Once Again a Bride (23 page)

“What’ll we do when we’re there?” Lucy asked wearily, and not for the first time.

Ethan didn’t mind repeating himself. “We’ll go to Sir Alexander’s place first. It’s nearest where the stage stops. They all know me there, o’ course, and they’ll lend me a horse. I’ll ride over to Lady Isabella’s house. It’s not far. And then we shall see.”

“What if she’s not there? What if we made a…?”

“The note said the country. Has to be her house. Where else would it be?”

Lucy’s lip trembled. “Oh, Ethan, what if something bad’s happened to Miss Charlotte?”

“Now why would it? No need to think that.” Though how could you help it, Ethan thought, with the way things had been going.

“What else am I to think?” Lucy pushed her stew around the plate.

“Eat,” Ethan urged her again. He spooned down his own portion. “And quit worrying. I’ll take care of this,” he assured her.

“How? We don’t even know what it is…”

“However I can. However I have to. I’d do anything for you, Lucy.” The flash of fear in her face touched him. He longed to sweep her into his arms, and for far more than comfort.

“You mustn’t… you must take care. If there’s danger… you don’t think Miss Lizzy could have been right, do you? About kidnappers?”

He shook his head. “Don’t see how. Doesn’t make sense.”

Lucy extended a hand across the table. Ethan took it and held it in his much larger one. His heart swelled within him, and he smiled at her. What better could a man ask than to help and protect those he loved? Yes, he’d like to take her upstairs to bed, and so he would someday. For now, her trust in him was almost as gratifying. “Don’t you worry, Lucy,” he said again. “We’ll make it right.” The smile she gave him in return, tears glittering in her pretty blue eyes, made Ethan feel he could do anything.

Alec Wylde was as tired as he had ever been in his life. He’d had little sleep since the journey up from London, and what he had managed was fitful, plagued either by dreams of fire and disaster or by vivid visions of Charlotte warm and eager in his arms. Whenever he thought of her, which was constantly despite the troubles he was trying to resolve, he regretted leaving her so soon after their time together. He should have… he didn’t know what he should have done, and that was the crux of the problem.

Failure seemed to be his lot just now. He rode the countryside trying to calm the people, to save them from their own justifiable anger. If they turned to violence, they’d be hunted down and hanged; that he knew. This government had proved it again and again. On his own lands, they listened, but of course they had received some assistance. Beyond its boundaries he was met with sullenness or fury or—worst—a broken recitation of rightful grievances. He had no remedy for these and no answer for the stares of hungry children and their desperate parents.

This morning he was headed for the main southern road; rumor suggested that a group of men intended to set up a barricade there, to disrupt travel in that direction. Nothing was more likely to attract the army and result in arrests and the kind of executions they’d seen in Nottingham not so long ago. He would try to reason with them, dredge his exhausted brain for some argument that would move them. But he wasn’t optimistic. Some of these men believed the government would make changes if they were forced, and they didn’t want to hear the contrary. Well, he wished it himself, though he couldn’t have that faith. Some were so angry they simply required an outlet, to stave off despair. A few just enjoyed making mischief. But all of them risked their lives, unless he could convince them to disband.

He rode his largest hunter to look impressive, searching up and down the road until he came upon them. Then he spoke for nearly an hour, summoning all the eloquence he possessed. Finally, combining threats of what the government would do and promises of aid, he managed to persuade them to remove the carts they had used to block the highway. He was watching them hitch up their horses, hoping they were not simply moving to a different part of the road, when he noticed a post chaise approaching from the south.

He urged his horse along the highway, fearing that some of the rowdier men might decide to stop it. And indeed the group paused to watch as the carriage swept closer. Alec planted himself in the middle of the road so that it had to slow. People must be warned that it was a very bad time to travel in Derbyshire. A man leaned out of the vehicle’s window. Alec was astonished to recognize his cousin Edward. “Alec!”

“What are you doing here?” Edward never left town at the height of the Season. For a moment, Alec wondered if he might have come to help his tenants. Then he let that ridiculous thought go.

“Let me pass!”

Edward looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. He was tousled and unshaven. Alec had never seen him less than perfectly groomed since he left school, which meant that something was very wrong. “What’s happened?”

“I must get home. Let me pass!” Despite his commands, the driver pulled up. It was that or run Alec down.

“I doubt you can get through. Haven’t you heard what’s happening? The countryside is in an uproar. Roads blocked, men gathering to protest…”

“They would not dare stop me!”

“That is exactly what they would do, Edward. Why do you think they are setting up barricades?” Alec indicated the carts that were still partly blocking the way.

His cousin seemed at a loss. He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it further. “Blast it. Damn both of them to hell.”

