Wicked Wyckerly (22 page)

With as much dignity as she could muster in her confusion, she left the library and stalked toward the front of the house. Taking charge of her fortune wasn’t much of a declaration of independence, but it would have to do. Behind her, she could hear Fitz offering teasing farewells and the marchioness buzzing like an angry bee.

She desperately feared her heart was telling her to trust Fitz while her head was shouting all the reasons why she shouldn’t. And logic was failing. How could a professed wastrel sum those columns so rapidly when even the solicitor had not yet had time to total them?

An urgent knock startled her into halting before she climbed the stairs. A footman in formal knee breeches and black frock coat opened the door. She caught only a few hasty words before the servant accepted a folded note, shut the door on the caller, and turned to her. “Miss, I believe this is for you. The messenger is awaiting your reply.”

She set the papers on the stairs and opened the note. All the blood rushed from her face as she scanned the handwriting, reading it twice to be certain she hadn’t misunderstood.

The children have disappeared. We demand to know if they are in your possession.

It was signed by Mr. Weatherston, the children’s guardian.

24

Closing the library door on the dragon lady, Fitz hurried down the hall after his valiant Rhubarbara. He was proud of her for standing up to the dowager, but not so proud of himself for putting Abby in a position where she must argue with her benefactor.

Seeing her in the front foyer, he increased his pace, prepared to apologize for being an overbearing scoundrel, when he heard her gasp and saw her catch the banister to steady herself. What could cause his steel-spined Abby to feel faint?

Covering the distance in two strides, he snatched up the note she was holding, and firmly caught her in his embrace. She sagged against him without protest, warning the problem was dire.

Scanning the missive, Fitz growled an expletive, released Abby to the tender care of the banister, and threw open the door. “Who are you?” he demanded of the lad still standing on the doorstep.

“Just the messenger, my lord,” he said in terror of Fitz’s fury. “I took the coach up all by myself. The mistress is beside herself, and everyone’s running about shouting and crying, and they said I was to get Mr. Greyson the executor to search your house if I must.”

“Good luck with that. Tell your employers the children are not here, that they could not possibly have made their way here alone, and that we will be on the road shortly to tear the countryside apart in search of them. If this is some type of jest, someone will pay, and they will pay dearly.”

He handed the terrified lad a coin, slammed the door, and turned to Abby, who was already tying on a bonnet with shaking fingers.

“You need to stay, in case they find their way here,” he told her, rubbing his hand through his hair and thinking fast. What would he do if it were Penny who went missing? “I assume this is the address the children will seek, is it not?”

“They have this address, and it’s closer than Chalkwick Abbey, but I cannot believe they would be so foolish as to attempt coming to London alone. I invited the Weatherstons to bring them here for the twins’ birthday. Could someone have stolen them?”

“I’ll interrogate the servants when I get there. If my own youthful experience is of any use, children tend to run away when circumstances frustrate them. Has Tommy ever run away?”

She threw him a look of curiosity, but now was not the time for him to explain his wayward youth. At least the color was returning to her cheeks.

“He did once, after his mother died. My father was incoherent with grief and yelled at him for some trivial error. We were all terribly distraught, so it was perfectly understandable, and he did not go far. But he was only seven.”

And now he was ten. In little over three years, the children had lost both parents and been removed from their sister, the only remaining source of stability in their short lives. Having had his own boots yanked out from under him a time or three, Fitz thought he might have some understanding of their insecurity.

“I assume they did not take horses, so they should be easy to trace,” he said with a confidence that hid his knowledge of all the dreadful things that could happen to four very young children along ten miles of a busy thoroughfare. “Quentin’s closest. I’ll stop there first and have him notify all the men of our acquaintance. We’ll cover every road between London and Surrey.”

The footman had stood stiffly at attention some distance from their conversation, but finally he could not resist adding his admonition, “It’s threatening to rain, my lord. The road south floods and forms a mud pit if the rain lasts long.”

Fitz bit back his curses.

Abby took up her reticule. “Please tell Lady Belden I have gone in search of the children, and beg her to look after them for me if they return here before I do.”

She might dither over her own choices, but she was not slow to make up her mind when it came to her siblings. Fitz didn’t think he could argue with her after telling her she must learn to face up to bullies. She was likely to slap him silly.

