Amanda Scott (46 page)

Determined not to lose the gown altogether, she dragged the ends of both sleeves to her mouth as she turned back to her stomach, biting down hard. Then she began to swim at an angle toward the shore, visible ahead of her now in an odd glow of light. The current was more gentle away from the center of the river, and soon she could feel the muddy river bottom beneath her feet. She realized then that the rain had stopped. Slipping and sliding in the mud, bruising and scraping her feet on hidden rocks, she made her way to the bank. Only then did she look back, and stare in astonishment at what she saw. So intent had she been upon her peril that she had been completely unaware of activity behind her, but fiery orange flames blazed against the night sky. The
Folly
was burning.

Motionless now, with her head out of water, hearing feminine screams and shrieks of panic mixed with masculine shouts and the rattling of numerous carriage wheels, she realized that most of the customers were hastily departing, no doubt in order to avoid the embarrassment of meeting anyone who might come to help fight the fire. So fascinated was she by the sight of the burning boat that she had no sense of danger to herself until a hand shot out from the shrubbery and grabbed her arm, and the menacing, purring voice that she had come to hate and fear said, “You will pay dearly now for your insolence, my pet.”

Startled and panic-stricken, Anne screamed and fought like a madwoman to free herself, ignoring the rocks, stones, and mud beneath her feet. In her terror, she imagined she heard someone call her name, and she screamed again, punching Bagshaw with her free hand and kicking him as hard as she could without thought of her sore feet. Amazingly, it was the river that saved her, for her bare skin was wet and slippery, and in his attempt to grasp her more tightly, he stepped in the mud and his feet slid out from under him. Falling heavily, he nearly took her with him but let go in his struggle to save himself. He lurched to his feet again only to step on a large rock that tilted crazily with his weight, then seemed to cast him headlong into deep water.

He came up once, sputtering, “Can’t swim!” Then, as Anne watched in helpless horror, the swift current swept him away.

“Anne!”

Turning at the sound of the beloved voice, she scrambled up the bank and flung herself into Michael’s arms. “Oh, Michael, Bagshaw fell into the river, and he can’t swim!”

Michael held her tight against his warm chest. “My darling, I saw the whole while I was crashing through bushes, trying to reach you from the road, but I have no interest in searching for him, other than to murder him with my bare hands. Or was I mistaken in what I saw? Were you merely dancing naked on the riverbank with him when he fell?”

“I was doing no such thing!”

She heard his relieved chuckle. “Forgive me, sweetheart. It was a dreadful thing to say when I know you must have been terrified beyond belief, but in my relief at finding you safe, I seem to be a little light-headed and could not resist the urge to tease you. What, may I ask, have you done with your clothes?”

Looking down to see that the firelight from the
Folly
cast her whole body in a rosy glow, Anne gasped in shock. “I had my nightdress,” she said, adding as she looked vaguely around, “somewhere. But it is quite soaked, I’m afraid.”

“Take this,” he said, releasing her long enough to slip off the heavy cloak he wore and to wrap it around her. Then he swept her up into his arms and carried her to his waiting horse.

Only when they were mounted and she could lean comfortably against his broad chest and hear his heart beat did Anne think again of Bagshaw. “Did he drown, do you think?”

“I have enough faith in both God and the Devil to believe the latter has claimed his own,” Michael said grimly. “Did he hurt you, sweetheart?”

“No, I got away before he could do anything too dreadful. In fact, I think I hurt him when I hit him with a wineglass.”

“I’ll do more than that to the villain if I ever see him again,” Michael promised, “but now I mean to get you home and tucked safely into a warm bed.”

“But what about the people on the
Folly?
I’m nearly certain that I started that fire, because I heard things fall from the desk when I escaped through the window. I think a branch of candles must have begun it. Should we not help?”

“No,” he said bluntly. “There are plenty of people dashing about, and there is nothing we can do that they cannot. If you like, we can assist some of the women later to find respectable ways to make a living, but tonight we will look after ourselves. We’ll stay on this side of the river until we reach our bridge. I’ve no wish to ride through the village—nor do you, I daresay.”

