Sattler, Veronica (54 page)

Rounded
eyes in an astounded face questioned him. "Good Heavens, do you
mean—?" Lady Bunbury glanced again at Patrick's carriage.

"Exactly."
Higgins nodded solemnly. "And needless to say, your ladyship, the poor
woman is not the least bit handsome like her daughter."

Lady
Bunbury's eyes widened further at this understatement, but Higgins continued,
seemingly nonplussed.

"But
the poor dear wasn't always, ah, that way, you see. They say it was from eating
too much rich food—" Higgins eyed the horror-stricken countenance of his
victim for a full five seconds "—tea cakes, as I recall... they were her
favorite food. Always stuffing herself at teatime, she was, and—oh, I say, your
ladyship! Don't be in too great a hurry, now. Wouldn't want you to trip,
entering your own carriage, would we? There you go, now, your ladyship, safe
home, ma'am."

The
apoplectic look on the large woman's face was so intense as she signaled her
driver, Higgins nearly choked on the tongue he'd been biting to keep from
laughing.
Oh, well done, old boy,
he congratulated himself.
Edmund
Kean himself couldn't have done it better! You'd best take care, or they'll be
signing you up at the Drury Lane!

And
in the carriage that was traveling down King Street at a steady pace, Lady
Bunbury briskly fanned her perspiring face as she made a mental note to inform
her cook about some forthcoming and immediate changes in her diet.

* * * * *

Meanwhile,
inside the town house Lady Margaret eyed Patrick speculatively as she prepared
to answer the question he'd posed as to her knowledge of the whereabouts of his
sister. There was something about the man, or, more particularly, his behavior
right now, which didn't sit well with her. He seemed... confident, that was it,
even overconfident, for a man who ought to be frantic to locate a sibling who'd
been kidnapped several days before. What was he up to?

Hearing
the sounds of a carriage leaving the drive, Margaret moved with an apparent
casualness toward one of the long windows. Heaven knew, she would be only too
happy to see the sister spirited away, but she could ill afford Brett's nasty
temper if it occurred while she was in charge. What was it he'd said? Something
about
never
securing the divorce if that happened! Well, if there was an
escape being executed at the moment, she'd be damned if she were going to allow
it to occur beneath her nose!

But
when Margaret moved the heavy velvet drapery aside and gazed out at the
courtyard, the only thing she saw was Patrick's carriage with the lovely
profile of a familiar-looking redhead at its window. Satisfied for the moment,
she turned to the big man standing across the room from her. "Why, no, Sir
Patrick. I've no idea where Her Grace might be. As a matter of fact, the last I
heard from the duke was that he suspected she'd gone off with
you!
But I
do wish someone would inform me as to what is going on."

"Very
well, Lady Margaret," said Patrick, more than glad for the opportunity to
extend his visit, "why don't you pour me some tea while I
explain...."

* * * * *

Twenty
minutes later, Patrick bent gallantly over Margaret's hand as he prepared to
follow Higgins to the door. "Farewell, m'lady, and thank you for the tea.
You have the address of my lodgings if you should hear anything. Please do not
hesitate to send word."

Nodding,
Margaret watched him leave, a faint note of suspicion in her eyes.
I
wonder...
she mused. She stood in the drawing room, engrossed in thought for several
long moments, while Higgins returned from the foyer and began clearing away the
tea service.

Higgins
was not blind to the pondering look on Iron Skirts's face, especially when he
caught her glancing upward in what was clearly the direction of Ashleigh's
chamber. Then, when he saw her nod decisively, as if having reached some
conclusion, and turn to leave the room, he knew he had to act quickly.

Balancing
the heavily laden tray in one hand, he rushed for the double doors, saying,
"Oh, allow me, your ladyship!"

A
second later, at the precise moment when Margaret would have charged through
the doors and up to Ashleigh's chamber to determine whether she was still
there, the entire tea service, slops bowl and all, came crashing to the floor
in front of Margaret, thoroughly soiling her skirts in the process.

