Amanda Scott (48 page)

“I don’t intend to be here when they open the shed,” Robert said. “I’m not daft, you know. I’m a proper guest of the establishment. What are you looking at, dear madam? Do you dare to laugh at me?”

“No,” Melissa said, “but I must say, I cannot think how you intend to get away with this outrage. I am not entirely unprotected, after all.”

“If you mean that husband of yours, I don’t think you should expect to see him anytime soon,” Robert said.

An icy tentacle of fear wrapped itself around her heart. “Why not? You didn’t do anything horrid to Nicholas, did you?”

“No need for that. The Derby will keep him out of my hair for a time, and although Ollie seems to think he’ll ride after you when the races are done, I take leave to doubt that. Stands to reason. No man would chase after a wife who made him look foolish, and Vexford ain’t one you’d expect to chase after a petticoat of any kind.”

“But when he learns what you’ve done—”

“Time enough to fret about that if it happens,” Robert said. “Long before then, I’ll have handed you over to the man who by rights ought to have had you from the outset. He’ll know how to keep our Nick out of the business. For that matter, once you’ve been properly dealt with, Nick won’t want you back. Some men are funny like that, and as I recall it, he was never much for taking another man’s leavings. If you want my advice, you’ll exert yourself to please your new protector.”

Melissa straightened, trying to put aside warring emotions that threatened to prevent her from thinking properly. She did not doubt that Nicholas would shun a wife who had been used by another man. His own activities would mean nothing. Her actions, on the other hand, especially those that had brought her to this pass, would be as everything to him. And for that, she had no one to blame but herself.

“Master Robert, I be hearin’ more activity in yon inn yard,” Lakey said from his position near one of the cracks in the wall. “Can’t see nothing, but sounds like more folk be up and about. I don’t like this. Don’t like it at all.”

“Let me worry about it,” Robert said with an edge to his voice. “There will be no trouble, not when she realizes she has no choice but to obey me.”

“Are you my new master then?” Melissa asked. She tried to keep her voice even, but she seemed to be losing the knack of speaking submissively, and she saw from the way he stiffened that he disliked her tone.

He said grimly, “Do you think I cannot master you, madam?”

“I do not know,” she said calmly. “You are bigger than I am, certainly, although you are not by any means as big as Nicholas.”

He paused. She hoped he was visualizing her husband’s formidable size and having second thoughts, but he said with a sneer in his voice, “I am not afraid of Vexford, madam, so I’d advise you not to be insolent.”

“Considering the circumstance, I thought I had expressed myself in an extremely amiable fashion,” she said. Really, she thought, she sounded less and less like the old Melissa. She began to wonder if her brain had been affected by the events of the past few days. Although she could not be certain one way or another, one thing had become clear to her, and before Robert had thought of a response to her admittedly provocative remark, she said quietly, “You captured me for your father, did you not?”

Seeing that he looked more like a sulky boy than a villain, she realized that more light had found its way into the shed. If she could keep him talking, perhaps someone would come who could protect her until she could get word of her plight to Nicholas.

Robert said, “It was bad enough when my father realized what he had lost to your husband in that auction, but if you had any notion of how angry he was at losing you a second time, you’d know why I’ve exerted myself to arrange this. He’d give anything now, I think, to have you in his power again.”

“I paid the debt I owed him,” she said.

He smiled. “Setting that little trap for you amused him, but it didn’t get him what he wanted. He wants you, madam, and I mean to make him a present of you to do with as he pleases, as a bit of velvet added to what he’s already gained today.”

“Velvet? What do you mean?”

“Velvet means—”

“I know that it means a profit beyond what is expected,” Melissa said, recalling that Oliver had told her as much, “but how can that pertain to me?”

“Only that first I gave him a fool, guaranteed to enrich the coffers at his club, and now he will have the woman he prizes above all to warm his bed.”

“What club? What are you talking about?” Her mind swiftly calculated the points he had mentioned, and presented a shocking conclusion. “Good gracious me, you’ve duped Oliver, haven’t you? That’s what he meant when he said that he would make all tidy even if he didn’t win any money at Epsom. It was you all along, wasn’t it? “You seduced him, teased him with the thought of riches, of being free of his family, free from his father’s discipline and his brother’s oversight. I know you taught him all those wicked card tricks, for he told us so. He said you told him a gentleman had to know the tricks in order to spot cheaters and sharps, but he never spotted you, did he?”

