Claimed by the Rogue (36 page)

Standing outside Aristide’s rented rooms, Robert exchanged a charged look with Anthony. “Now.”

At Robert’s nod, Anthony summoned his most lordly tone. “Aristide Bouchart otherwise known as the pirate Arthur Trent, I command you to open this door by the authority vested in me as a peer of the realm and a loyal subject of His Majesty King George.”

Anthony’s War Office contact had confirmed that while the Bouchart name was indeed one of Normandy’s oldest and most noble, the revolution had also rendered it extinct. The last of his line, the true Aristide Bouchart, seventh Count of Beaumont, had come to his end at the kiss of Madame Guillotine at the ripe age of eighty.
 

They waited in silence. Not surprisingly, there was no response from within. Robert turned to Anthony. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
 

“We’re going to have to break down the door?”

Robert nodded. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d appreciate doing the honors. The fellow did try to have me killed twice, perhaps thrice.”

“Be my guest,” Anthony said, drawing the dueling pistol from his pocket and backing away to make room. “With my gamey leg, my door-breaking days are done. I am, however, an excellent shot.”

Planting his weight on his left leg, Robert hauled back and drove his boot heel into the door. Several more well-placed kicks in the vicinity of the lock plate saw the wood splintering and the knob left hanging at half mast.
 

Robert unsheathed his cutlass and charged within. Anthony followed, pistol at the ready. The unnatural quiet sent Robert’s stomach sinking. A room-to-room search confirmed their quarry had fled.
 

“Bloody hell,” Anthony cursed, lowering his weapon. “Shall we away to the magistrate’s?”

Robert shook his head, the sinking feeling segueing to full-on dread. “You go on, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I may. I have to warn Phoebe.”

The city was still cloaked in fog when the hackney left Phoebe off at Hyde Park Corner. Blunt-featured and fatherly, the driver cast a concerned look down from the box. “Ye sure ye should be strolling the park at this ’our? A lady such as yerself could run afoul o’ footpads or worse.”

“Thank you for your concern, but I shall be fine,” Phoebe answered. Passing him the funds for her fare, she prayed that promise at least would be proven true.

Approaching the entrance gate, she paused to take a quick look about. Satisfied that no one followed, she continued through. Barring a few solitary horsemen, the park was deserted at this early hour. She took one of the railed footpaths skirting Rotten Row and leading toward the lake. Chiding herself for not taking the time to change from slippers to boots, she forged ahead, the dampness seeping into her soles. Fifteen or so minutes later, the Serpentine came into view. Skirting it, she swallowed against the lump constricting her throat. The lake with its stock of waterfowl had been Pippin’s preferred promenade from puppyhood.
 

Coming up on the arched bridge bisecting the lake, she allowed that her footwear wasn’t the only preparation upon which she’d skimped. Her papa’s pair of dueling pistols would have been a far more practical armament than a quill sharpener. Then again, the one time she’d fired a flintlock, the kickback had nearly felled her.
 

A dog’s high-pitched bark had her picking up her skirts and quickening her steps. Gaining the bridge, she took a set of side stairs to its top.
 

Squinting through the mist, she called out, “Pippin!”

The barking was by now more muted but still coming from close by.
 

“Pippin!”
 

A heavy body slammed into her from behind, throwing her forward. Feeling as though she’d been struck by a boxing bag, she struggled against the wiry arm banding her. She opened her mouth to scream but before she could, her attacker shoved a balled-up cloth inside. The coarse sack pulled over her head robbed her of sight and any smell beyond must.
 

Trapped, still she struggled, kicking out with legs and feet, but it was no use. Her soles left the ground; seconds later her body upended as she was hefted high and hung headfirst over a hard shoulder. Heavy footfalls bore her forward. Head knocking against her kidnapper’s backbone, she fought back panic. From the first she’d known Betty’s note was meant to trap her, but she’d thought that, as long as she stayed in the open, she might prevail in rescuing Pippin and getting them safely away. Only now did she realize just how gravely she’d underestimated her enemy.
 

