Edith Layton (17 page)

The coach slowed. Kate felt herself turn to ice. It stopped, her captor tensed and crouched, knife high in hand. A door cracked open, a face peered in. Kate’s captor relaxed. “The mort on the floor’s the maid,” he said.

The man at the door nodded, reached in, and hauled Alice out. Kate tried to stand on shaking legs, and sat right back as the door was slammed shut and the coach jolted to a start.

“Not you,” the man with the knife said.

The carriage rattled on to its unknown destination again. They rode in silence for what seemed like a long time to Kate, though she realized her sense of time was distorted by her dread. Were they leaving London? But she could still hear the mundane, comforting sounds of the city around her. The cries of the street vendors, the rattle of other carriage wheels, the sounds of horses’ hooves striking cobbles as they clattered by.

Their own progress was obviously slowed. Because her captor seemed impatient. At least he put a filthy finger at the edge of the shade on his window from time to time to sneak a look out the window, and frowned. It was a small thing, but it gave Kate unreasonable hope. Wherever they were going, he obviously thought it was taking longer than it should.

As time went on and nothing new and terrible happened, Kate’s terror began to subside and she became more clearheaded. She tried to reason out her predicament logically. The coach would stop sooner or later, and though she wished it would be later, she’d better be prepared for what lay ahead. She didn’t know if she could escape, but she wouldn’t dwell on that. If she could guess why she was there, it would help.

She’d been kidnapped. But she didn’t have money, so why should anyone bother? Unless it was a mistake. No. As ugly a customer as her kidnapper was, she didn’t think he made that kind of mistake. But a man out for money would certainly take one of the Swanson daughters, and she didn’t look anything like them. Even an enemy of theirs wouldn’t make that mistake—most especially not an enemy, she decided. And she herself had no enemies she could think of, or any suitors so desperate for her hand—or body—that they’d have to take her in this manner.

The only explanation that made sense was that Alasdair was somehow involved in this mad start. Their charade might have been too convincing. It could be someone who thought there might be gain made out of asking
him
for her ransom. It could even be someone from that dark past he continually hinted about. Someone who wanted revenge on him, and would get it by making him bargain for her safety—or worse.

She’d had been thrust into a coach that was driving her to an unknown destination. The maid the Swansons had provided for her had been struck unconscious, then dragged away, leaving Kate alone and utterly defenseless. She was being held at knifepoint by as evil a man as she’d ever seen. But the fact that
Alasdair
would have to pay for her in any way was what she found really horrifying.

A
ll bad things must come to an end
, Kate thought as the carriage slowed to a stop again. But this time she worried it might get even worse, because her evil-smelling abductor rose to his bandy legs and gestured to the door with his knife.

“Out,” he said.

The door cracked open. Kate swallowed hard, rose, and crept out the door.

The sunlight hurt her eyes, but she was relieved to note it was still daytime. She stood on the top step of the carriage stair and blinked, trying to see where she was through the tears the sudden light brought to her eyes. They were still in the city, but nowhere she’d ever seen.

She’d expected a noisome slum like the one they’d just passed through. She didn’t have to see it, its odors had assaulted her nose and there was no escaping the sounds in the streets outside. Although she didn’t know that much about London, some things could be deduced by simple reasoning. Good districts didn’t
have street vendors
selling
rags and bones and bottles. Even closed windows couldn’t muffle the earsplitting calls of the criers peddling their wares as they rolled their barrows by, nor shut out the voices of pedestrians as they shouted, quarreled, and whooped at each other. Kate heard them more clearly when they’d paused in traffic, but the accents were so thick she could hardly understand what they’d been saying. What little she did understand made her glad of that. God’s name shouldn’t be taken in vain, but these people took it and used it any old way, along with ruder things in greetings, jests, and curses.

The noise had faded in the distance, and it had been relatively quiet outside the coach for a while. Kate knew it was too soon a time to have left London far behind, and felt some relief. She realized that was irrational, because terrible things could happen to her anywhere. But somehow the thought of being taken far from her cousins, and especially Alasdair, was even more terrifying.

She’d expected to see tenements or bleak warehouses. That was where a person expected a kidnapper to take them. But they’d arrived at a street of ancient cottages crowded together close to the road, the kind that might be found in any old, depressed part of the countryside.

“Move,” her foul captor said, prodding her in the back.

Kate stepped down and walked toward the ramshackle cottage they’d stopped in front of. A door swung open, and, with a sigh that was half a prayer, she stepped inside.

At least the room she’d been locked in met all her expectations, Kate thought drearily as she looked around
the tiny attic again. A chair, a cot, and a table were the only furnishings. She supposed she wasn’t being deprived on purpose; there wasn’t room for a stick more. The ceiling tilted so abruptly a person couldn’t pace properly without crouching every seven steps to avoid being slammed in the head. She knew. Her head ached. The one round window was boarded over, a sliver of wood had been broken off to let some air in. Not much did. An eye to the space showed only a glimpse of a neighboring chimney stack and a tiny bit of mangy thatch on that other rooftop.