“Who? What are you doing here? What has happened?”

“Get in,” his cousin snapped.

“Why…?”

“Tie your horse to the back and get in! I can’t be shouting private business across a highway.”

He was so agitated that Alec decided to comply. But when he’d climbed into the chaise and faced his cousin, he demanded, “What the devil is this about?”

“There’s something… wrong with my mother.”

“She’s ill?” What was he doing up here, in that case?

Edward tapped his fists on his thighs, vibrating with tension. He seemed reluctant to speak, and yet at his wits’ end. “She seems to have brought Charlotte here,” he blurted finally. “And I don’t know what she means to do with her.”

“Do…?” Alec wondered if his cousin had had some sort of brainstorm.

The admission appeared to have broken a barrier, and words tumbled out of Edward now. “We’d been to the opera, the three of us. On the way home, Charlotte and I had… a disagreement. My fault entirely. I was… not myself.”

Most likely drunk, Alec thought, his blood burning at the idea of this “disagreement.” What had Edward done?

“I woke late the next day and had to spend a bit of time… recovering. I felt vile, if you must know. It was afternoon by the time I made that hellish long drive out to Charlotte’s house to apologize. Then, when I got there, I found the place all at sixes and sevens. They’d received a note saying that my mother was taking Charlotte on a visit to the country. Charlotte hadn’t come home the night before, hadn’t summoned her maid. No warning, nothing packed, an impulse, the note said.”

“In the middle of the Season? Aunt Bella would never…”

Edward waved him to silence. “You needn’t tell me. I went over to her house. I have a key. And I found it empty.”

“They’d left already?” It made no sense.

“No, Alec, I mean
empty.
Only my mother’s bedchamber and one servant’s room upstairs had furnishings. A few bits in the kitchen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The rest of the place was bare walls and floorboards,” Edward almost shouted, as if volume would get his point across.

“But… that’s…”

“Unbelievable? Inexplicable? I have used those terms and more on this damnable journey.”

Alec tried to remember the last time he had been inside his aunt’s house. It was years ago. He began to feel cold despite the warmth of the June afternoon. “I still don’t understand what you think is happening.”

Edward stared at him out of bloodshot eyes. “I don’t
know
what is happening. I
suspect
that Mama has been selling her things to support her… style of living.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I’ve wondered how she managed to dress as she does and keep a carriage. I didn’t really pay attention. Why should I?”

“Edward!” He got his cousin’s attention. He wanted to shake him. “What has this to do with Charlotte?”

“Don’t you see? She must have gone into Mama’s house when she… She must have seen the empty rooms. Mama would never forgive her for the humiliation.”

When she what, Alec wanted to ask? Should he take the time to choke out of Edward just what he had done? Not now. “All right, she will never forgive her. Why in God’s name would that lead her to come to the country?”

Edward gritted his teeth. “Will you listen to me? Nothing matters more to my mother than her place in society. It’s what she lives for. She’s… a bit… fanatical on the subject. And now I find that she’s sold everything she owns to maintain her position.” He put his head in his hands. “I’ve heard her telling people she had painters in, and then it was workmen moving a wall. Who listens to such things? But I realized as I traveled that she has been making excuses to keep people out of her house for a very long time. The idea that her shift was discovered, that it might be revealed to the
ton
, would make her frantic. I don’t know what she might do to protect… well, she has already gone far beyond the bounds… Oh, hell! I followed as soon as I could. From what I could discover on the road, I am a day or more behind them.”

The only part of this that he cared about hit Alec like a roundhouse blow. “You think she would harm Charlotte! Over such a triviality?”

“I have been trying to
tell
you that it is not a triviality to her! You have never understood Mama, never considered what she was made to endure…”

“Endure?” Alec’s brain filled with jumbled visions—his aunt in a fury, Charlotte threatened. “You think Aunt Bella has gone… has become like Grandmama?” Alec saw a screaming rictus of a face, shattering glass, paroxysms of hysteria.

His cousin blanched and looked away. “No! Of course not. There have been one or two occasions… but it is not the same… Martha knows what to do.”

“Martha? The same Martha who took care of…?”

“Yes! Why not? Mama has known her since she was a child. They… handled a great many crises together.” Edward scowled, then pounded on the roof of the chaise. “Devil take it, I have to get home!”

Alec opened the carriage door and stepped down. “I shall ride across the fields to your house. It’s the only way to get there quickly. Can I get it through your head that the countryside is practically in arms? The army is on the way to suppress what amounts to a popular uprising. The roads are dangerous.”

“I’ll take one of the post horses and come with you.”

“Without a saddle or bridle? Over the walls and hedges?”