“No, sir,” she said, leaning contentedly against him and letting her eyelids droop shut. They rode in silence for some moments before she said sleepily, “I’m glad you found me. How did you come to be there?”

“To begin at the beginning,” he said, “Alsop had discovered that someone at Upminster was behind the troubles at the mine in Castleton. He actually had caught one of the rogues in the act of weakening some underpinnings and choked the information out of him. But since the fellow would say only that
his lordship
had ordered him to cause a bit of damage—”

“That is how they call Bagshaw at the
Folly,”
Anne said, “but I don’t doubt poor Alsop thought the fellow referred to Lord Ashby, or even Cressbrook, if not yourself.”

“Alsop never suspected me,” Michael said, “but he had heard murmuring before, including references to a mysterious lord. And though I could not seriously suspect my uncle, I had just enough doubt to keep me from asking for his assistance.”

“I thought you foolish,” Anne said. “His knowledge of mechanical devices would certainly have been helpful to you, but I can see now why you kept things to yourself.”

“I’d have done better to shout my concerns to the world, I suppose. What I don’t know is why Bagshaw created such havoc, if in fact, he really was behind it all.”

“He was,” Anne said. “He was kind enough to disclose his reasons to me. In point of fact, he enjoyed an exaggerated view of his power, and saw both you and me as threats to his dominion over the household.” She repeated what Bagshaw had said, adding with a sigh, “He said it was easy to keep you out of his way.”

Michael chuckled. “But not so easy to deal with you. I see how it was, sweetheart. I married a seemingly nice, submissive female, who for a time was willing to be told that she must not interfere with the household, but once you took the bit between your teeth, there was no stopping you.”

“Yes, I even suborned Mrs. Burdekin, he said.”

“I knew that Edmund had left control of the house to him, and he seemed so efficient and … and so—”

“—so lordly,” Anne said. “I remember, that was my first impression of him, and even Lady Hermione said that when she asked him to do something, she felt as if she were ordering King George about.” Anne nestled more comfortably against Michael, tucking her bare toes up under the warm cloak, and said, “But how did you find me? Bagshaw said you had gone to Scotland, believing that I had run away from you. I wouldn’t, you know.”

“You believed worse of me, did you not?”

“Nonsense, what could be worse than that?”

“You believed I owned part of that damned floating brothel.”

Having forgotten that little detail, Anne squirmed at his tone, and said in a small voice, “I suppose you must have somehow encountered Lord Ashby and Lady Hermione—”

“And their very odd companion. It was she who told me what you had learned from her.”

“Yes, well, I am sorry if you are vexed, Michael, but I also knew, you will recall, that you had been seen aboard the
Folly;
and if you believed I wrote letters to a secret lover and then ran away with Lord Ashby, I think we must be very nearly even.”

“I don’t know what I believed, thinking back on it. I was tired, and feeling frustrated, and when I returned to the stables, I heard tales of a missing balloon, and a hurried departure to Scotland, all mixed together. I do recall thinking at one point that you must have taken off in the balloon and my uncle was following you, or the other way around. I could get no sense out of the stable boys, and everyone else seemed to be missing, so I applied to Bagshaw for information.”

“And he showed you my supposed letters.”

“Exactly. Behaving in quite a distracted manner himself, he said one of the maids had found them, and like the exhausted fool I was by then, I reacted at once instead of thinking sensibly. Somehow he managed to imply that you were bound for Scotland, believing you could apply for a divorce there, in order to marry your lover. I recalled enough of what Jake Thornton had said to believe you might believe such a thing possible, so I shouted for a horse, thinking that if I rode cross-country, I might head you off before you reached the Great North Road.”

“If you did not take the main road, that explains why we did not encounter you on our return,” Anne said.

“Does it?” His voice had taken on an edge she did not quite like. “I might say at this point that I had not ridden more than halfway to Sheffield before I realized I was being foolish beyond permission. But although I did indeed encounter my uncle and his party and learn that you had been with them and had returned to the Priory believing I was guilty of—”

“Pray, sir, say no more about that. I was wrong to believe such a thing even for a moment. I collect that Lord Ashby and the others did not remain in Bamford overnight as they intended.”