The footman somberly retrieved her umbrella and pelisse from the cloakroom beneath the stairs. “Yes, miss.”

“I mean to borrow a horse and ride hard,” Fitz said, not letting Abby past him, attempting to force her to think. “You will slow me down.”

“You will leave me with Lord Quentin and his sisters, then, so I may help him write notes to your friends. And then I will borrow a gig and driver and follow you.”

She poked his boot with her umbrella point until he cursed a little louder and yanked open the door. “You heard what he said about mud pits,” he warned. “You will be caught in some seamy inn, and I won’t be there to look after you. Don’t give me more to worry about.”

“You need not worry about me at all. I am a grown woman, not a child, and it is my choice whatever happens, not yours.”

She marched down the street so swiftly that Fitz had to storm after her.
Dammitall!
He caught her arm just as a hard object grazed his head and knocked his hat flying. With his wits already scrambled, he glared down at a rock large enough to stun that had bounced off the crushed beaver onto the cobblestones. Abby’s sharp scream returned his senses, and he spun on his bootheel in time to catch sight of the cursed ruffian across the crowded street shouting at him. Realizing he’d been attacked again, in broad daylight, and in a manner that had also endangered Abby, he lost the last restraint on his temper.

“You puny pox-ridden pig, I’ll pound you into pulp when I catch you!” Disregarding the potential of more stones, he raced after the culprit, who abruptly took to his heels at the sight of Fitz’s raised fists.

Startled, Abby instinctively rescued the hat from the gutter, but that was all she knew to do while Fitz dodged carriages and drays to race like a berserker after the stone thrower.

He might have been
killed
if that blow had connected with his head instead of his hat. She stared in dismay at the size of the object that had crashed into the street, and realized there was a note tied about it. Avoiding a carriage horse, she stooped to grab the rock and opened the note to read:
MAYT ME WIT TA BLOONT ER AYLS GEEV UP YER PRIZ.
A large arrow pointed at the side of the paper.

Bloont?
Was that like a doubloon? Did the writer lack the letter
H
?

Other passersby halted to see if more stones would rain from the heavens, then moved on when they saw that all was well. Fitz disappeared around a corner.

Abruptly abandoned and feeling lost, Abby shivered. She didn’t like London at all. She wanted her familiar farm and her family back. She hugged herself to keep from weeping, but no one stopped to offer help or even notice her fright now that the excitement was past.

She was terrified for the children. She didn’t know what to think of a large, sophisticated gentleman who ran after trouble with his fists raised. Danecroft was likely to come to harm, and she didn’t know how to help him.

The children were less able to take care of themselves than a grown man. Too shaken to even know what to pray for, she tucked the strange note in her pocket, took a deep breath, and marched in the direction of Lord Quentin’s house, carrying Danecroft’s hat.

By the time she had crossed two squares and picked her way around snarled intersections, the earl came loping up behind her, dusting himself off and using language she was happy the children couldn’t hear. She wasn’t even certain of the meaning of some of his colorful phrases.
Pox-ridden pig
, indeed.

She silently handed him his hat and the note. He shoved the battered beaver on his head and growled, “
Bloont?
If this is someone’s idea of a jest, I’ll pound him into jam.” Shoving the note in his pocket, he grabbed her hand, and tucked it into the crook of his arm as if they were continuing a pleasant stroll.

“Are you often attacked in such a manner, my lord?” she inquired as they came within sight of Lord Quentin’s town house.

“Only since I made the mistake of returning from the dead,” he muttered. “The scoundrel is determined to force me to buy a new hat.”

“I don’t think it was your hat he meant to harm.” Her heart still pounded at the thought of what that rock could have done to his head.

“Fortunately for me, that’s all he ever comes close to hitting. But at least this time I saw enough to know the stone thrower is no bigger than a scrawny lad. I will look for him after we find the children.” With that cryptic remark, he rapped Quentin’s knocker so loudly, it could be heard in the next county.

After that, there was no time for better explanations. Lord Quentin was out on business, and footmen were engaged to find him. Lady Sally and Lady Margaret insisted on writing notes to be sent around to every man of Fitz’s acquaintance to aid in his search, after which he rushed off to procure a horse and ride south.

