The Lady Risks All (13 page)
Roscoe let his frown grow blacker. “I can just as well take Mudd and Rawlins—”
“No, you can’t. Gallagher said Kempsey and Dole were good at their business, which means that immediately they clap eyes on Mudd and Rawlins, they’ll recognize them for what they are—someone’s henchmen.”
“They prefer the term
bodyguards
.”
“Indeed. Men who guard someone powerful enough to need and pay for them, and who will very likely do violence at that someone’s behest.” She nodded. “Precisely.” She held his gaze. “If you go with Mudd and Rawlins, or on your own, you’ll stand out from the populace, no matter how you dress, and Kempsey and Dole will spot you and see you for the threat you are.” She broke off, caught her breath, then, her gaze now distant, her expression sober, said, “Who knows? If they sense a threat, they might even kill Roderick so he can’t be a witness against them.”
There was nothing he could advance against that.
She refocused on him, her expression even more resolute. More stubborn. “We need to present an unthreatening appearance, one that will allow us to find Kempsey and Dole, to approach closely enough to rescue Roderick, and then be able to care for and protect him if he’s hurt.”
He inwardly sighed. “Miranda, it’s not going to take just a day. What do you imagine—”
She demolished every argument he advanced. No matter which way he tacked to get around “her plan,” to get around her, she blocked him, and argued, and the more she did, the more her plan seemed the only viable course.
He even tried to prick her temper, but she realized, narrowed her eyes, and glared, then, with supreme disdain, if not contempt, ignored the jibe.
Finally, he was reduced to invoking an authority that, had it been at all possible, he would rather have not. “What about your aunt? What’s she going to say about you traveling alone with me?” When she didn’t immediately respond, he pressed his advantage. “Does she even know you’re here? That you’re spending your days with me, under my scandalous roof?”
She met his eyes, then coolly stated, “No, my aunt doesn’t know I’m here. However, if given the choice, she would prefer
not
to know, rather than for me not to be here. That might sound convoluted, but Gladys is now just as worried about Roderick as I am. She knows that, wherever I am, I’m doing everything I can to find him and bring him home. If we have to follow Kempsey and Dole into the country, as seems likely, then of course I’ll tell her, but only that I’m going after Roderick with the friend who’s been helping me trace him, and that I must go. That’s all there is to it, and that’s all I’ll tell her. And while she might wring her hands, she won’t forbid it or stand in my way.”
He absorbed the unwavering, rock-solid resolution in her eyes, took in the rigid, unbending stubbornness investing her chin and the set of her lips . . . she’d become more definite, more confident, much more her own woman since that first night she’d walked into his house.
He was powerful enough to say no and enforce it, and quash her emerging confidence.
He couldn’t do it, couldn’t bring himself to push her back into the cage of inexperience and uncertainty from which, it seemed, she was escaping, pulled to it, drawn to it, by her need to rescue Roderick.
Heaven knew, he knew all about the transformative power of a protective instinct called to action; he was in no way the same man he’d been twelve years ago, and the man he was now was so much more than the man he had been.
But . . .
He’d held her gaze throughout, and she’d held his, waiting.
He grunted noncommittally, then growled, “We’ll see. Before we can institute any course of action, we have to find some trace of Kempsey and Dole and their mismatched nags.”
He’d half expected her to smile triumphantly, but she merely inclined her head and agreed, with no further fuss, to allow him to escort her home.
G
iven it was broad daylight, Miranda found herself seated beside Roscoe in one of his town carriages as it rattled the short distance down Chichester Street, up Claverton Street, then down the alley beside her brother’s house. When the carriage halted alongside the gate, Roscoe opened the door, stepped out, then handed her down.
She felt the disconcerting frisson when his fingers clasped hers, but she’d expected it and had steeled herself against the effect; it wasn’t nearly as bad as the incidents the previous evening when, again and again, he had without warning gripped her elbow or her arm. Once safely on the flags of the alley, she slid her fingers from his grasp and congratulated herself on concealing the unsettling reaction. “Thank you.”
She faced him and said nothing more, simply waited.
He returned her gaze. Seconds ticked past, then he grudgingly yielded. “I’ll send word the instant I hear.”
Approvingly, she inclined her head, let him open the gate for her, then carefully stepped through. Catching the gate, she turned to close it. Stepping back, he saluted her; she smiled and shut the gate. She paused and heard the carriage door shut, then the wheels rattled away.
