He’d seen the knowledge in Hartley’s eyes when he’d mentioned Thomas. Poor, poor Thomas. His brother had never been cut out for greatness. Why should Thomas have the title when it would serve him so much better? But now that old decision had come back to haunt him. Vale, Blanchard, Hartley, and Munroe. All in London at once, all putting their heads together. Hasselthorpe could read the writing on the wall. It was only a matter of time before they had him arrested.
All because St. Aubyn had returned home. He glared across the carriage at his enemy’s wife. Beatrice St. Aubyn, Countess of Blanchard now, née Corning. Little Beatrice Corning sat across from him bound and gagged. Her eyes were closed over the cloth tied across her mouth. Perhaps she slept, but he doubted it.
He’d never really paid much attention to her before, besides noting that she made a good hostess for her uncle’s political parties. She was pleasant enough to look at, he supposed, but she was no immortal beauty. Hardly the type a man might choose to die for.
He grunted and glanced out the window. The night was black with barely any moonlight, and he couldn’t make out where they might be. He let the curtain fall. However, he knew by the number of hours they’d traveled that they must be nearing his estate in Hampshire. He’d told Blanchard that he’d wait until dawn and he would; the boat he’d arranged to pick him up at Portsmouth wouldn’t come until eight. He could wait until dawn and no longer before fleeing to the prearranged rendezvous spot. First to France and then perhaps Prussia or even the East Indies. A man could change his name and start a new life in the more remote corners of the world. And with enough capital, he might even make his fortune again.
If he had enough capital. Damnably stupid—he could see that now—tying up most of his monies in investments. Oh, they were good investments, solid investments that would yield a healthy return, but that wasn’t much good to him at the moment, was it? He had a little cash, and he’d taken what jewelry Adriana had in the town house, but they weren’t all that much.
Not enough to start again as he meant to.
He eyed the girl across from him, measuring her worth. She was his last gamble, his last chance to take with him a small fortune. Of course he’d never risk his life, his fortune, for any woman, let alone this pale child, but that really wasn’t the gamble was it?
The real question was whether Blanchard had enough regard for his bride to ransom her for a small fortune… and lose his life as well.
IT WAS WELL after midnight by the time Reynaud returned home to Blanchard House. The celebration with Vale, Munroe, and Hartley had gone on for hours more and ended in a disreputable tavern that Vale swore brewed the best ale in London. So it was rather commendable that he saw the man lurking in the shadows by the stairs at all.
“What’re you doing there?” Reynaud put his hand on his knife, ready to draw it if need be.
The shadow moved and coalesced into a boy, not more than twelve. “’E said you’d give me a shilling.”
Reynaud looked up and down the street in case the lad was a diversion. “Who did?”
“A toff, same as you.” The boy held out a sealed letter.
Reynaud fished in his pocket and tossed the boy a shilling. The lad scampered off without another word. Reynaud held the letter up. The light was too dim to see much, but he did notice there was no inscription on the outside of the letter. He mounted the steps and went inside, nodding at the yawning footman in the hall. Beatrice was probably abed by now, and he yearned to lie beside her warm softness, but the oddity of the strange missive intrigued him. He went to the sitting room, lit a few candles from the fire, and tore open the letter.
The handwriting inside was scrawling and partially smeared as if sealed in haste:
I won’t be hung.
Bring me the Blanchard jewels. Come alone to my country estate. Tell no one. Be here by the dawn’s first light. If you come after light, if you come with friends, or if you come without the jewels, you’ll find your wife dead.
I have her.
Richard Hasselthorpe
Reynaud had hardly gotten to the last line when he was running to the sitting room door. “You!” he shouted at the startled footman. “Where is your mistress?”
“My lady hasn’t returned yet this evening.”
But Reynaud was already leaping up the stairs. This thing was impossible. She must be here. Perhaps she’d slipped past the footman. The note was a joke. He reached her bedchamber and flung open the door.
Quick jumped to her feet from a chair by the fireplace. “Oh, my lord, what is it?”
“Is Lady Blanchard here?” he demanded, though he could see the bed was still made and empty.
“I’m sorry, my lord. She went out this afternoon, to visit parliament, and she hasn’t returned.”
Dear God. Reynaud stared down at the letter in his hand. I have her. Hasselthorpe’s country estate was hours away, and the dawn would be coming soon.
THEY’D BEEN TRAVELING for hours. Beatrice stiffened her body, bracing as the carriage lumbered around a corner. She couldn’t use her hands, which had long since fallen asleep because they were bound behind her back, and she was afraid that if she were thrown to the floor, she’d hit her face. She very much doubted that Lord Hasselthorpe would bother to catch her.
She twisted a bit, trying to work her fingers, but it was useless. She felt the pain from where the rope had cut her wrists, but nothing else. She remembered Reynaud telling her how he’d walked for days in the woods of the New World with his hands tied. How had he withstood such torment? The pain must’ve been intense, the fear that he’d lose his hands terrible. She wished now that she could’ve said something when he’d related his experiences, conveyed her sympathy more eloquently.
Told him that she loved him.