Abby’s prayers went with him. At least the earl knew what the children looked like. All the men the ladies sent dashing down the road would not. Just as she wouldn’t know half of Fitz’s friends should she happen to run into them, which she might do, because she had no intention of being left behind.

Lady Belden arrived at almost the same moment as Lord Quentin. Despite their equally impassive demeanors, the two aristocrats gave orders in clipped tones that sent servants scurrying in their wake.

“Abigail, you will return with me at once,” Lady Belden said. “I will hire able-bodied men more acquainted with this type of search than a careless lot of Corinthians without a wit between them. Quentin, you will have your ruffians report to us if they find anything.” The marchioness waited impatiently for Abby to leave the parlor they’d turned into a war office.

“If you had hired someone to fetch the children when the lady requested it, this wouldn’t have happened,” Lord Quentin said, gesturing for Abby to keep her seat. “You have hidden in your velvet nest for so long, you do not know how to deal with the real world.”

“I do not have time or patience to argue.” Ignoring him, the lady turned imperiously to Abby. “Abigail, let us go.”

Before Abby could defy her hostess, a blustery wind blew through the hall, and a moment later, Fitz’s would-be-soldier friend, Blake Montague, appeared. In a caped redingote, his lean frame filled the doorway.

“I’ve brought the gig,” he announced to no one in particular. “But the storm is moving in swiftly.”

Abby leaped up and hurried toward him. “I’m so sorry I’ve asked you to drive in this weather, but I’m quite desperate enough to direct the horses myself, if you will let me.”

Mr. Montague offered a barely perceptible bow to the marchioness and ignored Quentin’s sisters. Without otherwise acknowledging Abby’s request, he gestured for a footman to hold out her pelisse so that she might put it on.

“You cannot go out like this, Abigail,” the dowager protested. “You will be ruined, if you don’t catch an ague and die! Quentin, tell the little goose that she’s being a fool and wrecking her future!”

“If you can wait another half hour, I’ll have the coachman harness my landau and bring it around,” Lord Quentin said. “It will be far more comfortable than Montague’s open gig.”

“That is a very kind offer, my lord,” Abby said quietly, “but I’m anxious to leave before the road floods. If Mr. Montague believes we can reach Surrey in his vehicle, then I am not concerned about my comfort.”

“This is appalling,” the lady grumbled, pacing back and forth. “I was assured those children were well taken care of. I cannot imagine how one goes about losing children. Really, this is the outside of enough. Abigail, you cannot take leave of your senses now. The children will need you. Take my carriage. It’s outside. Quentin, provide a maid for her chaperone. Someone must stay in London in case the children arrive.”

Abby thought she saw the solemn Mr. Montague’s mouth quirk slightly at the concern the querulous lady did her best to hide, but he bowed and handed Abby an umbrella without a word.

“Where is Danecroft?” the marchioness demanded. “It is all his fault for stirring things up. All was perfectly fine until he came along.”

“He should be nearly in Surrey by now.” Mr. Montague finally spoke. “He borrowed that hell horse of Barton’s.” He held out his arm for Abigail to take. “You may choose your ride, Miss Merriweather, but I will accompany you either way. It will be dark soon, and Fitz would have my head on a platter if I did not provide more than a maid for escort.”

Hell horse? Fitz was riding an unruly animal in this wind and rain? Abby’s terror escalated.

She trusted Fitz’s choice of friend. She took Montague’s arm and offered the marchioness a deep curtsy. “My lady, if you will allow us the use of your carriage, I will owe you everything I am. So please do not think I am unappreciative of all you have done for me. I am simply terrified and can think only of the children lost out there in the dark and wet, at the mercy of strangers.”

Abby could swear tears glistened in the lady’s eyes as she nodded her approval.

“Go, child, bring the rascals back with you, if you must. But remember that you are as valuable as they, and do not risk yourself.” She gestured for the maid to follow, then turned a sharp eye on Mr. Montague. “And you, sir, need not fear Danecroft as much as you must fear me. I will have you drawn and quartered should anything happen to Miss Merriweather.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Abby thought she heard him murmur, but he merely bowed deeply and led her to the door in the wake of cries of good wishes from the people behind them.