Turning, she made her way slowly through the garden, thinking over all she’d learned. Not just about Roderick, and Roscoe, but even more about herself. That fear for Roderick would dictate and drive her actions came as no surprise. What did surprise her was what she’d done and achieved, how she’d behaved and responded.
She hadn’t hesitated to argue with Roscoe, to insist and demand that he allow her to claim her due role in Roderick’s rescue. She hadn’t felt reticent over pushing her view of how that rescue would best be accomplished. All in all, over the last two days she was proud of what she’d accomplished . . . and felt somehow freer, clearer, more certain of herself, more definite in her own mind about a self she didn’t entirely recognize.
As she walked toward the house, she tried to pin the elusive feeling down, to bring it into sharper focus. Reaching the terrace, she crossed it, opened the door, and stepped into the morning room.
Gladys sat on the sofa facing the windows. “There you are! About time! Where have you been?” Gladys leaned forward, peering at her face. “Have you heard anything about Roderick?”
The fear in her voice made it clear that the last question was Gladys’s principal concern. Miranda used the minute it took to set down her reticule and shawl, and reach up and pull the pins from her black hat, removing it and the veil she’d left pushed back, to decide what to say. Facing Gladys, she opted for brevity. “Roderick was kidnapped on his way home that night. Two men bundled him into a coach and drove off—we haven’t yet learned where they’ve taken him, and we have no idea why.”
Gladys paled. For a long moment, gaze fixed on Miranda’s face, she grappled with the bald facts. Eventually, lips primming tight, her aunt sat back. “ ‘We’ who? Who have you been with? And where?”
“ ‘We’ means me and the friend of Roderick’s who’s helping me search for him. I’ve been at Roderick’s friend’s house—it’s not far away.” She’d told Roscoe the truth; Gladys was as distressed as she was over Roderick’s disappearance, but also felt helpless, and therefore panicky, and that left her aunt caught on the horns of a dilemma. Gladys wanted Miranda to find Roderick, wanted him rescued and restored to his home safe and sound, but the specter of a scandal, as always, loomed large in Gladys’s mind.
For herself, in the matter of rescuing Roderick, scandal had lost its bite.
Being ruined. Rescuing her baby brother.
Against the latter, the former didn’t even register in the scales.
Perhaps that was why she no longer felt constrained by the strictures she’d lived under for so long.
Gladys shifted restlessly, then held out a hand. “Here—help me up. I’m going to sit in the drawing room.”
Taking Gladys’s arm, Miranda helped her aunt to her feet. Shaking off Miranda’s support, Gladys used her cane to stump slowly to the door. She almost always sat in the drawing room, embroidering or reading—just in case someone should call. Few did, but Gladys set great store by appearances and on being ready to give the right impression.
Reaching the door, Gladys opened it, then looked back at Miranda. “I’m not going to ask and you’re not going to tell, but mark my words, miss, you need to watch that no matter what you do you don’t step over any line. You can’t afford to ruin your chances with Wraxby—he’s likely the last chance you’ll get to leave Roderick’s roof, so beware. Gentlemen like Mr. Wraxby have very strong views on what constitutes proper behavior for a lady.”
She raised her brows and spoke in a tone she couldn’t remember using before. “That may well be, Aunt, but if Mr. Wraxby is so lacking in proper feeling that he can’t accept that I will do whatever I must to rescue Roderick . . .”
Then Wraxby isn’t the man for me.
She heard the words in her head but drew breath and substituted, “Then we’ll just have to ensure that he never learns of Roderick’s rescue, and as he’s conveniently returned to Suffolk, we don’t need to worry about him at this juncture.”
Declaring that she wouldn’t marry Wraxby if that was his attitude would only throw Gladys into a different sort of flap and precipitate a long and difficult argument that neither Miranda nor Gladys needed.
Gladys’s narrowed, agatey eyes held her gaze, then her aunt humphed and turned away.
Listening to Gladys’s heavy footsteps recede, Miranda waited, expecting to start thinking about her aunt, about the household, the menus, the this and that—the myriad small demands of her life within the house. Instead, while she sensed all those issues hovering, waiting to trap her and drag her back into her daily net of busywork, they no longer held sufficient power to trap and hold her.