"You
clumsy fool!" she shrieked, drowning out the hastily murmured apologies of
the duke's manservant. "Look what you've done! Oh, you
oaf!"

But
as Higgins scraped and bowed, vowing to have the damage—and her
ladyship—repaired in no more than ten or fifteen minutes, Patrick's crowded
brougham was already speeding across town, its interior filled with the
relieved sounds of Ashleigh's laughter as she hugged the two redheads and her
brother while Finn licked her face in welcome and Lady Dimples grunted happily
as she gazed again out the carriage window.

* * * * *

It
was late when Brett let himself into the house on King Street. He'd stabled his
horse and phaeton himself, in the absence of any servants, and found no fault
in the fact that Higgins had not waited up for him. They'd long ago dispensed
with his grandfather's Old Guard requirements that a manservant stay awake for
his master, no matter how late the hour. Too many years had passed with nights
in which Brett never came home at all.

After
doffing his jacket in the front hall, the first thing Brett noticed was a
folded piece of parchment with his name on it, lying on the calling-card table.
He'd ordinarily have ignored any correspondence until morning, but he
recognized Margaret's tight script, and it prompted his curiosity. Unfolding
the note, he read:

Your
Grace—

I
am returning this evening to Ravensford Hall. When you enter your wife's
chamber, I suppose you will quickly guess why.

Margaret

Brett's
brows drew together in a frown, and he murmured, "What puzzle does that
old witch set me now?" even as he bounded up the stairs for his wife's
chamber. Reaching the door in the darkened hallway, he paused for a moment, not
sure he wanted to greet what awaited him there.

He'd
kept thoughts of Ashleigh purposefully at bay all day and into the night,
welcoming the unusually late meeting at Whitehall that lasted well past
midnight. He'd known that, if he allowed it, his confusion at the conflicting
emotions that had driven him out of the house shortly after dawn would have
given him no peace.

Indeed,
during the short drive home, despite his weariness and the lateness of the
hour, he'd been prey to the most damnable set of torturous images, and they all
had to do with his wife... well, almost all. There'd been thoughts of Ashleigh
in a sunny meadow, laughing helplessly amid the wild-flowers at a pig and her
dog; then, quickly supplanting this, he saw Ashleigh on Ranleagh's arm,
bestowing her most winning smile on the blackguard; but the next image was of
her lying in his arms on their wedding night, murmuring, "Brett, oh
Brett." Yet still another picture came to goad him: of a young footman
handing him a cursed farewell letter....

Finally
there was that last image, the most hellish of all, where his boyhood nightmare
returned, as it had last night; servants carrying a woman's portrait from the
Hall as he, a small boy, cried for them to stop. But this time the vision was
different. They did stop, and when they turned the portrait toward him, he saw
the woman in the portrait was Ashleigh!

Shutting
his eyes to blot out the image, Brett reached into his waistcoat pocket and extracted
his key, but when he went to insert it, he found the door already unlocked.
Steeling himself against a flood of new emotions, he opened the door slowly,
already knowing what he'd find on the other side.

Except
for the lambent ruffling of the curtains at the open window, the chamber was
still. His gaze drifted toward the large tester bed, which, even in the
shadows, he could see was neatly made. Slowly, like a figure in a dream,
Slowly, Brett walked across the silent chamber, finding his way amid the shadows
of the furniture by the moonlight filtering through the windows. Wearily, he
ran a hand through his hair, his head slumped in a gesture of defeat.

He
knew that she was truly gone this time; he dismissed all notions of a
late-night ride to search her out and bring her back. Even if that were
possible, she clearly wished herself rid of him, so much so that, despite the
obstacles he'd set forth, she'd found a way to escape. Well, it was what he'd
wanted, wasn't it? For days he'd longed for some way to make a decision about
her, and tonight she'd saved him the trouble; she'd made it for him.

But
then why did he feel so hollow inside?

