Rebel Baron (44 page)

      
After arming themselves, the men escorted Reba to the carriage she had arrived in and Brand assisted her inside. As she arranged her skirts, she glared at St. John, daring him to climb in after her. He ignored her, instead jumping agilely to the driver's box and shoving the elderly coachman aside.

      
Brand took the seat opposite her, saying, “He'll get us there a lot faster.”

      
“You'd actually sit beside a nigra, wouldn't you?” she sniffed, knowing the nasty reference would infuriate him. She intended that.

      
Brand paid her no heed, too deep in thought to consider her provocation. The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall in place now that he understood why Miranda had been targeted for death. But just as the carriage lurched ahead, a cry caused Sin to rein in and leap from the driver's box.

      
Brand stuck his head out the window and saw Mathias sprinting up the street, waving frantically as he called out to them. The youth was gasping for breath, too winded to speak as he collapsed in Sin's arms.

      
In an instant, Brand jumped out and joined them. “What is it? Miranda?” he asked, struggling to hold his fear in check as Mathias nodded, still unable to speak.

      
“He's run quite a distance,” Sin said, lowering the sweat-drenched youth's slight body to the weed-infested grass in front of the house.

      
Still gasping, Mathias said, “I followed...the lady. She left...without the g-guards and—”

      
Brand cursed, knowing someone must've lured her away. His quickly exchanged look with Sin confirmed it. “Where did she go?”

      
Just as Mathias started to answer, Reba's carriage shot away from them, the old driver whipping the horses as if the very devil were on his trail. Sin dashed after it, jumping onto the back of the conveyance just as it picked up speed.

      
“Can you take us to where they're holding Mrs. Auburn?” Brand asked Mathias.

      
He held his breath until Mathias replied, “Yes, it's down by the river—a big warehouse.”

      
“Deserted this time of evening,” Caruthers muttered, refusing to give in to the blind panic clutching at his heart. Miranda in the hands of men who intended to kill her! Brand helped Mathias to his feet. “You game to go after them, son?”

      
“Always, Major,” Mathias replied with a grin, wiping the perspiration from his eyes, ignoring the misery of his sweat-drenched body.

      
By this time Reba's carriage was pulling to an abrupt halt at the end of the street. St. John had climbed over the top and used his pistol to convince the driver it was wiser to listen to him than to the woman inside, who was now shrieking at him for stopping.

      
“She was making sure we were diverted while they seized Mrs. Auburn,” St. John said when Brand and Mathias caught up to them.

      
“No doubt. Come on. We've no time to waste. I'll guard Reba while we ride,” Brand said as he climbed inside the carriage. Mathias and Sin jumped onto the driver's box, leaving the old man standing in the street as they took off in a mad dash toward the warehouse district.

* * * *

      
Miranda stared at Kent Aimesley as if she'd never seen him before in her life. “Why are you doing this?” she blurted out when he entered the small office in the warehouse where she had been confined for the past hour.

      
‘‘Why, indeed,” he replied rhetorically. “You certainly weren't naïve enough to believe I was still carrying an unrequited tendresse for you after all these years? No? Well, then, why do you suppose I went to work for the man you married and stayed to work under a woman when he died?”

      
The contempt in his voice and the sneer twisting his mouth made him look like a man she had never known...a dangerous, evil stranger. “Will and I paid you well and advanced you to a position of great importance,” she replied numbly.

      
He raised one pale eyebrow and looked down on her with open scorn. “Oh, you paid me well enough—for a bloody glorified clerk! I slaved for you. Without me, that foolish old man—not to mention a mere female—would never have been half as successful as you've been. Now at last I'll receive what is due me.”

      
Though it was patently untrue, Miranda knew that Aimesley believed his rantings about how he, not she, was responsible for the vast empire she had built. “Where are Lori and Tilda?” she asked, trying to focus on him so she could figure out how to proceed. “If you've harmed them, I swear—”

      
“They're here. A bit uncomfortable amid the boxes and bales, but safe for the nonce. I wouldn't dream of seeing harm come to my new ward.”

      
The words were clipped and cold. Miranda's heart froze. “You intend to kill me and Tilda, then take over my business? Become Lori's guardian?”

      
“Who else? You're estranged from what little family Auburn left in Liverpool. Only a few distant cousins and an elderly uncle, as I recall. I'm confident the courts will see that I should be her guardian. After all, who better to oversee the young lady's assets...and choose her husband? A nice irony for Will Auburn's daughter after he took you away from me.”

      
“You know I had no choice in that,” she replied before realizing what she was saying.

      
He stiffened angrily. “You had one after the old man died! But even then you made it quite clear that you had never cared for me.”

      
“All you wanted was my money. Not me.” Her voice was flat. How sad that everything in her life seemed to turn on her own inadequacy as a woman. But there were more important things than her fate, she realized as Aimesley gave a hollow laugh. She had to save her daughter from this monster. God only knew what sort of man he'd force Lori to wed. Someone he could control. Someone who would care no more about Lori than Kent Aimesley did about her.

      
Miranda felt the big Irishman's malevolent presence behind her. The ruffian leaning against a filing cabinet in a corner of the room had taken her reticule and searched it. Satisfied with the decoy “weapon”—a letter opener he had found—he had not attempted to search her person further. The gun felt heavy, hidden in the folds of a pocket in her full skirt. She might be able to get both men into her sights, but what of the mute? He'd vanished into the interior of the building through another door. Were there more of Kent's employees inside?