Edward leaned out and grasped his arm. “Give me your horse then.”

“No.” Alec pulled free and walked away.

“It’s my mother!” Edward jumped down and pursued him.

“Who is threatening to harm Charlotte!” If anything had happened to her… Alec’s blood burned in his veins. Edward caught his arm again. They grappled in the road, heedless of interested eyes from the carriage and the dismantled barricade. Alec twisted, jerked free, and landed a solid blow to Edward’s midsection. His cousin folded, huffing for breath. Alec ripped his horse’s reins from the back of the chaise and mounted.

Edward gazed up at him, still gasping. “Alec. Please.”

Alec didn’t remember ever hearing that word from his cousin. Edward’s anguished expression reached him, though he had no intention of giving him what he wanted. “Up ahead, take the left fork. Go through Tarne. You have a better chance that way. But I warn you, men are out on the roads, in the villages, and they are angry. They are not stopping to listen to excuses.” He wheeled his horse and headed for a gate that led into the fields.

***

Sometime in the endless night, Charlotte had freed her wrists, gnawing like a trapped animal at the layers of twine and tugging at them until her wrists were raw. Unbound, she’d felt her way around the dusty floor and, thankfully, found a chamber pot shoved all the way back under the rickety bed. She still felt weak and disoriented, but it was a huge relief to be untied and away from Lady Isabella.

She watched dawn lighten the small window, far too small to be any use for escape, even if she hadn’t been at the top of the house. The door was sturdy, the walls solid. Without tools, she had no chance of breaking through them. The sparse contents of the room offered no weapon. She had no resources but her wits, and they were far from sharp. She still fought the muzziness of the drug and the fatigue of the forced journey.

When the lock clicked, she braced for a fight about her bonds, but Martha merely frowned at her wrists. She’d brought a glass of water, which Charlotte wanted so desperately she nearly cried. But when Martha stood by waiting for her to drink it, she knew it was dosed. “What are you going to do to me?” she asked, holding the glass.

Martha merely waited, leaning against the closed door.

“People know where I am. They will come here looking for me.” And so they would, eventually. How long might it take? “What Lady Isabella has done will be exposed,” she tried. “This is not some trivial matter. How can she imagine…?”

There was a cry outside, and the clatter of something large falling. Martha looked toward the window. With a lightning twist of her wrist, Charlotte dumped the contents of the glass into the straw mattress, then put it to her lips as if drinking. She got one tantalizing wisp of moisture on her dry lips, enough to make her thirst even stronger. When Martha turned back to her, she lowered the empty glass. “There will be real trouble if you do not let me go,” she said to distract her further. Perhaps she imagined it, but she thought Martha looked uneasy. She only took the glass and left, however, locking the door behind her.

Charlotte waited until her footsteps died away, then tried the door. It felt as impregnable as ever. But they thought now that she was drugged; that was one small advantage.

The day wore on. Charlotte was alternately frantic and exhausted. She longed to collapse into sleep, yet she had to remain alert for any opportunity to break free.

It was late afternoon before one arrived, in the person of the old housekeeper with a tray of food. She looked surprised, and alarmed, to see her awake. “Feeling better, miss?”

Charlotte took the tray from her, set it on the bed, grabbed the old woman’s shoulders, and forced her down beside it. She snatched the key from her trembling hand. “Perhaps they have told you I’m mad. That is a lie. I have been kidnapped, and all of you are going to be held accountable for it.” And so much else, Charlotte thought. But that was not to be mentioned here and now.

The old woman stared up at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“If you keep silent when I’m gone, I will tell the magistrates that you had no hand in my abduction.”

The housekeeper shrank away from her, nodding.

Charlotte didn’t know if this was agreement or simple fear, but she couldn’t afford to wait, and she wasn’t willing to hurt the old woman. She locked her in the room with no guarantee that she wouldn’t start shouting at any moment and moved as quickly as she dared along the bare corridor.

She found the back stairs and crept down to the kitchen, fortunately empty. A short corridor led through the scullery and out into the yard. The conflicting needs to hurry and to be careful were almost unbearable, and Charlotte’s heart pounded as she stopped to listen. She didn’t know who else might be here—stablemen, farm laborers? But if there were horses… She raced across to the stables and found them empty. Disappointed, she took the time to dip handfuls of water from the horse trough and drink, then slipped into some shrubbery behind the building and worked her way around the house. She wasn’t able to run for very long; her body hadn’t recovered from the drugged journey. She needed transport, and direction to Sir Alexander’s house. Luckily, Lady Isabella didn’t appear to have a staff of servants to search for her. Martha was formidable, but she was just one person.