fits of laughter.

Eventually, everyone
retired to bed. Hours after the house had settled into slumber,
Stephen lay wide awake on the bed and listened to the clock on the
mantle chime once. It was time for him to do his rounds. He slowly
eased his legs off the bed and moved toward the door, pleased to
note that the house was silent as he made his way downstairs. He
had no idea where Prudence was, and could only assume that she was
sharing a room with one of her sister’s given that he had taken up
what he now knew was her bedroom. The air within the small room
even smelled of her, but even that was something that made him feel
more at home rather than on edge.

“
Where are
you going?”

Stephen jumped and swore
roundly. He turned to glare at the woman who always seemed to be on
his mind and cursed himself for not being aware that she had crept
up behind him.

Maybe he had
been hit on the head harder than he had realised, because he seemed
to be slacking a little in his attention to the finer
details
, he mused silently as he studied
her.

“
What are you
doing out of bed?” He demanded.

“
Leaving us
so soon?”

Stephen sighed and glared
at her through the darkness. “I am going to go and check to see if
Mr Simpson is still there and, given what happened to the front
garden last night, am going to make sure that there isn’t anyone
lurking in the bushes.”

“
Like you
did, you mean?” Prudence asked wryly.

Stephen froze, his brows
lifted in astonishment. He met her challenging gaze. “I was
checking to make sure that you are alright,” he announced
flatly.

“
Or are you
going to see if you could help wreck the garden again?”

“
How could I
wreck the garden last night?” he sighed. “I was tied to the bed and
talking to you most of the night.” It irked him to admit it but it
was the truth.

“
Will is in
your place now, maybe he was the one who did it?”

“
It is
irrelevant who did it. We both know that it was Levant. He thinks
that by damaging your vegetables, your only food source, he is
going to financially damage you so that when he comes with his
ridiculously low offer, you will accept it because you will be not
only impoverished but facing starvation as well.” He closed his
mouth with a snap and mentally winced at the cruelty of his words.
“I am sorry,” he murmured on a sigh.

“
It’s
alright. It is the truth, isn’t it? We are impoverished, but we are
together and that is what counts. Nothing, and nobody, especially
Levant, can break us apart. We are not going to a work house, we
are going to stick together, no matter how hard life gets.” She had
no idea what they were going to do about finding the money to pay
for the vegetables they would need next year but they would have to
face that bridge when they came to it.

“
Life won’t
get any harder than it already is, Prudence. Trust me on that one,”
Stephen replied quietly. He was glad for the moment to be alone
with her. He had only vague memories of last night but had to know
for certain in his own mind if they were memories, or wishful
dreams.

She didn’t move when he
slowly walked toward her and cupped her cheek in his warm palm.
“Trust me, Prudence. I will help you through this, but you have to
allow me to take the lead and make decisions on what is best for
everyone. Do as I ask you to do and I can promise you that by next
spring, money will not be an issue.”

His declaration made
Prudence frown and she stared at him in consternation. “What do you
mean?” Her blood ran cold as she thought of Levant’s offer for the
house. Did Stephen expect to seduce her into selling? Was that his
plan? He was handsome; by far the most handsome of Levant’s men.
Had he been sent to seduce her out of her home? She swallowed and
felt sick at just how easily she had been fooled by him, and drawn
in by his gentleness.

“
I think that
you had better go back to Levant. There is nothing here for you.”
She shoved his hand away from her and glared at him. “It was a good
try though.”

Stephen frowned at the
doorway to the sitting room and wondered what he had said wrong. He
had merely meant that once Levant was out of the way, which he
sincerely hoped would be soon, he could secure his relationship
with her and provide for the family until their relationship could
be placed on a more formal understanding. He stood for a moment in
the silence of the hallway and replayed the words over in his mind
before he followed her.

“
I cannot
tell you too much right now, Prudence, but I am most definitely not
in Levant’s employ.”

Prudence continued to
stare into the fire. Humiliation raged through her and she
struggled to contain the tears that threatened. It had been
wonderful to have someone in the house who was bigger than her,
harder than her, and calmer in the face of a crisis. Just having
his reassuring presence in the house had eased everyone’s fears.
Even though they all knew that he was associated with Levant in
some way, they had welcomed him and, despite their relatively short
acquaintance, accepted him into the family.

When she didn’t appear to
have heard him, he turned her to face him. Rather than drop his
hands and step back, he kept them on her shoulders to stop her
moving away. He had to bend down to look her in the eyes, and
watched in consternation when a single tear trickled slowly down
her cheek.

“
I am not
with Levant,” he whispered fervently and silently willed her to
believe him. He had no idea why her good opinion of him mattered so
much after such a very short acquaintance, but he really wanted her
to think well of him. He wanted the whole family to like him as
much as he liked them, and allow him to be a part of
them.

He made a decision right
there and then, and sent a mental apology to Sir Hugo. “I work for
His Majesty’s government. I have been sent to the area to look into
Levant’s activities. Not only do we think they are criminal, but we
think that they are linked to a ruthless gang of French spies who
have been smuggled into England.”