Collecting her reticule and shawl, she went into the hall and climbed the stairs. In her room, she tugged the bellpull and dispatched a maid to find her traveling bag, then started sorting through her wardrobe, selecting the clothes she would take on her adventure to rescue her brother, assembling all she would need while traveling with Roscoe once he learned where Kempsey and Dole had taken Roderick.
She was cinching the bag’s strap when she realized that she
expected
to hear from Roscoe, at the very latest by the next day. Her confidence in his abilities had grown to be that complete—along with her faith that, when he learned that vital piece of information, he would indeed tell her.
“I
can’t believe I’m doing this.” Roscoe grumbled the words to himself, but he didn’t care if his companion heard them.
“That makes two of us.” Her tone made it clear her view of their present situation was the opposite of his.
Seated beside him on the box seat of his curricle, alert and upright with a dark cloak over her mourning gown and her face screened by the black veil attached to her bonnet, from the moment he’d flicked the reins and driven them out from beneath the portico of his house, she’d been absorbed with everything about them, her eyes behind the veil attentively scanning the busy streets.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been sunk in her own thoughts, dragged down by worry and concern for her brother. He didn’t doubt that the worry and concern were there, beneath her glib veneer, but he could appreciate the philosophy of making the most of any moment.
He’d driven north and west, out along the Oxford Road, following the trail of the battered old coach with its mismatched nags that Kempsey and Dole had bundled Roderick into.
When he’d dispatched a note to her at eight o’clock that morning, despite her resolution of the previous day he hadn’t been sure she would still wish to accompany him. Wiser heads might have prevailed. She might have come to her respectability-loving senses and recognized the unwisdom, the potential for social disaster.
She hadn’t replied to his note.
She’d arrived on his doorstep, cloaked and veiled, with a traveling bag at her half-booted feet.
If anything, her resolution had vulcanized; he hadn’t even attempted to remonstrate further. That said, while he could accept that she might not regret their venture, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t come to regret his leniency in allowing her to be his accomplice. He’d had to argue with Mudd, Rawlins, Rundle, and even Jordan, none of whom could understand what had driven him to accede to her request.
He knew what it was; he just couldn’t put it into words or explain it to anyone. “How’s your aunt taking this? What did you tell her about this trip?”
“I explained that you—Roderick’s friend—had found his trail, and we, you and I, had to follow it and rescue him.”
“And she didn’t protest?”
Miranda glanced at him. “I’ve explained my aunt’s equivocal position, and I’m twenty-nine years old—I’ve been able to make my own decisions for some years.” Not that she had, but she was making up for that now. “While I might acquiesce to Gladys’s wishes in most things, in this”—she shrugged—“I didn’t ask her permission, and she didn’t attempt to dissuade me.”
She’d acted decisively, and it had felt
good
. Good to make up her own mind and act on her own judgment. Good to step beyond her aunts’ confining strictures and instead follow her own instincts and principles.
Leaning forward, she peered through her veil. “The village ahead looks larger than any we’ve seen to this point.”
“Uxbridge. We’ll stop there and check that our quarry did, indeed, pass this way.”
S
everal hours later, they halted for lunch at High Wycombe. Roscoe handed her down in the yard of the Five Bells.
“Thank you.” While he dealt with the ostlers, she resettled her gown, then glanced up to find him offering his arm. She hesitated for only a second before placing her fingers on his sleeve; better that than having him take her arm.
Nevertheless, as she walked beside him up the shallow steps to the inn’s front porch and into the foyer, she was distracted by the feel of steely muscle beneath his sleeve, by a compulsion to sink her fingertips more firmly into said muscle and
feel
.
Subtle warmth spread through her; she was glad of her veil.
They halted before a counter at the rear of the foyer. Roscoe arranged for a private parlor and gave orders for their meal, then glanced at her.
Reaching up and putting back her veil, she smiled wearily at the innkeeper. “We’re following two men my family hired to escort a gentleman, my cousin, north. We were supposed to leave London all together, but we were delayed and they went ahead. It must have been three days ago that they passed this way. I wondered if you or your people had seen them.”
At Uxbridge, they’d discovered that if she, in her weeds, asked for information, she elicited sympathy and more ready, less restrained answers, and often active help.
The innkeeper shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am—I don’t recall such a group stopping here. But I’ll ask around and see what I can learn.”