Heaving
a tired sigh, he braced an outstretched arm against the mantel of the
fireplace, lowering his chin to his chest as he studied his boots in a
contemplative gesture. Then he saw it— a tiny gleam of metal catching the
moonbeam that reached the corner of the cold hearth. Bending forward, he
retrieved the object, then straightened before transferring it to his open
palm. Her wedding ring.

The
palm of his hand trembled slightly before it met his fingers to become a
clenched fist that squeezed the ornate band so tightly, its sharper edges cut
into his skin. Slowly Brett walked to the window and stared into the night, and
then the fury began....

The
Ligurian Seas blue-green waters sparkled in the early-October sunshine, and
gentle waves curled and foamed about the random scattering of rocks that laced
Livorno's surf. Here and there a gull cried as it floated effortlessly under
the blue dome of sky covering northern Italy's coastline, and the only clouds
in view were puffy white mounds that formed a friendly backdrop for the little
village that rose upward on the hills above the beach.

From
the open carriage that stood on the unpaved road well above the water's edge,
Ashleigh had a commanding view of the beach, but it was not the beauty of the
day or the picturesque coastline that had her attention as she sat, fanning
herself, in the sun. For the past half hour or so, as she waited with their
driver for Megan and Patrick to return, she'd been fascinated by a group of a
dozen children playing in the surf under the watchful eye of a tall, slender
woman.

What
fascinated her, firstly, was that each of the children, who appeared to range
in age from about three to perhaps ten or eleven, was in some way infirm.
Several of them limped when they walked, and two or three had even arrived on
crutches when she first spied their little band coming along the road, which was
a short while after Patrick had taken Megan to the village to ask directions,
leaving her here because she was feeling fatigued again and in need of a rest
after their trip from the
Ashleigh Anne.
Now, as she watched the
youngsters frolicking happily in the waves, she saw that one small boy had a
deformed foot but managed to enter the surf bravely on the arm of a larger boy
whose other arm ended at the elbow. Both, she noted, were grinning happily as
they jumped a wave together.

And
then there was the woman. Wearing a light summer dress she had hiked above her
knees, she held by the hands two small twin girls, who walked with no visible
infirmity, but smiled at their companion with continually closed eyes, for they
were blind. The woman was not young, although she had appeared so at a
distance; she carried her straight yet willowy frame with youthful ease and
moved agilely among her young charges. But Ashleigh could see prominent streaks
of gray in the hair that escaped the straw bonnet she wore, and her voice, as
she called to the children in lilting Italian, or laughed with them at their
play, had a mature quality to it.

But
what struck Ashleigh as the most intriguing thing of all, was a strange,
unshakable sense that this woman was familiar to her, and she wondered at this,
for there was no one thing in particular that signaled this should be so. It
wasn't the woman's features, for they were hardly visible beneath the shadow of
the bonnet's brim; it couldn't be her speech, for it was in a tongue Ashleigh couldn't
understand. But there was something about the way the woman moved, and her
rich, vibrant laughter as it spilled across the sounds of the surf....

Wryly
reminding herself that she was probably growing fanciful in the heat, Ashleigh
fanned herself more vigorously and forced her thoughts back to her own
circumstances. It was slightly more than two months since the evening she'd
escaped from the house on King Street in that ridiculously crowded brougham.
Two long months in which Patrick's every effort to take them to his home in
America had been thwarted by the British sea patrols along England's coastline.
Such vigilance against the upstart Americans threatening war had been vastly
increased especially since the patrols no longer needed to contend with Bonaparte.
Even though Patrick had known the reasons for England's impressment of American
seamen, largely responsible for the United States's declaration of war on
Britain in 1812, were no longer valid—the end of the European conflict relieved
the Royal Navy of their desperate need for men to populate their fighting
ships—he nevertheless feared an encounter with the English at sea. The
Ashleigh
Anne
was still an American ship and, as such, would certainly be seized by
the Royal Navy, most likely for spying, or possibly for smuggling, by the
revenue cutters.