Kate hadn’t seen anyone but her foul-smelling captor, and she hadn’t seen him in what seemed like hours. His absence made some of her dread evaporate, because she’d been more afraid of anything he’d do to her than of having been abducted and locked up in a strange room far from friends and family. Much to her relief, though she could occasionally hear snatches of muffled far-off conversation, no one else came near her either.

Now panic gave way to annoyance. She felt more bored than terrified. She briefly marveled at the resilience of the human spirit, then set about trying to think of a way out. Her parents were too far away to help, and though Lord Swanson was clever, he had no experience with such matters. There was one person she automatically thought of as invincible, but in this, he couldn’t be. She thought longingly of Alasdair—and almost gave in to despair, wondering if she’d ever see him again, wondering if he’d be devastated at her loss, or merely bemused.

No, she couldn’t think that. Certainly he’d be horrified and furious when he heard what had happened. But powerful as he was, he wasn’t omniscient, so it was up to her to save herself. She did waste a few min
utes more imagining his reaction when he heard what had happened, picturing the look on that dark face, envisioning how he’d mutter a curse, tighten his lips, and clench his fists before he leapt into action and did…what? It warmed her to think how worried he’d be, but she knew that worrying was all he could do for her. And she certainly could do enough of that for herself.

So it was up to her. She had to take it step by step. She’d been stolen, that was the only fact she knew. But why? What danger was she in? She didn’t think her captor had rapine on his mind. The mere thought of it horrified her, but he’d looked at her with annoyance, not lust. She couldn’t be mistaken about that. The thought of rape made her nerves jangle, so she further reassured herself by doubting he’d been hired to deliver her to someone else for that purpose. None of her admirers was so overwhelmed with lust as to steal her away for their dire desires. Of course, one of them had looked at her with unimaginable depths of desire, but now they both knew he didn’t have to kidnap her to win a similar response from her. But who else…?

They might have taken her for ransom money, but she didn’t have any, and everyone she met knew that. She smiled remembering Lord Markham’s face when he’d found out, and didn’t doubt he’d told everyone he knew in revenge. Did they want to extort money from the Swanson? If so, they could easily have snared one of her cousins instead. But suppose they’d been misled. What would they do when they found out she wasn’t worth much?

Enough of imagining terrors
, she told herself sharply.
That won’t get me anywhere
. It might take days to find out why she’d been taken. She didn’t have minutes to spare. She had to save herself because now even the
mighty Sir Alasdair was helpless. And so she began studying ways out of her predicament again.

The door was bolted. All she got from flinging herself against it was a sore shoulder. The boards in the window had been hammered in securely, and, besides, by the time she’d broken a fingernail and shredded a few others, she realized she couldn’t fit out of it even if she could pry it open. Thumping on the floor would only bring up her jailer. But the window drew her….

A little while later her efforts bore fruit.

The door swung open.

Kate blinked. It looked like her captor had taken a bath and shrunk. But another look showed her the small aggrieved boy standing there, hands on spindly hips, was as dirty as the larger version of himself.

“Now, whatcha wanna go and do that for?” he asked angrily. He opened his hand to show her all the bits of paper she’d torn from the little notebook she carried in her reticule, scribbled “HELP” on, and had been squeezing out the window for the past half hour.

“Ain’t like no one can read ’em, even if they found ’em, silly bitch,” he said. “They come down like snow in August though, so how could I miss ’em?”

Bitter disappointment combined with anger, it made Kate forget how vulnerable she’d felt moments before. Her only hope had been that her kidnappers would have been too busy to notice. But to have been discovered—and then cursed at. By a child?

“I beg your pardon!” Kate asked furiously.

“Well, yeah, right,” he said approvingly, “you should. Anyways, I come to tell you to quit it or my da will get mad, and you don’t want that, you don’t.”

The boy’s face was almost as filthy as his father’s, but his features weren’t broken, only small and snubbed, like the rest of him. It was hard to tell if he
was seven or twelve. Diminutive as he was, he was as assured as a man and had a rough gravelly little voice. He turned to go.

“Wait!” Kate cried. “I don’t know how much you’re being paid to keep me here, but I promise you I can get you more.”

He looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Aye, more trouble, for certain. Get us scragged, is what
you
can. Won’t do you no good. We already got paid, so we gotta deliver or we gets it in the neck one way or t’other.”

“My family—my friends—can pay more.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said in a bored voice. “That’s what my da said you’d say. Listen. It’s ’zactly like I said. It’s our necks. Broken in a noose or wrung by a hand, don’t make no difference, it’d be all the same to us. We don’t deliver, we loses our reputation and starves—or worse. And if you does get free, then we gets to take the morning drop at Newgate. Nah. My da said, ‘Don’t listen to her,’ and he’s a leery cove. Now stop throwing things out the window, hear?” He began to close the door.

“Wait!” Kate cried again, such panic in her voice that the boy turned round.

“Don’t worry. Your gettin’ food, ain’t about to starve you. Comin’ right up, so stubble it, willya?” he said, not unsympathetically.