“Thank you.” With a grateful smile, she lowered her veil, then let Roscoe escort her in the innkeeper’s wake into the parlor. They’d agreed to treat each other as two friends would, calling each other by first name, avoiding the possible complication of him referring to her as
miss
rather than
Mrs.
For their purposes, her being taken for a widow worked best.
Once the meal was served and the staff had retreated, leaving them alone, Roscoe said, “If there’s no word to be had here, when we’ve finished eating I’ll go and ask at the stables down the road, and at that tavern on the edge of town.”
“We know they came through Uxbridge, and we found sightings along this road past every crossroads since, so they must have passed this way.” Her concern for Roderick dampened her appetite, but she forced herself to eat; she would be no good to her brother if she fainted.
“Given the time they left London, and when they went through Uxbridge, I would have expected them to stop for the night somewhere along this stretch. They weren’t being pursued. They’re using slow horses and haven’t changed them, so there’s no reason I can see for them to have driven through the night.” Roscoe paused to eat another mouthful, then added, “We don’t have any idea where they’re heading—we need to keep that in mind.”
She nodded. “We don’t want to overshoot and miss them turning off the highway somewhere.” After a moment, she said, “I still can’t see why they’ve taken him out of London at all.”
Roscoe grimaced. “Neither can I.”
They were assaying a cheese platter when a timid tap on the door heralded a young maid. Hands clasped tightly before her, the maid bobbed and breathlessly said, “If you please, ma’am, Figgs”—she tipped her head toward the foyer—“said as you was asking after two men with a gentleman, a few nights back?”
Miranda smiled encouragingly. “Yes, that’s right. Do you know anything of them?”
“No saying it was the ones you’re after, but m’sister works at the tavern down the way, and we walk from home together of a morning. It’d be . . .” The girl scrunched up her face in concentration. “Three mornings back. Two big men were carrying a younger man looked to be a gentleman from the tavern and loading him into their coach. Tam, m’sister, told me later that they’d arrived in the wee hours and stayed over, then set off again, which was when we saw them.”
Miranda let gratitude infuse her smile. “Thank you.”
“Indeed.” Roscoe held out a coin. When the girl, blushing and bobbing, took it, he asked, “Do you know which road they took when they left? We’re assuming they went straight on to Oxford, but it’s possible they may have taken a roundabout route.”
“No—they went straight on, sir. I’m sure ’cause the coach passed me just as I reached here. They had a horse with a pale mane, so I knew it was them.”
Roscoe held out a second coin, to the girl’s round-eyed wonder. “One last question—you said the two men were carrying the gentleman. Carrying how?”
“Well”—the girl glanced at Miranda, then looked at Roscoe—“one had his shoulders, the other his legs. One of the gentleman’s feet was all bandaged up like, and he seemed unconscious. All limp, he was.” The girl glanced again at Miranda, read the shock she couldn’t hide. The girl started to wring her hands. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I thought you’d known.”
Miranda hauled in a breath. “No, no.” She waved a calming hand and managed to find a weak smile. “Thank you for telling us—that’s exactly what we wanted to know.”
Roscoe rose and ushered the girl to the door, distracting her from Miranda’s agitation. “Indeed. We knew the gentleman was injured, but we didn’t know how he was faring. You’ve been a great help to us.”
Clutching the largesse he’d bestowed, the girl bobbed and scurried away. Closing the door, he turned to see Miranda pushing away her plate.
She looked up and met his eyes. “We should get on.”
He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Just remember—he’s alive.”
T
hey stopped after every crossroads and inquired, but their quarry had, apparently, rolled steadily on toward Oxford. They found the hedge tavern on the outskirts of the town where Kempsey and Dole had stopped for a bite to eat early in the afternoon three days before.
Returning to the curricle where Miranda had waited, Roscoe climbed up, took the reins, released the brake, and set the horses in motion. “Kempsey and Dole went in. No one saw the man in the coach, but Dole took some water out to him.”
Armed with the information that Roderick was injured and very likely unconscious, he could now ask for information as effectively as she; just her presence, all in black, on his box seat was enough to gain all the sympathy and help needed to trace her injured “cousin.”
With the spires of Oxford rising before them, he said, “We need to start thinking like them. If they reached Oxford as early as it appears they did . . .”
She stirred. “They would have driven through it, not stopped in the town itself.”
“Exactly. We’re coming into the town from the east. There are several—three, I think—roads leading south.”