      
As if in answer to her question, a short, fat man nattily dressed in a gray suit came bustling through the door. “Good. You've got her. After Mrs. Auburn's sad ole drowning accident, the railway contract will come to me.”

      
He was an American, but Miranda had never before seen the fellow. “Who are you?” she asked, wondering if she dared to stand up and try moving to get the three men in her sights.

      
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” he drawled with a nasty snigger. “Fetch her along, O'Connell. Nutter is bringing the old nigra female. You two,” he said, turning to Miranda, “are going on a boat ride...only you ain't comin' back.”

* * * *

      
“We can't ride up and alert them,” Sin warned as they neared the building where Mathias had seen the men take Miranda. He eyed Reba speculatively. “And we'd be wise to keep her bound and gagged while we set about rescuing Mrs. Auburn.”

      
“You wouldn't dare touch me,” she hissed.

      
“He won't have to sully his hands with you,” Brand replied, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and twisting it into a strong bond with which to tie her hands. When she opened her mouth to let out a warning scream, he stuffed the handkerchief instead into her mouth, then pulled her roughly across the seat. “Don't tempt me to wring your neck, Reba. I'll do it in a trice if anything happens to Miranda.”

      
Before she could spit out the gag, Sin offered him a length of leather from the coach's tack with which to bind her wrists and another to secure the gag. They worked quickly, then locked her inside the carriage and set Mathias as guard and lookout while they walked around the corner to search for a way to enter the warehouse undetected. In moments they were inside after utilizing St. John's skills as a lockpick.

      
“Comes in handy now and again,” was all he said, shrugging, when Brand lifted one eyebrow in surprise.

      
Feeble beams of moonlight glowed through small, high windows. Towering piles of crates, barrels and boxes filled the vast building, giving off the aromas of spices, leather and other exotic goods. Whispering softly, they agreed to split up and circle the room in search of Miranda.

      
Halfway around the circuit, Brand came upon a narrow slit of light issuing from beneath a closed door. He moved forward and waited for Sin. As soon as the little man reached him, they decided Sin would create a diversion to draw out whoever was inside while Brand waited to jump him.

      
St. John knocked over a large pile of tea crates, creating a fearful clatter. A stocky man brandishing a truncheon flung open the door with an oath and bellowed, “That you, Dusty? Didn' take long to drown the wenches, did it?”

      
Brand seized him around the neck in a choke hold that sent the club flying. “Now,” he said as he tightened his hold until the man's eyes began to bulge, “where is Mrs. Auburn? Tell me and be quick about it or I'll turn my friend loose on you.”

      
St. John advanced, the long blade of his sword-cane gleaming evilly in the dim light as he jabbed it in the man's gut. “Best heed him, old chap.”

      
'T-they took 'em b-both,” he stammered.

      
“Both?” Brand asked tightly.

      
“The lady 'n the bla—” He cut himself short, noting Sin's dark color, then gulped, “the maid.”

      
That's when Sin looked past Brand and their captive into the room from which he had emerged. Lorilee sat bound and gagged, tied to a chair. “It's Miss Auburn!”

      
Brand shoved the man into the room so hard, he fell to the floor. While Sin continued holding him at sword's point, the baron took the gag from Lorilee' s mouth. Now he understood why Miranda had dismissed her guards and driver and had come here alone. “I should've thought of this,” he said angrily. “Have you seen your mother?” he asked.

      
“No,” she replied, coughing from the dirty rag stuffed in her mouth for so many hours. “Do they have Mother, too? I was so afraid that's what would happen. I haven't seen anyone except the two ruffians who abducted us. But an awful little man who couldn't talk came and took Tilda just a few moments ago.”

      
‘‘Where did they take the women?” Sin asked the man on the floor. “You're not mute, but I can arrange it so you will be if you don't tell us,” he said, raising the point of his blade to the man's mouth.

      
His captive paled. “The river. There be a barge out back, off the wharf.” He scooted away from the menacing tip of the blade as he spoke.

      
“And you're going to show us the way,” Brand said as he freed Lorilee from her bonds. “Wait here. Lock the door behind us and don't come out until we return,” he instructed the terrified girl.

      
They took off at a run, shoving the huffing kidnapper before them as he led the way down to the wharf. A lonely whistle blew in the distance, and the stench of phosphorus and sewage wafted up from the lapping water as they dashed over the wooden planks. The place seemed utterly deserted.

      
Were they too late?

* * * *

      
Miranda and Tilda exchanged signals as the men led them toward a barge tied at the end of the long pier. Tilda's bonds had been removed, but her circulation had been cut off for so long that she had difficulty walking. In spite of it, Miranda knew she would be a fierce fighter in the struggle to come. The fat man and Aimesley led the way, while O'Connell and the mute walked behind them. The Irishman had appropriated the hansom driver's truncheon. He kept slapping it in his hand as a reminder of what the women could expect if they gave their captors any trouble.

      
I have a gun in my pocket, Miranda mouthed silently to Tilda when she was certain the men behind them could not see. Tilda barely nodded, then flashed her eyes toward the barge, indicating that it would be best to wait until one or two of the men climbed aboard before attempting anything. Now Miranda nodded.

      
Unaware, the conspirators discussed the railway contract.

      
“We'll sail for home tomorrow, but I'm relyin' on you to take care of everything on this end,” the fat man said.