Her kidnapper must be descending by way of the bridge steps. They reached the bottom, his stride leveling. His soles no longer scraped stone but were muffled as if treading on some spongier surface.
 

“She’s a cunning one is milady,” a woman, Betty, called out, her Cockney accent thicker now that she was out of service. “Mind you hold on tight.”

Resolved to make the best use of the senses still left to her, Phoebe cocked an ear to listen.

“I don’t need a stupid bitch like you telling me my job,” Phoebe’s captor shot back.
 

Phoebe would wager Robert’s locket that the man holding her was one of the two who’d pursued them through the market. Robert had tried convincing her they were Aristide’s henchmen, but as usual she’d been too stubborn to heed him.
Oh, foolish Phoebe!

“You’ll keep a civil tongue and take the box if you know what’s good for you,” Betty snarled.

The box—so they were at a carriage. Determined to mark whatever other clues she might, she caught the creak of what must be the opening of a door prone to sticking.

He shifted her to his opposite shoulder as if she were as senseless as the sack shrouding her. “Bugger off.” A hard hand clamped down upon her buttocks.

Fighting dizziness, she felt herself being passed up.

A second set of arms received her. “Have a care you don’t muck up my cargo,” a familiar male voice spoke up.

Aristide!
Gone was the French accent, yet the voice was unmistakably his.

Had he eluded Robert? Or perhaps he hadn’t eluded him at all but had escaped by doing him some harm? The prospect struck terror into her heart. Robert had not been back for a full month and yet she couldn’t imagine her world without him in it. Whether they sparred or made love scarcely mattered. She needed him to feel fully alive. Thinking of how much of the past precious weeks she’d wasted in attempts to push him away brought her awash in regret. Assuming they survived to find their happiness together, she’d not make the same mistake again.

They settled her upright. Hands, none too gentle, pulled off the sack. Blinking, Phoebe stared across to Aristide and Betty sharing the seat opposite her. The former maid held a cocked flintlock aloft. Thinking of the myriad times that same hand had passed a brush through her hair or poured her a cup of tea, Phoebe shuddered.
 

“You scream and I off the dog,” Betty warned, pointing the pistol downward.

Phoebe followed its direction to the carriage floor to Pippin at her feet. Meeting his wary brown eyes, her heart lurched. She reached out, and he nuzzled his wet nose into her palm. So far as she could tell, they hadn’t hurt him, but who could say how long that would last? Fighting tears, she was reminded that hers and Robert’s lives weren’t the only ones her stubbornness had placed in peril.
 

Looking back at her captors, she answered with a mute nod before removing the gag.
 

“Pippin, darling.”

Rising onto his hind legs, he planted his front paws upon her knee, tail wagging. Lifting him onto her lap, Phoebe assessed her choices, admittedly slim. Her limbs had been left unbound. Was it possible that she might jump down from the carriage and flee? With Pippin in her arms, how could she break her fall? It was full daylight now, a rather brilliant spring morning. The park would be filling fast. If she screamed, someone might well hear her.

Eying Betty, she put aside that possibility as well. The maid’s finger was on the trigger and her bearing suggested that she would require little in the way of persuasion to pull back. Firing at point-blank range, she couldn’t miss. No, Phoebe’s only course was to sit tight and await a safer opportunity. Once her letter arrived at Chelsea’s, Robert would come searching for her. He
had
to.

Arms about her dog, she focused on Aristide, or rather Arthur Trent.

“Why not simply let me go?” she asked, hoping to appeal to his reason. “What can you possibly have to gain by holding me? You shall never get away with this.”

A smile slanted his lips. He rapped his knuckles on the carriage ceiling and the vehicle lurched forward. “Never, my girl, is the very devil of a long time.”
 

