Royal's Bride (30 page)

“I’m hit!” shouted the driver, his gun flying out of his hand. The coach careened right, tilted to the left and nearly toppled over. Royal fired his last two shots before the rig began to slow. It was clear the man in charge barely hung on to the reins.

Royal steeled himself. The coin in his purse was all he carried. The rest was safe in his London bank account. He wore little jewelry, just his father’s emerald ring and the pocket watch his brother Reese had given him as a gift one Christmas before he returned to his duties in the army.

The coach continued to slow, rolled to a jerky stop, and the riders rushed up, pulling so hard on their horses’ reins one of the animals whinnied.

“You inside! Come out of there! Do it now!”

His weapon was empty. His man was wounded and in need of attention. He had no other choice.

The door jerked open and the leader, a barrel-chested man with long black hair and a handkerchief tied over his nose, motioned for him to come down. Royal descended the iron steps and stood in front of him.

“I’m afraid you won’t get much.” He handed over his pouch of coins. “That’s all I have with me.”

The leader reached down from his saddle and snatched the bag from his hand. For the first time, Royal realized the second man led an extra horse. “Get mounted. Yer comin’ with us.”

“Like bloody hell I am.”

“Ye will or ye’ll die where ye stand.” The leader aimed the pistol directly at Royal’s heart.

He looked up at his coachman, who slumped against the seat, his coat covered in blood. No help would come from there.

“Unhitch the team, Oscar,” the leader instructed his partner, a man with kinky brown hair and side-whiskers. “We don’t want ’em comin’ after us.” He turned back to Royal. “Get aboard that horse. Do it now.”

There was nowhere to go, no place to run. He had to go with them, but if he remained alert, perhaps he would find a chance to escape along the road.

Oscar swung down from his horse, went over and unhitched the team, which trotted off down the road. The outlaw returned, grabbed him by the front of his coat and swung him around to bind his wrists behind him. Royal seized the opportunity, swinging a fist into the man’s ruddy face and knocking him several paces backward.

Royal had boxed at Oxford and later for sport. He ducked Oscar’s blow and swung another punch that doubled the outlaw over, the blood of battle beginning to surge through his veins. A pistol shot rang out and both men halted, breathing hard, their fists still clenched.

The leader steadied his pistol. “Unless ye want to die right here, ye’ll mind yer manners.”

Oscar swore foully and spit blood into the dirt. Picking up the rope, he bound Royal’s wrists behind him. As soon as Royal was securely tied, Oscar threw a punch that hit him hard in the face. A second blow knocked him to his knees.

“That’s enough,” the leader said. “Get him up on that horse.”

“Come on, Blackie. Let me hit him a couple more times.”

“I said it was enough.”

As he was jerked toward the horse, Royal shook his
head to clear the buzzing in his ears. “Where are you taking me?”

Blackie grinned, his big teeth flashing. “Ye’ve an appointment with me boss, Bart McGrew, and he don’t like ta be kept waitin’.”

L
ily awakened lying on a cold stone floor. Her jaw ached, her lip hurt and her head throbbed. She moved a little and bit back a moan. Blinking into the fading light in the stone-walled room, she tried to recall what had happened.

She had been abducted.

Loomis had found out she was Tsaya. He had sent one of his henchmen to fetch her and now here she was God only knew where.

She forced herself into a sitting position, closing her eyes against the pain in her head, and leaned back against the wall to survey her surroundings. She was alone in what appeared to be a basement. Giving herself a few minutes to collect herself, she pushed shakily to her feet, stood there a moment to steady herself, then moved along the wall to explore the mostly empty room, searching for a passable way to escape.

There were small windows near the ceiling that let in a meager amount of fading sunlight. She spotted an empty crate and pulled it up to one of the windows, but
discovered it was nailed tightly shut. She peered through the grimy glass, trying to figure out where she was, but there was nothing familiar about the buildings, though it looked as if she was still in London, perhaps in a manufacturing district.

The windows were too small to provide an avenue of escape and the area seemed to be deserted. Perhaps in the morning, there would be people about and she could break the glass and cry for help. With a resigned sigh, she climbed down from the crate and continued her surveillance.

There was a screened-off area to the left. She moved in that direction, walked round the screen and found a chamber pot and a table with a basin, glass and pitcher of water sitting on top. Her captor had seen to the necessities. She wondered what Loomis intended and tried not to shiver.

The minutes ticked past. Only the faint haze of dusk remained to light the basement. Fortunately, a lantern sat near where the empty crate had been, along with sulphur heads to light it. She struck the coated wooden stick against the stone floor and frowned at the smell as she lit the wick. The flickering yellow flame helped to push away the fear that churned inside her.