She closed her eyes, biting hard on the cloth gag stuffed in her mouth. She would not let this dreadful man see her fear, but she wished—oh, how she wished!—that she’d been able to tell Reynaud that she loved him. She wasn’t sure why she needed to tell him. He might not even care—probably wouldn’t care. He’d shown her affection and passion, but nothing more, nothing that could be called love. Perhaps he no longer had the ability to feel romantic love. It seemed to her that in order to feel true and lasting love, once-in-a-lifetime-if-one-were-lucky real love, one must be prepared to let oneself fall. To give oneself up utterly to the other person if need be. She knew that she could do just that, but Reynaud would not let himself love.
And still it didn’t seem to matter. Beatrice had discovered that one’s love needn’t be reciprocated in order for it to thrive. It seemed her love was perfectly happy to grow and even bloom in the complete absence of his. There was no controlling it.
The carriage jolted, and Beatrice wasn’t quite quick enough to brace herself entirely. Her shoulder hit the side painfully.
“Ah,” said Lord Hasselthorpe. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours. “We’re here.”
Beatrice craned her neck, trying to see out the window, but what she could see was mostly black. They rounded a curve, and she braced her feet against the floorboards.
And then the carriage stopped.
The door was opened by a footman, and Beatrice tried to catch the man’s eye to perhaps gain his sympathy. But he kept his gaze fixed downward, save for one darted glance at Lord Hasselthorpe. There would be no help from that quarter.
“Come, my lady,” Lord Hasselthorpe said rather nastily, and yanked her to her feet.
He pushed her ahead of him, out of the carriage, and for a moment she feared she’d fall headlong down the steps. The footman caught her arm to steady her, though he just as hastily let her go. Beatrice looked at him again and saw a faint frown between his brows. Perhaps there was hope of help from him after all.
But she hadn’t time to consider the matter further, for Lord Hasselthorpe was marching her toward a great mansion. Even in the dark she could see it was a huge building with but one light in one of the lower windows. As they neared the front doors, one was flung open and an ancient manservant stood to the side, holding a candelabra that looked too heavy for his thin wrist.
“My lord.” He bowed his head, his expression serene enough to make Beatrice wonder if Lord Hasselthorpe often brought bound-and-gagged ladies to his doorstep.
Her captor made no acknowledgment of the butler but dragged her up the steps and into the hall.
It was only after they’d passed the old manservant that the man cleared his throat and said, “Her ladyship is in residence, my lord.”
Lord Hasselthorpe stopped so suddenly that Beatrice stumbled over her own feet. He absently held her up as he glared at the butler. “What?”
The old man appeared unperturbed at his master’s ire. “Lady Hasselthorpe arrived yesterday evening and is even now upstairs asleep.”
Lord Hasselthorpe scowled at the ceiling as if he could see his wife in bed several floors above. Obviously his wife’s presence at his country estate was a surprise. Beatrice’s heart leaped a little in cautious optimism. Lady Hasselthorpe was not known for her intelligence, but surely she’d protest her husband bringing home kidnapped countesses?
If Lady Hasselthorpe was ever allowed to see her, that is. For now Lord Hasselthorpe was trotting her quickly toward the back of the house. He turned down a dark passage so narrow that he had to push her ahead of himself, for they would not fit abreast. This ended in a steep flight of stairs that spiraled downward into the depths of the mansion. Beatrice felt sweat start at the small of her back as she descended. The steps were bare stone, well worn and slippery. A fall here might break her neck. Was that what Lord Hasselthorpe intended? Would he kill her out of some strange revenge for Reynaud’s win on the parliament floor? But then why bring her all the way to his country estate merely to murder her? Surely that made no sense.
Beatrice clung to that minuscule hope as they descended farther into the depths of the mansion. They reached an uneven stone floor at last, and she saw that it was a kind of dungeon. The house above must be built on some type of older fortification. Hasselthorpe backed her into a stone wall. She heard the clank of chains and then felt cold metal against her wrists.
He stepped away and nodded. “That’ll hold you until your bastard husband comes to take your place.”
Beatrice strained, trying to say something, anything to get his attention, but he simply walked away, taking the light with him. She was left in cold, dank darkness. She pulled hard on the chain, hoping the anchor might’ve rotted, but it held fast. And then she could only stand and wait, for the chain would not let her sit. Would she die here, alone in the blackness? Or would Lord Hasselthorpe or one of his servants rescue her? She thought of Reynaud, his angry black eyes, his confident hands, his gentle mouth, and she wept a little, wondering if she’d ever see his dear face again. She knew he wouldn’t come for her, though.
He’d told her already. He’d not put himself into the power of another ever again.
REYNAUD’S FISTS SLID against the horse’s sweaty neck. He bent low over the animal, his hands on either side of the beast’s neck, a rein in each hand. He’d traded in his own horse two hours ago when it’d begun to lag, throwing an exorbitant sum at a sleepy innkeeper for his best horse. The gelding was a great bony animal, not pretty, but he had stamina.
Stamina and speed were all that mattered now.
Bulging saddlebags were tied behind him. They held a small fortune—every bit of gold he could find in the house, as well as his mother’s jewelry. He’d stuck a pistol in each coat pocket before he’d ridden out of London, though it was mainly his speed that deterred robbers.
The horse’s gait jarred him with each leap of his great legs, but Reynaud no longer cared. His arms and legs and arse ached, his hands had gone numb, his fingers were stiff with cold, and still he urged the beast on. He rode through black night, hell-for-leather, not caring of potential holes or unseen barriers in the road, endangering both the horse’s neck and his own.