Robert arrived at the Tremont townhouse as the household was settling into its morning routine. The butler led him to the breakfast room occupied by Lord Tremont alone. A napkin tucked into his neck cloth, the older man pushed back his chair and rose.
 

“Bellamy, I hadn’t thought to see you within these four walls so soon,” he said and despite his affable smile, the oblique reference to the debacle with the maid wasn’t lost on Robert. “I was coming to believe Phoebe and I were the only denizens of Mayfair to begin their day before noon. But don’t stand about. Fill a plate and join me.” He gestured to the sideboard set with the ubiquitous covered serving dishes.

Under other circumstances, Robert would have been delighted to accept. But with Aristide on the lam, there was no time to waste. “Has Phoebe come downstairs yet?”

He waved Robert toward a chair and resumed his own. “No, she has not, which is bloody odd. Barring the other day after your…call, she takes breakfast with me every morning.”

Robert remained standing. “About that—”

“For what it’s worth, that business with our maid strikes me as balderdash, but I’d rather hear you say so.”

Robert sucked down a deep breath. “On my life, and the love I bear your daughter, I swear that it was.”
 

His lordship gave a gruff nod. “Good, splendid. Have you sworn as much to Phoebe?”

“I have. But to the purpose of my visit, I have reason to believe she may be in danger.” As much as he wanted to believe that she’d sequestered herself in her room as promised, his sinking gut suggested otherwise.

Salt-and-pepper brows shot up. “Danger! What sort?’

As parsimoniously as possible, Robert relayed the happenings of the past weeks leading to the discovery that Bouchart was no French aristocrat but the Manchester-born pirate, Arthur Trent.
 

Lord Tremont raked his thinning hair with a trembling hand. “Do you mean to say I nearly gave my daughter’s hand in marriage to a pirate?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. But you mustn’t blame yourself. Even I who have been much abused by him failed to recognize Trent and Bouchart as the same man. But we can speak at length later. For now, kindly send someone to fetch Phoebe. I would assure myself of her safety before I continue my pursuit.”

“Of course.” Lord Tremont crossed the room to the bell pull.
 

Before he could reach it, Wilson appeared, towing along a young housemaid by her sleeve.
 

Coming up to the table, Wilson addressed his master. “Pray forgive the interruption, milord, but this chit has something to say to you.”

Red-faced, Lord Tremont shook his head. “Really, Wilson, you should know that any household concerns are to be taken up with my wife.”

“It concerns Lady Phoebe, milord.” The butler nudged the girl. “Go on, tell his lordship exactly what you’ve told me, and mind you do not omit so much as a syllable.”

Toeing the carpet, the girl began, “Well, ’tis like this. Lady Phoebe went… That is to say…”

Impatient with her hemming and hawing, Robert opened his mouth to deliver a much-needed prompt, but he was preempted by Lord Tremont. “Out with it!” he thundered, not sounding at all like the mild-mannered man Robert knew. “What have you to say about my daughter?”

“She’s not here.”

Robert’s heart froze.
 

“What do you mean she’s not here?” Lord Tremont demanded. “Of course she’s here. At this hour, where else would she be?”

“Well, er, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, mind, but I was blacking the grates in the parlor in the wee hours this morning when I chanced to see Lady P passing by on her way upstairs—fully dressed,” she put in pointedly, cutting Robert a look. “A few minutes later she hastened back down and bade me find a footman to deliver a letter forthwith, but I…I got so caught up in ferrying breakfast trays up to Lady T and Miss B that it clear slipped my mind ’til now.”

“Where is the letter?” Robert demanded.

“In me pocket, sir.”

She dipped a hand into her apron, pulled out the folded paper and passed it to him. Robert unfolded the sheet. The large looping handwriting at the top was the same as before and obviously belonged to Betty. Reading it, his anger ratcheted. Using Pippin as a lure, he should have anticipated it. He skipped to the sparse message penned below in Phoebe’s neat, spare hand.