“I fancy I’m clever enough to befuddle a wiser man than Oliver Barrington.”

“You even cozened him into suggesting that I leave London, and befuddled as
I
was, I let him persuade me. But you won’t fool his brother,” she added curtly.

“Oh, I don’t know. Whose side does Ollie generally take, may I ask? Does he leap to believe what Vexford tells him? Did he believe I had anything but his best interest at heart? Ah, now you’re looking a bit nohow, madam. The fact is that, even after the losses he suffered last night, I shall bring young Oliver round my thumb again. I’ll simply say we were shocked to leant that a certain Belgian count is no more than a Captain Hackum of the first stare, that when Ollie began to cheat—as I’m certain he did because he was perfectly primed for it—his opponent caught on and only waited his chance to turn the tables. And Ulcombe will pay Ollie’s debts, you know. Whatever he might have said to the contrary, these latest ones will be too large to refuse. That was the whole point of the exercise, that and giving him cause to be beholden to my father for not making a scandal of Oliver’s naughty habits.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Melissa said, “but if you think you can continue to deceive Oliver—or to extort money from Lord Ulcombe—after I tell them what you have told me, you are all about in your head.”

“But you will not tell anyone anything, madam. By the time my father tires of your company, you will not want to show your face in London, let alone to your husband or to Ulcombe.”

She knew he was right. If she did indeed fall prey to Yarborne in such a manner, she would be less welcome in society than her mother was. The knowledge sent a wave of fear through her, but to her astonishment, it did not paralyze her thoughts as fear had done so often in the past. She had no sense of withdrawal or of watching herself from a distance. Instead the fear transformed itself into rage, burning deep inside but doing nothing to inhibit the workings of her mind. If anything, her thoughts grew clearer. One way or another she knew she would outsmart this man, and his precious father, too. She could do it, and she would. The only problem was how.

Lakey said, “Master, stir about, do. No time to be chitchatting with the mort. We must be out of here in a pig’s wink if we don’t want to meet trouble.”

Robert said, “First I mean to make it plain to our captive what will happen if she crosses me.” Reaching for her, he yanked her to her feet and gave her a shake rough enough to elicit a cry of pain. “Be silent, damn you,” he snapped, slapping her.

Her ears rang, but she said steadily, “I couldn’t help it. My wrists and ankles have been tied for hours, and they’re afire with pins and needles now.”

“Well, it will get a lot worse if you give me cause,” he muttered. “I don’t mean to be taken up by the law for this, so if it comes to a matter of your life or mine, guess which I’ll choose.”

She believed him. “I won’t provoke you,” she said quietly, “but I’d like to know how you think you’ll get me away from here. People will want to know why you are dragging a woman about with her hands tied behind her and a gag in her mouth.”

“But I’ll be doing no such thing,” he said. “I’ll be walking arm in arm with my lady, who, if she values her hide, will not say a word. I know how that father of yours treated you, and I promise I’ll do much worse. I’ve already set it about that my sister has run away from home and that I’m here in Newmarket hunting for her, so if you give me any trouble, dear madam, I’ll slap you silly right in front of the person to whom you speak. Then I shall tell him—or her—that I am taking you upstairs to await our father’s arrival, and that when he arrives, you will receive the beating you deserve. Do you think anyone will believe a tale of your telling after that?”

She didn’t. Although his story conflicted with what he had said before—that if she screamed he would claim the two of them had run off together—she had no doubt that he was clever enough to talk his way through any circumstance, or that he had already planted information most skillfully. It was, after all, part of his trade as a seducer of innocents to be able to tell a lie with aplomb. Still, to one who had ceased to fear Sir Geoffrey even before his death, Robert Yarborne seemed a tame villain.

Sighing in what she hoped he would mistake for subdued resignation, she said, “I won’t defy you. Where will you meet your father?”