An hour passed and then another. She guessed it was somewhere near ten, perhaps eleven o’clock when she heard a commotion outside her door.

She gasped as the heavy wooden portal swung open and two men stood in the shadowy corridor outside, one with woolly brown side-whiskers, the other with dirty, long black hair.

“Ye’ve company, wench.” The black-haired man shoved a bound man into the basement, hard enough that he landed facedown on the floor. “And a fancy duke, at that.”

In the glow of the lantern she caught the gleam of thick blond hair. “Royal! Oh dear God!”

“Ye can’t get away. Ye can try but it won’t do ye any good. Ye can yell all ye want—ain’t no one ta hear ye.”

She had already figured that out.

“Might as well make yerself comfortable till the boss shows up in the mornin’.” He laughed, slammed and locked the door, the sound reverberating across the room as Lily scrambled to kneel beside Royal.

He groaned and she saw that he had suffered several blows himself. His face was scraped, his jaw bruised and his eye beginning to swell. Clearly, he had made an effort to escape.

He rolled onto his back, his hands, tied behind him, making the task difficult. His eyes widened as he realized it was Lily who bent over him. “Lily!” He struggled against his bonds, shaking with rage, his bound hands fisting, tugging at the rope in an effort to break free. “I’ll kill him! As God is my witness, I will!”

She smoothed locks of heavy blond hair back from his forehead, soothing him a little. “I’m all right. Just lie still while I untie you.” He calmed a bit more, but his breathing remained rapid, telling her how angry he was.

She worked on the rope, finally managed to loosen the knots enough to free his wrists. He came to his knees in front of her, stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she was actually there.

Very gently, he caught her chin and examined her
damaged face. “Who hit you? I swear I will beat him within an inch of his life.”

“It might have been McGrew. I heard he was big, and this man certainly was. But that isn’t important. What’s important is getting out of here.”

“He didn’t touch you. He didn’t—”

“No.”

His voice gentled. “Does it hurt very badly?”

She took his hand, set his palm against her cheek. “It hurts, but not so much now that you are here.”

Seated on the floor, Royal eased her into his arms, nestling her against him. “I’ve been such a fool.” He shook his head. “This is all my fault. I never should have let you get involved. I should have known something bad would happen.”

Lily told herself to move away from him. Royal belonged to someone else. Instead, she leaned closer, desperate to have his arms round her, share some of his strength. She had no idea what was going to happen. There was every chance Loomis would kill them.

He hugged her one last time, then rose to his feet. In the flickering light of the lamp, he began to prowl the basement.

“The windows are all nailed shut,” she told him. “And at any rate, they are too small to get through. I thought of breaking one of them and shouting for help, but there is no one around to hear.”

He grunted. “Only whoever is outside making sure we don’t escape.”

“I wonder how Loomis discovered we were the ones who took his money.”

He returned to the place beside her and eased her
back into his arms. His lips brushed her forehead. “I don’t know. We hired a lot of people. Maybe one of them overheard something, went to Loomis with the information in exchange for money.”

“I don’t think so. My uncle knew all of them personally. In the confidence business, a man’s word is his bond. He can’t make a living if he can’t be trusted.”

“Then perhaps Loomis threatened one of them, forced the man to talk. Somehow he put the pieces together and it led him to us.”

Mentally, she ran over the list of people involved and her thoughts settled on Dottie Hobbs. Bart McGrew had seen Dottie at the house and she wouldn’t be hard to find. A threat against Dottie’s daughters might have forced her to speak.

“What are we going to do?”

He caught her hand, laced her fingers with his and raised them to his lips. “Wait. That’s all we can do. Wait and see what Loomis has in store for us. Once we know his plans, we can figure out what to do. In the meantime, word will get out that we’ve been taken. People will be looking for us.” He smiled softly. “After all, I am a duke.”

Lily made no reply. Since the day she had fallen in love with him, she had wished with all her heart that he was not.

Sheridan Knowles knocked hard on the door to the residence belonging to Jonathan Savage. When the butler opened the door, Sherry strode into the house without waiting for permission.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Where is he?”

“In his rooms, my lord, but…”

Sherry took the stairs two at a time.

“You can’t go in there, my lord! Mr. Savage isn’t alone!”

Sherry kept walking. He turned the handle on the bedroom door and shoved it open, walked into the bedroom.

“Sorry to bother you, old man, but Royal’s in trouble and we need your help.”

The bedcovers stopped moving. Jonathan cursed and the dark-haired beauty he was with ducked her head beneath the sheets.

“Give me five minutes,” Jonathan growled.