“No, I met them in Froggatt, where they were in the process of exchanging an antiquated coach for a more comfortable chaise to convey them here. According to what my uncle told me, Lady Hermione objected to spending the night in a tawdry public house, or for that matter in a posting house. She said it was unseemly enough for her to be jauntering about the countryside in his company, with only Mrs. Flowers as a chaperon, a view with which her brother will no doubt agree. He was at the Priory when I got back, demanding to know where we had misplaced her.”

“Good gracious, do you think he is still there?”

“I shouldn’t doubt it,” Michael said, “because in view of the fact that Hermione seemed to know exactly what Mrs. Flowers had told you, I think she must have got the tale out of her soon after you left them, and then was driven by her own curiosity to get back. If that is the case, she will not leave the Priory without knowing the end of the tale.”

“I wonder what they will do with poor Mrs. Flowers?”

“I believe Hermione intends to take her to Cressbrook Hall,” Michael said. “She seems to think Wilfred will welcome the woman as a replacement for his housekeeper.” When Anne stifled a choke of laughter, he said, “Just so. Perhaps, before we encounter them you would like to explain those letters of yours to me.”

She willingly explained how she had begun to write her journal as a series of letters to her long-deceased brother, and when she had finished, he said thoughtfully, “That answer didn’t occur to me, though I doubted the existence of a secret lover long before I met the others. I had learned some time ago, you see, that Edmund was involved in the
Folly,
for I discovered that he had actually purchased the boat; however, I also unearthed the fact that he was not the sole owner, and I’d been trying to discover who his partner was, because I could neither sell it nor do anything else with it until I did so. You will recall that the subject came up when we visited Maria Thornton.”

“You thought Sir Jacob had been that mysterious partner.”

“With good reason, I thought. It seemed the sort of venture that would interest a man of his stamp. But there was no more evidence of a partnership than there was of the damned wager.”

“You know, Bagshaw knew about the wager, Michael. He thought it was some sort of evidence that Providence had taken a hand in his villainy. He called it Edmund’s little wager and said he was sure it caused you no small vexation. He was amused when he said it, too.”

“An odd thing to say,” he agreed. “I did not recognize the full extent of his villainy at once, of course, but when I learned that you had been with the others, and realized that he had purposely sent me on a wild goose chase, I rode back to the Priory as though twenty devils were after me, only to discover not only that you really had disappeared but that he was gone as well. I remembered how close he had always been to Edmund, and how much in his confidence, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fall together into a picture I did not want to contemplate.”

Anne said, “When he told me what he had said to you, I could not imagine you would believe it.”

“In the ordinary event, I would at least have asked a good many more questions, but after the day I had already endured, I simply was not thinking properly. And that reminds me,” he added gently, “that I have a question or two to ask about my bays, which, I am told, were taken by my uncle, blast his eyes, and then returned by you and Andrew. It occurs to me just now, in fact, that I have heard singularly little mention of Andrew in all the many explanations I have received today.”

Anne stiffened but did not speak.

“I think, in future, sweetheart, when I want information from you, instead of tickling you, I will hold you just as I am now, for your body tells me more than mere words ever would. Now, tell me what mischief that brat conjured up today.”

She hesitated, not wanting to explain, knowing he would be angry with Andrew and perhaps with the rest of them as well.

He said, “I remind you that there will soon be others for me to question if you do not open the budget. Cressbrook certainly intended to wait for my uncle and Hermione, and unless I misread his mood, he is under the impression that somehow or other Ashby has compromised her reputation. I have my doubts that he will accept the Flowers woman as any sort of chaperon, either. Thus, I am very nearly certain that both my uncle and Lady Hermione will be glad to discuss Andrew’s activities at length.”

She sighed. “You are persuasive, sir, but I hope you will not be enraged by the tale, for I do not think my sensibilities can tolerate much more Cheltenham drama tonight.”