“But why would they come this far north only to head south again?”
“Indeed. So I propose finding us a decent hotel in the north or west of the town, and while you see what you can learn there, I’ll drive on along the road west, and the roads—there are two, I think—to the north, and see if I can pick up their trail.” He glanced at her, saw the frown on her face.
“Perhaps,” she said, “it would be better if I went with you.”
He pretended to consider it, then grimaced. “Given the type of establishment they’re using, it’s easier for me to investigate alone.” Much easier; having her near meant half his mind was focused on watching over her.
“I suppose that’s true.” She sighed. “Very well.” She gestured ahead. “Let’s get on into Oxford and find a place to stay.”
T
hey rattled into the university town in the late afternoon. The pavements were busy with students and dons, and a, to him, familiar bustle.
“It’s term-time,” he said when Miranda commented on the crowds. It had been decades since he’d last spent any time there; he doubted anyone would recognize him, but . . . “Oakgrove Manor’s in Cheshire. I assume you and your neighbors pass through Oxford on your way to the capital.”
“Usually, yes.”
“So it’s possible someone here or passing through might recognize you.”
He heard her grimace in her voice. “Yes.”
“So we’ll avoid the major hotels. One of the less frequented establishments will suit us better.”
They found a quiet, family-run hotel tucked off the Woodstock road. After hiring two rooms and a private parlor, Roscoe departed to search for their quarry’s trail, leaving Miranda to oversee the disposition of their bags and to order dinner.
Her disguise and their tale of him being a family friend escorting her, a widow, to some family gathering stood her in good stead; she detected no suspicion or disapproval in either the female innkeeper or her staff. Warm water was quickly delivered to her room; after washing off the dust, she descended to the parlor. Before she’d had time to start worrying, a maid popped in to ask if she required tea and scones to revive her. Deciding she did, she spent the following half an hour doing her best to divert her mind with some excellent scones, clotted cream, and delicious raspberry jam.
Sadly, the distraction didn’t last.
As the light started to fade, she paced before the window, stopping now and then to peer out into the gathering gloom. Roderick was injured, severely enough to be rendered unconscious. She hadn’t expected that, hadn’t, truth be told, allowed herself to imagine just how Kempsey and Dole had subdued her brother. Roderick wasn’t particularly large, but neither was he small or slight, and he’d been in rude health when he’d last left the house . . .
With a mental curse, she hauled her mind from dwelling on his current condition. Find him first, rescue him second, worry about caring for him once she had him back.
The parlor door opened and she whirled.
Roscoe walked in.
“Thank heavens!” Rapidly scanning his face, she waited impatiently while he closed the door. “Did you trace them?”
Halting by the table in the room’s center, Roscoe read the desperate eagerness in her eyes, her almost fevered need to hear something encouraging. “It was as we guessed. They drove on through the town, then stopped at a tiny inn in Kidlington.”
She frowned. “They’re heading north.”
“I suspect,” he said, “that they’re going—or rather, have gone—to Birmingham. If you recall, Gallagher said they hail from there.”
“Yes, I remember.” Her frown deepened. “Why would they take Roderick there—to their home, as it were?”
“I agree it seems, if not senseless, then certainly not part of any obvious and expected plan.”
Her gaze returned to his face, her expression sober. “Did you learn anything of Roderick’s injuries?”
He hesitated, but the anxiety in her eyes forced his hand. “When they carried him into the inn, he was unconscious, and he was unconscious again when they carried him out. However, he wasn’t unconscious for much of the time he was there—the inn’s staff heard Kempsey and Dole speaking to him, but they didn’t hear Roderick reply.” He debated, then drew breath and said, “I think they broke his foot deliberately. It’s an effective way of incapacitating a man without doing any long-lasting or life-threatening damage. The pain is significant and can render a man unconscious easily enough. And with a broken foot, they don’t need to worry about him escaping.”
She’d already paled, so he didn’t add that he doubted Roderick’s foot was his only injury; he would own himself surprised if Roderick hadn’t been coshed first. With the pain from his foot plus a tender head, another tap on the skull would be enough to render him unconscious whenever it was necessary to move him past strangers—such as inn staff—to whom he might otherwise appeal for help. In private, they would gag him, which was why the inn staff at Kidlington hadn’t heard Roderick—“the sick young gentleman”—speak.