“Make it three,” Sherry said, striding back out in the hall. He had sent messages to the others, to Night and Quent and St. Michaels, as soon as word of the highwaymen’s attack and Royal’s abduction had reached him. It wasn’t until Lady Tavistock had come pounding frantically at the door of his town house that he realized Loomis was behind the attack.

“Someone has kidnapped the duke!” the frail old woman had said. “You have to find him! You have to help him!” She trembled as Sherry led her over to the sofa and eased her down on the cushions.

“Tell me what happened.” In reply, the countess handed him a note demanding ransom in an amount that was exactly double the money Loomis had lost on the phony stock purchase. Clearly the events were connected. The last line read:
No police or the duke is dead
.

Sherry took hold of the countess’s frail, trembling hand. “It’s all right, my lady, we’ll find him. That I promise.” And he had prayed with everything in him that they would.

Now, standing in Savage’s drawing room, he turned at the sound of boot steps, looked over to see his friend in a shirt and riding breeches striding into the room, his black hair still mussed from his interrupted tumble.

“What’s happened?” Jonathan asked.

“I’ll explain everything on the way to Night’s. My carriage is right out front.”

They left the house and headed for the meeting he had set up with the others. Certain Loomis was behind the abduction, and in possession of the note naming the spot where the ransom money was to be paid, Sherry was convinced, if they put their heads together, they could figure out where the man was holding Royal.

Jack Moran paced back and forth across the small apartment he and Molly shared.

“You might as well stop pacing,” Molly said. “It won’t do a lick of good.”

“If he hurts her…if the whoreson harms one hair on her pretty head—I swear I will cut off his bollocks and stuff them down his bloody throat.”

Molly walked over and put her arms round Jack’s neck. “We just played him a little wrong, is all. We thought he’d take his losses and that would be the end of it. Who’d ’a thought he’d go after Lily?”

“I should have known. He’s bloody Dick Flynn, ain’t he? I should have known he’d take it personal.”

“You may as well stop blaming yourself. The important thing now is how do we get her back.”

Molly had stopped by to see Lily at the hat shop earlier that evening. When she arrived at the alley door, she found it wide open. There were signs of a struggle
and blood on the jamb. Lily was gone, but she hadn’t let them take her without a fight.

“We’ll find a way to get her back, luv,” Jack promised. “I’ve got every bloke in the mob and every other sharper I know working to find her. Sooner or later, one of them will stumble onto something.”

“I bloody well hope it’s sooner,” Molly said.

“So do I, luv. So do I.”

Lily and Royal huddled on the rough stone floor, their arms wrapped around each other, sharing their body warmth. Though both of them were exhausted, neither was able to sleep. Their future was too uncertain.

“There’s something I need to say to you, Lily.” Royal eased a little away. “Something I’ve wanted to say for a very long time.”

His serious expression made her heart start to pound. “What is it, Royal?”

“I love you, Lily. I can’t say when it first happened. It just seems like I’ve always loved you. I wanted to tell you a dozen times, but the way things were…” He shook his head. “The way things were, it just didn’t seem right.”

Her eyes filled. “I love you, too, Royal. I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you—that day you rode up on your big gray stallion and rescued me in the snow. No matter what happens, I don’t regret a single moment I’ve spent with you.”

He drew her closer. “If we get…when we get out of here, I’m breaking my engagement—as I should have done before.”

She was gripped by a wild surge of hope and a jolt
of fear for Royal. “You have so much to lose. If Jocelyn refuses to cry off, the scandal will be unbearable. Her father might even sue for breach of promise. You can’t afford that, Royal.”

“I don’t care about the scandal or the lawsuit or anything else. Jocelyn doesn’t love me and I don’t love her. In the eyes of God, you are already my wife.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “The moment I saw you in this awful place—the terrible fear I felt when I realized your life was in danger—that is the moment I understood. That is the instant I realized what was truly important.”

The tears in her eyes began to slip down her cheeks. “Royal…”

“The money isn’t worth it. Not even the pledge I made to my father. I can’t do something every fiber of my being tells me not to.”

She brushed at the wetness on her face. “I know how much your word means, Royal. If you break your vow, part of you will always feel guilty.”

“Perhaps. Even if that is so, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the love I feel for you, Lily.” He took hold of her icy hands and smiled into her face. “Once this is over and I am free to wed, I will ask the question that is in my heart.”

She swallowed past the ache in her throat. “And I will give you the answer I long to give.”

Royal leaned over and very tenderly kissed her, careful of her swollen lip and battered face. It was a sweet, innocent kiss, yet even in the damp, musty basement her heartbeat quickened. Under different circumstances, the kiss might have led to more, to touching, to caressing, to making love.

“We had better stop,” Royal said gruffly. “I am beginning to think of what I would do to you if this were our wedding night, and that is not going to happen here.”