“But, I need something more,” she said, thinking furiously. “I need…I must…go, you know.”

He scowled. “No. What do you need? Ain’t likely to get it, but you can ask anyways.”

“I have to use the convenience,” she announced.

He looked puzzled.

“Ahm…I…” She sought suitable words, since it was obvious the boy didn’t understand the proper ones. Her upbringing presented a problem though, so
she tried to explain the need and not exactly what was necessary to meet it. “I had a long ride here, I had a lot to drink this morning, I need to use the convenience, the outbuilding, the…”

“Oh,” he said, looking nonplused for the first time. “Yeah, right. Shoulda thought. Hang on, gotta member mug downstairs, get it for you.”

She looked blank.

“A thunder mug,” he said in exasperation.

“Oh. A chamber pot? No!” she said with loathing. “I don’t want one. I can’t use it, you see,” she said, inventing rapidly. “Wouldn’t suit at all, not in my…present state.” She fell silent, hoping the mysteries of female plumbing would embarrass or confuse him.

“Oh!” he said, light obviously dawning. “Flashin’ the red flag, are you? Well, yeah. That could be a problem, gotta talk to Da.” He turned on his heel, went out, locking the door behind him.

Kate, face aflame, stood waiting.

The door flew open. Father and son appeared in the doorway. Kate cringed at the look on the father’s face.

“Use this!” he demanded, thrusting a chipped chamber pot and a filthy rag at her.

Her chin went up. Her nostrils flared. “No, I can’t. And I won’t. I have needs, but I have standards. You may kidnap me, but you cannot degrade me, or at least I suppose you can, but I won’t be party to it. So if I become ill, I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it?”

That caused some consternation. His face turned ruddy, even under all the dirt. After a moment’s thought he growled at his son. “Take her down to the Jericho, and wait for her. Get her whatever she asks for too. As long as she can’t use it to hurt you none.”

“Aw, Da. Do I gotta?” the boy whined. “’Tis a man’s work for certain, aint it?”

“
That
it ain’t,” his father said brutally. “Listen,” he told Kate, shaking a filthy finger at her, “he’s little, but he’s quick, and he knows his knife like you knows your needle. I give him orders. He’ll cut you if he got to—and he’ll sing out for me, which’ll be worse, I promise you. Try any kinda rig, and you’ll find out. Now go and take care o’ it. Your only gettin’ your way ’cause you’re a lady, and I don’t know much about ’em. But mind your manners, or I’ll forget mine.”

Kate nodded and, with stiff neck and flaming face, gathered up the hem of her skirt and stepped out the door, with the pair of them at her heels. She took a quick look around the cottage as she marched down the stair and down the short hall to the back. The room on the right was no neater than the one on the left, and had a rusted stove and a table. Blankets on the floor of the room opposite showed it was for sleeping.

“Hold,” her original captor said, when they reached the back door. He rummaged in a knapsack until he produced what might once have been a doublet, a dress, or a shirt. He then made a great show of ripping it into long pieces, and handed them to Kate. Her face was so hot it felt swollen, but she accepted the rags, nodded, and allowed herself to be showed out the back door.

The tiny back garden was all weeds, and even they didn’t flourish. A path through them led to a swaybacked hut at the foot. Behind it, a high overgrown hedge blocked all view of what lay beyond as well as obscuring the house on the left. The cottage on the other side looked abandoned.

“Well, go in,” the boy said when Kate stood still in front of the dilapidated outbuilding. “And ’member, I’m out here.”

Kate opened the door to the squalid outhouse, and took an involuntary step back again. It was dark, dank,
and incredibly fetid inside. But she held her breath, marched in, and pointedly closed the door behind her.

“Boy!”
she called imperiously, a few minutes later. “I need some more clean cloths. I
must
have them!”

“Aw, damnation!” the boy said angrily.

“Four,” she called again.

“Four?” he asked in disbelief.

“Do you want to see why?” she asked, her voice frigid. Her next words seemed tinged with tears. “
I
don’t want to show you,” she said miserably. “But I don’t have any choice, do I?”

She couldn’t believe the next words he used. When he was done, he grumbled, “Yeah. Anything else, Your Highness?”

“That will do,” she replied.

Muttering, he marched back to the house.

She was gone when he got back.

But it took him several minutes to discover that, since she’d managed to wedge the door tight after she’d left.

They caught up with her a half mile down the road. They didn’t make a fuss, they didn’t raise their voices. Kate felt a prodding at her back, and then the father was at her left side, breathing heavily and glowering at her, and the boy was at her right.

“Silly blowen,” the father panted. “Where’d you think you was going? Only got two directions. You wasn’t going to scarper cross’t no fields, you ain’t such a clunch, after all. Still, we run upstairs and looked out a winder, and seen you right off. Now, shoutin’ won’t do you no good, ’cause the folk hereabout wouldn’t care. And if they did, they knows it wouldn’t do ’em no good neither. Not many folk live here no more, which is why it’s such a good ken fer us. Now, face about and c’mon back.”