He looked surprised. “Why, here of course. I wrote a message yesterday before I left London, and ordered it delivered to him at the stroke of midnight. We should see him by noon or thereabouts. In the meantime, I’ve taken the precaution of bespeaking a bedchamber and a private parlor. We’ll go there as soon as I am convinced that you understand the folly—indeed, the grave danger to yourself—of making a scene of any kind.”

“I understand,” she said, “but you had better untie my hands now. My feet feel better, but it will take time to restore circulation to my hands.”

“Oh, I’ll untie you,” he said, dealing quickly with the ropes at her wrists, “but I’ll tell you right now”—he grabbed her chin and made her look into his face—“that you’d best mean what you say, dear madam. Not so much as a greeting to anyone inside the inn unless you want to be soundly slapped and thrown over my shoulder. There’s not a man in the place who won’t understand I’m just chastising an errant sister, and cheer me for it. And if you begin shrieking, I’ll clap my hand over your mouth and tell them you’ve got a tongue like a fishwife’s and that I’ll not allow you to disgrace the family any further with your wickedness.”

She didn’t doubt any of his threats, but an idea had taken root. Hardly daring to hope that she might find an opportunity to put it into play, she rubbed her aching wrists, ignoring the tears that welled in her eyes. She forced herself to think only of the possibilities that lay ahead. Again, that odd sense of everything growing clear in her mind overcame her. She felt calm and collected. If there was a niggling fear at the back of her mind that she was in acute danger, that she ought to be terrified out of her wits and praying for Nick somehow to know of her plight and rush to her rescue—and forgive her for her foolishness—she drew on her increasing resolution to repress it.

When she could walk steadily again, she decided the light had improved enough for him to see the smudges on her face, the marks from the gag and ropes, and the state her hair was in. “I-I must look a fright,” she said, hoping the sight would bring him to his senses.

“Aye, you do,” he agreed, “but no one will expect you to resemble a fashion plate, will they? Not after your brother’s been hunting high and low for you all night. Now, let me think. Where did I find you?” When she moved to shake out her skirts and straighten her cloak, he said sharply, “Keep your hands beneath the cloak. I don’t want to hear any remarks on those rope burns, and I doubt they’ll vanish soon.”

She said, “My gloves are yonder, where you must have thrown them when you tied me. They are long enough to cover the marks, should the cloak swing open.”

Gesturing for his man to fetch the gloves, he said approvingly, “That’s a good notion. I’m glad to see you mean to be sensible.”

Since that was the impression she had hoped to convey, she was satisfied. Praying that she did not look too much like a wench from the stews of London, she let him lead her to the door. Outside, she drew a welcome breath of fresh air, but she was not cheered by what she saw when they reached the stable yard. Ostlers hurried about, but not one looked at them. It was, she thought, as if people appeared in the garden at dawn every morning. The more likely reason, she knew, was that, since the gentry were known to be odd, an ostler did himself no good by questioning their actions. With that knowledge in mind, she was not surprised when their approach to a side entrance of the inn went unchallenged and unremarked. She would receive no help from the servants.

Robert’s grip was tight enough to leave bruises on her arm. He kept a sharp eye on the men in the yard until they reached the door and Lakey leapt forward to open it. When he did, Robert clearly recalled the role he had chosen to play, for he gave Melissa’s arm a sharp yank, propelling her through the doorway.

She had never entered the inn by that particular door, so she was surprised to find that they had entered the coffee room. Robert’s grip on her arm warned her to keep silent, and she realized that he had expected the room to be empty. It was not. Two men sat at opposite ends of the long table near the fire, eating their breakfast. The distance between the pair showed that they were strangers who happened to be sharing a table. The one with his back to them did not take his attention from his plate. The other, however, looked up at their entrance.

Melissa saw his gaze shift quickly from Robert to her. His eyes widened, and she knew she must look as bad as she had feared. Nevertheless, keeping her head at an angle that she hoped Robert would mistake for humility, she shot a look at the stranger that would have earned her a sharp rebuke from either her husband or her great-aunt. Fluttering her lashes, she was amazed at the ease with which she seemed able to keep her ears cocked for the sound of Lakey’s footsteps, her body limp and responsive to Robert’s stern grasp, and her central mind focused on the man at the table. That she had caught the latter’s interest was clear. His eyes widened more, and his lips twitched with the beginning of a grin.